Apple : NHL live stream: how to watch the 2019 playoffs and Stanley Cup online from anywhere |
- NHL live stream: how to watch the 2019 playoffs and Stanley Cup online from anywhere
- Best HP laptops 2019: the top HP laptops we’ve seen and tested
- The best gaming routers 2019
- The best 13-inch laptop 2019: the top 13-inch laptops we've reviewed
- Best laptop for DJs 2019: The best laptops for music production
- The best student laptops: all the best options for school
- Best gaming laptops 2019: the 10 top gaming laptops we've reviewed
- YouTube will return to Fire TV after Amazon and Google make amends
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- Google lets Android users choose browsers to ease EU antitrust concerns
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| NHL live stream: how to watch the 2019 playoffs and Stanley Cup online from anywhere Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:43 PM PDT The regular 2019 NHL season has come to an end but for many hockey fans, that means they can finally get excited as no other sport does does playoff season quite like the NHL - and we're here to make sure you don't miss even a moment with TechRadar's guide to getting an NHL live stream for this year's playoffs. The best 16 teams in the league (eight each from the Western and Eastern Conference) face off in a best-of-seven series. From there the best teams in each conference will go head to head with the winners of the conference finals advancing to the Stanley Cup Final. To get you up to speed on all the action, here are the first round matchups: In the Eastern Conference the Tampa Bay Lightning will take on the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Boston Bruins will go up against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Washington Capitals will face off against the Carolina Hurricanes and the New York Islanders will take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the Western Conference, the Calgary Flames will take on the Colorado Avalanche, the San Jose Sharks will go up against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Nashville Predators will face off against the Dallas Stars and finally the Winnipeg Jets will go up against the St. Louis Blues. Whether you’re a die-hard hockey fan who’s been following the NHL all season long or just tuning in to catch all the action at the playoffs, we’ll show you how to watch the 22019 playoffs online with an NHL live stream from anywhere in the world.
How to watch the 2019 NHL Playoffs online from outside your countryIf you live in the US, Canada or UK and want to know how to catch a 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs live stream, then keep scrolling and we’ll tell you your best viewing options. But if you can't watch because you're not in your home country and so your coverage is geo-blocked then we can suggest a clever alternative (and no, it doesn’t involve finding some dodgy feed on Reddit). Using a VPN - or Virtual Private Network - you can change the IP address to one in a different state or country which does have the stream so that you can watch the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs from anywhere in the world. The process is very straightforward… Watch the NHL playoffs on TV in the USIf you live in the US and want to watch the NHL playoffs on television, then unfortunately you have your work cut out for you as all of the Stanley Cup games will air on NBC owned networks. That’s right, not just on NBC itself but also on a number of networks owned by the company. This means that you will need some combination of NBC, NBCSN (NBC Sports Net), CNBC, USA Network and NHL Network. To complicate things even further, NBC will also air some games on the Golf Channel when there are scheduling conflicts. The channels showing the games will also change depending on which round of the playoffs we’re in. The first round will be shown across NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, USA and the NHL Network while the second and third rounds will be on NBC and NBCSN. Finally, the Stanley Cup Finals will be shown on NBC. For cable subscribers this shouldn’t be too difficult but if you’d prefer to watch the games online or on your mobile devices, NBCSports will have livestreams of the games on its website or on the NBC Sports app. You will need to provide your cable credentials to gain access to these streams but you could always setup a digital antenna to watch NBC over-the-air for free. If you’d rather not sign up for a premium cable subscription just to watch the Stanley Cup and playoffs, we recommend going with one of the many TV streaming services available as they give you access to the channels you need to watch hockey without the high cost. For your convenience, we’ve listed all of the streaming services with the channels you need to watch the NHL playoffs below.
- Discover our pick of all the US's best sports streaming sites Watch and live stream NHL playoffs in CanadaIf you live in Canada and want to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs on TV, then Sportsnet has you covered. The network’s TV coverage will be available on Sportsnet, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet ONE and CBC. However, if you’d prefer to live stream the games on your computer or mobile devices you can do so by logging in using your cable credentials on the CBCSports website or on the CBC Sports app on Android and iOS. If you’re not a cable subscriber, we recommend choosing one of the streaming services above if you just want to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, if you’re also a big Canadian Hockey League fan, Sportsnet has its own streaming service available called SNNow for just $20 a month that shows over 300 NHL games as well as NHL, NBA, MLB, CHL, WWE and more that might be worth checking out. Watch the NHL playoffs in the UKUnfortunately for hockey fans in the UK, Premier Sports is the only way to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs on TV. To get access to the Premier Sports 1 & 2 you’ll either have to sign up through Sky for £9.99 a month or £99 a year, Virgin Media at £9.99 a month or with the network’s own Premier Player at £9.99 a month. Premier Sports does have an offer where you can get the first month free using the promo code FIRSTMONTHFREE but even then you only get access to 15 NHL games each week. On the other hand you could try one of the streaming services listed above and if all else fails you can always connect with a VPN and change your IP address to one in the US. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best HP laptops 2019: the top HP laptops we’ve seen and tested Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:28 PM PDT Over the last few years, HP has been working on rebuilding a reputation for high-end laptops. And, since then HP laptops have experienced a renaissance through the magic of Ultrabooks running on Windows 10. The best HP laptops, then, have transformed into gorgeous pieces of kit that focus on design flair, rather than cheapness. HP’s recent moves have resulted in some of the most gorgeous laptops we’ve ever used, like the new HP Spectre x360 2019, with its gold trim and high-resolution displays. And, it doesn’t seem like HP is slowing down any time soon, judging by its CES 2019 announcements. This resurgence has also brought about the popular ‘privacy filter,’ called Sure View to prominence. Plus, the best HP laptops are bedecked with a beautiful gold trim that we’re used to seeing in HP’s high-end Spectre 2-in-1s and Ultrabooks. Image Credit: HP The HP Spectre x360 has always been one of the best HP laptops, but the 2019 refresh sees an elegant redesign that takes it to the next level. This gorgeous gem-cut laptop will draw jealous looks at whatever coffee shop you work in, while the powerful hardware will make quick work of anything you throw at it. It’s easy to see why this is one of the best HP laptops you can buy today. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 2019 Image Credit: HP The HP Spectre 13 is straight up one of the most gorgeous laptops we’ve ever used. The ceramic white finish is beautifully topped off by a two-prong hinge design that’s extremely attractive. But, the Spectre 13 goes even further, by packing some serious horsepower. It leverages the power of 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake Refresh processors to outpace the competition. The HP Spectre 13 is one of the best HP laptops, and will let you get all your work done in style. Read the full review: HP Spectre 13 Image Credit: HP While it doesn’t redefine the PC like HP’s marketing claims, the HP Spectre Folio does enough right to be one of the best HP laptops you can buy. Covered front to back in leather, this 2-in-1 laptop is aimed directly at the luxury market, with a price tag to match. It’s not the fastest laptop out there, but the fanless chip on board has enough juice to get through most everyday tasks, just don’t expect to get any serious video editing done. This is more for the professional taking a device between meetings. Read the full review: HP Spectre Folio Image Credit: HP The HP Pavilion 15 isn’t going to blow your mind with sheer power, but it will make up for it with finesse. It’s one of the few remaining AMD Ryzen-based laptops in HP’s stable – which could change – but the Ryzen chips here are worth paying attention to. This is the best HP laptop for anyone on a budget, it's a rare example of a laptop that can strike a golden balance between price and performance, making it one of the best laptops for college students. Image Credit: HP You shouldn’t have to break open your piggy bank to get one of the best HP laptops, which is why devices like the HP Chromebook 14 G5 exist. It’s an economical Chromebook that never feels cheap, which is a distinction that Chromebooks wear like a badge of honor. This Chromebook in particular boasts a sleek aesthetic and passable performance, especially when you spec it out. It’s easy to see why, for people on a budget, the HP Chromebook 14 G% is one of the best HP laptops. Image Credit: HP If you’ve been watching the laptop market as long as we have, you’ll have noticed that the best gaming laptops kind of get a bad rap, thanks to the lack of mobility. However, HP has addressed this issue by adding plenty of new features that gaming laptops tend to lack. First, you can overclock the Omen X, which just means free performance – which will keep it at the top of the stack longer than competitors. For gamers, the HP Omen X is a no-brainer. Image Credit: HP HP’s flagship Spectre line of Ultrabooks and 2-in-1s might get all the hype, but the manufacturer has a long-running tradition of crafting some of the best business laptops. The HP Elitebook continues this tradition by packing in powerful Ryzen processors, plenty of memory and speedy SSDs beneath a svelte all-metal chassis. It is a bit expensive, but if you’re looking for an office laptop, with all the requirements that business-grade products require, this is the best HP laptop for you. Read the full review: HP Elitebook 745 G5
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| Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:26 PM PDT If you spend a lot of time playing the best PC games online, you’ve probably run into a huge lag spike at some point, but what if we told you that the best gaming routers could ensure your online gaming is never interrupted? Well, it’s true: the best gaming routers will prioritize network traffic for your games, thanks to a neat little trick called Quality of Service (or QoS), which will help make sure your gaming session isn’t interrupted by your roommate downloading games or watching Netflix. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for MU-MIMO, so that everyone in your home can get some gaming done without interrupting each other. Now, usually wired connections are regarded as the best way to play your online games, and we wholeheartedly agree. But, you have to make sure your gaming router is a good router, too. So, not only will the best gaming routers be filled to the brim with Gigabit Ethernet ports, but they’ll also feature the latest Wifi standards – currently Wi-Fi 5. Having multiple antennae which you can manipulate to boost signal strength can’t hurt, either. Taking into consideration the needs of gamers, we here at TechRadar have gathered up all the best gaming routers 2019 has to offer. If you’re looking for the latest router technology but you still love that old school aesthetic, the TP-Link Archer C5400 v2 is right up your alley. This is a gaming router that blends enthusiast grade features and accessible setup into a package that’s appealing to pretty much anyone. And, when you add in the Alexa support, you have a router that can adapt to any situation, whether you’re focusing on winning the latest match in Apex Legends, or you have guests all connecting to your network. Read the full review: TP-Link Archer C5400 V2 The Asus RT-AC5300 is one of the best gaming routers – it comes with a variety of advanced features, making online and network gaming as lag and frustration free as possible. This includes an easy-to-use yet powerful interface, as well as comprehensive QoS settings. The spider-like design won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the eight antennae serve a purpose, as they can be used to direct your Wi-Fi signal throughout your home, giving this router an excellent range. Read the full review: Asus RT-AC86U We already covered the TP-Link Archer C5400 v2 earlier, but the manufacturer slapped an ‘X’ at the end of this one, to signify the extreme boost in performance. It’s significantly more expensive, but this may be one of the highest-end gaming routers out there. With eight ethernet ports around the back, it’s perfect for hardwiring a wealth of gaming equipment. And, the MU-MIMO and Tri-band support mean that wireless connections are also top-notch. You’ll be able to top the leaderboards wherever you are in the house. Read the full review: TP-Link Archer C5400X If you’re a hardcore gamer, it can be annoying when your roommates are always watching Netflix or downloading games of their own, so you’ll want to pick up something like the Netgear Nighthawk XR500. Not only will this elite gaming router provide an insane 2.2Gbps speed, but with MU-MIMO support and unique gaming features, like location based connection filtering and QoS, you can game all night without hitting a crippling lag spike. Just prepare for the high sticker price and make sure you can handle such a gamer aesthetic. Read the full review: Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 The Asus RT-AC5300 is an excellent high-end gaming router that is packed with a ton of advanced features. This includes an easy-to-use, but powerful interface, on top of comprehensive QoS settings. The spider-like design won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but the eight antennae serve a purpose, as they can be used to direct your Wi-Fi signal throughout your home, giving this router an excellent range. Read the full review: Asus RT-AC5300 Tri-band Gigabit Router It might look like it’s getting ready to abduct a close friend or family member, but we promise the Zyxel Armor Z2 AC2600 isn’t as alien in function as in appearance. Rocking the latest MU-MIMO support, which improves speed when multiple devices are connected to the same network, this gaming router prides itself on its performance capabilities. Because it can handle a ton of devices, while prioritizing bandwidth depending on the needs of each device, it’s one of the best gaming routers you can buy today. Read the full review: Zyxel Armor Z2 AC2600 The Asus RT-AC88U is an expensive gaming router, but it justifies the price with insane 802.11 wireless performance. Rocking four antennas and NitroQAM tech, which pushes speeds even further, this gaming router enables wireless performance that can break the 1GB/sec limit. But, there’s a catch – you’ll need to pick up a NitroQAM wireless adapter, like the Asus PCE AC88, to see these fast speeds. But, with speeds like this, it’s easy to see why this is one of the best gaming routers out there. It might look like something from Battlestar Galactica – the old Battlestar Galactica – but, the D-Link DIR 885L/R is a dependable mid-range gaming router with great range and speed. If you’re looking for the best gaming router, you may want to give this one a chance – it has a good variety of port, and a nicely designed UI. It also features DD-WRT open-source firmware, which makes this router as flexible as it is powerful.
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| The best 13-inch laptop 2019: the top 13-inch laptops we've reviewed Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:26 PM PDT These days, you can’t really get by without one of the best laptops, they’re important for so many reasons. But, there’s only one real reason to choose one of the best 13-inch laptops: they’re the perfect size. 15-inch laptops are too large, while anything less than 12-inches will leave you squinting. The best 13-inch laptops, then, hit the sweet spot – they’re perfect for getting your work done, and watching online videos at the end of the day. We still love the Dell XPS 13, but it’s not the only choice out there. We would totally understand if you prefer the new MacBook Air, or even the Huawei MateBook 13. Sure, the XPS is beautiful, but the other options are more than valid, too. The best 13-inch laptops all excel in different ways. Still, the best 13-inch laptop for you will ultimately depend on your individual needs. Do you just want a normal laptop, without any fancy bells and whistles? Or, do you want a 2-in-1 laptop that can morph into one of the best Windows tablets? Or maybe you want to skip Windows 10 entirely, and opt for one of the best Macs, backed up by macOS Mojave. No matter what your needs are, you’ll find a great laptop here, there are so many choices. Image Credit: TechRadar It’s not often that we run into a 13-inch laptops that hits all the right boxes, without having to compromise on anything. And, the Huawei MateBook 13 does exactly that. Packed with the latest Intel Whiskey Lake processors and Nvidia MX150 graphics in a chassis that really should be too small to handle them, the Huawei MateBook 13 is a powerhouse that will fit in any travel bag. And, it’s affordable – what more could you ask for? Read the full review: Huawei MateBook 13 Image Credit: TechRadar The Dell XPS 13, while its changes over last year’s model are subtle, is still one of the best 13-inch laptops. On the high end, the 4K display offers a sharper picture across the board. But, even if you can’t afford the top end model, the gorgeous design, lengthy battery life and SD card slot aren’t going anywhere – plus, you’ve got a quad-core processor no matter what poison you pick. It’s going to be one of the best 13-inch laptops, no matter which configuration you go for. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 Among other laptops in this list, namely the Surface Book 2 and Dell XPS 13, saying a laptop is beautiful might seem a little cliche. But, look at the HP Spectre x360, and you’ll see why we can’t stop staring at it. This beautiful 13-inch laptop is packed with the latest Intel hardware, so you know it can get your work done. And, the gem-cut build means it’ll get your work done in style. Plus, it can flip around into a tablet mode – it really is one of the best 13-inch laptops out there. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 Image Credit: TechRadar While the 13-inch version isn’t the most powerful Surface Book 2, it still makes for one of the best 13-inch laptops on the market. No matter if you’re a professional or a creative, the Surface Book 2 will dominate your workloads in style. What’s more, the dynamic fulcrum hinge is even better this time around, which only complements the robust quad-core processor. Plus, unlike many other 2-in-1 laptops, the keyboard is removable, which makes it much more manageable when you need to use it in tablet mode. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 Image Credit: TechRadar You may be expecting a gaming laptop, especially given Razer’s reputation, but the Razer Blade Stealth is one of the best 13-inch laptops you can buy today. It’s thin, light, and packed with the latest Ultrabook-class hardware – including dedicated MX150 graphics. The 8th-generation Intel Whiskey Lake Processor makes this laptop a force to be reckoned with. And, while it’s certainly expensive, the sheer style and build quality might be worth it. Read the full review: Razer Blade Stealth Image Credit: TechRadar If you’re looking for a thin, svelte and fast 13-inch laptop to haul around with you, and you don’t mind giving up some premium features, you’ll fall in love with the Asus ZenBook 13. Coming in at just half an inch thick and weighing just 2.5 pounds, this is the perfect laptop to carry when traveling. And, don’t think you have to give up on power with all this portability, either. The Asus ZenBook 13 features quad-core Intel processors, 8GB of RAM and a fast SSD. The only thing you’re missing here is USB-C, and while it’s a nice feature to have, it’s easy to look past in a laptop this stylish. Read the full review: Asus Zenbook 13 Image Credit: TechRadar No one likes change, we get it. Still, the 15.6-inch frame of the Samsung Notebook 7 Spin we once knew will soon be erased from our memories forever, but the new 13.3-inch model doesn’t seem like an awful upgrade. It’s bounced two generations into the future in terms of processing power, and even though there are no discrete graphics – we’re happy to see a keyboard that can compete with some of the heavy hitters. It’s not going to blow your mind, yet as far as hybrid notebooks go, this one ain’t too shabby (plus it’s cheaper than a weaker MacBook Pro). Read the full review: Samsung Notebook 7 Spin
Image Credit: TechRadar The original Surface Laptop was already one of the best 13-inch laptops – it had a gorgeous screen, competent internals and fantastic build quality. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the sequel, the Surface Laptop 2, does everything better. YOu won’t find any radical changes, but the speedy 8th-generation CPUs, 8GB of RAM and, most importantly, the removal of Windows 10 S, all add up to make the Surface Laptop 2 one of the best 13-inch laptops out there. Read the full review: Surface Laptop 2 Image Credit: TechRadar As time goes on, 2-in-1 laptops are becoming more popular, and their manufacturers are improving them at a rapid pace. This is especially true for Lenovo – it’s been creating drop-dead beautiful convertibles for years, much like the Lenovo Yoga 920. This 13-inch laptop brings Thunderbolt 3 to the table, an improved webcam – and most importantly – an 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake Refresh processor with every configuration. The fans get loud, but the Lenovo Yoga 920 is certainly among the best 13-inch laptops on the market. Read the full review: Lenovo Yoga 920 Image Credit: TechRadar The MacBook Pro 2018 feels like the final form of Apple’s pro series laptop since its 2016 redesign. It keeps the thin and light design, but brings a wealth of improvements, both to the hardware within and, more importantly, Apple has vastly improved the Butterfly keyboard – making it quieter and more reliable. So, you no longer have to worry about it breaking cause a piece of dust appeared under the spacebar. So, if you need an ultra-portable workhorse running macOS Mojave and you can justify the cost, the 2018 MacBook Pro won’t let you down. Keep in mind, though, the model without the Touch Bar is still running last year’s hardware. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid-2018)
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| Best laptop for DJs 2019: The best laptops for music production Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:21 PM PDT Whether you’re a musician or a professional DJ, having one of the best laptops packed right next to your headphones is important. You’re going to need one of the best processors and plenty of fast RAM, as these will help the best laptops for musicians handle multiple music tracks. Also, a fast SSD, capacious hard drive or both is also recommended, as you’ll be working with large file sizes. And, if you have to travel between gigs constantly, you need a laptop that can handle a beating or two. You likely don’t want to go for something like the best rugged laptops, but you should find something that won’t break because you dropped your backpack. While we’re on the subject of mobility, a thin and light Ultrabook will do wonders for your back. While the MacBook Pro may be the default for most musicians, plenty of the top laptops for music production will run Windows 10 instead. To make choosing a laptop easy, we’ve included our exclusive price comparison tool, so you know where to find the best deal. If you want to see a more comprehensive list of prices and retailers, just click the ‘view all prices’ link on each widget. The best laptops for music production and DJs:Image Credit: Apple The new Apple MacBook is the slimmest, slickest and best-looking Macbook the Cupertino company has ever created, and it’s one of the best selling laptops on the market. This, along with the excellent music production software available for Macs means it’s the best laptop for music production. It’s an extremely slim and light notebook that you can take anywhere without even noticing the weight, and gives you the same slick macOS performance. Read the full review: Apple Macbook Image Credit: Apple The MacBook Pro has a reputation for being the go-to laptop for musicians all around the world, and the 2018 version is no different. As long as you can justify the expense, the MacBook Pro is one of the best laptops for musicians. With its Core i9 processor and up to 32GB of RAM, you’re going to be able to load up as many tracks as you need in Logic Pro X without having to worry about your laptop slowing down. It’s also incredibly sturdy – you don’t need to worry about things bumping into it in your tour bag, thanks to its robust aluminum unibody design. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (15-inch, mid-2018) Image Credit: Microsoft If you want a music production laptop that can double as a Windows tablet in your downtime, the Surface Pro 6 should be at the top of your list. Not only does it pack the hardware necessary for music production, but it has a beautiful display, and plenty of legacy connections for connecting your equipment. It lacks USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, but if you’re just in it for music production, that shouldn’t really matter. Read the full review: Surface Pro 6 Image Credit: Dell The Dell XPS 13 has been one of the best laptops you can buy for a few years running now, and the 2018 version is no different. For aspiring music producers, the XPS’ move to an 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake R CPU should be appealing, as it will trim down the time it takes to process tracks, allowing you to minimize downtime. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find a 1TB storage drive anymore, but when you get a laptop that looks this good and runs this fast – it’s a worthy tradeoff. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 (2018) Image Credit: Microsoft With all the 2-in-1 laptops that convert into a tablet, packed with unnecessary features, sometimes a straight Windows 10 laptop is just what you need. Luckily, Microsoft has released the Surface Laptop 2, one of the best laptops in its arsenal. Not only does this thing feature a quad-core processor and plenty of RAM, but it has a lovely touch display and all the ports you need – even if it’s lacking Thunderbolt 3. As long as you don’t need Logic Pro X, you really can’t go wrong with the Surface Laptop 2 – it’s one of the best laptops for music production. Read the full review: Surface Laptop 2 Image Credit: Apple We’ve been left wanting for a new MacBook Air for a few years now, and we finally got a new one. The new MacBook Air brings Apple’s thin and light mainstream laptop into the modern day with a sleek aluminum build, a Retina display and an actual modern processor. This all makes for one of the best laptops for musicians that want to stay with macOS – though you’ll want to invest in a couple of dongles, the two Thunderbolt 3 ports aren’t compatible with a lot of music equipment. Read the full review: MacBook Air Image Credit: Dell If you're looking for a larger and more powerful laptop for running music production software on, then the Dell XPS 15 could be for you. Packing the same InfinityEdge technology as the smaller XPS 13, the screen extends right to the edge of the machine which means it's as small as it's possible to make a 15-inch laptop in 2017. It's quite pricey though, depending on which version you get. The very top end version has a 4K color-accurate display, which can give you an excellent overview of all the tracks you're working on. Read the full review: Dell XPS 15
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| The best student laptops: all the best options for school Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:20 PM PDT School isn’t cheap. Books, tuition, accommodation and even food can add up. But, you shouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on the best laptops for students. In fact, student laptops will be budget-minded devices that have great style and plenty of power, but they’ll do it without charging an arm and a leg. Saving up for a shiny new laptop when you’re spending all your money on textbooks and ramen can be quite hard, though. So, the best student laptops will put value above having the best processors and graphics cards. You won’t be limited to Windows 10, either – the best Chromebooks are some of the best laptops for college students, as you can get all your work done on the cheap. We know that school is stressful – we’ve been there. But, that’s why you should make sure you have one of the best student laptops. You don’t need to add the stress of running around campus with a dying laptop to your plate. So, that’s why we went ahead and gathered up the best student laptops you can buy today: no one should be limited to some old clunker just to get some work done, and you shouldn’t have to drop all of your savings, either. Here at TechRadar, we love it when a laptop can perfectly balance price and performance without any compromises, and the Huawei MateBook 13 comes closer to hitting that perfect balance than anything in 2019 so far. Thin, light, quick and affordable, this beautiful 13-inch Ultrabook will let you get all your work done in style, without dragging down on your wallet. The battery life is a little weak, but that’s a worthy sacrifice to make here – just carry the charger around with you. Read the full review: Huawei MateBook 13 Once in a while, we’ll get our hands on a laptop that completely flips the script – the Huawei Matebook X Pro is one such laptop. Not only does it feature powerful, modern components like 8th-generation Kaby Lake R processors and 16GB of RAM, it’s also beautiful – incorporating all the latest trends in Ultrabook design. What’s more impressive, it manages to do all this while being much more affordable than the competition. This is what makes it one of the best laptops for students – you’re not going to get a more powerful laptop for less cash than the MateBook X Pro – at least until the MateBook X Pro 2019 gets here. Read the full review: Huawei Matebook X Pro
Dell’s flagship laptop has always placed among the best laptops – for college students, professionals and even casual, everyday users. But, the Dell XPS 13 2019 brings back the entry-level option, making it more affordable for college students again. And, Dell managed to fix our biggest issue with the XPS lineup – the webcam. The manufacturer has moved the webcam up to the top of the display, where it belongs, so your friends and colleagues don’t have to stare up your nose when you’re in a video call. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 While the first Surface Laptop was already one of the best student laptops, it was held back by sub-par performance, a lack of ports and Windows 10 in S Mode. With the Surface Laptop 2, however, everything is better – except for the ports. It’s packed with 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh processors, full-fat Windows 10 Home and a black color option. We wish it had even a single USB-C port, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be able to get all your work done in style with this laptop. Read the full review: Surface Laptop 2 When you’re looking for a laptop for school, you should aim for a golden balance between price and performance – and a dollop of style can’t hurt. The Microsoft Surface Go, then, isn’t just one of the best Windows tablets, but it may just be one of the best student laptops, especially from a value perspective. Don’t be fooled by the low-power components, either – Microsoft has engineered this tablet to be able to keep up with all your schoolwork without breaking a sweat. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Go Dell’s XPS lineup has been among the best laptops for college students for years now, and the new XPS 15 is no different. Taking the approach of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, not much has changed year over year – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What you’re getting here is a reliable Ultrabook with enough horsepower to carry you through all of your coursework without costing an arm and a leg. While the entry level is perfectly fine for most people, you can configure this thing with up to a Core i9 CPU and 32GB of RAM, transforming the Dell XPS 15 into a killer media editing workstation. We just wish Dell would move that webcam. Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 The Microsoft Surface lineup has built a reputation for itself for being among the best Windows devices out there – gorgeous touch screens, incredible performance and long battery life. The Surface Pro 6 continues this tradition, even if it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. What you’re getting here is a speedy Windows tablet that can effortlessly turn into a laptop through the Surface Type Cover. You can get your work done and then effortlessly transition into break time. Read the full review: Surface Pro 6 If you’re a student that’s on the market for a laptop that will let you do all your research and type up papers, and nothing else, the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11 2-in-1 is going to be right up your alley. Most schoolwork that’s not specialized (i.e. engineering) can be done on a Chromebook while saving hundreds of dollars. The Dell Chromebook 11 2-in-1 won’t be able to do much heavy lifting, but at under $300, it doesn’t need to. This is the best laptop for students that need to save a few bucks. Read the full review: Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11 2-in-1 We were left waiting for Apple to renew the MacBook Air for years, as it languished with a 5th-generation Intel Core processor and an out of date, low-resolution display. Thankfully, those days are over. Apple has ushered the MacBook Air into the modern age, with 8th-generation fanless processors, a thinner and lighter design, and perhaps most importantly – a Retina display. No more do you have to compromise on modern features if you want an “affordable Mac”, and that makes the MacBook Air one of the best laptops for college students. Read the full review: MacBook Air If you’re not too concerned with cash, and you’re a macOS addict (we get it), the 2018 MacBook Pro is the most powerful MacBook that’s ever existed. With its impressive hexa-core processors, and up to a whopping 32GB of memory, this cupertino workstation will get you through whatever you throw at it. It also includes the much-improved third generation Butterfly keyboard that will not only be less distracting to the students around you, but will be less prone to failure if some dust comes within 10 feet. Read the full review: MacBook Pro 15-inch (2018)
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| Best gaming laptops 2019: the 10 top gaming laptops we've reviewed Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:14 PM PDT The best gaming laptops have changed drastically over the last few years, and they’re more powerful than ever. Thanks to Nvidia RTX graphics, they can push high resolutions at high frame rates. No longer do you need to piece together the best gaming PC you can muster to get high specs and performance. Plus, the best gaming laptops come in every shape and size. Because it’s harder than ever to find the best gaming laptops, we’ve picked out a few of our favorite devices. And, you shouldn’t judge them all by their appearance, either: because of Nvidia Turing Max-Q graphics for laptops, plenty of gaming laptops hide in plain site. Just look at the aptly named MSI GS65 Stealth. Don’t worry, if you want a beastly desktop replacement, you’re in luck, devices like the MSI GT75 Titan will absolutely command attention.1 So, whether you want a thicc desktop replacement, packed with the most powerful graphics and processors so that you can run the Division 2 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with the settings cranked, you’re in luck. Or, if you just want a thin and light gaming laptop that’ll let you play your favorite games on the road, we’ve got a few up your alley. There are even some more affordable laptops like the Dell G3. And, don’t worry, we’ve tested these gaming laptops ourselves, so you know they’ll be up to snuff. These days, many gaming laptop manufacturers seem to be locked into a race to see who can craft the thinnest gaming laptop that doesn’t compromise on power. And, right now, the crown might have to go to the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX701. At just 0.7 inches thick, this monster of a laptop houses an Intel Coffee Lake Core i7 chip, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics and 16GB of RAM. That means you can crank any PC game under the sun to max settings, and take it with you wherever you go. And, of course, it’s packed with RGB lighting that’ll dazzle anyone that looks at it. Read the full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX701 If you want to play some of the best PC games on the move, but you don’t want everyone to know you’re playing games, the MSI GS65 Stealth is the best gaming laptop for you. Coming in at just .69 inches thick and featuring impressive hardware like Intel Coffee Lake processors and Nvidia GeForce GTX 10-series – refreshed with RTX 20-series graphics at CES – the MSI GS65 Stealth packs a ton of power into a very svelte package. There’s nothing you won’t be able to throw at this thing that’ll slow it down. And, thanks to the subdued design, you’ll be able to bring this beefy rig everywhere you go, making it the best gaming laptop on the market right now. Read the full review: MSI GS65 Stealth For a few years now, the Razer Blade has been among the best gaming laptops on the market, filled with powerful components, beautiful displays and an elegant chassis. That’s all true for the 2019 model, too, which now rocks up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080. That is, frankly, a ton of power for a laptop this thin and light. Plus, even if that’s not enough GPU horsepower for you, you can use the Razer Core for future expansion. It’s an expensive device, but it might be worth it if style and power are equally as important to you. Read the full review: Razer Blade The best gaming laptops keep getting more expensive every day. Especially now that Nvidia RTX graphics are available, getting a powerful gaming laptop carries quite the toll. Luckily, laptops like the Lenovo Legion Y7000P are here to lighten the load. This budget-minded gaming laptop features an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which should be just fine for its 1080p 60Hz display. When it’s a question of getting the essentials in order to save some cash, the Lenovo Legion Y7000P is a no-brainer. Read the full review: Lenovo Legion Y7000P Some gaming laptops just don’t pull any punches, enabling you to run any game you can imagine without breaking a sweat – and the MSI GT75 Titan is one of these laptops. It’s a titanic desktop replacement packing 6-core Intel Coffee Lake processors, plenty of RAM and powerful Nvidia Pascal graphics. You’re not going to be able to carry it around with you, and it’s not going to be something you’ll be caught with in a coffee shop, but if raw power is what you’re after, look no further. Just be ready to break open your piggy bank. Read the full review: MSI GT75 Titan Thin and light gaming laptops are everywhere right now, but if you don’t care about that, and want a thick, heavy and monstrous laptop that can demolish any game you throw at it – the Asus ROG G703GI is for you. This is a massive – and expensive – laptop, but it justifies its size and price with gaming performance that rivals the best gaming PCs. Just don’t think you’ll be able to haul it along with you to your local coffee shop without its two power bricks – or awkward stares. Read the full review: Asus ROG G703GI If you want one of the best gaming laptops, but don’t want to miss out on the ultra-portable craze, you need to consider the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1. Packed with an Intel Kaby Lake G-series processor, this gaming laptop can keep up with its competitors rocking a GTX 1050 without featuring truly discrete graphics. And, when you combine that gaming horsepower with a chassis that looks this good, it’s a total win – even if you have to endure some fan noise to get there. Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 It may not boast the most innovative design, substituting the usual black and red aesthetic for one that makes it feel like Halloween all year round (no complaints here). But, it’s undoubtedly one of the best when it comes to gaming in 1080p. In fact, we were able to crank the setting s all the way up in Overwatch without ever straying below 60fps. It doesn’t feature the longest battery life, but the screen, power and onboard sound system more than make up for it. Read the full review: Asus ROG Strix GL502
When you’re setting out to buy one of the best gaming laptops, one of the first things you’ll likely notice is how expensive they can get. Luckily, the Dell G3 15 is not just extremely affordable, but it punches above its weight class with great 1080p gaming performance. With up to an Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU, you’ll be able to play all the latest games at 1080p without breaking a sweat, even if it’s not at max settings all the time. And, that blue on black color combo is quite a looker, if that’s your aesthetic. Read the full review: Dell G3 15 Over the last couple of years, there’s been a trend among the best gaming laptops to make them as thin as possible. And, the Gigabyte Aero 15 definitely fits the bill, while delivering top-end gaming performance. This laptop is just 0.74 inches thick, while delivering up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 and an Intel Core i9 CPU. However, this thinness is a double-edged sword: the Core i9 gets way too hot and can throttle. So, just keep that in mind if you plan on doing any sustained creative work, like editing all your gaming videos. Read the full review: Gigabyte Aero 15
Gabe Carey and Bill Thomas have also contributed to this article
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| YouTube will return to Fire TV after Amazon and Google make amends Posted: 18 Apr 2019 12:46 PM PDT After a year of feuding, Amazon and Google have finally broken the virtual trade embargo between the two companies, Amazon has announced. Starting later this year, Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Cube will have access to YouTube via the native YouTube app, and you’ll be able to watch Amazon Prime Video on Google Chromecast. In broad terms, that means you’ll be able to watch everything available on Amazon’s video service on Android TV, Chromecast and Google Home Hub devices (as well as any other device that supports Chromecast Built-in), plus watch YouTube on Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Edition Smart TVs, with support for the YouTube TV and YouTube Kids apps coming later this year.
While this will be a big change for Amazon Prime Video watchers who haven’t been able to cast Amazon content to their screens since, well, ever, it might be less of a boon for Amazon device owners who have been able to watch YouTube through the Amazon Silk browser, despite Google pulling the native YouTube app last year. The native YouTube app not might have been missed, but YouTube TV and YouTube Kids certainly have, so there's something to be gained by both sides. There is one caveat, however: the only device that seems to be left out of the agreement is the Amazon Echo Show, which likely won’t have YouTube returned to it at all – a strange move everything considered. A war with no winnersWhile the war between the two tech giants has been brewing for what seems like forever, the battle came to a head when Google pulled YouTube from the Amazon Fire TV – likely in response to Amazon's refusal to sell Chromecast, Nest and Google Home Devices on the Amazon store. Amazon resumed sales of those products after the YouTube app was pulled, but neither company allowed their services to be used by the other with customers feeling the brunt of the software embargo. The easing of tensions today represents a period of Detente for the companies and could be the foundation of a long-lasting peace ... as long as Amazon keeps selling Google products.
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| Sea Turtle hacking group goes after government domains Posted: 18 Apr 2019 11:50 AM PDT Researchers at Cisco's Talos cybersecurity unit have discovered a new hacker group that has targeted 40 government and intelligence agencies, telecoms and internet giants in 13 countries for more than two years. While the new campaign bears some similarities to DNSpionage, which rerouted users from legitimate websites to a malicious server to steal their passwords, the researchers have assessed with high confidence that the campaign they've dubbed “Sea Turtle” is a new, separate operation. Sea Turtle targets companies by hijacking their DNS by pointing a target's domain name to malicious server instead of to its intended target.
The site-spoofing technique used by the hackers behind the campaign exploits long-known flaws in DNS that can be used to trick unsuspecting victims into imputing their credentials on fake login pages. Sea TurtleThe attacks launched by Sea Turtle work by first compromising a target using spear phishing to establish a foothold on their network. Known exploits are then used to target servers and routers to move laterally inside a company's network to obtain network-specific passwords. These credentials are then used to target an organization's DNS registrar by updating its records so that its domain name points away from its IP address and instead to a server controlled by the hackers. The hackers then employ a man-in-the-middle operation to impersonate login pages and obtain additional credentials to move even further into a company's network. By using their own HTTPS certificate for the target's domain, the attackers can make a malicious server appear genuine. According to Talos, the hackers used this technique to compromise the Swedish DNS provider Netnod as well as one of the 13 root servers that powers the global DNS infrastructure. The hackers also were able to gain access to the registrar that manages Armenia's top-level domains using similar tactics. While Talos has not revealed which state is behind the group, its researchers say that Sea Turtle is “highly capable” and have provided mitigation instructions in a blog post, saying: “Talos suggests using a registry lock service, which will require an out-of-band message before any changes can occur to an organization's DNS record. If your registrar does not offer a registry lock service, we recommend implementing multi-factor authentication, such as DUO, to access your organization's DNS records. If you suspect you were targeted by this type of activity intrusion, we recommend instituting a network-wide password reset, preferably from a computer on a trusted network. Lastly, we recommend applying patches, especially on internet-facing machines. Network administrators can monitor passive DNS record on their domains, to check for abnormalities.” Via TechCrunch
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| Google lets Android users choose browsers to ease EU antitrust concerns Posted: 18 Apr 2019 10:23 AM PDT In an effort to address EU antitrust concerns, Google has announced that Android users in Europe will now be able to choose between five different web browsers and search engines on their devices. Last year the EU hit the search giant with a record €4.34bn fine over how it used the market power of its mobile software to block competing services in search and web browsing. By pre-installing its Chrome browser and Google search app on Android smartphones, Google gained an unfair advantage on its rivals according to the European Commission.
Now the company is trying to rectify the situation by giving European users more choices when it comes to which browsers are installed on their devices and which search engine they choose to use. More search and browser optionsIn a blog post, Product Management Director at Google, Paul Gennai explained that Android users in Europe will now see new screens with an option to download different search apps and browsers when they open Google Play, saying: “These new screens will be displayed the first time a user opens Google Play after receiving an upcoming update. Two screens will surface: one for search apps and another for browsers, each containing a total of five apps, including any that are already installed. Apps that are not already installed on the device will be included based on their popularity and shown in a random order.” The new options will appear on both new Android phones sold in Europe as well as on existing devices in the region. While these changes may be enough to persuade the European Commission that Google has realized the error of its ways, the lobbyist group FairSearch whose complaint against Android triggered the EU investigation in the first place is still not satisfied and things the European regulators should do more, saying: “Fairsearch rejects as insufficient Google’s launch today of a choice screen for Android because it does nothing to correct the central problem that Google apps will remain the default on all Android devices.” If Google is unable to show European regulators that it has put a stop to its anti-competitive practices, it faces a fine of up to five percent of Alphabet's average daily worldwide turnover. Via Reuters
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| Best phone for gaming 2019: the top 10 mobile game performers Posted: 18 Apr 2019 10:10 AM PDT The best gaming phones in 2019 have become a big surprise. We now have dedicated gaming phones with souped-up specs to help improve gaming experiences, while others in this best gaming phones list are just the outright best phones. Beyond any fancy gamer features, the best gaming phone should have a powerful processor, bright and sharp display, and a beefy battery to keep your phone alive even during long gaming sessions. To get the most out of demanding games like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, you'll want a phone that's strong in all of those respects. We've picked out phones that offer just what you need, with all the power to play these games lag-free even at max settings, letting you take the most advantage of their high-resolution, bright displays. And, if you opt for some of the newer phones on this list, you can count on their performance lasting for some time to come, helping you stay prepared for the next big games yet to come. Our recommendations consider processor and GPU speeds, RAM size and other odds and ends. It also considers the app ecosystem, which is the lead reason Apple's iPhones frequently top the list. They generally have access to more games than Android. and often get multi-platform titles them first. But there are newer "gaming phones" that have come out in the past year which are...actually pretty good, and we've inserted them into our list accordingly. If you want high specs AND 'gamer'-appealing perks like RGB lights, you no longer have to choose. We've examined all the options and chosen the best phones for gaming based on the factors above. Here's our top ten list: The iPhone XS Max is the bigger, better brother of Apple's new flagship smartphone in a few key ways, but if you're picking either model for gaming, you might as well go with the best. The 6.5-inch screen on the iPhone XS Max is bigger than the one on its 5.8-inch sibling and its larger battery manages to stay working nearly a full hour longer than the standard iPhone XS. Those perks will give you more of an edge than with the iPhone XS, but both benefit from this Apple phone generation's true advantage: the A12 Bionic processor. We have high hopes that this chip will outperform the A11 Bionic found on last year's iPhone X since Apple claimed it is 40% more efficient and 50% more powerful than the older processor. In our tests, it loaded up Clash Royale and PUBG even faster, and speed is crucial in online gaming. All this in a Apple's sleek, modern look – though it's the most expensive mainstream phone on the market, even before including all the bells and whistles. Read the full reviews: iPhone XS Max, iPhone XS Image Credit: TechRadar Don't be too surprised to see Samsung so high on the list. It's latest family of Galaxy S10 smartphones are the first to feature Qualcomm's powerful new Snapdragon 855 chipset, which quickly boosted them to the top of the pack in terms of sheer performance. But, it's not just the chipset that makes these excellent gaming phones. They all have sharp Super AMOLED displays with support for high dynamic range, so you'll get excellent visuals in movies and games alike. The screen real estate is also expanded, so you have that much more game to look at. With these phones, you're getting both a killer phone and a powerful mobile gaming device in one. Better still, VR fans can still make use of the new phones with existing Gear VR headsets, according to The Verge. Letting you enjoy the immersive game medium on the phones' crisp displays. Read our full Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review Image Credit: TechRadar The Asus ROG Phone may "look like an irate Decepticon" as our reviewer put it, but outside its appearance, the device is a powerful phone with plenty of extras to entice gamers. It's also a decent phone in its own right, and it has notable advantages over the comparable Razer Phone 2. Its specs are solidly advanced for phone released at the tail end of 2018: an 'overclocked' Snapdragon 845, 8GB of RAM and a 4,000mAh battery, as well as a 90hz refresh rate screen that pales only to the Razer Phone 2's 120hz. As for gaming, the phone's "AirTrigger" touch-sensitive buttons on the top-right and top-left of the phone (when held in landscape) are cool, customizable ways to play that your typical smartphone just doesn't have. True to Asus' Republic of Gamers brand, you can buy a selection of accessories to augment your mobile game experience. These include a clamshell case with a bonus screen, a pair of controller halves that clip to either side and a docking platform that extends your phone to a big display, Nintendo Switch-style. There's even a simple clip-on fan to reduce device heat during games. The ROG Phone's appeal lives or dies on its external design, and we wouldn't blame you for skipping it for something a bit more conservative. But its advances, especially the AirTriggers, shouldn't be overlooked when considering phones for serious gaming. Read our full review: Asus ROG Phone Image Credit: TechRadar The first Razer Phone was a solid first effort to bring the gamer-specific brand to a mobile device, but it had a few shortcomings that dropped it further down our list. The second version has addressed some and come out with a stronger device for it, though it's still aimed primarily at gamers. What does that mean? The camera and display aren't nearly as impressive as other phones that cost this much, so casual gamers might want to look elsewhere. But if you're more serious about mobile gaming and can afford it, this is a solid choice. Outwardly, the Razer Phone 2 hasn't changed much from its predecessor, though it's upgraded to the Snapdragon 845 chip and switched to a glass back for Qi wireless charging. It's also added a slick vapor chamber to cool the device as you game. At the end of the day, the phone's beefy chipset, 8GB RAM, great speakers, 120hz refresh rate screen and 4,000mAh battery, as well as extensive settings to tweak battery life and performance, make this a great choice for gaming. Read the full review: Razer Phone 2 Image Credit: TechRadar Huawei's P30 Pro may not be a phone on many people's radars, but it's an amazing Android phone from the Chinese manufacturers. Much of the attention the P30 Pro is getting comes from its impressive camera system, which has three rear cameras including one with a 5X zoom and a stunning dark mode. But, the Huawei P30 Pro has plenty to offer gamers as well. The Kirin 980 chipset inside is plenty powerful for the latest Android games, and 8GB of RAM can keep everything running smooth even when you're switching back and forth from gaming and other activities. The hefty 4,200mAh battery can ensure your gaming sessions aren't cut short. An improved heat pipe ad vapor cooling chamber inside the P30 Pro help it keep cool while gaming, so it can continue to play Fortnite, Real Racing 3, and PUBG without a hitch. Read more: Huawei P30 Pro review Image Credit: TechRadar The LG G8 ThinQ is not the most exciting phone. The design isn't as dramatic a step forward as the new Samsung Galaxy S10 family, and it has a wobbly price that often lands too high to make it a real winner. But, there's still plenty to benefit gamers in this package. The first big thing the LG G8 offers is the Snapdragon 855 chipset, which offers a considerable upgrade in terms of performance over the preceding Snapdragon 845. Then there's the display. The LG G8 boasts a 6.1-inch OLED display with a 1440 x 3120 resolution. So, you'll get incredibly crisp visuals in everything you do on the phone. And, you can game even in some unfavorable conditions, as the display is plenty bright for sunny days, and the phone has an IP68 protection rating so you won't have to worry about a bit of rain. A little perk is the 3.5mm headphone jack, which will let you game on the LG G8 with your favorite wired headphones without the need for a dongle. Read more: LG G8 review Image Credit: TechRadar If you want some serious gaming power but don't want to spend too much on a phone, the OnePlus 6T is a great option. It has the Snapdragon 845 chipset inside that powers some of the most capable smartphones, ensuring that it'll still be a gaming beast for some time to come. The OnePlus 6T has a big, 6.41-inch OLED display that's plenty sharp without being too sharp. It has a resolution of 1080 x 2340, which isn't as high as some of the competition but is therefore easier for internals to drive. Add in the 3,700mAh battery, and you can game for a good while on this phone. Beyond gaming, you get some cool new tech as well. The OnePlus 6T has an in-screen fingerprint scanner, which allowed it to stretch the screen over even more of the front of the device without making the phone overly large. Read more: OnePlus 6T review Image Credit: TechRadar While the iPhone XS has dethroned the year-old iPhone X as the top Apple smartphone, the latter is still a great choice with high-performing hardware. If you can find it for sale (it's no longer available on Apple's website), the iPhone X’s 5.8-inch OLED display will offer plenty of screen space for games along with incredible contrast ratios, making visuals pop when a scene has a dark and light contrast. While other phones may slightly outperform the iPhone X, the biggest advantage of Apple phones for gaming is the App Store. Part of this is due to the love developers show it: iPhones almost always get the best games first, like Fortnite, which launched exclusively on iOS for some time. Apple is also on the forefront of delivering the first meaningful and mainstream AR experiences, including AR multiplayer gaming as one of the many iOS 12 features. Check out our iPhone X review video below. Image Credit: TechRadar There’s no getting around it: Apple phones are powerful and have a lot of great games. The same internals and App Store that earned the iPhone X a spot on this list earn the iPhone 8 Plus the a spot as well. The iPhone 8 Plus has a less-showy Full HD display, but in our experience is still great for gaming. The 5.5-inch screen is plenty spacious. Apple’s A11 Bionic CPU and graphics make for a mean gaming experience, and ARkit offers up augmented reality games that give Apple’s iPhones more to offer gamers. This is the one to buy if you want a gaming phone with a home button and don't want to spend top dollar on the iPhone X or newer iPhones. Image Credit: TechRadar We’ve lumped the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus into one spot, because they both offer nearly the same incredible smartphone gaming experience with only a minor difference in screen size. The Snapdragon 845, Adreno 630 graphics, and 4GB of RAM (6GB in the S9 Plus) make both of these phones incredible performers both in game and out. But, a powerful chipset isn’t all that earns the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus its ranking. The S9 has a plenty large and plenty sharp 1440 X 2960, 5.8-inch display, and the S9 Plus has an even larger 6.2-inch display with the same resolution. Both are Super AMOLED and support HDR10 for stunning visuals. The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus also feature Samsung’s Game Tools, which can help with taking screenshots, recording gameplay, and keeping notifications out of the way. Let’s not forget that Samsung also has the impressive Gear VR headsets that offer super sharp virtual reality experiences with the Galaxy S9’s and S9 Plus’s pixel-dense displays. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| YouTube Music comes to Google Home speakers for free Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:31 AM PDT YouTube has announced that it will now offer free music streaming on Google Home speakers with YouTube Music. Streaming via YouTube Music on your Google Home, Google Home Max, Google Home Mini, or Google Home Hub used to require a subscription to YouTube Music Premium for $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$11.99 per month.
There's a catch though – the free service will be ad-supported, so you won't be able to listen to music uninterrupted without upgrading to a Premium subscription. This is similar to Spotify, which allows you to stream music for free in exchange for more limited features and in-app adverts. Limited featuresIt's likely that the functionality of this free version of YouTube Music will be limited compared to the paid version. In a press release sent to TechRadar and other outlets, YouTube says the that Music Premium users can "request specific albums, songs, artists, and playlists on-demand" as well as "unlimited skips and song replay." These features will probably be unavailable to people using the free version of YouTube Music with their Google Home speakers. Even so, the ability to listen to music "right out-of-the-box" without signing up to a paid streaming platform subscription, will probably be a welcome addition to anyone who's thinking of buying a Google Home speaker. You can also get a 30-day free trial of YouTube Music Premium if you want to try the additional features before you buy. To set up YouTube Music as your default music streaming platform, you need to head to the Account Settings section of your Google Home app. Go to Services, and then Music, where you can select YouTube Music from a list of providers. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| These new, exclusive phone deals make the Google Pixel 3 even cheaper...again Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:30 AM PDT Forget Easter Eggs...Google Pixel 3 deals are the gift that just keep giving. Since the November release of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, prices have steadily tumbled down. One look at our overall Pixel 3 deals page, and you'll see the kind of bargains that UK retailers are offering on contract - did nobody tell them that the Google Pixel 3a was coming? And now the Carphone Warehouse-owned iD Mobile network - perhaps more famous for its cheap SIM only deals - has joined the discount smartphone party by coming up with a stonker of a bargain just in time for the long Easter weekend. Its all new lower prices are available only to TechRadar readers - you lucky so-and-so's. So what has iD got to offer? In short it's a reduction on the network's 5GB tariffs on both handsets. You're looking at £30 or £50 upfront on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL respectively, and then £23.99 or £26.99 per month over the two-year contract. You can see both of these offers below with their exact costs. Or if a Google device doesn't quite fulfil what you need from a phone (that bezel not doing it for you?), check out our guide to the best mobile phone deals. These EXCLUSIVE Google Pixel 3 deals in full:And iD's Pixel-particular bargains don't end there. Go for any of the retailer's other Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL tariffs, and it will throw in a 100GB data boost. That's a massive pot of data that you can fall back on in case you ever overshoot on your regular allowance. Worked out over two years, it amounts more than an extra 4GB of data per month on average. What is iD Mobile?iD Mobile is a sub-section of Carphone Warehouse so you can rest assured that it is a trustworthy source for your new phone deal. It piggybacks off the Three network's coverage, so pretty good for most parts of the UK. And you can use roaming in 50 destinations around the world. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Time may be running out to get hold of a cheap OnePlus 6T deal Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:30 AM PDT Update: We've been told that the 8GB RAM 'Thunder Purple' version of the OnePlus 6T (pictured above) is definitely not much longer for this world. So if that's the OnePlus 6T deal that you were most seduced by, then you definitely need to get in there quick. It's for sale at £529.99 at Amazon. "What on Earth is a OnePlus?" - the question overwhelmingly most asked of OnePlus owners when they try showing off their brilliant smartphone to friends and family. Having quietly built up a reputation for producing fantastic smartphones as affordable prices, OnePlus 6T deals have steadily risen in popularity since release last year. But the mobile - which TechRadar's OnePlus 6T review deemed "one of the best phones you can buy right now" - is now coming to the end of its shelf-life. The OnePlus 7 is expected to land within the next few weeks and, with it, the beginning of the end for the 6T. That's because, unlike iPhone deals and Samsung phone deals, OnePlus doesn't tend to keep its older generation of mobiles hanging around when its latest, greatest flagship phone goes on sale. So once the OnePlus 7 lands, prepare for OnePlus 6T deals to quickly become tomorrow's fish and chip paper. That means if you've been liking the look of OnePlus's smartphones and don't want to risk a price hike when the new one comes out, then you'd better get in there quickly. It's still being sold at a number of reputable retailers, and we've summarised the cheapest SIM-free prices on different models below:
Or if you want to go all out on your OnePlus 6T, you could always pick up the McLaren Speed Edition from Amazon for £649. It ups the RAM to 10GB for performance as fast as you'd want from that branding and comes with a very swanky orange trim.
What about OnePlus 6T deals on contract?If you don't fancy splashing £500+ upfront on your phone, then you don't have to...that's what contract mobile phone deals were made for. And these are the three best OnePlus 6T deals you can get before they're cruelly ripped away... This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Amazon closing Chinese marketplace Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:21 AM PDT Amazon is planning to close its online store in China after more than a decade of trying to gain a foothold in the country. The ecommerce giant will shutter its domestic marketplace which allowed shoppers to buy from local sellers on its site. Chinese shoppers however will still be able to order products from Amazon's global store once its local store closes in July and the company will continue to operate its cloud business in China.
Despite its popularity in the West, Amazon has struggled to carve out a place for itself in China where it faces stiff competition from local rivals Alibaba and JD.com. Image Credit: Amazon Amazon.cnThe news that Amazon will close its domestic marketplace in China by mid-July was first reported by Reuters which revealed that the company would instead focus on the more lucrative businesses of selling overseas goods and cloud services in the region. According to a company spokesperson, Amazon is currently “working closely with our sellers to ensure a smooth transition and to continue to deliver the best customer experience possible.” The company's Chinese ambitions began back in 2004 when it purchased the local books, music and video retailer Joyo.com for $75m and then rebranded the site as Amazon.cn in 2007. As Amazon has shifted its focus from China, the ecommerce giant has begun to invest heavily into its business in India. The company has committed to spend $5.5bn on ecommerce in India to better compete against its local rival there, Flipkart. Via The BBC
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| Best shared web hosting of 2019 Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:15 AM PDT Shared website hosting means exactly what it says – you share a server with other users who are running their own websites from that hardware. Every customer gets a portion of that physical server for their own use. The main strength here is that this is a cost-effective solution, and because you’re prepared to share hardware with other folks, you’ll naturally be playing less than the outlay for dedicated hosting. By the same token, however, you’re also sharing resources with others, and that means that the performance you’ll get will likely be a fair bit slower (and indeed generally less consistent). That might be fine for sites which don’t have a lot of traffic, but it could be a problem if your bandwidth needs are greater, or reliable and consistent performance is a priority for your website. So, obviously bear all that in mind, but if you do want to go the shared hosting route in an effort to make some serious savings, which are the best providers to plump for? Read on and find out. InMotion Hosting Don’t fret that this popular web host’s plans are marketed as ‘business’ products, because they’re applicable to individual users as well as companies. There’s a good range of choice here, and shared hosting starts from just $3.99 (£3.1) per month (2-year plan). What’s also good to see here is that InMotion incorporates features into its shared hosting plans which other providers charge extra for – like hack and DDoS protection, a system of basic backups, and a WordPress-based website builder. Another strong suit here is the way that this web host provides full details of all its services at-a-glance on the website, and makes it easy to compare features, and make your decision when taking the plunge with a subscription. You also get cPanel and Softaculous-powered hosting, a sterling level of technical support, and in our testing, we found this provider delivered some impressive performance levels when it came to site loading speeds. All in all, there are lots of reasons to go with InMotion, and a 90-day money-back guarantee doesn’t hurt, either. 1&1 1&1 IONOS (in the late October 2018, 1&1 changed their name to 1&1 IONOS) is a big web hosting player, vying with GoDaddy for world domination, and is the biggest player in Europe. Located in Germany, it offers a bewildering array of services with prices starting from as little as $0.99 per month excluding VAT (although that rises to $7.99 after the first year). On top of that, this shared hoster provides some smart freebies (a free domain, SSL certificates across all plans, free web design software (NetObjects Fusion 2013), 24/7 phone and email support, a graphics archive, a 30-day money-back guarantee, transparent replication (the company calls it geo-redundancy) and a whopping 300Gbps network connectivity. Also, you get a personal consultant, free of charge GoDaddy The US-based web hosting company is one of the largest in the game and probably the best known one as well. It is also the biggest domain name registrar in the world with tens of millions of domain names in its portfolio. GoDaddy’s cheapest web hosting package is $7.99 per month (at the time of writing, there was a special price for the first year - $2.99 per month). This provider offers free backup and restore, an uptime guarantee (99.9%), unlimited storage (although there’s only 100GB for the Economy package), as well as unlimited bandwidth and a free domain with the annual shared hosting plan. A pretty nifty feature provided by GoDaddy on all its packages is the ability to increase hosting capacity on demand (e.g. when you experience a sudden surge in traffic) from within your hosting account. Namecheap If you want to do web hosting on a budget, then as this provider’s name suggests, it aims to be inexpensive. You get some impressive value-for-money with Namecheap, particularly with an initial discount for the first year, and there are some heavyweight plans here. However, note the starter ‘value’ plan only gives you 20GB of hard drive space and 30 email accounts, but you get that at the price of just $2.88 per month. Namecheap offers a 99.9% connectivity guarantee, and is a very easy service to set up, with an initial welcome email that points you in the right direction for everything you might need (backed up by some impressive FAQs). It also plays host to an excellent searchable knowledgebase. To round things off, testing proved that this company generally offers above average speeds compared to rivals, making this a great hosting provider for those who aren’t keen on doing too much damage to their wallet. UK2 Based in London, bang in the middle of startup territory (Shoreditch), UK2 offers an impressively cheap starting shared hosting package at around $2.5 (£1.95) per month excluding VAT (although that rises to $7.8 (£5.95) a month on renewal). It also offers affordable unlimited packages with unlimited emails, bandwidth, a free SSL certificate (great for improved security and search visibility), a free domain and a dedicated IP. Prospective customers will appreciate the lack of setup fees or hidden charges, the 30-day money-back guarantee, plus 24/7 UK-based phone support on a freephone number and UK-based data centres. HostGator This is another web host which caters for the more budget-minded, and of course that’s never a bad thing. Although do note that you only get the really cheap prices when signing up for longer contracts with HostGator, so something of a commitment is required for the best savings here. For example, the cheapest shared hosting plan is $2.64 (£2) per month if you sign up for 36 months, but $4.48 (£3.38) per month if you sign up for one year. The good news is that you get plenty for your money, and no annoying limitations, so even the basic plan allows for unlimited bandwidth, web space, email accounts and more. A 99.9% uptime guarantee is also good to see. Customer support is generally pretty good – although it falls down in a few areas, for example the web help forums aren’t moderated by the company itself – and we found performance was better than average in terms of site loading times. SiteGround SiteGround offers some low-end shared hosting plans which may cost a little bit more than some budget rivals you’ll find on this page, but the upside is that they include all the core features that you’ll likely need. The firm’s StartUp account is $3.95 a month initially (with the cost rising when you renew), and with that you get unlimited traffic, email accounts and databases, not to mention one-click installation of apps like WordPress. It also bundles features that rival firms often charge for as extras like daily backups or CDN capabilities (Cloudflare). Another nifty touch is the provider’s SuperCacher system which caches frequently-accessed data in RAM, aiming to improve site performance. This could certainly help busy websites. Not everything is rosy here, though – for example the basic account limits you to 10GB of web space. Also, website support via the company’s knowledgebase is a rather shoddy experience, but there are other avenues of tech support which perform much better. iPage This is a premium web hosting outfit with a well-featured ‘Essentials’ plan which offers a great deal of functionality, and is ideal for those looking to host multiple websites (or those who want plenty of room to grow). With prices starting from as little as $1.99 per month for the shared hosting basic plan (via an offer at the time of writing), iPage gives you unlimited web space and bandwidth, unlimited email addresses, MySQL databases and even domains. Not only that, iPage incorporates some very smart extras like a drag-and-drop page builder, with a basic shared SSL certificate thrown in for good measure. This provider also offers good quality tech support via live chat and email (although other support avenues aren’t as strong). Performance levels seems solid, and this is certainly a web host to bear in mind for experienced users who are dealing with large numbers of sites. PlanetHippo One of the smaller web hosting outfits in this listing, PlanetHippo has managed to keep its prices at a lower level compared to most of the competition. Its One Account Linux shared hosting costs just $1.33 (£1) per month (excluding VAT), and it’s an appealing budget package. The firm’s Unlimited plan offers ‘unlimited everything’ for $8 (£5.99) per month (and that includes a free domain). As with other web hosts, you get a 30-day warranty, 24/7 UK-based support (and it’s of a good quality – although there’s no option to use the phone) and all of PlanetHippo’s servers are based in the UK. Throw in a smartly designed hosting panel, and you won’t go far wrong with this particular provider. Tsohost This is another UK-based provider, and Tsohost also plays the value card, with an entry-level Startup shared hosting plan which starts at $3.8(£2.92) per month (providing you sign up for two years – it’s $4.15(£3.16) per month if you commit for just one year). That plan limits you to 15GB storage and you do get unlimited bandwidth, Let’s Encrypt SSL and a hundred mailboxes. Tsohost’s technical support may not be the fastest out there in terms of response times, at least in our experience, but it did provide clear and accurate answers to queries. Performance levels are also solid, and the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Exclusive cloud storage offer: save 80% on a massive 2TB backup from iDrive Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:05 AM PDT We're just like you...we love a bargain. And not just any bargain - the discounts that impress us most are when they're on a particularly standout product or service (not just some old rubbish that Amazon is trying get rid of from their warehouse on Amazon Prime Day). And that goes equally to cloud storage a it does to phones, laptops and games consoles. So when our top-rated best cloud storage provider gives us the opportunity to promote a massively reduced price that's available EXCLUSIVELY to TechRadar readers, we get really excited. And that's exactly what's happened with iDrive. The faintly ridiculous 80% discount (and yes, you are reading that correctly) is available on iDrive's 2TB plan, bringing the price on all that cloud storage down to a mere $13.90 from almost $70. That's an astonishing saving on such a brilliant product - you can read more about iDrive's benefits below. And don't be put off by the dollar pricing if you're reading this outside the US...iDrive only advertises its prices in US$, but you can still get hold of it from anywhere in the world. TechRadar's exclusive iDrive cloud storage deal:What makes iDrive the best cloud storage provider?Fast, easy to use and secure. The main pros of iDrive are very quick and straightforward to explain. Even if you're not that tech savvy, you'll find iDrive really simple to download, set up and operate. Of course, you'd already expect all those things from the best cloud storage - so what makes iDrive stand out from the competition? It's the extra features, like facial recognition of your photos to help you organize them better, like the physical hard disk of files it will send you if you someohw lose all your stuff, like server backup offering a failsafe if you accidentally delete items you shouldn't have. We've gone into much more detail in our full iDrive review - you can discover much more about this superb software there.
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| Smart home sale at Amazon: limited-time savings on August smart locks Posted: 18 Apr 2019 09:01 AM PDT If you've wanted to beef up your home security, now is a great time with this The Smart Lock Pro can be installed in minutes and attaches to your deadbolt on the inside of your door. You can download the compatible August app to control and monitor your smart lock from anywhere. You'll be able to grant keyless access to family and friends, lock and unlock your door, and keep track of who's coming and going all remotely with your smartphone. The August lock will even automatically unlock and lock when your coming and going so you never have to hassle with finding your keys. The August Pro includes the Connect Wifi Bridge which allows for voice control and is compatible with Amazon Alexa, Siri, and the Google Assistant. This is the perfect time to secure your home and snag a fantastic deal, so make sure to take advantage of this stellar sale while you can. Amazon also has the August Smart lock with Connect on sale for $179. The August lock has all the features of the of the Pro, thanks to the Connect Wifi Bridge, but does lack smart home integrations with Apple HomeKit and Z-Wave Plus. You can find more home security sales with the best cheap home security camera deals that are currently available. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| New HP Chromebook 15 laptop is a straightforward work machine Posted: 18 Apr 2019 08:50 AM PDT HP has a new Chromebook coming to sit atop its lineup of Chrome laptops in terms of size, at least. The new device is the HP Chromebook 15, and it will come starting at $449 (about £345, AU$630) in the US. The new HP Chromebook 15 is a no-nonsense affair. It doesn't have any of the flourishes that some of HP's other Chromebooks do. No 360-degree hinge, like the HP Chromebook 14 x360, and no HP Active Pen support, like the HP Chromebook 12 x2. Instead, the HP Chromebook 15 gets a classy design with metal lid and keyboard deck, a larger display with slim side bezels, a 17.9mm thin construction and a full keyboard with number pad and backlighting.
Into the specsThe 15-inch display has a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution and uses an IPS panel for wide viewing angles. The bezels around the display aren't as slim as we've seen on some premium laptops, but they're still beating the thick bezels many budget devices get. Above the screen, there's a wide-angle HD webcam as well. In terms of inputs and outputs, the Chromebook 15 gets dual B&O-tuned speakers, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C ports, capable of 5Gbps data transfer and display connections, as well as one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port. There is also a microSD card reader, which can be handy for expanding the storage of your device affordably. There are multiple configurations available, with the machine coming powered by either a dual-core Intel Pentium Gold 4417U processor and 4GB of DDR4 RAM or an 8th-Gen Intel Core i5 processor, but it's unclear which Core processor and how much RAM is included in that version. We're seeking further details. The laptop's base storage is 64GB, and HP mentions it's available with up to 128GB of SSD storage. But, that's eMMC storage, which is flash storage, which is not on the same level as the kind of storage you might expect from an SSD. Simply put, you can think of eMMC as SSD lite. All told, these are fairly high end specs for a Chromebook, as many feature low-power Intel Celeron processors and as little as 2GB of RAM and 16GB of eMMC storage. To top it all off, HP is packing all of this into a 3.99-pound package with up to 13 hours of battery life and full access to Google Play's Android app ecosystem.
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| The best free Android apps of 2019 Posted: 18 Apr 2019 07:34 AM PDT It has been over ten years since Android was first outed by Google, and back then it was hard to imagine the sheer number of apps we'd have today. There are apps for everything, and many of them are completely free, meaning you're just a few downloads away from supercharging your smartphone at no extra cost. Admittedly, the huge quantity of apps doesn't mean they're all quality - far from it in fact, and finding the good ones can be tough.
There are tools and techniques to help, with various lists in the Play Store providing you with Editor's Picks across a range of categories, new releases and even apps that are specifically recommended for you based on your previous installs. You can also hunt out apps that are similar to your favorites by searching for an app you have and seeing what else comes up. And checking out user reviews and ratings can save you from downloading a dud of an app. But even with all that, the sheer number of apps on Google Play means many of the best can often get lost, while weaker ones sometimes rise to the top. So to make sure you never install a duff app here's our selection of the best you should install right now - each one carefully chosen to ensure you'll have a whole suite of fun, engaging and, dammit, useful apps on your phone or tablet. We've sorted them into categories so you can more easily find what you're looking for. But make sure to check back weekly for our free Android apps of the week, which you'll find below. Best free Android apps of the weekEach week we add two apps to this list and you'll find these two latest additions below. My Possible SelfMy Possible Self aims to improve your mental health and reduce the symptoms of stress, anxiety and low moods in as little as eight weeks. We haven’t yet used it for that long, but based on around a week of use it seems like it could make a real difference. It includes 10 modules dedicated to improving different aspects of mental health. Each module has a number of fairly substantial ‘sessions’, made up of tips, examples and exercises to help you, say, manage stress or build happiness and wellbeing. On top of that, My Possible Self also includes a mood tracker, letting you fill in how you feel every day and see a graph of your moods over time. Plus you can add ‘moments’, which are a snapshot of how you feel at any given moment, made up of text and optionally a photo. There are other apps like My Possible Self, but this seems richer in resources than most. Having said that, it’s only currently available in the UK, and many of the modules are hidden behind a paywall of £5.99 (about $8) per month or £59.99 (about $80) per year. It’s not cheap, then, but also no more expensive than many meditation apps that are similarly focused on your wellbeing. App TilesYour Android device likely has all sorts of shortcuts on its notifications screen and you can probably customize which ones are displayed, but what you probably can’t do is add shortcuts to apps. App Tiles adds that option, letting you create up to six shortcuts to apps of your choice, meaning whatever screen you’re on you’ll always be able to swipe down to display your shortcuts, tap on the relevant app and be taken straight to it. For apps that you use a lot, this could be a real time-saver. App Tiles is easy to set up – it doesn’t require you to change any settings on your phone, just launch it and assign apps. App Tiles does have adverts, but you’ll only have to put up with them when you’re setting it up. Once the shortcuts are in place you never have to launch the App Tiles app itself again. Our favorite free Android apps for painting, drawing, sketching, design and animation. Google Arts & CultureWe’ve written about Google Arts & Culture before, but it’s worth highlighting again, as the app has been steadily updated with new content and features. In fact, there’s an almost overwhelming amount of content tucked away inside this free app. You can, for example, view high-quality versions of famous artworks and zoom in close for a better look at them. You can also see 360-degree videos and – with the help of a VR headset – virtual reality tours of museums and other attractions. You can also tour many of these sites using Street View, with both exteriors and interiors covered. There are also articles, information on local events and exhibits, the ability to save favorite artworks to easily return to later, and lots more. And if you make it to an exhibit in the real world, you can also use Google Arts & Culture to learn more about artworks, simply by pointing your phone’s camera at them. If you have even a passing interest in art or culture, this is an essential download. OverOver could be the app to take your social media game to the next level, as it has all the tools you need to create stylish designs full of photos, images and text, fit for Instagram, Facebook and most other social sites or even for use on posters and flyers. The app lets you select from a range of canvas sizes, many of which exactly line up with the sizes used by popular social sites, then lets you add images and text to them, with various options available, including a range of fonts, the ability to adjust colors and positioning, and more. Over also includes plenty of pre-made graphics to spice up your projects, and when you’re done creating you can easily share your design to other apps or save it as a JPG or PNG. The basic tools are mostly free, but power users might want to pay for the Pro subscription, as this gives you access to more of everything: more fonts, more graphics, plus a database of templates, so you don’t have to build up your designs from scratch. HouzzRedecorating or improving your home can be a daunting prospect, but Houzz could make it a little bit more manageable. It could do that by inspiring you through its library of millions of photos, showing exteriors and interiors of various styles. It could also do that by giving you a single storefront to find and buy all the furniture and other items you need, even going so far as to let you see products in your home, using augmented reality. And it can do that by helping you find experts – such as architects and builders – to do the hard work for you. If you’re planning to take on the task yourself then there are also plenty of articles on hand to help, as well as the ability to ask the Houzz community for advice. Sticker MakerIf you use WhatsApp, you’re probably aware that the service has finally added support for stickers, so as well as emojis and GIFs you can now send larger emoji-like images. But while there are plenty of sticker packs to choose from there’s also – thanks to Sticker Maker – the option to make your own. The app first has you create a new ‘sticker pack’ which you can name, then simply load up an image on your phone and cut out the part of the image that you want to use as a sticker. You can do this freehand or use tools in the app to cut a perfect square or circle. You can also rotate the image if you want and then save it to your pack when you’re happy. Packs can contain up to 30 stickers, but need at least three. Once you’ve made at least three you’ll be able to send the pack to WhatsApp, where you can use your custom stickers just like any others. If you later want to add or remove stickers from the pack, you can do that. You can also make additional packs if you have more than 30 sticker ideas or just want to keep the packs themed. Sticker Maker is a slick app, and a useful one for anyone who likes WhatsApp stickers but just wishes they were more personalized. PexelsPexels is a database of photos that you can use for free for any purpose, including commercial uses, with no attribution needed (though it notes that attributions are still appreciated). You can search using keywords or browse trending images, while tapping the photographer behind a photo will show you their other work on Pexels and let you follow them, so you never miss anything new that they upload. You can also ‘like’ and collect photos within Pexels and if you want to take them outside the app you can easily share them with Instagram or other apps, save them as your wallpaper, or simply download them. But Pexels also lets you become one of the photographers, as you can upload any of your own photos to the app for other people to use. However you choose to use Pexels though, it’s a slick, beautiful app. SketchBookSketchBook isn’t a new app, but while many of the features used to cost money, it’s now completely free, making it worth revisiting. The features that are now free include more than 130 brush presets, customizable canvas sizes, various rulers, high quality image imports and more. And that’s on top of all the basic tools that were already free, such as a layer editor and pen mode, all of which combine to make this one of the most generous free sketching apps available on Android. Coming from Autodesk, the power of SketchBook should come as no surprise, but it’s an app that seemed worth the money previously and is now utterly essential if you’ve even toyed with the idea of digital sketching. DIY ProjectsWikiDIY is a website that’s packed full of DIY projects, with guides for everything from making unicorn cupcakes to making a willow whistle. But it’s not all about making things, as WikiDIY also has guides for things like how to clean rubber on shoes or how to take good photos at night. All of these guides can now be found in its new DIY Projects app, and they come with step by step instructions, diagrams, and in some cases videos. The guides also have questions and answers supplied by readers, along with lists of what you’ll need and any warnings that it’s worth being aware of before you start. You can search for specific guides, browse by category, and bookmark your favorites. And while the app itself isn’t the best we’ve seen (it often feels like little more than a web wrapper) it’s hard to argue with the quality and quantity of the content. BitmojiEver wanted your own custom emoji and stickers that star you, rather than a generic face? Then you should definitely download Bitmoji. This lets you recreate your likeness in cartoon form, with loads of tools available to make the look as perfect as possible. Then you can choose an outfit and get access to dozens if not hundreds of stickers, each of which feature you. These can be shared to various chat and social apps, but Bitmoji has deeper integration with Gboard, letting you share its stickers direct from the keyboard. It can also be linked to your Snapchat account, making your Bitmoji your Snapchat avatar. You can alter the look of your Bitmoji at any time, so if you change your own hairstyle you can change theirs to match, or just give them a new outfit, and new stickers and customization options are being added over time, so you shouldn’t get bored. CanvaCanva was a hit on iOS and now it’s arrived on Android, giving you a simple yet powerful way to create posters, collages, flyers, cards, Instagram posts, banners and headers for blogs or other social media, and more. It’s a graphic design app, and one that’s intuitive from the moment you launch it. Start by choosing the type of content you want to design, then take your pick from a wide selection of ready-made templates (or search for something specific). Once that’s done, you’re ready to get editing. You can tap on any part of a template to change it with context-sensitive tools. Tap on text, for example, and you can write something new, or change the font, size, color and spacing. Select an image to change the color, add a filter, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, or switch it for a different picture altogether – either one of the many in Canva or one from your gallery. You can also drag and rotate things, and there’s unlimited undo, so you can go back as many steps as you want if you make a mess of the whole thing. When you’re done, you can save your creation to your phone or share it online. It’s also saved in the ‘Your designs’ section of the app, which you can access from the web and other devices, so you’ll never lose a design you’ve made. Our favorite free Android apps for shooting, sorting and editing photos and videos. CuratorCurator claims to be the first gallery app that organizes your photos using AI entirely offline, giving you the search power of something like Google Photos, without compromising on your privacy. It works well too. The first time you launch the app it will analyze and assign tags to all of your photos (which can take a long time), then if you search using a keyword, such as ‘beach’ or ‘cat’, it will show you every image containing that. Curator has a nice interface too, with two themes and the ability to view albums, all images, or all of the tags that have been assigned. Albums can be renamed and favorited, photos can be moved between albums and there are gesture controls, to help you navigate the interface faster. There are also new features on the way, such as private folders and shared albums. If you don’t care about the added privacy offered by Curator, then Google Photos is still the better app. Not least because it backs up your images and gives you access to them from other devices, but Curator is a strong alternative for those who prefer to keep their online presence to a minimum. Photo MapPhoto Map is simply a world map that displays your photos over the parts of the world that you took them in. Zoom out and you’ll likely just see a single thumbnail of one of your images over each country that you’ve snapped shots in, but zoom further in and you will see photos grouped into much smaller areas too. The thumbnails also have a number on them, telling you how many photos are in that gallery. You can easily see them all and enlarge them with a tap. There are a few options, such as the ability to change the look of the map or add terrain or satellite imagery to it, but mostly it’s just a great and simple idea – a visual way of separating your photos based on where they were taken. This is definitely one for those who like to travel! Photo Map is free to use, but a one-off $1.49/£1.29 IAP will get rid of adverts. PicaiIf you love slathering filters all over your photos then there’s a good chance you’ll love Picai, as it makes the process a lot smarter than most apps. But this isn’t just a tool for sticking filters on photos you’ve already taken (though you can do that too). Rather, it’s a camera app. Simply point it at something you want to photograph and it will use AI to detect what you’re looking at, even going so far as to provide a text pop-up telling you what it sees. From there it will automatically choose filters that it thinks would be a good fit and overlay two of them on the viewfinder – one on the left half, the other on the right. That means you can see what a filter will look like before you even take a photo. If you’re happy with one, you can swipe horizontally across it to select it, or you can swipe up or down to cycle through filters. It’s a clever idea, well implemented and completely free. Google LensYour phone might already have Google Lens built in, but if not you can now download it from the Play Store, and that’s worth doing. Once you’ve launched the app you can point your camera at almost anything and get information on it. Point it at a book and it will give you links to reviews of the book and places to buy it. Other products also produce store links, or if Google Lens can’t definitively identify something it will suggest similar products. You can also point it at a landmark to get information on it, at foreign text to translate it or at an event to add it to your calendar. You can even point it at plants or animals to identify them. The results aren’t perfect. In our experience Google Lens will regularly incorrectly identify something or fail to come up with any suggestions for what something might be, especially with more unusual items, but it works often enough to be genuinely useful, especially once you get used to the kinds of things it’s likely to work with – so you know whether to even bother booting it up. PhotoDirectorPhotoDirector is one of the more powerful and polished photo editing apps available on Android. It’s got you covered for fun filters, frames and effects, but it gives you more control than some of its peers. For example, you can adjust the strength of effects and choose to apply them globally or selectively. You get a lot of control over the core image too, as you can adjust the white balance, saturation, hue, sharpness, tone and more. You can also rotate, crop or mirror the image, cut out sections, adjust the perspective, and if you’ve taken a portrait remove red-eye. There’s more here, too much to list, but suffice it to say, PhotoDirector is a comprehensive app. You’re not limited to just editing photos you’ve already taken either; there’s also a camera component, allowing you to take new shots and see how effects and filters will look before you’ve even taken a picture. PhotoDirector is free to download and use. There’s an optional subscription for £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month if you want to unlock additional tools, remove adverts and improve the output quality, but the core app is already far more generous than most free offerings. Just a LineJust a Line is a simple example of the creative potential offered by AR (augmented reality). It lets you view the world through your phone camera and draw on scenes by touching the screen. You can see your drawings from multiple angles as you move the phone around, and you can film your creations to save them or share them with others. There’s not a whole lot more to it than that, and Google (which built the app) describes Just a Line as an experiment, so you should go in expecting a curiosity rather than a full-featured app, but it’s a fun introduction to AR that can be enjoyed by all ages. LightX Photo EditorThere are loads of filter apps and photo fixers on Android, but LightX Photo Editor is one of a much smaller number of comprehensive editing apps. It has plenty of filters, as well as tools for sharpening images and removing blemishes, and much more besides. You can tweak the hue, saturation and tone, adjust the focus, add a frame, sticker or text, merge images, create collages, flip, crop and rotate, draw on pictures and change the perspective. All of that is free, though there’s an optional IAP to remove adverts and add a few extra features. Whether you opt for the free or paid version, LightX is a powerful, feature-packed app that should suit most mobile photo-editing needs. Motion StillsIt’s not often that Google’s apps come to iOS before Android, but Motion Stills did, as it was designed to stabilize Live Photos, so they’d come out smoother. Now though it’s out on Android too, letting you shoot a short video clip which the app stabilizes. Clips that you shoot can be saved as a video or a looping GIF and then shared on social media, and Motion Stills also lets you use a ‘Fast Forward’ mode, which will condense up to a minute of footage into a shorter clip. This too is stabilized, to keep it smooth, and you can pick the playback speed. Motion Stills only works for new footage – so you can’t import and stabilize anything you’ve already shot (though if you just want to turn old footage into a GIF there are plenty of other apps that will do that). But for anything new you shoot Motion Stills is a great way to make a GIF or short video and ensure footage remains smooth. It’s fast too, as footage is stabilized in real time, so you don’t need to wait for it to process your clip, and it’s completely free. Google PhotosThere are probably hundreds of photo apps around, but Google Photos stands out as it gives you unlimited storage for photos and videos, all for free. That's reason enough to jump on board, especially as it works not just on Android but on iOS and computers too. But with basic editing tools and the ability to make collages and albums this is more than just photo and video storage, it aims to be your first and last stop after taking a picture. To achieve that it will need a few more features, but it's well on its way. Our favorite free Android apps for learning new things, from history to music to coding and beyond. St John Ambulance First AidThe St John Ambulance First Aid app isn’t new, but it is worth highlighting as it could save a life. It includes a selection of situations that you can choose from, such as ‘chest pain’ and ‘choking’, then talks you step by step through what you should do to help a person with these issues. There are also guides to useful techniques that you might need, such as CPR, and the app – while functional rather than stylish – is easy to navigate. Whether you ultimately choose St John Ambulance First Aid or not, we’d strongly recommend having at least one first aid app on your device - and this is one of the best. StudySmarterStudySmarter aims to help you do just that. When you first launch the app, you can pick your area of study from numerous categories, such as law and mathematics, then you get access to various flashcards aimed at teaching you the subject. But better yet, you can create your own flashcards and optionally share them with the rest of the StudySmarter community. Speaking of the community, there’s also an area where they can ask and answer questions related to subjects. StudySmarter users can also upload documents related to a subject, ensuring they have access to all their study materials within the app and also giving access to other users, and users can even add their own subjects to the app. The result is an app with a whole lot of potential, because as the user base grows, so will the number of study aids. Right now, the content is somewhat limited, meaning it’s most useful just as a way to create and use flashcards, but as a free download that’s enough to recommend it and if enough people take to it then StudySmarter could one day be a very smart way to study. StorySignStorySign is designed to help deaf children learn to read, by translating children’s books into sign language. To do this you need not just the app but supported books too, which at the time of writing in the UK is limited to just Where’s Spot?, but more are expected to be added. With book in hand, just point your phone’s camera at the page and an animated character in StorySign will read the page in sign language. And children will know which words are being signed as the word will be highlighted. As such they’ll both be able to enjoy the books unsupervised and learn to read in the process. While the content of StorySign is somewhat limited so far, there’s a lot of talent involved, with Aardman Animations (the company behind Wallace and Gromit) designing it and Huawei AI powering it, while Penguin Random House has partnered with it to supply classic children’s books to the app. Even in its limited form, StorySign is well worth trying if you have a deaf child young enough to appreciate it, but we expect that this is one app that will just keep getting better as its library grows. ScriptsScripts is a language-learning app focused specifically on learning to write and read in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. These languages are among the trickiest to learn as each one has a unique alphabet, but Scripts gives you a fighting chance. It does this by showing you letters from the language you choose to learn, and then taking you through short exercises which see you swipe across your screen to draw the letter yourself. Initially you’ll be swiping across an outline of the letter, but it quickly moves on to just showing the letter at the top of the screen or not showing it at all, so you really have to learn to progress. You’ll repeat the same letter a lot, but the exercises are all bite-sized, and so is your study, as you can only practice for five minutes each day unless you pay. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as everyone should be able to fit in five minutes of learning, but if you do want more you can pay $10.99/£10.49 per month, with discounts if you commit to a year. That gives you unlimited time, removes adverts, lets you access Scripts offline and gives you full access to Drops. We’ve covered Drops previously but it too is a language learning app, but it’s broader, rather than just being focused on the alphabet. Khan Academy KidsKhan Academy Kids is packed full of games and activities designed to entertain and educate young children. From sorting objects based on their color, to selecting the right letter to complete a word, to drawing and a whole lot more, there are apparently thousands of activities in here, and while we haven’t tested that many, the ones we have tested are varied and well put together, with colorful drawings, songs and sound effects. Most of the interactions use simple tap and swipe gestures, so most children should be able to navigate the app comfortably. A colorful character sits in the corner, and can be tapped whenever help is needed. There’s a lot here, and Khan Academy Kids should be suitable whether you want something your kid can do on their own, or something they can play through together with you. LingoDeerThere are a lot of language learning apps on Android, but when it comes to languages such as Japanese, Mandarin and Korean, which have different alphabet systems, most apps fall a bit flat in teaching you to read and write in the language. But that’s where LingoDeer excels, with various exercises designed to teach you the alphabet and grammar, as well as more conventional lessons focused on speaking and hearing the language. LingoDeer can feel a bit intimidating at times, especially if you’re a complete beginner, as these alphabets can look completely alien, but we’re not sure there’s any way around that. Learning one of these Asian languages is going to be hard, and LingoDeer is a good way to get started. OrphicThere are so many words in the English language, including all sorts of weird and wonderful ones that you might never have come across. But how do you come across them? Browsing a dictionary is inefficient, so instead you could try Orphic, an app dedicated to the more unusual and interesting parts of English. The app contains hundreds of words and will highlight a new one for you every day, even sending you a push notification for it if you want, so you can constantly learn new words. You can also head into the app and explore its library of language at your own pace. For every word you can see definitions, example sentences and even hear an audio clip, so you can be sure you’re saying it right. You can also add words to a list of favorites, so you can easily return to them later, and Orphic promises to add new words regularly, so the app should get better over time. Space Nation NavigatorSpace Nation Navigator is an oddity. Part game, part learning tool, part fitness app – the only thing uniting it all is a focus on space. There are various ‘missions’ including mini games, such as memorizing codes to repair a spacecraft, quizzes, and even physical exercises designed get you ready for an outer space adventure. There are also videos and articles that teach you more about space and the people exploring it, while leaderboards give you extra incentive to carry out the various activities. There’s the slightly annoying need to buy ‘coins’ or watch adverts if you want to replay missions, but otherwise Space Nation Navigator is an interesting app for anyone with even a passing interest in space. A bit more focus might help, but there’s a lot of content here. PlantNetWherever you are, chances are there are hundreds of different plant species within walking distance, and most of us have no idea what all but the most common are called. PlantNet aims to make identifying them easier – simply snap a photo and the app will attempt to identify what kind of plant or flower you’re seeing using visual recognition software. Assuming you’ve taken an in-focus shot with just a single type of plant in it you’ll probably get one or more suggestions, complete with names and pictures. This is probably the main thing you’ll use PlantNet for, but you can also view pictures submitted by other users and browse plants by a number of categories, such as where in the world they’re found. In many cases there are also links to Wikipedia pages about the plants, so you can learn more about them. As an identification tool PlantNet isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing, and even if it can’t always identify the plant you’re looking at with 100% accuracy, chances are it will highlight some other interesting species in the process of trying. Today in HistoryToday in History is exactly what it says on the tin, telling you what happened today in history, and as it turns out there’s usually a lot that happened. The Today in History app will tell you about events, births, deaths, holidays and just about everything else significant that ever happened on the current day, and it includes pictures, text and links to Wikipedia articles (which is where it pulls its data from). It’s an attractive app and even better if you use the widget, which shows you events from this day in history on your home screen. Today in History also lets you download content for offline use, get notifications and – for anyone who’s not a native English speaker – switch to one of 50 different languages, a switch which cleverly will also affect the events you see, with those relevant to the culture associated with that language being prioritized. GrasshopperLearning to code isn’t easy, but learning the basics is easier in recent years than it ever used to be, and that’s partially because apps like Grasshopper exist, guiding you through the first steps (of JavaScript, in this case) with exercises and quizzes. The exercises are often presented a bit like puzzles. For example, very early examples task you with completing flags of countries by selecting the right code in the right order. This can feel almost like a game, and is engaging and enjoyable as a result. Achievements can be gained to further motivate you, and while the app will never make you an expert it does aim to leave you with fundamental JavaScript skills, so you’re ready to take on something more advanced. Duolingo: Learn Languages FreeIf you fancy learning a foreign language then make sure you download Duolingo: Learn Languages Free, as it's one of those rare apps that manages to be both educational and fun, ensuring that you'll keep coming back for more to brush up on your language skills, with bite-sized, genuinely useful lessons and tests. Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, English, Swahili and Romanian can all be learned, it's mostly free and it's one of the best ways you can learn a new language with your Android device. Our favorite free Android apps for having fun on your phone or tablet, through watching videos, reading, socializing and more. Novel Effect: Read Aloud BooksNovel Effect brings books to life by adding music and sound effects. The app – which is aimed at young children – listens to you reading the book aloud, so that the right sounds are played at the right time. There’s a small selection of free ebooks included in Novel Effect, including some classics such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, but to get the most out of the app you’ll need to buy or supply other books. Over 200 books and poems are supported with more regularly added, and there are links to buy many of the supported books from Google Play Books. But if you’ve got a physical copy or an ebook in a different format that works too, you just have to tell the app what book you’re going to read and then start reading. CuratedCurated lets you curate a list of the movies, songs, articles, podcasts, books and other content that you come into contact with. Simply search for the content on the app or add a link, then add a short review and any relevant tags, and other users of the app will be able to read what you think. In turn, you can also see the content other people post and follow people with similar tastes to you, so it’s a way to share and find interesting new content of all kinds. You can comment on other people’s posts, browse specific tags to find related content, and ‘save’ content that you want to remember to check out another time. For most things in Curated’s database there will also be relevant information. For example, for a podcasts there will be links to listen to it, and for a film there will be a trailer, cast list and synopsis, so you’re not reliant purely on the comments posted by other users. It’s a good app, and with more people using it Curated could be great. VLC for AndroidVLC isn’t new; in fact, in both Android and PC form, it’s been around a long, long time. It’s also been included on this list before, but continual updates mean it’s worth highlighting again. The app, in short, is one of the best and most powerful video players for Android. It supports just about every audio and video file format, as well as network streams, DVD ISOs and pretty much anything else you might reasonably want to play. Subtitles and closed captions are supported, and there are various tools when playing content, including an equalizer, Google Cast support, and numerous aspect ratios. There are also gesture controls for things like volume and brightness, making them easy to adjust without digging into menus. It’s also completely free, so while VLC isn’t the only video player app for Android, it’s probably the only one you’ll ever need. Telegram XTelegram is a popular, powerful messaging app, and Telegram X is that but faster, with better animations and experimental features. That last point is both a pro and a con, since some of those features won’t be as polished or useful as you might want, but most of them are minor (such as a night mode and some customization options) and can be ignored if you want. For the most part, Telegram X is just like Telegram, which itself is a lot like WhatsApp, but with some features that help it stand out. You can, for example, create group chats with up to 100,000 participants, and share files with no limits on the size or type. Telegram claims to be the fastest chat app on the market (other than Telegram X). That’s a tough claim to test, but it certainly seems slick. It also uses encryption, so your chats are secure, and it works on tablets and PCs as well as phones. The real issue with both Telegram and Telegram X is that they’re only useful if you know other people who use them. If you do, or can get people to start, then they’re well worth exploring, but that could be a tough ask. SoonSoon describes itself as a social bucket list app. What that means in this case is an app that lets you create lists of books you want to read, movies you want to watch, restaurants you want to try and more. You can select from a number of categories, including games, shops, bars, museums and TV shows, then make a list of the ones that interest you. To make a list, just type the name of the thing or place and Soon will usually be able to find it in its database, complete with information like the address if it’s a place or the cast if it’s a movie. Once you’ve read, watched, visited or otherwise interacted with a thing on a list you can tap ‘Done’, then rate and share your experience. Soon also has a trip planner, where you can select a destination and make a list of all the things you want to see and do. You can also share this list with anyone else you’re traveling with, so you can collaborate on it. All in all, Soon is a great app for anyone who struggles to remember the things they want to watch, visit, read, play and listen to, or just for anyone who likes making lists. LIKEtoKNOW.itEver seen a picture of someone in an outfit and wondered what they were wearing or where to buy it? With LIKEtoKNOW.it you won’t have to wonder any more. The app lets you take screenshots of photographs and can then tell you what’s being worn, as well as providing links to buy the clothes online. Or at least, it can sometimes. For any guarantee that it’s going to work, you should look out for captions containing ‘#liketkit’, the LiketoKNOW.it website link, or the LIKEtoKNOW.it logo in the bottom right-hand corner. Those things won’t exist on most images, but a growing number of fashion influencers will make posts compatible with the service. And that’s just one part of the app. LIKEtoKNOW.it also lets you browse images and follow influencers from within the app, and all the images of course also have links to buy the products contained within them. By following people, you can create a feed full of content that you like, but you can also browse other feeds for specific categories, such as ‘fitness’ or ‘weddings’. Most of the content is aimed at women, but there is a men’s category too. There’s also some kids clothes and some décor – it’s not all just outfits. If you’re female and into fashion, it’s definitely worth a look. Amazon AlexaThe Amazon Alexa app is essential if you have an Echo device, but previously it was an app you probably wouldn’t spend much time in. That’s all changed now though, thanks to an update that aims to make it the only app you need to control your smart home. It’s a similar overhaul to the one Google Home got, allowing you to turn lights on and off, control your thermostat and more. You can also control and set up aspects of Alexa from the app, of course, such as adding skills to it, managing timers and alarms and setting up Routines. The last of those is perhaps the most interesting, as these allow you to set a custom command that will cause Alexa to carry out a custom set of actions. For example, you could set the command “Alexa, time for bed” to turn off all your lights and turn down the thermostat. Blizzard EsportsEsports still have a long way to go before they’re as popular as conventional sports, and part of what’s holding them back is accessibility, but that’s something the Blizzard Esports app could help with. The app makes it easy to keep up to date with activity in Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, StarCraft, StarCraft II and World of Warcraft, offering schedules, scores, news and the option to set alerts reminding you to tune in when an event kicks off. When it’s time to tune in, you can do so via the Blizzard Esports app, so it’s a great companion for anyone into esports for the games above, or anyone who thinks they might want to get into them. Blizzard Esports is a little limited in that it only covers esports under the Blizzard banner. It won’t do much to help you understand the games being played if you’re completely new to them either, but for anyone with a bit of understanding and interest it’s a great addition to your app arsenal. For years Pocket has been helping people find the time to read all the articles they find online that would otherwise go ignored. You know the situation: you’re idly browsing but don’t have much time or should be doing something else, when you happen across an article that looks interesting. Maybe you plan to read it later and then forget, maybe you just resign yourself to the knowledge that it will go unread. But with Pocket, you can save it to a reading list so it won’t be forgotten, and make it available both offline and on just about any device with an internet connection, so you can read it wherever and whenever. It’s a great app, but as of recently Pocket has got even better, as now you can also listen to articles you’ve saved, so you don’t even need to read them. Pocket’s look has also been updated in an attempt to make it more pleasant to read from for long periods. So if you’re not already using it there has never been a better time to start. Google HomeGoogle Home isn’t a new app, but it has recently been overhauled, making it now perhaps the best solution for managing your smart home, particularly if you have smart home devices from a number of different brands. That’s because Google Home now lets you control them all from within the app. Or, at least, it does with most things. Inevitably some devices probably won’t be supported, but thousands are from hundreds of brands. You simply link them up to the Google Home app, then you can assign them to a room in your house, so that for example every smart device in your living room is grouped together. You can see all your devices from the main screen though, divided into these groups, and you can interact with some of them in a limited way from there (for example turning lights on or off) or tap on the device to do more with it (such as adjusting the brightness). You can also invite other members of your household to the app, so they can also manage smart devices from it, and the only real limitation is that some functionality isn’t supported. For example, with LIFX lights you can’t currently adjust the colors from Google Home, and with our Honeywell thermostat we can’t adjust schedules. But for the basics it’s a lot easier – and smarter - than jumping between multiple apps for all your smart devices. LetterboxdIf you’re a movie lover then you might already know about Letterboxd, and if you don’t you should. It lets you keep track of movies you’ve watched, add them to your list with a single tap, review them, give them a star rating, and say when you watched them. It also lets you keep track of what you want to watch, thanks to a comprehensive film database and the ability to add films to a watch list – again with a single tap. Letterboxd helps you discover films by highlighting what’s currently popular, and offering thousands of lists created by users of the app. These lists all have a theme, and while that’s sometimes as simple as someone’s favorite movies, usually it’s a lot more interesting than that, for example one list is titled “They aren’t films, they’re experiences”. Of course, you can also make lists of your own, and Letterboxd is a bit of a social network too, letting you follow other users and comment on their lists. Our favorite free Android apps for working out, reducing stress and crafting meals. myCrewmyCrew is a social running app designed to help you find new runs and people to run with. Once you’ve selected your city (with options currently limited to a handful of major locations across the world, but more set to be added over time), you can browse runs that are happening in the area. These are a mix of big, professionally organized runs and smaller scale ones organized by users of the app. Each run has a description, a distance, a map and more, and you can select to join it with a tap. Then you just need to show up and get running. You can also host your own runs, which could be anything from a short regular route where you’d like some company, to something long and challenging. There’s a tab highlighting other people on the app too, so you can chat to people before you go running with them. Ultimately, myCrew is a social network and event calendar for runners, and its social approach makes it a bit different to most running apps. The only real issue at the moment is the lack of cities available, but a number of big ones such as London and New York are covered. Workout AlertsIf you work in an office, then chances are you’re not moving around enough during the day. There are tools to help with that, such as the movement reminders that are built into some fitness trackers, but Workout Alerts goes a step further. Rather than just reminding you to move regularly, it sets you a random exercise to complete. These exercises aren’t too taxing or time-consuming, usually just consisting of around 10-20 reps of something and taking no more than a couple of minutes, but they’re a lot better than just walking around for a minute or two, and far, far better than staying sat. The exercises don’t require any equipment, so you can do them almost anywhere, and there are both animations and descriptions explaining how to do them. There’s even an optional modified version of each exercise which you can tackle if you’d prefer. You can also set the days, time range and frequency that you get the Workout Alerts and for the most part it’s totally free. The only time fees appear is if you want to swap an exercise for another one or clear ‘Missed’ or ‘Skipped’ exercise stamps. None of that is likely to be very necessary, and if you do want it you can buy credits or just pay $4.99/£4.69 to be able to do those things an unlimited amount. Easy PedometerEasy Pedometer joins the many existing pedometer apps on Android, but this new option stands out in a couple of ways. For one thing, it’s packed full of achievements you can unlock for both daily goals and more long-term objectives, such as walking the same distance as it would take to circle the Earth. That should help keep you motivated, as should leaderboards comparing you to friends and strangers, the ability to level up when you take a certain number of steps, and a custom daily step goal. Easy Pedometer also tells you the distance you’ve walked, your active time and takes a guess at the calories you’ve burnt from walking each day, and keeps a log of this for a year, so you can see a lasting record. There’s a lot here and it’s all wrapped up in an attractive package. It’s an app that seems to have arrived fully-formed, with the type of feature-set and level of polish on day one that many apps take years to reach. The only real issue we have with Easy Pedometer is that sometimes it makes you view an advert for a few seconds when moving between screens. We’d love an option to get rid of adverts with a one-off IAP, but at the moment that’s just not possible. Cocktail FlowCocktails aren’t the simplest drinks in the world to make, especially if you want to go beyond the basics, but Cocktail Flow helps make them more approachable. The app includes recipes for a number of cocktails (complete with lists of the ingredients and equipment you’ll need). And if you’re not sure what you want to make you can also browse based on the spirit you want to use or the type of cocktail, such as ‘creamy’ or ‘tropical’. You can also save any favorites, and if you’re intimidated by some of the skills needed to master them (such as making crushed ice and citrus twists), there’s a tips library to help. Cocktail Flow is a nicely designed, easy to navigate app too. It’s not new, but it has recently had a makeover, so if you’ve tried it before it’s worth revisiting. All of the basics are free, but you can massively expand the app’s cocktail library and add extra features – such as the option to add your own cocktails to the app – with a monthly $5/£4.49 subscription. WoebotWoebot was selected by Google as one of the best apps of 2018 and with good reason, as it could make a real difference to your life, especially if you’re struggling with mental health issues. The app is basically a chatbot, but one which checks in with you daily to assess your mood and helps you work through any problems you might have, using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy principles. It tells stories with a message behind them, and provides tools and exercises to help you change your thinking, so you’ll hopefully end up feeling more positive in yourself, even if you can’t change what’s going on around you. As well as daily check ins you can also message Woebot any time you want to chat or feel down, and while it won’t replace actual therapy it’s a handy, always available tool that you’ll likely be thankful for when you need it. EndomondoEndomondo is one of the oldest Android fitness apps and it’s still one of the best, thanks in part to regular updates. It’s packed full of features, letting you track not just running, cycling and walking but also more than 60 other activities -, so if there’s a sport you do, chances are Endomondo has some tools to help you monitor it. GPS monitoring lets you track statistics such as distance and pace, but you can also manually log indoor workouts or anything else where GPS won’t be much use. Additionally, Endomondo can be paired with other accounts and wearables, such as the Fitbit app and heart rate monitors, allowing it to sync data with them. With custom goals, challenges (that in some cases even have prizes) and the ability to compete with friends, there’s a lot to keep you motivated and the app itself is slick and easy to use. All of these features are free, but you can unlock various extra tools such as personal training plans and advanced statistics if you subscribe to Endomondo Premium, which costs £9.99 (around $13) per month, though it’s only around a third of that price if you commit to a year. Google FitGoogle’s official health and fitness app, Google Fit has been around for a while, but it’s now been overhauled and is better than ever as a result. At the heart of the overhaul there’s ‘Move Minutes’ and ‘Heart Points’. The former records your general movement throughout the day and aims to encourage you to make small changes, such as walking up stairs rather than taking the elevator. Heart Points reward you not just for the amount of time you’re active but for how much you raise your heart rate - a feature which really helps the app stand out. In line with most fitness apps, the core features are still available; you can track various workouts, monitor and adjust your goals, and even get some basic customized tips and coaching, based on the activity that you do. Seven – 7 Minute Workout Training ChallengeSeven – 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge promises to get you fit in just seven minutes a day, and while a longer workout might do you more good, we can’t deny that this got our hearts racing. There’s a wide variety of exercises and workouts, with an animated man or woman showing you how to do each one, along with an optional text explanation. So far, so standard, but Seven also doles out achievements, lets you add friends for some friendly competition and has specific training plans for different goals. For example, if you tell the app you want to lose weight, it will give you different workouts to if you want to increase your mobility. The exercises in Seven don’t require any equipment, so you can do them from home or even your office if you have a bit of space, and you can create your own workouts too if there are specific exercises that you like. Seven is partially free, but there’s an optional US$9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription which unlocks additional workouts, exercises and personalized workout plans. If you like the free version, it could be worth considering. Our favorite free Android apps for making music, listening to music, finding podcasts and everything else to do with audio. Aroundsound Audio RecorderAroundsound Audio Recorder is a seemingly simple audio recording app with a surprising amount to it. It’s designed to allow you to quickly and easily record any sound with a single tap - be it a conversation, the wind in the trees, or anything else. Recordings are saved automatically, named based on the time of day, and given a location tag. Tapping on a recording then plays it back. Simple. You can also adjust the recording quality, pause a recording and continue the same recording later, trim a recording or edit out unimportant parts, and share recordings with people or apps as a web link, so there’s no need for others to have the Aroundsound app or to download a file in order to listen to your recordings. You can also change the names of your recordings and add bookmarks to important points in them, so you can easily find the key parts later. These bookmarks can even have a note attached. Plus, you can back up your recordings to the cloud, so they’ll never get lost. There’s a lot here, but most of its stays out of the way, so if you want to stick to the basics you won’t find endless buttons and toggles intruding on the experience. Sound AmplifierSound Amplifier is an app from Google designed to enhance audio when using headphones. Well, we say an app, but it won’t appear in your app drawer and you can’t launch it as such. Instead, you’ll find it in the Accessibility section of your phone’s main settings screen, and only when wired headphones are connected. Once there, you can reduce unwanted sounds, adjust the mic volume and boost or fine tune the audio from one or both sides of your headphones. The primary purposes of the app are to make sound clearer by increasing quiet sounds without over-boosting loud sounds, and to reduce background noise so you can better focus on the audio. It did a fairly good job in our tests, but there’s one major issue, namely the need for wired headphones. This of course is a problem for anyone who prefers to go wireless, and even more of a problem on the ever-growing number of phones that lack a 3.5mm headphone port. The app also seems as though it could really benefit those with hearing issues, yet many such people use wireless hearing aids, which won’t be compatible with it. Hopefully Google will drop the need for wires before too long. Radio by DeezerRadio by Deezer is a slick if slightly basic radio player app, and although it comes from Deezer (a company known primarily for its Spotify-like subscription service) it’s free to use. The app has around 30,000 FM and online radio stations sorted into various categories, such as ‘pop’ and ‘rock’. So you can browse them that way, or search for a specific station. Stations that you recently played or play the most often will be added to lists on the ‘My Stations’ tab, though in a weird omission there’s no way to manually add stations to your favorites. You can however favorite songs that are being played, but unless you have a Deezer subscription this will just show you a list of them, rather than actually letting you listen to them again. It’s an app that needs work, but it looks good, is easy to navigate and makes for a great companion to the main Deezer service. BBC SoundsBBC Sounds brings all of the BBC’s live radio content and podcasts to one app, so you can listen live on your phone, and subscribe to and stream podcasts. BBC Sounds also lets you pick up where you left off on another device, so if you get halfway through a podcast on your phone, you’ll be able to start from that point on your tablet automatically. It can also recommend content based on what you’ve been listening to, so it’s a good way to discover new things. It’s basically iPlayer for radio (in fact the plan is for it to ultimately replace BBC iPlayer Radio) and if you listen to a lot of BBC content it’s arguably a smarter, better choice than listening on a radio or using another podcast app. At the moment the BBC Sounds app is UK-only, but given that the iPlayer Radio app is available globally we wouldn’t be surprised if BBC Sounds is one day too. SW True-Fi BetaSW True-Fi Beta aims to maximize the potential of your headphones by tuning sound settings specific to the headphones you have plugged in. You do this by selecting yours from a long list of supported headphones, then True-Fi does the rest. But you can also adjust the sound according your age and make manual tweaks to aspects of it, such as the bass. The adjustments only work when playing music through the SW True-Fi Beta app, but that needn’t be a problem, as not only can it play local music files, it can also connect to Spotify and play music from there. Not all headphones are currently supported, which is the main limitation of the app, but if yours aren’t then you can contact the company to ask them to be added. 1lyrics1lyrics is designed to show the lyrics to songs as you listen to them, but handily you don’t need to play the songs in 1lyrics itself, instead it supports numerous music players, including ones that use locally stored songs, and streaming players, such as Spotify. Just start listening to a track on your player of choice then open 1lyrics and it should show the lyrics to the current song. In some but not all cases it will even scroll them in time with the music. Lyrics that you’ve viewed in the past are saved, so you can access them at any time, even if you’re not currently listening to the song in question, and it’s quite an attractive app, pulling in artwork for the songs it provides the lyrics to. There are some caveats here. For one thing, it doesn’t currently work with all music players, though more are set to be supported over time. It also doesn’t have lyrics for every song, though we tried some semi-obscure stuff and it found lyrics without any issue, so you should be able to get lyrics for most things. AnchorAnchor is both an app for both listening to podcasts, and creating and sharing your own. It’s that second part that’s the most interesting. You can record audio straight from the Anchor app, or import recordings. You can also add friends to a recording, even if they’re elsewhere in the world, allowing you to have a recorded conversation that you can use as a podcast. You can add various sound effects, and rearrange and edit parts of the podcast, so you’re not limited to a single audio file. Once you’re done you can share your podcast, not just on Anchor itself, but also on the likes of Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts. When it’s out in the world, you can use Anchor to track how many listeners it has, and which parts of the podcast are most played. If all you want to do is listen to podcasts then there are other apps that do the job just as well or better (Pocket Casts is always a favorite), but Anchor is a slick, simple way to get into podcasting yourself. ClockGoogle Clock (or simply ‘Clock’) is a fairly ordinary clock app in many ways, but it has the polish you’d expect from Google and is now better than ever, thanks to Spotify integration, meaning you can set a Spotify song or playlist as your alarm. That instantly gives it an advantage over many clock apps, and the fact that Google Clock is free doesn’t hurt either. Beyond that you get a timer, a stopwatch, the ability to create and save multiple alarms, and the option to view times for other parts of the world. Of course, it also has Wear OS integration, so all of your alarms and timers can be synced with your wrist, and there are several options to tailor the app to your preferences, such as being able to change the clock style and the snooze duration. Google PodcastsThere are plenty of podcast apps already but when Google makes one it’s worth paying attention, and Google Podcasts doesn’t disappoint, instantly reaching the heights of the best free ones. It’s got a minimalist design that’s light on color, but the app’s not light on features, as it automatically syncs podcasts across devices, so you can start listening on one and finish on another, it works with Google Home and you can launch straight into podcasts from Google Assistant and the Google Search app. Google Podcasts also gives you recommendations based on your listening history and preferences, so it’s a decent way to find new content, and there are other tools, such as the ability to change the playback speed. None of which would matter if it didn’t get the basics right, but it does, letting you subscribe to podcasts and highlighting new episodes on the main screen, letting you stream or download podcasts, and providing lists of the top podcasts in various categories. Drum Pads – Beat Maker GoDrum Pads – Beat Maker Go is a drum machine which lets you easily make beats on the go. There are numerous sound packs split across various genres, such as dubstep, EDM and hip-hop, and once you select one you can get tapping on the drum pad. There are various effects that you can apply to your track, such as distortion and delay, you can create loops and save your finished pieces, then share them with friends. Drum Pads is accessible enough that beginners should be able to have fun with it (though some trial and error will be required), but there’s enough here to appeal to more advanced users too. Ringtone Maker & Music EditorIt’s probably fair to say that most ringtones that come with phones aren’t very exciting, and while you can easily set a locally stored song as your ringtone, you won’t necessarily want the whole thing. That’s where Ringtone Maker & Music Editor comes in. First, you can get this app to scan your device for any stored audio files, sort them by track, album or artist, then select the one that you want to turn into a ringtone and you’ll be able to choose a start and end point – handy for cutting boring intros. You can type out exactly what point in the music you want to start and end the ringtone down to the millisecond, and you can also cut parts of the music, copy and paste parts, or even meld multiple audio files together. There’s also a basic recording feature built in, so you can record your own ringtones and then edit them. Once done, you can save your ringtone and assign it either system-wide or to a specific contact. Ringtone Maker is easy to use and supports various file types, including MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, MP4 and 3GPP/AMR, and the only real issue it has is the number of adverts, but there’s a pro version that gets rid of them for US$3.99/£3.29. Phonograph Music PlayerWhile many of us have moved to streaming music, there is still a place for locally stored music on Android, and Phonograph is one of the better players. Phonograph puts aesthetics and ease of use first, so it’s always pleasant to operate. The app has a Material Design look that fits with Google’s vision of Android, but it’s also packed full of album art and color, so there’s never a dull screen. You can also customize the colors and overall theme and look of the app, while the color of the main ‘now playing’ screen will change based on the album artwork of the current track. The layout is simple too, with your music library sorted by song, album, artist or playlist, and you can switch between views with a swipe, while most other options are no more than a tap away. Although not as feature-packed as some players, Phonograph has a number of handy extras and toggles, like gapless playback, information and images pulled automatically from Last.fm, a sleep timer, widgets and lock screen controls. TimbreTimbre’s full name is ‘Timbre: Cut, Join, Convert mp3’, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about it: this is an app for cutting, joining and converting files. But the MP3 bit in the name rather undersells it, because Timbre can also work its magic on WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, PCM, AIFF, Ogg, WMA, ALAC, MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV, WebM, MKV and MPEG files. You can convert from one file type to another, which is handy if, for example, your music or video player doesn’t like a specific file type. You can also trim down audio and video files, or combine several files into one, which you might want to do if you’re editing together a video with multiple scenes, or making a mixtape. Those are the headline features of Timbre, but there are also tools to remove audio from a video file, split a single audio file into two parts, and change the bitrate of an audio file. All of these things are simple to do, with Timbre sporting a clear interface, and it’s completely free as well. Our favorite free Android apps for taking notes, writing and editing documents and generally working on the move. HiHello Contact ExchangeBusiness cards are a somewhat dated concept but they still serve a purpose, so in an attempt to bring them into the 21st century, HiHello Contact Exchange makes them digital and even easier to share than the physical kind. The app lets you create multiple different cards containing different information. You might for example have a work card that contains your work email and job title, while a personal card could have your personal email and Facebook link. Lots of different things can be added to each card though, including your phone number, website, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. To share a card you just launch the HiHello app, tap on the card you want to share, tap the share button to display a QR code and then the person receiving it simply points their phone camera at the QR code to get it. Alternatively you can email or text the card to someone, so unlike a conventional business card they don’t need to be physically present to receive it. And the card can be saved to their phone’s address book, meaning they don’t need the HiHello app themselves. Notes by FirefoxNotes by Firefox is a very simple note-taking app, ideal if you just want to jot down basic notes without wrestling overbearing interfaces and unwanted options. The look is minimalist, with a mostly white screen housing all your current notes. You can tap on one to open and edit it, tap the plus button to make a new note, or tap the minus next to a note to delete it. There are a few formatting options – you can create bullet points or numbered lists, add headings and use bold and italics, but that’s about it. However, Notes by Firefox does have a few tricks up its sleeve, as it syncs between your Android device and the Firefox browser on your desktop, so you can access your notes from multiple devices, and they’re secured with end-to-end encryption. Other than that, this is a basic app, but if you’re not a power user it should be all you need, and it’s completely free. QuipQuip is an office suite built for teams, as not only can you create documents and spreadsheets, you can also share them with others and work on them collaboratively. It supports real-time messaging too and while this app will mostly be of use for teams of people who work together it could also be used for other things, such as shared grocery lists and to-do lists. You can access it all from your phone, tablet or computer, so you’ll never be far from the work and information you need, and Quip is quite full-featured when it comes to actually creating documents and spreadsheets, as for example it supports over 400 spreadsheet functions. You probably won’t want to make much use of them from a phone, but if you’re on a tablet then Quip is a great way to work on the move, and even on a phone it can be good for reading, editing and commenting on work. Otter Voice NotesOtter Voice Notes is a voice recorder, but that’s just the beginning. It also uses AI to automatically turn the recordings into written text so you can read them back rather than having to listen to them. The app also lets you search for keywords, so you can find exactly the piece of information you’re looking for in seconds, even in long recordings. This all makes it a great tool for recording meetings, lectures and the like, especially since Otter can be trained to recognize voices and you can tag who’s talking, so that even in text form you can see the true flow of a conversation. You can also create groups with other Otter users if you want to share recordings, and all of your recordings are saved in the cloud so you can access them anywhere and don’t have to store them on your Android device. The text transcription isn’t perfect (though Otter claims it will get better over time if it’s you talking, as it gets to know your voice better), but it’s reasonably accurate in our experience and you can always go in and make changes to the text manually. TouchPal KeyboardTouchPal is a truly feature-packed keyboard, and an enormously customizable one at that. Not only can you select from thousands of free themes, you can also create your own, picking a key color and adding a background image or color. All the usual settings are also available, letting you customize the keyboard height and width, change the key layout, enable or disable auto-correct and much more. There’s also a ‘Curve’ mode, which lets you swipe across keys to select them rather than tapping, and more uniquely a ‘Wave’ setting that builds on predictive text by putting AI-driven next word suggestions under the keys as you type. You can also access various emoji and GIFs from the keyboard, bring up a Google search and use voice typing. None of that would matter if TouchPal was slow or inaccurate, but in our tests it works well – just as long as you take the time to get it set up how you want it. Files by GoogleChances are you already have some kind of file manager on your phone, but Files by Google is still worthy of attention, as it’s made by Google and has many rivals beat. There’s two parts to it. First, the ‘Storage’ section which highlights all the ways you might be able to clear space on your device, such as by deleting duplicate or large files, moving files to your SD card and deleting rarely used apps. Then there’s the ‘Files’ section, which is a file explorer, letting you dive into the folders on your phone so you can find, open, rename, delete or share specific files. The whole app is colorful and easy to navigate as well, with an interface seemingly inspired by Google Now’s cards. EvernoteEvernote is an excellent app for your Android device that lets you stash and sync all your text notes, voice memos and files on your phone and access them through a desktop computer. It's a brilliant productivity tool that lets you organize and search your notes so you always have exactly what you need at your fingertips. The paid premium version unlocks offline access and use on an unlimited number of devices, among other things, but for free you still get a vast, feature-packed digitial notebook that's easy to navigate. Our favorite free Android apps for improving productivity, whether through to-do lists, focus timers or other tools. Calendar NotifyCalendar Notify is designed to make your upcoming calendar entries more visible, so that rather than having to open your calendar you can see them on your status bar, as well as optionally on the lock screen and as a widget on your home screen. You can customize the look and size of these calendar displays and the app works with your existing Android calendar, so you don’t have to start using something else. The core Calendar Notify app is free, but for a one-off purchase of £3.39 (around $4.50) you can unlock the Premium Edition, which is packed full of extra features, most notably a range of advanced customization options, giving you near total control over the design and layout. WishlistIf you ever have trouble remembering people’s birthdays then Wishlist is for you, as it lets you create a list of important dates for the people you care about. Other apps do this too, but with Wishlist you can set a notification to go off in advance of the date, so you have warning that it’s coming up. That too can be handled by some other apps, but Wishlist does it automatically. Just set how many days before a date you want a notification and that setting will be applied to all dates in the app. Ideally, we’d like to be able to set multiple notifications – one in advance and one on the date, for example, but this is a good start. Wishlist isn’t just for dates, either. As the name suggests, it can also be used to build up lists - in this case of present ideas for people - so each contact saved to Wishlist can have their own list of potential presents. That means if you ever see something that you think someone might like, you won’t have to buy it months in advance of their birthday or hope you remember it, you can just add it to a list. There are fields for not just the name of a gift idea, but also website links, the price, any notes, an image, and a priority rating out of 10. Beyond all that you can also add a phone number to any contact you add to Wishlist and can then message or call them from the app. The idea is presumably for Wishlist to become your main dialer app, though we’re not convinced you’ll want to make that change right now as the interface is quite bare bones. But for its date and list features it could make a good companion to your existing apps. InboxItInboxIt doesn’t try to do everything. Rather, the app does one thing, but does it very well. That one thing is emailing things to yourself, be it photos, videos, URLs or text. You might not think that you need a separate app to send yourself an email, but InboxIt speeds up the process. Once you’ve set the app up you simply tap the ‘Share’ icon on the content you want to send, then select InboxIt and the content will automatically be emailed to you. No need to select an email address, type out a subject or anything else. And if you’re in the habit of emailing yourself reminders, you can do that from InboxIt too. Just launch the app, select ‘New reminder’, type one out and hit ‘Save’. You can set the free version of InboxIt to send things to a Gmail address, which will probably suit most people just fine. But if you want to use a different email you can pay $0.99/£0.99 to unlock premium features, which also include the ability to use Gmail labels and a custom email subject prefix. HoldIf you’re anything like us then you probably open Facebook or Twitter about 600 times a day on your phone, even when you know nothing has changed and that you should be doing something far more important. But if you’re anything like us then you’re also motivated by rewards, and Hold gives you them for not using your phone. Simply activate it and put your phone down, and you’ll receive 10 points for every 20 minutes that you resist the lure of your apps and messages. These points can then be exchanged for rewards. These change over time and depend on what country you’re in, but examples include free popcorn at the cinema and free contact lenses. You don’t have to bank very many points for some of the rewards either, with many being available for as little as 20 points. And if free and discounted stuff isn’t enough incentive to stay off your phone, how about a little friendly competition? You can link up with your pals in the app and compete to get the most points. Your Phone CompanionYour Phone Companion is a companion app for a PC app called – you guessed it – Your Phone. The companion app itself doesn’t do much, other than allowing the main desktop app to do its job of showing your phone’s photos and SMS messages on your Windows 10 PC. Both can be browsed, photos can be downloaded, and messages can even be sent and received on your desktop, so you don’t have to keep turning back to your phone. While that’s ‘all’ the app does, those two features could be very useful for anyone who spends a lot of time at their computer, or who tends to email themselves photos to get them onto their PC. It’s worth noting that Google Photos does the photo part too, and is better at it, since it’s a full-featured gallery app, but this is a good alternative for anyone not already using that. OnedoxOnedox describes itself as a digital P.A. for your household bills, and that’s fairly accurate. The app lets you link accounts for your household bills, such as gas, electricity, internet, Netflix, Spotify and more, then shows you details of each billing, all on one screen. The app also shows you renewal dates – so you’ll know when prices might be changing and when you can shop around for a new deal. Tapping on any account will show additional details, such as previous bills, price changes, and any notes you’ve added to the account. It makes staying on top of your bills a lot easier and ensures you can always have a clear idea of exactly how much you’re spending. The only downside – other than the fact that this is UK-only right now – is that not all accounts are supported. For example, some gas companies can’t currently be added. However, Onedox is adding new companies and categories of bill all the time, so one day you really will be able to manage all your bills from one screen. Right now you’ll have to make do with managing most of them, which is still pretty handy. DatallyDatally is probably not one of Google’s best-known apps, but it deserves to be, especially if you have any interest in monitoring or conserving your data. The app lets you see how much data you’ve used in the last day, week or month, as well as telling you which apps are using the most data. It also has some clever extra features, two of which were added recently – so even if you’ve used Datally before it could be worth revisiting. There’s ‘Bedtime mode’, which disables data on your phone between two times that you set, which means that apps won’t be using data in the background while you sleep. Futhermore, ‘Emergency bank’ lets you set aside a portion of your monthly data allowance for emergencies. You decide how much and Datally will make sure you don’t use it accidentally. These join existing features such as the data saver mode, which blocks apps of your choice from using data when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi, plus you can view a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks, including information on whether you need a password for them. If you ever find yourself running low on data, then Datally is the app for you. InwareInware does one thing and does it well: it tells you about the device you’re running the app on. More specifically, it tells you just about every hardware detail, from the screen size and resolution, chipset, RAM amount and battery size, to far more in depth information, like the current speed each core is running at and the serial number. Inware can also tell you how much RAM is currently in use, how healthy the battery is, how hot the battery is, how much storage there is in total and in use, the build number, what security patch your device has, what GPU it has, the aspect ratio of the screen and plenty more besides. It goes way more in depth than your phone’s settings screen likely will, so if you’re ever curious about an aspect of your handset’s hardware or software, this is the app for you. Envision AIVisual impairments are one of many things that technology has made slightly easier to live with, and Envision AI is a prime example of how tech can help. Point your phone’s camera at whatever’s in front of you, press a button, and the AI will examine it and say out loud what it thinks it’s seeing. Descriptions can be moderately detailed, taking in multiple objects in a scene (for example a computer monitor and the desk it’s sat on). With common objects it all seems quite accurate, though testing it on more unusual things, such as a wooden sculpture of an elephant, led to more mixed results. As well as scenes, Envision AI can also read out text, even if it’s handwritten (though unclear handwriting will again lead to mixed results). So it’s not perfect, but Envision AI could make a big difference to anyone who struggles to see or read on their own. EmmaEmma helps you keep a close eye on your money. Link all your bank accounts (including credit cards) and you’ll be able to see all their balances in one place. But that’s just the beginning. Emma also tells you how much money you have in total across all your accounts, as well as how much debt you have, and how much money you gain or lose in total each month. It also lists all transactions and has a good stab at putting them into categories, such as shopping, transport or bills. This also means you can see at a glance how much you’re spending in each category, which is a good way to make you more aware of your spending and potentially reduce it. You can change any miscategorized spends, see a list of recurring payments, get a weekly breakdown of spending and income, and more. Of course, Emma is secure too. It uses SSL 256-bit encryption, supports fingerprint locking and doesn’t store your banking credentials. Emma is an essential app if you have accounts with more than one bank, but even if you don’t, chances are that it gives you a lot more insight into your money than your bank does. The only real downside is that it’s UK-only. Starling BankStarling Bank is more than just an app. In fact, it’s a bank account, but it’s a modern one that’s entirely app-based. That means there are no branches and there’s no web access. That could sound daunting, if the prospect of changing bank account isn’t already off-putting enough, but in fact having everything in an app keeps things simple, and there are some powerful tools here not offered by most conventional banks. For example, it has zero ATM withdrawal fees or transaction fees when using your card abroad, it lets you temporarily or permanently lock your card in-app, and you can enable or disable contactless payments, ATM withdrawals and online payments, for extra security. You can also send in-app requests to friends and family who owe you money (and who don’t need Starling themselves to pay you back), receive instant notifications for income and outgoings, and a whole lot more. As for changing your bank to take advantage of all this, well, you don’t necessarily have to. After all, there’s no real downside to having two bank accounts, but if you do decide you want to go all-in with Starling Bank that’s simple too, as there’s an account switching service that does all the hard work for you. This one’s for UK users only, but there are similar app-based banks elsewhere, such as Simple in the US. Pet Care DiaryPet Care Diary is a fairly simple but potentially very useful app for keeping track of when your pet needs feeding, cleaning, walking or whatever else. Essentially, it’s like a calendar or to-do list, where you can set up events and reminders, but they’re all focused on your pet, and if you have more than one pet you can set up individual profiles for each, where you can see every upcoming event and reminder, as well as previous ones. You can also add comments to each reminder, as well as assigning a category, such as ‘food’ or ‘veterinary care’. Pet Care Diary is probably most useful if you have a high-maintenance pet or multiple pets with their own schedules and needs, but if you ever find yourself putting pet-related things in your calendar, or forgetting to do them, then it’s definitely worth having. The core app is free, but for US$2.99/£3.99 you can unlock the pro version, which removes adverts and lets you create an unlimited number of pet profiles, among other things. Opera TouchOpera Touch is a browser that’s designed to be used with one hand, with a ‘Fast Action Button’ that’s always visible and easy to reach at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it launches you straight into a web search, where you can type or speak your query. There’s even a barcode scanner here, so you can quickly look items up online without having to type their names. Gesture controls ensure you can navigate the rest of the interface with one hand, letting you switch to recent tabs, reload or close the current page or send it to your computer. That last one is powered by Opera Flow, which lets you share links, videos and the like between your phone and computer with a single tap or click – though of course to enable this you’ll also need to be running Opera on your PC. Opera Touch is also fairly secure, with features such as an ad blocker and even cryptocurrency mining protection, which reduces the risk of malicious sites using your phone to mine cryptocurrency in the background – an act that can drain your battery or even cause your phone to overheat. There are some missing features, most notably private browsing and a desktop mode. Hopefully they’ll be added at some point, but considering Touch’s focus on simplicity, they might not. Ecosia BrowserYou probably didn’t realize that you can save the world while browsing the net, but you can make a small difference by using Ecosia Browser, which uses its ad revenue to plant trees. Ecosia has already planted over 26 million trees thanks to its users, and for roughly every 45 searches you make another one will be planted. Beyond its environmental credentials, Ecosia is also a very competent browser. It’s based on Chromium so the look and feel is a lot like that of Google Chrome, meaning it’s likely to be familiar to you. It supports tabs, private browsing and bookmarks, lets you view your history, allows autofill of forms and has various privacy controls, so you don’t have to sacrifice a feature-packed browsing experience to help the Earth. Our favorite free Android apps for customizing and improving the security of your device. HiyaScam callers and other unwanted calls seem to be getting ever more frequent but fortunately there are ways to tackle them, such as Hiya. This app has a database of numbers, so it’s often able to identify who’s calling, as well as flagging spam calls. There are also tools in the app that let you automatically block ‘scam and fraud calls’, ‘suspected spam calls’ and calls from private numbers. Hiya can also identify the sender of text messages, and there’s a Call Screener tool, which blocks calls from unidentified numbers and sends them a text message asking them to identify themselves and call back. You can also manually block and look up numbers from within the app. It’s a handy, easy to use service, and while it’s not the only option (Truecaller which we’ve recommended before does a similar job), it’s a great choice. RedPapersThere are loads of wallpaper apps, but surprisingly few that will automatically cycle through designs so you can get new wallpapers on your phone without having to lift a finger. And those which do offer that service are often quite limited in terms of content. Not so with RedPapers. This app lets you pull images from any subreddit and have them set as the wallpaper for your home or lock screen. You simply type the subreddit name, pick how often you want the wallpaper to change (with a range of options from every 10 minutes to every 1 week), pick whether to sort the wallpapers by what’s hot or what’s new, and away you go. RedPapers itself is just a single screen where you select those options, so there’s not much to the app, and it’s not much of a looker in itself, but it’s really useful if you get bored of staring at the same wallpaper every day. SAFESAFE (which stands for Security Assessment Framework for Everyone) shows you at a glance how secure your Android device is, giving it several scores out of five – one for its configuration settings, one for connectivity, one for applications and one for the operating system. Higher is better and it factors in all kinds of things, including whether your SIM card is locked, to whether you allow installation from unknown sources, and whether you allow notifications to show their content on your lock screen. As well as the overall score for each category you can see a list of all these factors, with ones in red being ones that aren’t secure (in the app developer’s opinion). You can tap on each of these things for more details as well as a guide to making them secure. You probably won’t be aiming for a perfect score, especially as some things that SAFE puts in red will be intentional things that you want or need. For example, it considers location services and Bluetooth to be insecure. Still, it’s a good way to quickly and easily assess the security of your device and tighten it up if you feel the need. SAFE might even end up highlighting some vulnerabilities that you didn’t know about or hadn’t considered, which should be enough to make it worth a download. 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer InternetIf you ever use public Wi-Fi networks, then 1.1.1.1: Faster & Safer Internet is for you. That’s because public Wi-Fi is notoriously lacking in privacy and security. There’s a chance the provider will sell your browsing data and it also allows other people – if they have the skills – to snoop on your browsing data. But 1.1.1.1 helps stop either of those things from happening by changing your DNS resolver to one managed by Cloudflare (the company that makes this app). It promises never to sell your data or use it to target adverts, and by browsing through Cloudflare you’re also hiding your data from any other potential snoopers. As an added bonus, you might even get a speed boost, as Cloudflare’s DNS resolver is the fastest public one. The app is also completely free and easy to use – there’s just a single toggle to turn 1.1.1.1 on or off. That’s it. Google Family LinkThere are various Android apps designed to help monitor or control your child’s smartphone use, but now finally one has come from a big name, specifically Google. Google Family Link is actually two apps. There’s Google Family Link for Parents, which you’d be installing on your device, and Google Family Link for Children and Teenagers, designed to be installed on the devices of family members under 13. Once both are installed and set up, you can use your device to view your child’s smartphone activity, choose which apps to allow, set screen time limits, lock their device, control in-app purchases and locate their device. Google Family Link is a useful set of tools for making sure your child isn’t accessing content they shouldn’t, using their phone when they shouldn’t, or spending money, or it can be used as more of a safety feature to locate them when they’re not with you. It’s also completely free. RememBearRememBear is a simple, surprisingly cute password manager full of bears. Simply add all your passwords to it, lock them behind a master password or fingerprint, and RememBear can auto-fill login forms with them so you never have to remember them or type them again. RememBear can also generate new secure passwords, so you won’t have to think them up, and the data is synced across devices, so if you don’t have your phone to hand you can access your logins from a computer or other device. You can also store credit card details, there’s end-to-end encryption and there’s a built-in browser for secure web browsing. RememBear lacks some features offered by rivals like LastPass, such as favorites, but more features are likely to be added over time. It’s also free to use on a single device, though there’s a paid version that you’ll have to upgrade to for $35.99/£32.49 per year if you want to access your account on multiple devices. ProtonVPNTwo of the main reasons for using a free VPN are accessing geo-restricted content and maintaining your privacy and security online. ProtonVPN can help with both of those, and costs a lot less than most rivals. In fact, the core service is totally free, and there are no bandwidth restrictions, so you can use it as much as you want. There are no ads either, because it’s fully funded by optional paid subscriptions (starting at around $5/£3.50 per month). These unlock higher speeds, VPN servers in more countries and the ability to use ProtonVPN on more than one device. But for free you still get access to VPNs in three countries, and a whole lot more security than you’ll have without a VPN, as your activity will be encrypted and protected by Swiss privacy laws, and it won’t be logged. Norton App LockAlmost unavoidably there will be times when you have to hand your phone to someone else, be it to show them some pictures or let them make a call, but what you probably don’t want is the risk of them rummaging through your other apps. Or, equally, you might not be in the habit of handing out your phone, and not really want to have to unlock it every time you use it either, but still want security for your most sensitive apps. Either way, Norton App Lock can help, by, well, locking the apps of your choice, behind a PIN, pattern or fingerprint scan. The app itself is easy to use – just set up the security options you want, then tap the padlock next to any app you want to lock. Once done, you’ll get Norton’s lock screen whenever you (or anyone else) tries to launch the app. While Norton App Lock isn’t the only option for this it is the best we’ve come across, as it’s fast, loading the instant you tap on a secured app, rather than keeping you waiting. It’s also smart enough not to re-lock an app until you turn the screen off, and it has other handy features too, like one-tap locking of all the apps it thinks you should be securing. Our favorite free Android apps for planning a holiday, checking the weather and getting around without getting lost. PolarstepsThere are all sorts of apps designed for journaling your travels, but Polarsteps can do much of the work automatically. The app will track where you’ve been and add photos from your travels, giving you a map and gallery of all your trips, simply by having the app running in the background on your phone. You can make trips manually and add any photos it missed, but creating trips automatically means you’ll have at least a partial record of your adventures without doing anything. This might sound like it would hammer your phone’s battery, but in fact Polarsteps is designed to only use around 4% each day and it doesn’t even need to be connected to the internet, which is ideal if you’re traveling somewhere where data costs extra. You can keep your trips private or share them with friends and family, and by following people in the app you can see their journeys as they happen. Polarsteps is also nice to look at, easy to use and completely free, making it near essential for anyone who wants a visual record of their trips. OverdropOverdrop is yet another weather app, but it stands out more for its widgets than its forecasting skills. It has quite a lot of them, and many are beautifully designed, showing some combination of the weather, time, day, date and battery level. We’d be surprised if you can’t find one you like, and while some are reserved for the paid Overdrop Pro app, many are free. Beyond that, Overdrop is a perfectly accomplished weather app, with seven-day forecasts, nice animated illustrations, and information on things like cloud cover and humidity. Ventusky: Weather MapsThere’s a lot more to the weather than you’ll generally see in a typical forecast, and it can be a lot more interesting – and beautiful – than a simple temperature reading. Ventusky knows this, as it makes forecasts more engaging by including an attractive weather map and wind animation, complete with the current temperature shown on the map, so you can see exactly which areas are what temperature at a glance. Hourly forecasts let you see how the weather will change over the day and tapping on any hour or day will adjust the weather map accordingly. You can also view weekly charts of the temperature, precipitation and wind, so you can see how much it varies over time. Sunrise and sunset times are also available, so there’s a lot to sink your teeth into, but really Ventusky is all about that weather map and wind animation, which shows the motion and direction of the wind in a mesmerizing way. Facebook LocalFacebook Local is all about finding events and attractions nearby. It links to your Facebook account then shows a bunch of events listed on Facebook that are near your current or home location, or another place of your choice. Some of these will be from friends and pages that you follow, but it will also dig up other local public events, so you’re likely to discover things that you wouldn’t have found on your main Facebook feed. You can filter events and attraction by type, date, location or time, view them on a map and add them to your Facebook calendar, so it’s simple to control what you see and keep track of what you’re interested in. You can also add your phone calendar to the app, so you can see and manage everything in one place. More or less all of this stuff can be found on Facebook itself, but Facebook Local is a much more focused way to find out what’s going on around you, without all of Facebook’s many distractions, so it’s worth having on your phone even if you already have the main Facebook app. MoovitMoovit is the only app you need to navigate public transport wherever you might be in the world. Simply enter a destination and it will tell you how to get there from your current location (or you can set a different start point). Moovit will give you various route options using different forms of transport by default, but you can tell it to only include certain kinds of public transport, or to minimize walking or transfers. Select a route to see full step by step instructions or get live navigation. The app will tell you exactly where to go and even alert you when you’re nearing your stop so you don’t need to stare at your phone screen the entire journey. There are also timetables for buses and trains and you can save your favorite destinations or transit lines to quickly get directions and timetables in future. Moovit also has widgets, offline maps, and transport information for thousands of cities in over 80 countries. We weren’t kidding when we said it’s the only public transport app you’ll need. Trips by Lonely PlanetTrips by Lonely Planet is a visually beautiful way to share your travel experiences or view those shared by others. It’s essentially a journaling app designed for globetrotters. Create a new trip in the app, give it a title, subtitle and cover photo, then add your choice of photos, text and maps. Your trips can be kept private or shared publicly, you can edit them after posting, and of course you can view and favorite other people’s. There’s a slight social element in that you can follow other users, so you’ll always see any new trips they post, but mostly this is just about seeing the world from your phone and sharing your own trips with the world. Day One JournalWhile there’s still something to be said for keeping a paper journal, going digital gives you a lot more convenience, security and features, and Day One Journal is one of the best tools for the job. Having enjoyed years of popularity on iOS, it’s finally arrived on Android, bringing with it a slick interface that lets you see your journal entries by date, as a gallery of attached images, or on a map of the world with pins that take you to an entry made at each location. Making a new entry is as simple as tapping the big plus or camera icons on the main screen, depending on whether you want to start with a photo or text. Day One Journal adds the time and current weather to each entry automatically. You can also set reminders to help you get into the journaling habit, star your favorite journal entries to easily return to them, add tags, and get alerts for entries you made on this day in previous years, or at nearby locations. With optional fingerprint or passcode security, no unauthorized eyes will be able to access your memories. That’s all free, but there’s also an optional $24.99/£22.49 yearly subscription that lets you back everything up to the cloud, access your journal on multiple devices, keep multiple journals and more. It’s not cheap, but could be worthwhile if you get really into journaling. CitymapperArriving in a brand new city is always exciting but it can also be a little daunting, especially if you need to get around using public transport. Citymapper is a brilliant app that brings you real-time information on public transport for cities around the world. You can easily plan your route using all kinds of transport, from buses to ferries, and you can be kept up to date with real-time data, including any disruptions or cancellations. An essential app for any city-bound traveller. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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