Apple : New Microsoft Surface Duo leak hints that foldable may have underwhelming specs |
- New Microsoft Surface Duo leak hints that foldable may have underwhelming specs
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 release date, price and specs: all the RTX 3080 rumors
- OnePlus might be cooking up an AirPods rival for its OnePlus Z smartphone
- The all-new XPS 13 laptop gets a $100 price cut at Dell
- Those Apple-exclusive Ice Lake processors aren't faster than the 15W versions in other laptops
- Amazon Prime delivery times are slowly returning to normal
- Will the PS5 will beat the Xbox Series X in sales? Sony sounds confident
- Best business laptops 2020: top devices for small businesses and working from home
- Remote desktop developer Parsec captures million-dollar financing
- 256GB iPhone XS deals: quadruple your storage size for free with these bargains
- This LG 65-inch 4K TV is on sale for only $499.99 at Best Buy
- Apple AirTags: news, rumors, and what we'd like to see
- New Star Trek prequel show Strange New Worlds will feature Spock and Pike
- The best Amazon sales this week: iPad deals, cheap headphones and Xbox One bundles now available
- Cheap iPhone deals at Apple: price cuts on the iPhone SE, iPhone 11, and iPhone XR
- Best mirrorless camera 2020: the 12 best models on the planet
- The best Android apps of May 2020
- Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date, price, news and leaks
- Paid software and services available for free during the pandemic from Microsoft, Facebook and more [updated daily]
- The best Memorial Day sales 2020: deals from Home Depot, Best Buy, and more
| New Microsoft Surface Duo leak hints that foldable may have underwhelming specs Posted: 15 May 2020 01:47 PM PDT With rumblings about the Surface Duo possibly hitting the shelves earlier than its promised 'holiday 2020' release, more and more leaks surrounding Microsoft's dual-screen device should start circulating soon. In fact, it’s already begun, with the most recent report sharing some wildly specific claims about the device's specs. The foldable dual-screen device, which is set to have two 5.6-inch screens with 1800x1350 resolution each and run on Android, will have a Snapdragon 855 System on a chip (SoC) under the hood, according to Windows Central. That SoC will be paired with 6GB of memory, as well as 64GB or 256GB of storage. That’s not all. Apparently, the Surface Duo will also be touting a single 11MP camera lens, located above the right display so it can act as both the front- and rear-facing camera, AMOLED panel displays with a pixel density of 401, USB-C fast charging, and a 3,460mAh battery that should be enough to get your through an entire day on a single charge. Software-wise, the device will evidently run on Android 10, as speculated, but will be updated to Android 11 not too long after its release. It will also come with a number of pre-installed apps, which Microsoft is hoping to finalize by early June. These first-party apps will support spanning across both displays and feature drag and drop capabilities, unlike third-party apps whose dual-screen functionalities will be at the discretion of their respective developers. On the downside, the Surface Duo may not offer wireless charging, NFC capabilities and 5G support, which will disappoint quite a few people if true. Unfortunately, short of Microsoft confirming it themselves, we won’t know if these specifications are indeed accurate until the Redmond company is ready to share. So, we must take it with a grain of salt. Still, we can’t help but wonder at how strangely specific details are. Plus, Windows Central itself seems to hint at a Microsoft employee being its source for the leak.
Surface Duo already aging before its release?What’s more interesting about this leak is that Microsoft’s much-anticipated foldable might not even come with the latest parts. The battery is certainly not the long-lasting kind. The one camera it has is only 11MP, whereas the Galaxy S20 and iPhone 11 models have several cameras with 12MP sensors. This seems to dispute Microsoft's earlier claims that the device is going to have a world-class camera. Perhaps most notably, it doesn’t have the latest Snapdragon chip, which Windows Central says may be due to the fact that the Snapdragon 865 requires a separate 5G chip, and the Surface Duo's interior design was already finalized before this one tiny detail was revealed. The decision to use Snapdragon 855 may be a godsend here, as the chip’s successor requires more power and has a higher price tag. Besides, the 855 still offers plenty of power. With it under the hood, Microsoft might just be able to sell the Surface Duo at a more affordable price without compromising on performance. As for the rest of it, the Surface Duo’s innovation is in its foldable, dual-screen design and 360-degree hinge. And, at least in its early iterations, it was never going to be touted as the most powerful device on the market. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 release date, price and specs: all the RTX 3080 rumors Posted: 15 May 2020 01:30 PM PDT With the rumored Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 allegedly slated to hit the streets sometime this year, alongside the rest of the RTX 3000, speculation about the next-generation RTX cards have been stacking up. We’re now seeing a ton of leaks about the Nvidia Ampere, for example, the popular theory being that it will be the graphics architecture behind the next lineup of Nvidia GeForce GPUs. Nvidia recently announced Ampere for Data Center with no mention of PC gaming or GeForce, much in the same way it did when Nvidia Volta preceded the Nvidia Turing graphics cards. However, that doesn’t mean that we won’t actually see the GeForce RTX 3080 this year. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has already said that the 7nm Ampere microarchitecture will be used for all of its next-generation graphics cards, which presumably includes the next GeForce cards. So, we’re still holding on to hope that the Q3 2020 release theory holds water, especially with AIB partners said to be clearing out their stock to prepare for an Nvidia Ampere launch. As we inch closer to the RTX 3000’s rumored August 2020 launch date, speculations are only getting more specific. Leaked benchmarks – like that of an Nvidia GPU with 33 teraflops of theoretical floating point performance and an Nvidia graphics card with 124 compute units – are hinting towards what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 could look like. Meanwhile, a top-end Ampere consumer offering, most likely to bear the RTX 3080 Ti moniker, has also been leaked. And, it could usher in a new era of 4K gaming on PC. We gathered all the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 leaks, gossips and hints in one spot. Keep this page bookmarked, as we’ll keep it updated with all the latest RTX 3080 information that comes our way. Cut to the chase
RTX 3080 release dateFor a while, the rumor mill was suggesting that we're going to see the next GeForce lineup make an appearance at GTC, or the GPU Technology Conference in March. But, Nvidia has since canceled its ‘exciting’ GTC graphics card revelations. Since then, Nvidia has officially announced the Nvidia Ampere for Data Center. And, as expected, it did so before the RTX 3000 lineup, just like when it launched Volta in May 2017 more than a year before Turing. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like we have to wait until 2021 to get a glimpse of the next generation RTX cards. In the past, Nvidia GeForce lineups have been about two years apart. For instance, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 dropped back in May 2016, with the GeForce RTX 2080 succeeding it in August 2018. The time between the GTX 980 and GTX 1080 was a bit shorter, with the former arriving in September 2014. Still as a general rule, we've been able to historically count on there being a new lineup of graphics cards every couple of years. Tweaktown has reported that Nvidia plans to unveil the Ampere GPU architecture in August this year and launch it in September at Computex 2020. This is highly likely, as it’s similar to how Nvidia launched Turing at Gamescom back in August 2018, and would mark a straight 2-year cycle for the current-generation cards. Furthermore, AIB partners are said to be clearing out their stock now, allegedly in preparation for an Nvidia Ampere launch in Q3 2020. We’ve also heard that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which may be up to 40% faster than its predecessor and run with hugely fast boost clocks of up to 2.2GHz as well as 18Gbps video memory, could launch by the end of 2020. With how these things typically go, we won't actually know when the RTX 3080 is on its way until Nvidia is ready. In fact, we won't know if it'll even be called the RTX 3080. RTX 3080 priceBecause we're so far out from a potential GeForce RTX 3080 release, we obviously have no idea how much it will cost. But, that doesn't mean we can't do a bit of speculation about it. Nvidia Turing graphics cards saw a large price jump over their Pascal predecessors, and we'd almost expect the same to happen with whatever comes next. However, we have heard some rumors that suggest that the next-generation graphics cards will be more affordable. That said, this rumor revolves around another rumor that the cards will be manufactured using Samsung 7nm EUV (extreme ultraviolet) manufacturing process. We'd take that one with a grain of salt. One thing that absolutely needs to be taken into consideration when talking about RTX 3080 price is 'Big Navi'. When Nvidia Turing hit the streets it was basically completely unopposed by AMD. Even when Team Red dropped the Radeon VII in February 2019 it was totally incapable of dethroning the RTX 2080. Competition has definitely heated up since then, though. Both the Radeon RX 5700 series and the Radeon RX 5600 XT have caused Nvidia to drop prices in response, and the threat of 'Big Navi' supposedly beating the RTX 2080 Ti by 30% could force Nvidia to drop its prices to compete. Still, we won't know the RTX 3080's price until we see Nvidia lift the veil – or at least until more substantial leaks surface. RTX 3080 specsWe have seen a lot of really vague speculation and rumors surrounding supposed RTX 3080 specs, but there are some constants: that it’ll be 7nm and will be faster than the RTX 2080. That second one should be super obvious, of course – why would Nvidia put out new graphics cards if they're not significantly faster? The other rumor, the 7nm manufacturing process, is much more interesting. If you've been following the AMD vs Intel smackdown over the last year, you're probably aware that one of the things that's kept AMD on top of the CPU world is the fact that it's been able to fully adopt 7nm while Intel, at least when it comes to desktop, being stuck at 14nm. If Nvidia is able to adopt a 7nm manufacturing process for the RTX 3080, AMD won't have such an easy time dunking on it. If these rumors are actually true, it would mean that Nvidia could significantly boost performance - up to 50% according to some rumors - while boosting power efficiency significantly. When combined with DLSS, which will absolutely be a part of whatever graphics cards Nvidia puts out next, could potentially lead to 4K graphics cards being available in the mid-range sector for the first time. Exactly how much faster and more powerful the RTX 3080 would be, it’s too early to tell. However, there’s a Nvidia GPU with a whopping 33 teraflops, 24GB of memory and 1.11GHz clock that was recently spotted in a benchmark. While this card may be too powerful to be the RTX 3080, it could also hint towards what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 may look like. We have even seen some more specific spec leaks, notably one from hardware leaker KittyCorgi, who suggests that Nvidia's next-generation flagship could potentially come with up to 20GB of VRAM. Of course, this is a leak we'd take with a hefty dose of salt, but it could potentially prove our theory that the next graphics architecture Nvidia announces will in fact be for professionals. The Quadro RTX 6000, for instance, packs 24GB of GDDR6 - but it also costs $4,000 (£4,066, AU$6,999). Right now, if we had to put our money down, we'd suggest that these leaked specs are for an Nvidia Quadro or Tesla card, or maybe even the follow-up to the Nvidia Titan V. Whatever the GeForce RTX 3080 looks like, we seriously doubt we've seen it yet. Meanwhile, a massive leak from Moore’s Law is Dead reveals a GA102 GPU that will theoretically be Nvidia’s top-end Ampere consumer offering. It’s highly likely going to be named the RTX 3080 Ti, and looks to be an out-and-out beast of a graphics card with hugely fast boost clocks of up to 2.2GHz, offering 21 TFlops of raw performance, 18Gbps video memory – 864GB/s of memory bandwidth, around 40% more than the 2080 Ti (at 616GB/s), and PCIe 4.0 support. Other lesser graphics cards in the 3000 range have been revealed as well, and they may push those boost clocks to 2.5GHz. Moore’s Law is Dead argues that 4K graphics will become the mainstream standard with these new Ampere models. Don't worry, though. We'll keep our eyes open for the next generation of GeForce, and we'll be sure to update this article as soon as we see any juicy RTX 3080 spec rumors. 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| OnePlus might be cooking up an AirPods rival for its OnePlus Z smartphone Posted: 15 May 2020 12:51 PM PDT OnePlus could be making a rival to the Apple AirPods, a new source claims. According to the intel they provided, the new true wireless earbuds could be available starting in July, and could very likely be released alongside the new OnePlus Z smartphone. That’s all based on information obtained by Twitter user Max J who spoke to a “new but seemingly reliable source” privy to the information. Two things lend some truth to the claim: Max J found a teaser image for the earbuds all the way back in December and OnePlus is obviously having success in the wireless headphone space since it released the OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2. The idea that the company is working on a true wireless version of its successful wireless earbuds really isn’t that much of a stretch, and makes sense considering how many other companies are breaking into the space. Episode OnePlus: Attack of the ClonesIt's understandable if your knee-jerk reaction to this news is 'Oh no, not another pair of true wireless earbuds' but you can’t fault a headphone maker for following the trend. That’s true now as OnePlus prepares to follow the crowd of other true wireless earbud manufacturers, and it was true a few years ago when Apple followed others who were already making them. What is fair to say now, however, is that the onus is on OnePlus to attempt to innovate on the myriad models already out there or potentially face lower-than-average sales as people buy off-brand instead to save some money. Thankfully, OnePlus has done well to innovate in the past by implementing Warp Charge (10 hours of playback from 10 minutes of charge) and a triple-armature driver structure that made their OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2 sound great – so it’s likely that the company will find some way to innovate with their successors, too. Either way, if the rumors about the AirPods rivals are true and the earbuds are announced in July, we won’t have to wonder about them for very long.
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| The all-new XPS 13 laptop gets a $100 price cut at Dell Posted: 15 May 2020 12:39 PM PDT Just ahead of the Memorial Day sales event, Dell is slashing the price on the all-new XPS 13 laptop. For a limited time, you can get the Dell XPS 13 on sale for $899.99. That's a $100 discount and the best price we've found for the powerful laptop. Dell XPS 13 laptop deal:See more laptop sales with the best cheap laptop deals: prices start at just $129 today and shop more offers with the best Memorial Day sales 2020. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Those Apple-exclusive Ice Lake processors aren't faster than the 15W versions in other laptops Posted: 15 May 2020 11:21 AM PDT Though Intel is reportedly reserving its top-end 28W 10th-gen Ice Lake CPUs for Apple’s 13in MacBook, it appears these chips fail to offer a substantial performance advantage over their 15W counterparts. Following the launch of the MacBook Pro 13, the Intel Core i5-1038NG7 and Core i7-1068NG7 have started appearing on multiple benchmarking websites. It's rumored that Intel has reserved these 28W Ice Lake chips exclusively for Apple’s latest laptop, and they don’t come cheap: Apple is charging $1,799 (£1,799 / AU$2,999) for a Core i5-1038NG7 model, $1,999 (£1,799, AU$3,1000) for the Core i7-1068NG7 variant. However, as shown by early benchmarks, these 28W Ice Lake CPUs may not offer much of a performance advantage over their 15W counterparts.
As reported by Notebookcheck, the Intel Core i5-1038NG7 version of the MacBook Pro 13 scored just 9,050 points in 3DMark Fire Strike Physics, well below the 11,261 points achieved by the Core i5-1035G7 in the 13-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 3. This performance, according to hardware tipster @_rogame, also pales in comparison to that of Intel’s upcoming 10nm Tiger Lake-U series processors, which he claims will offer a 40% hike in both CPU and GPU performance. This lackluster performance is likely because of the MacBook Pro 13’s cooling system, as it’s a similar story with the Core i7-1068NG7; as noted by Notebookcheck, this processor - available in Apple’s priciest MacBook Pro models - racked up an equally-unimpressive score in Geekbench 5.1’s multi-core tests. We've reached out to Apple and Intel for comment, and we'll update this story if we hear anything from either company. Either way, we haven't had a chance to test the new MacBook Pro for ourselves yet, so we'd take these benchmark results with a grain of salt – we'll have our full review up very soon, so stay tuned.
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| Amazon Prime delivery times are slowly returning to normal Posted: 15 May 2020 10:10 AM PDT Amazon Prime delivery times are slowly returning to normal after the company suspended delivery of non-essential items to deal with the surge of orders at the beginning of the pandemic. At the end of March, the ecommerce giant put a halt on new shipments of non-essential items and even Prime deliveries were pushed back as far as a month to handle the uptick in orders. Even some Amazon warehouses were forced to close due to workers testing positive for Covid-19 which also impacted deliveries. Now though, it appears as if the slowdowns have passed as the company has said it has been able to speed up some deliveries and there are more goods coming into its facilities. Back in mid-April, Amazon lifted some restrictions on new goods coming into its fulfillment centers and this should help its operations begin to normalize.
Amazon deliveriesAmazon spokesperson Kristen Kish provided more details on the current state of the company's operations, saying: "We removed quantity limits on products our suppliers can send to our fulfillment centers. We continue to adhere to extensive health and safety measures to protect our associates as they pick, pack and ship products to customers, and are improving delivery speeds across our store." While Amazon did not provide details on its shipping times, CNET spoke to the founder of the research site Marketplace Pulse, Juozas Kaziukenas who said that two-day and one-day shipping is still inconsistent across the US. The good news is that month long delays are over but it will still be quite a while before the ecommerce giant is once again able to guarantee two-day nationwide shipping on non-essential items.
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| Will the PS5 will beat the Xbox Series X in sales? Sony sounds confident Posted: 15 May 2020 09:52 AM PDT Sony sounds pretty confident about sales of the PS5, based on a recent investor call. Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki was asked directly about the PS5 marketing strategy, and whether it's falling behind Xbox. He was specifically asked if he'd give a passing grade to what PlayStation had done. The answer was pretty clear: the sales will ultimately decide. That's according to a tweet from Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki. "We consider things strategically but doing our best," Totoki says. "As for pass or fail, I would wait for PS5 sales to make that judgement." Maybe it's just the way it's written down, but in response to a question specifically about Xbox it reads as pretty spicy. Sony's rollout of PS5 info has been pretty gradual, it's true. Microsoft has revealed what its console looks like as well as its specs, and it's committed to a major launch exclusive in Halo Infinite. Sony has discussed specs and revealed what the DualSense controller looks like, but we don't know what games it has planned for day one yet, nor have we seen the console itself. Still, there's a long way to go until its official release in 'holiday 2020', which probably means October, November or December.
Has Sony been too slow at marketing the PS5?It's fair to say Sony's approach to marketing the PS5 has been slower than it was with the PS4, which was revealed in February 2013 then released in November 2013. Still, Sony is in a very different position now than it was back in 2013, when it was coming off the back of its least successful home console, the PS3. Now, Sony are undoubtedly on top of the industry again sales-wise, and can afford to make decisions on its own time. Ultimately, whenever Sony is ready to talk about the PS5, everyone will be watching. This really isn't a case of whoever goes first wins. In fact, the longer it leaves Microsoft to reveal its strategy for marketing the Xbox Series X, the better equipped it is to make decisions based on the player response.
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| Best business laptops 2020: top devices for small businesses and working from home Posted: 15 May 2020 09:42 AM PDT The best business laptop needs to do more than just send emails and connect to the internet - it needs to be reliable, robust, and be just as easy to use for home working as it is for taking to the office, or events. In short, you need one of the best business laptops on the market, a powerful machine with the latest and greatest internal components as well as the best productivity features and the longest battery life. It's also worth considering which accessories you may need, such as the range of available laptop bags, docking stations, and portable chargers to keep the battery going. You also need to think about your laptop will have any specific needs. While Windows laptops are the most common, sometimes a Linux laptop will be more useful. Additionally, for outdoor use you may need a rugged laptop. Students may find themselves preferring a Chromebook. These considerations are essential whether you’ve got a small startup, a Fortune 500 enterprise, or a home office-based one-man team. And, with them in mind, we put together a list of the best business laptops on offer. So that whether it’s the best Ultrabook or the best mobile workstation or even a thin client you’re seeking, you won’t have to waste countless hours doing research. You’ll find something here to suit the needs of your business. If you’re looking for something with a bit more oomph though perhaps not as portable, you might just be looking for the best business desktop PC or even a workstation Alternatively, check out our best tablets for business feature as well.
The best business laptops at a glance:
If you're looking for the best Windows laptop on the market at the moment, the Dell XPS 15 is a clear contender. With it's stunning 15.6" screen which can be anything from a clear FHD (1,920 x 1,080) to a beautiful 4K UHD+ (3840 x 2400), this is not a laptop to be easily overlooked. Additionally, it's available with a choice of i5, i7, or i9 Intel Core processors, along with standard RAM configurations of 8, 16, or 32 and up. Video card options are anything from standard integrated graphics to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 150 with 4GB DDR5 memory. In other words, the Dell XPS 15 can be used as anything from a general workhorse for business use, to a powerhouse of a laptop that can handle any creative, design, even gaming demands you might want to throw at it. Of course, you get what you pay for and the Dell XPS 15 is no different, so expect this laptop to be more expensive than rivals, especially when you start customizing the build for more powerful processor, RAM, and graphic card options. However, if you do want the best Windows laptop currently available, the Dell XPS 15 is probably it. If you don't want a Windows laptop and you want only the best Mac laptop you can get, then the MacBook Pro 16" is truly the best laptop from Apple you can choose. Aside from its large and beautiful 16" screen, the technical specifications make this probably the most powerful laptop on this list, and should provide many years of excellent use. There's a choice of 6-core or 8-core processor, and for RAM the base model comes with 16 GB with the option to expand to 64 GB. There's also a choice of graphics cards available, allowing this laptop to handle even the most demanding applications. All in all this is a beautiful and powerful machine, but as you'd expect, it comes with the biggest price tag of all of the laptops featured here. If you want only the best, then the MacBook Pro 16" should probably be at the top of your list. Previous versions of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon have been the absolute best-in-class when it comes to business laptops, and this year's model is no exception, with Lenovo delivering a thinner and smaller design with practically no trade-offs. If you're looking for one of the best Lenovo laptops with business grade capabilities, you've got an ace here. Despite its small size, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with pretty much every feature you need in a productivity machine, making it the best business laptop money can buy. Thanks to a battery life of up to 15.5 hours, and a rapid charging feature that brings the battery back up to 80 percent capacity in only an hours, the X1 Carbon is an ultrabook that lets you keep on working while you're on the move. Huawei may not be the first name you think of when looking to buy a new business laptop - whereas Dell and Lenovo are two names you'd more likely associate with notebooks for work, but the Chinese company has proved to be an excellent laptop manufacturer with its new MateBook X Pro. It has a beautiful design that will get appreciative looks in the boardroom, it's light enough to carry around with you, and it has powerful components and excellent battery life. It's also one of the cheaper ultrabooks on the market. If the Dell XPS 15 is a little large or expensive for your needs, then the Dell XPS 13 makes for an excellent second. This ultraportable laptop – as Dell puts it – punches above its weight with Windows 10 Pro across the entire range as well as rather attractive pricing. This award winning laptop (it won best laptop of the year from us and many others) manages to pack a 13.3-inch display into the chassis of an average 11.6-inch model. It was also refreshed in 2019 with even better components, for a much improved business laptop experience. The laptop can be upgraded to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB M2 SSD drive. Battery life is exceptional as well with almost 22 hours of continual use when using productivity applications. Dell has once again given the Dell XPS 13 a boost when it comes to components, and the webcam is now placed above the screen for better video calls, which helps make the Dell XPS 13 once again one of the best business laptops money can buy. The 2018 model of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar makes for a good second choice to the newer MacBook Pro 16". Although it's a little smaller and cheaper, it still packs a powerful punch when it comes to specifications. The 13-inch model is available with a range of strong Intel Core processors, all USB-C ports are not Thunderbolt 3, and you can have up to 16GB of RAM. If you want even more performance, the 15-inch version is worth considering, as it bumps the specs up even more. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is hands-down the best Snapdragon-powered laptop ever made. Unlike other Windows laptops that run on Intel or AMD hardware, the Lenovo Yoga C630 runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 850 SoC. This is usually found in flagship smartphones, and it allows the Lenovo Yoga C630 to have some of the best smartphone features – but in a laptop. So, you get instant-on startup times and 4G connectivity. This makes it one of the best business laptops because it means you don't have to rely on Wi-Fi. You can be out almost anywhere, and as long as you have a 4G SIM installed, you can access the internet quickly and securely. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is also always connected, which means even when it is not being used, it's still connected to the internet. So, when you next turn it on, all your emails, messages and notifications will be there waiting for you. Best of all, it's got a phenomenal battery life of almost 24 hours. That means it can go several work days on a single charge. The only problem is that because it doesn't run on traditional hardware, not all applications are compatible. Hopefully that will change in the future, but if your business relies on a certain program, make sure it runs on Snapdragon or ARM hardware before you buy. This MacBook Air offers a thinner and lighter alternative to even the more recent models, and at the time of release it was the best MacBook Air we’d ever used. This made it an excellent choice for a business laptop then, and it still remains a favorite thanks to both its portability, good hardware and fast SSD harddrive storage. Even better is that the 2018 edition can be bought quite cheaply from a number of retailers, which means you can get your hands on a great laptop that good both for working from home as well as taking with you to the office or trade shows, without having to pay top price for the latest model. We just wish that these were full-fat U-series quad core chips, rather than the Y-series dual-core fanless processors. Still, this means that you’re going to easily get all-day battery out of this thing, which makes it one of the best Macs for travel. Read the full review: MacBook Air 2018 The Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) is another entry from Microsoft in our best business laptop list, and it's worthy of its spot, as Microsoft has crafted one of the most powerful 2-in-1 laptops in the world. The Surface Book 2 has some powerful enough components to handle most day-to-day tasks, and even some light gaming and video editing if you go for a model with a dedicated graphics card. If you want a bigger screen, then there is also a 15-inch version of the Surface Book 2, which comes with more powerful components. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) Chromebooks might not be the most obvious devices for business laptops, but the Asus Chromebook Flip proves that they can be excellent work tools. It comes with a full-fat Intel Core processor, full HD 1080p display and backlit keyboard. ChromeOS is now a more robust operating system with plenty of tools, and if you rely on web-based CMS or Google Docs to do your work, then the Asus Chromebook Flip is an affordable, well built and handy business laptop. Check out our laptop buying guide video below.
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| Remote desktop developer Parsec captures million-dollar financing Posted: 15 May 2020 09:41 AM PDT Remote desktop tech firm Parsec, which targets gamers and game developers, has announced $7 million in new Series A funding. The investment was led by Makers Fund and included Lerer Hipppeau, NextView Ventures, Notation Capital, and HP Venture. Parsec expects to use the money in part to expand its Teams platform, launched in March, for game developers and other creatives. Founded in 2016, Parsec aims stands out in the competitive world of remote desktop developers with a platform that's designed first and foremost for online gamers. The company’s technology focuses on delivering low latency, 60 frames per second, ultra-clear streaming while keeping infrastructure costs low.
Low-latency screen sharing for gamers and developersGamers can bring any game they own online to host a multiplayer session or play their own games remotely over the Internet. Parsec also launched its own Arcade in 2019, which gives users access to thousands of classic video game titles and the ability to instantly connect with other players. The utility of Parsec’s low-latency remote desktop isn’t limited to gamers. The company has been working in the background to bring creative teams and game developers onto the platform. More than 100 companies, including major game-makers such as Electronic Arts, already use Parsec’s technology to develop and deploy games for testing. In March, the company released Parsec for Teams as a more flexible version of its remote desktop platform aimed at professional designers. The company plans to use its new Series A funding to develop tools for creative professionals outside the gaming industry, such as animators, graphic designers, video editors, and video effects specialists. Jay Chi, a founding partner of Makers Fund, noted, “The incredible traction they have received is a testament to both the team’s capability and a clear market need.”
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| 256GB iPhone XS deals: quadruple your storage size for free with these bargains Posted: 15 May 2020 09:32 AM PDT iPhone XS deals were replaced as the fancy top-of-the-line iPhone a while ago, losing its high-end edge. But with its replacement came a rapidly falling price tag and finally, worthwhile promotions. Most recently, retailer Mobiles.co.uk has taken a collection of pretty affordable iPhone XS deals and quadrupled the storage available. That means for the same price you'd pay for a 64GB version, you're instead getting 256GB. For those who pile music, videos, photos, apps and more onto their phone, this will be a massive blessing considering how incredibly costly storage increases normally are, quickly racking up your bills. Below you'll find the best of these increased storage sized offers. But if you're not fussed about going big on storage, our iPhone deals page will have all of the top Apple offers on all of the devices available.
These 256GB iPhone XS deals in full:So what's so good about the iPhone XS?iPhone XS: Across the device, everything feels premium. Apple's near infinity OLED display with smart HDR looks stunning and its 2658mAh battery is a vast improvement on previous options. Although it hasn't been hugely improved on from the previous model it's about as high-end a phone as you can get right now and especially for this price. Read our full iPhone XS review. See more:
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| This LG 65-inch 4K TV is on sale for only $499.99 at Best Buy Posted: 15 May 2020 09:25 AM PDT Upgrade your TV and save money with this incredible 4K TV deal from Best Buy. The retailer has the LG 65-inch smart TV on sale for $499.99. That's a $50 discount and the best price we've seen for the top-rated TV. Best Buy 4K TV deal:Shop more of the best cheap TV deals and sale prices that are currently going on. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple AirTags: news, rumors, and what we'd like to see Posted: 15 May 2020 09:00 AM PDT For some time, we’ve heard rumors that Apple has been developing new connected accessories that help track items – think Tile but with the brand’s signature panache and interoperability. The pitch: clip one of these things, suspected to be called Apple Tags or Apple AirTags, to an item you don’t want to lose and you’ll be able to track it from an Apple device. While we’ve only heard rumors about working through iPhones, we would be shocked if it wasn’t interoperable with Apple’s entire device ecosystem. We still don’t know much about the accessory, and Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged, or even hinted, that they’re coming. All we know are leaks leaks and rumors sourced from the usual tech breadcrumbs, like iOS 13 code snippets, that signify a new device is coming. That could change leading up to WWDC 2020, which will be held online due to the outbreak, but we expect it to be the next big opportunity for the company to announce Apple AirTags. Until then, here’s all we know about the accessories. Apple Tags price and release dateWe don’t know when Apple AirTags will launch, nor have we heard rumors about possible release dates. We could see a surprise launch at WWDC 2020, Apple’s now online-only developer event, which starts on June 22. More often than not, though, WWDC serves as a software showcase that only hints at products to come, so we might only get early teases about products – and potentially Apple AirTags – that are slated to come out later in the year. A specific mention by leaker Jon Prosser noted we’d be getting news about AirTags at WWDC, so we’re at least expecting to hear about them at the event. Given the hints about iOS, we suspect it could be released alongside the iPhone 12 in fall. Price is also unknown. Given their similarity to Tile, we could compare those prices: the standard Tile Mate costs $25 / £20 / AU$40 each, though we’d expect the Apple version to cost a bit more, as usual for the brand’s products. There are other Tile products of different sizes, so we could see smaller or more sophisticated (and thus pricier) Apple Tags, too. Lastly, Tile has a Premium subscription service with more trackability and yearly battery replacement, which is another thing Apple could imitate. Apple Tags rumors and leaksApple still hasn’t said anything official about Apple AirTags, so all we have to go on are rumors. The vague functionality we’ve heard in these rumors has been so heavily compared to Tile trackers that the AirTags could simply do the same thing: physically clip or secure them to an item, and you’ll be back to track them on your Apple device through an app. Of course, since Apple’s devices have Find My functionality to monitor locations of iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods, it’s no surprise that code snippets indicated that AirTags will be tracked through that existing service. Walk too far away from an AirTagged item and your device running Find My will start beeping, unless you’re within a designated ‘safe location’ like home or the office. But you may also be able to track through AR: one rumor suggests you’ll be able to hold your phone up and a balloon icon will hover over the missing device’s location. Assuming it’s in range of your device network, of course. But what if it’s not? There are hints of a ‘Lost Mode’ which uses other iPhones not in your network to find your AirTagged item. It’s a lot like Tile’s existing community-locating feature, though that only includes other phones with the Tile app. There might be more iPhones in the wild than Tile app users, but it likely varies by region. Which devices will AirTags be compatible with? One of the earliest rumors cited functionality in iOS 13 beta back in June 2019, suggesting that iPhones running that version of the operating system may be able to run it (up to the iPhone 6S). We don’t know what minimum versions of iPadOS or macOS will be required for compatibility. 4 things we’d like to seeSure, the above features are neat, but until we know exactly what AirTags are capable of, here’s what we’d like to see. Multiple AirTag typesYes, one AirTag is nice – but given Tile’s range of tracker types, we’d love to see multiple options from Apple. Tile’s standard Mate has a claimed range of 150 feet, while the Pro extends out to 300 feet. The Tile Slim is barely thicker than a credit card, while the Sticker is small enough to stick on remotes. We’d love some variety from Apple’s offerings, especially if they introduce a radically different tracker format. Perhaps a thinner, smaller format to fit on iPhones and Apple Watches? Tracking through all Apple devicesWe’re pretty sure this is going to be the case anyway, but we’d love if every major device in Apple’s ecosystem could use Find My to track the AirTags. We’ve already heard about iPhone, iPad, and macOS compatibility, but what about Apple Watch? Given the compass in the Apple Watch 5, along with its other sensors, we’d like full-spectrum monitoring capability. Software insightsOkay, this one’s a bit more abstract, but we’re curious if Apple’s emphasis on health can be put to interesting use with AirTags. Can you label certain AirTagged items as high-priority items that always need to be in reach – like inhalers, insulin kit bags, Life Alerts, or medicine bottles? Can they be linked up to Siri, who can not only remind you to grab certain things before you leave but tell you where they are? Package dealsWe’re always suckers for good deals, and we’d love if the AirTags came in enough packs for us to pick up a half-dozen and place them on our important things. Especially if we have smart homes, where everything might be linked up but scattered about the house.
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| New Star Trek prequel show Strange New Worlds will feature Spock and Pike Posted: 15 May 2020 08:50 AM PDT A new Star Trek TV show has been announced for CBS All Access called Strange New Worlds. It's a spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery, technically, as it features versions of classic characters seen in season 2 of that show, including Spock (Ethan Peck), Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and Number One (Rebecca Romijn). It's set 10 years before Kirk and Spock's adventures, and will feature the characters exploring new worlds on the Enterprise. The news was revealed with a video message from the cast, who describe Strange New Worlds as a show that deals with "optimism and the future". Behold how extraordinarily handsome Anson Mount looks with a gray beard below: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is largely being produced by the same team that made previous Trek series for CBS All Access, including executive producer Alex Kurtzman. The series pilot is written by Akiva Goldsman, who also worked on the recent Star Trek: Picard series, according to StarTrek.com. No release date has been set for the show yet.
A lot more Star TrekCBS All Access has a lot of new Star Trek coming up. As well as season 3 of Discovery and a follow-up year of Picard episodes, it has animated comedy Lower Decks in the works, as well as a series with the working title Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh. Finally, a CG series aimed at kids is being made for Nickelodeon. Even with all of that in the works, though, release dates for each show have been fairly spread out so far, with around a year separating Star Trek: Discovery season 2 and Star Trek: Picard. Clearly, CBS All Access intends to have a lot more Star Trek to look forward to down the line. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best Amazon sales this week: iPad deals, cheap headphones and Xbox One bundles now available Posted: 15 May 2020 08:34 AM PDT This week's Amazon sales are bringing back some of our favorite discounts of the past few months, and with stock on the way up again, there are more savings available right now than we've seen in a long time. That means iPad deals are back in town, as well as plenty of laptop deals, cheap Amazon Echo devices, and premium headphones on sale for less. We highlight the best Amazon deals available every week so that you can cut through all the third party prices that aren't worth your time and get straight to the savings. Whether you're looking for a new laptop, tablet, set of headphones, or you're after some fresh new gaming tech, there's plenty to choose from this week, so get stuck in. We've rounded up our favorite Amazon sales below, but you can also check out all our picks further down the page. Amazon Daily Deals: today's top sales
Wireless noise-canceling headphones for less
Cheap 2019 iPad deals return
Excellent Razer deals and Xbox One sales
Save on Amazon Echo Dot and Show models
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| Cheap iPhone deals at Apple: price cuts on the iPhone SE, iPhone 11, and iPhone XR Posted: 15 May 2020 08:28 AM PDT You can score a cheap iPhone deal at Apple right now with up $320 in savings when you trade-in an eligible device. This limited-time offer gets you the all-new iPhone SE on sale for just $229, the iPhone 11 on sale for $449, the 11 Pro on sale for $679, and the iPhone XR on sale for $449. iPhone deals:See more of the best iPhone SE deals: the best prices and plans available right now. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best mirrorless camera 2020: the 12 best models on the planet Posted: 15 May 2020 07:47 AM PDT Trying to find the best mirrorless camera for you? Whatever your expectations, our list of the top models features something to suit every photographer – and we’ve tested all of them. If you’re looking for a camera that combines the latest features with cutting-edge performance in a versatile, portable package, mirrorless is the format for you. Smaller than DSLR cameras, yet equipped with the latest sensors and cutting-edge autofocus, the best mirrorless cameras are capable of delivering fantastic results. Whether you’re a newbie on a tight budget or an enthusiast ready to make a major investment, this buying guide covers the finest mirrorless models on the market right now. A number of exciting new options are due to launch this year, including the full-frame Canon EOS R5 (and its more affordable Canon EOS R6 sibling). The R5 could prove to be a game-changing powerhouse, promising full-width 8K/30p video, in-body image stabilization and Dual Pixel autofocus in all video modes – but it’s likely to be very pricey and it's not yet clear how its launch will be affected by the global pandemic. For the time being, our top overall pick remains the Nikon Z6, a small, lightweight full-frame offering that delivers excellent image quality and fantastic handling. It’s an outstanding package and, with prices falling, probably the perfect full-frame mirrorless camera for most people. That said, there might be a different option better suited to your specific requirements – so be sure to check the full list below to find out. Best mirrorless cameras 2020 at a glance:
The best mirrorless cameras 2020:Sony may have got to the full-frame mirrorless market before the likes of Canon, Nikon and Panasonic, but now that all four are active in the sector, the playing field is starting to level a little. And our nod right now goes to Nikon's Z6, which combines a sound 24.5MP sensor with a super-sharp 3.69 million dot EVF and lovely 4K video into a compact shell. The beefy grip makes for great handling while the FTZ adapter that's either bundled with the camera or available separately means you can carry on using hundreds of F-mount lenses, with autofocus and auto-exposure maintained. It's not perfect, but a recent firmware update gave it a nice boost – and now that its price has fallen some way it's even more accessible than ever. We love it.
Looking for a mirrorless camera that's equally comfortable shooting both great stills and 4K video? Few cameras do this better than the Fujifilm X-T4. The best APS-C camera so far, it offers a great blend of great build quality, a fun shooting experience, and class-leading image quality. We were already fans of the Fujifilm X-T3, which remains on sale is worth considering if you mainly shoot stills. But the X-T4 takes the series to new heights thanks to the inclusion of in-body image stabilization (IBIS), a new battery, and a new, quieter shutter. We'd have liked a slightly deeper grip and the IBIS system isn't quite up to Olympus standards, but it's a big bonus for both shooting both stills and video, and it tops off a brilliant all-rounder that now has an excellent range of lenses.
The Alpha A7 III may sit on the bottom rung of Sony's full-frame mirrorless camera range, its siblings being the pricier A7S II and A7R III, but it should no longer be seen as the poor relation to its pricier siblings. This is a brilliant choice for the enthusiast photographer or pro, and when you look at the specification, it's easy to see why. Sony has taken some of the best bits from its flagship Alpha A9 and A7R III cameras, and distilled them into a single camera that offers a fantastic mix of performance and image quality. The full-frame 24.2MP sensor is excellent in a range of lighting conditions, while the advanced 693-point AF looks set to get even better with a firmware upgrade in April. This is one advanced camera that's at a great price considering the features and performance on offer.
Looking for a small, powerful mirrorless camera with a great design and lens system? The Fujifilm X-T30 is our favorite right now. While we love its bigger brother, the X-T3 (position number 8), this model's combination of size and all-round performance makes it one of our favorite cameras of 2020. You get more than you might expect from the X-T3, including the same 26.1MP APS-C sensor and processing engine, making it suitable for everything from sports snapping to landscape photography. This is helped by a phase-detect AF system that covers almost the entire frame, plus the usual range of Fujifilm's excellent Film Simulation modes, which subtly ape the company's old film looks. Throw in the option of recording 4K video and you have a fantastic all-rounder that actively encourages you to get out and shoot.
The Sony A6000 remains a popular mirrorless camera for beginners, but five years after its launch the A6100 brings its skills up to date in a familiar but more capable package. Borrowing an APS-C sensor from Sony’s premium mirrorless cameras, the A6100 also deploys the flagship A6600’s autofocus system to deliver outstanding continuous tracking capability that’s rapid and reliable for both stills and video. Image quality is as expected, with good detail and decent colors (though a neutral profile would be welcome), while battery life is solid and the tilting screen is now touch-sensitive – albeit with limited functionality. Not everything has changed, mind: the LCD and EVF both remain relatively low-res and maximum burst is still 11fps, while buffering performance can sometimes stumble. So it’s not perfect and unlocking its full potential can take time, but the A6100 is certainly a superb all-rounder that should follow in the footsteps of its best-selling forebear.
Nikon’s first foray into the mid-range mirrorless market, the Z50 proves a strong debut. Despite the smaller APS-C sensor, Nikon hasn’t tried to shrink the Z50 too much, instead paying great attention to form and handling. The result is a mirrorless camera that, though still more compact than a DSLR, packs a generous grip which is lovely to hold. Its high-resolution viewfinder and tilting touchscreen are impressive, while 4K video and reliable autofocus (using the same hybrid system as the Nikon Z6) complete a great value package. The Z50 uses SD cards rather than the more expensive XQD format, though the single slot is only compatible with slower UHS-I cards, which limits its continuous shooting speeds. Perhaps the biggest challenge the Z50 faces is the limited native lens range, but this will surely grow – and the twin-lens kit is a versatile buy. For those looking to move from a Nikon DSLR to mirrorless, the Z50 is a great choice.
Sony's A7R line of cameras has been all about resolution, and the A7R IV delivers a lot more of it than ever before. Its class-leading 61MP delivers an excellent level of detail, augmented by the impressive Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode. An update to the autofocus system has made it faster and smarter, with face- and eye-detect AF working amazingly well – but with Sony at the helm, there was no doubt about that. The camera body is now even more sturdy and better equipped to handle the worst of the elements while out on field, while the deeper grip makes it comfortable to use over long periods of time. Although the addition of top plate command dial makes the mode dial a little harder to access. And while the A7R series wasn't designed with videographers in mind, video quality here is excellent, even though the rolling shutter effect is an issue.
A complete and compelling package for pros and enthusiasts alike, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III combines stellar build quality with outstanding performance and countless features to deliver a top-notch mirrorless offering. Sure, a 20.4MP Micro Four Thirds sensor might look mediocre by today’s standards – and its size does limit image quality in low light – but there’s so much more to the Mark III than resolution alone. Its compact shell harbors an all-new TruePic IX processor which ensures performance is lightning fast and reliable, with instant start-up and rapid 18fps silent shutter shooting with continuous AF. This is all backed-up by class-leading image stabilization, while Cine 4K video and Full HD slow-mo at 120fps mean it’s a winner for video, too. Delve into the shooting options and you’ll struggle to find an end to the Mark III’s capabilities – from a Live ND setting that replicates a neutral-density filter to a Starry Sky AF mode for long exposures. There’s even a new setting for the High Res Shot mode which allows you to capture a 50MP photo handheld.
The S1R is the first of two camera's in Panasonic's S series, and it arrives with some mightily impressive technology. That 5.76million-dot viewfinder is streets ahead of the 3.69million-dot alternatives in rival bodies, while the rugged build, effective sensor-based stabilization and cracking 4K video show it to be a camera that excels in a wealth of areas. The 47.3MP full-frame sensor also manages to perform brilliantly in good light and bad, and the further option to output images at 187MP may seem a little crazy, but it opens up new possibilities for cropping and for macro work. We're very impressed.
Canon's first full-frame mirrorless camera, the EOS R, delighted in some ways and frustrated in others, but the EOS RP made a much more positive impression. While technically a more junior model and not as fully featured, its much smaller and lighter body, together with a far nicer price, means that it's far more accessible for those who were hoping to make the jump to mirrorless but didn't want to stretch all the way to the EOS R. Without only around 4MP difference between the two you're not really sacrificing much in terms of sensor resolution, while the responsive touchscreen, fast autofocus and deep buffer makes it a pleasure to use in all kinds of situations. And while the native lens range for the R mount are still limited, a lens mount adapter allows users already invested in Canon's ecosystem to use their existing EF lenses.
It might not be as great for video as the Lumix GH5, but the G9 prioritizes stills. Like Olympus OM-D E-M1X listed above, the smaller MFT sensor size is made up for by a camera that is packed full of features. Its high resolution combines eight images into a single 80MP photograph, while its amazing image stabilization allows you to shoot handheld for about a second with sharp results. Throw in 60fps shooting, polished handling and a wealth of advanced features and the Lumix G9 is a brilliant all-round mirrorless camera.
Just because this little snapper doesn't have a built-in viewfinder, doesn't mean you can dismiss it out of hand. It more than makes up for it in its specifications list. It compact size and light weight makes it one of the best traveling companions you can get, and its 32.5MP sensor captures excellent images at 14fps. Color reproduction has always been Canon's strong suit and you won't hear us complain here. You won't find built-in image stablilization, but as long as you're aware of that you can compensate for it. You will, however, need to contend with the idea that there are limited lenses for the M-series of snappers but you can use EF and EF-S lenses via an adapter. Just steer clear of the bigger lenses as they will unbalance this tiny package.
Also consider:The GFX 100 outguns every other model in the list for native resolution, and while it has a lofty price tag to match its beefy body, it's arguably in a league of its own right now. While it's not the only camera capable of outputting images this detailed, it's the fact that it does it as standard rather than through any trickery or need to use a tripod like many others that makes it special. Throw in a very competent autofocus system, sensor-based image stabilization, strong 4K video and the best EVF we've seen so far, and you have one supremely versatile camera. Sure, none of us can afford one, but Fujifilm deserves high praise for delivering this kind of performance at a price well below that of other high-resolution medium format cameras. Sony quietly announced the launch of the second generation Alpha A9, but until we can test it, the original A9 remains one of the best sports and press cameras around. We can't think of another pro-level snapper that can match the A9's absolutely blistering performance and incredibly quick AF tracking. While the lack of an XQD card slot and limited touchscreen functionality can be disappointing, the camera's rapid 20fps burst speed and EVF with no blackout is more than enough to convince most experts to reach for this one, if they have the money to spare. Although, with the arrival of the A9 II, the price of the original has dropped considerably.
Mirrorless or DSLR: what's the difference?Mirrorless cameras allow you to swap and change lenses like on a DSLR, but because the mirror that you normally find inside a DSLR has been removed, the camera can be made much more compact. No mirror means that instead of optical viewfinders to frame your subject, mirrorless cameras rely on electronic viewfinders. Be aware, though, that most cheaper mirrorless cameras don't come with viewfinders at all – instead, you compose the photo on the rear screen, just as you do with most compact cameras or smartphones. This is a boon in terms of keeping size and cost down, but if you're looking to start taking your photography seriously then a viewfinder is nigh-on essential. This is because it lets you compose photos in all conditions, even sunny ones that can render a rear screen useless. You'll find that mirrorless cameras are also known as compact system cameras (or CSCs for short), with models ranging from the simple to use beginner models to sophisticated full-frame monsters that rival the very best DSLRs out there.
Why are mirrorless cameras better?Is a mirrorless camera better than a DSLR then? There are still quite a few pros and cons to both designs, so if you want to find out more, read this: Mirrorless vs DSLR cameras: 10 key differences. Mirrorless cameras certainly offer more choice. If you're looking to buy a DSLR, there's only really two main players in the shape of Canon and Nikon. If you opt for a mirrorless camera, the choice is much broader, with the likes of Canon, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Sony, Olympus and Leica all offering a wide range of cameras to suit most budgets. Right now, every major camera manufacturer has something to shout about, and their latest models are different enough from their rivals to stand out in some way. While it would be very easy to select 10 high-end models to make up our pick of the best mirrorless camera, we've tried to pick out some more affordable options as well. These models might not be dripping with features, but they represent great options for new users and those on a budget. That said, if you're looking specifically for a budget mirrorless camera, take a look at our best mirrorless camera for beginners buying guide. So whether you're after a better camera than the one featured on your smartphone or are looking for an advanced, high-end model to push your creativity even further, read on to find out what are the best mirrorless cameras you can buy right now.
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| The best Android apps of May 2020 Posted: 15 May 2020 07:38 AM PDT Our Android experts have combed the Google Play Store for the very best Android Apps, putting them through their paces and picking only those that are truly special. We test apps from across the whole Play Store, including camera apps and photo editors, health and fitness apps to improve your wellbeing, and security and customization tools to help personalize your phone so it works for you. There are so many Android apps in the Play Store, it can be hard to know which are best. Reviews can be helpful, but can also be subject to manipulation, and editor's picks only skim the surface. That's where we come in. Like you, we want the best apps for our phones. The Android apps that are going to revolutionize functionality or, at the very least, offer something so great that it becomes one of the must-have apps that has to be downloaded whenever you get a new handset. The following apps will be constantly updated and are a mixture of paid and free ones that have been chosen by our Android experts. So, even if you do dip into actual cash for one of these apps, you can be safe in the knowledge it's a worthwhile purchase. We’ve also sorted them into categories, so you can find what you’re looking for more easily. Click through to the following pages for those or check out the best new Android app below.
Best new Android appThis is the latest Android app we've chosen to feature, refreshed every few weeks. Our choices are usually new apps or apps that have recently received a major update, but occasionally hidden gems and other essentials will also be highlighted. Audio Manager$0.99 / £0.89 We’ve all been there: you’ve finally fallen asleep only to be woken up by a drunken text or call from a friend in the middle of the night, but with Audio Manager that need never happen again. Sure, you can stop it happening already by manually muting your phone when you go to bed, and many phones have limited scheduling options for Do Not Disturb mode, but Audio Manager lets you schedule specific audio settings for specific times and days. So you can lower the volume or mute your phone overnight, for example. You might perhaps also want it to automatically switch to vibrate during working hours. And it’s not just days and times that you can set; you can also change the settings based on location, so that for example you could have your phone automatically mute when you enter your office, and turn the sound up full when you leave. You can also have multiple routines set at once, so if there are any days, times or places where you consistently want your phone’s sound settings a particular way, Audio Manager can make sure that happens. The best Android camera apps and photo editorsOur favorite Android apps for shooting, sorting and editing photos and videos. Glitch LabFree + $6.49/£5.99 IAP Glitch Lab is a photo editor packed full of digital glitch effects. You’ve probably seen apps like this before, and the style of effects offered won’t appeal to everyone, but if you like making your pictures look a bit glitchy or retro, this is one of the most capable and versatile ways to do it. There are over 100 effects in this Android app, and many of them are customizable, ensuring that your glitches won’t look like anyone else’s. As if to demonstrate the power, it’s even possible to generate an image from scratch, building it up through a number of effects and tweaks. There’s plenty here even for free, but to get the absolute most out of Glitch Lab you’ll need to grab the Pro IAP for $6.49/£5.99. This, at the time of writing, adds 42 extra effects, 37 new parameters for the free effects, increases the output quality, and more. DoodleLens$1.99/£1.89 DoodleLens is perhaps a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a fun one. Simply doodle something, then point your phone’s camera at the doodle from within the app, and you can copy it and paste it on top of the world around you in augmented reality. You can also change the color of the doodle and even make very basic animations by copying multiple doodles and having the app cycle through them. You can then record and save the results. DoodleLens probably isn’t an Android app you’ll use often, and we found it a bit hit and miss at recognizing our doodles, but when it works it raises a smile, which is all you can really ask for at $1.99/£1.89. PixticaFree + various subscriptions Pixtica is one of many tools hoping to replace your phone’s default camera app. Camera apps vary a lot, and their success largely depends on your phone make and model, but Pixtica is a decent option if you’re looking for something new. It’s packed full of features, including numerous filters, a GIF recorder, panorama, hyperlapse, manual controls, and oddities such as a ‘Planet’ mode, which warps images into a sphere-like shape using Pixtica’s “advanced stereographic projection algorithm”. There are all sorts of other modes too, whether you’re taking photos or shooting video, and the app is laid out intuitively. However, while many of the functions are free, you have to pay to unlock higher resolutions and to remove watermarks when using filters. The payment gets you other things too, but those are the main things that make the purchase close to essential if you plan to use Pixtica. And that would be fine, except the app opts for a subscription fee (of $1.25/£1.25 for one month with discounts for six months or a year) rather than being available as a one-off purchase. We’re not fans of paying a subscription for a camera app, but if any such app is worth it, it’s Pixtica. ScribblFree + $5.49/£5.49 Scribbl is a photo editor that lets you add animations to your pictures. By ‘animations’ we mean basically light trails, but there are various different ways they can be animated, numerous colors you can choose, and you can pick exactly where they appear on images and how large they are. Essentially, it’s an app that does one thing but does it quite well. Once you’ve added an animation you can save the result to your phone’s gallery, ready for sharing. The basic app is free, but for either a one-off fee or a monthly subscription you can remove adverts and unlock additional customization options, as well as unlocking the ability to remove the Scribbl watermark from your creations. If you like the app this is worth paying for, but you can get a good taste of it without spending anything. Photo WatermarkFree + $0.99/£0.89 monthly subscription Photo Watermark does exactly what the name suggests – it lets you add watermarks to photos – but the types of watermarks you can add are quite varied. Not only can you add custom text as a watermark (including changing the font, size and color), you can also use your signature (or any other hand-written text) as a watermark by writing on the screen. You can also apply stickers, a timestamp, a location, a mosaic effect, or ‘graffiti’ (which basically just lets you go wild on your images with a digital paintbrush). Whether you want to protect your photo or just log when and where it was taken, there should be a tool here to suit. Photo Watermark is free, but it’s quite heavy on adverts. For $0.99/£0.89 per month you can get rid of them, but unless you’re adding watermarks to a ton of images it’s probably not worth it. StoryZ Photo Motion & CinemagraphFree + $1.99/£1.79 monthly subscription StoryZ Photo Motion & Cinemagraph is a photo editing Android app in two parts. The first of these is ‘Ripple’, a mode which lets you add motion to a static image by drawing the area and direction that you want the motion to happen. This can be an effective way to make it look like water or smoke is moving for example, or simply to add a slightly trippy effect to things that you might expect to be static. The ‘Motion’ mode, which lets you blend a video with a photo, leaves you with an ‘image’ that’s partially static and partially in motion. In both cases it can be hard to make the effect look convincing, but it’s doable, as evidenced by all the impressive public submissions shared on the app. StoryZ also holds contests with specific themes, such as ‘stairs’ or ‘sand’, which you can enter by submitting a relevant creation. The best ones will be featured on the home page and competition page of the app. You can use StoryZ for free, but if you find that you have more of a talent for it than we do then there’s also StoryZ Premium, which for a monthly subscription removes adverts and watermarks, increases the allowable length of videos in Motion mode, improves the toolset in Ripple mode and lets you save and share in high resolution. KineMaster KineMasterFree + £2.91 (roughly $3.70) monthly subscription KineMaster is probably one of the most powerful video editors on Android, but it’s also intuitive enough that anyone could enjoy using it. The app lets you add audio and visual filters to footage, add text, stickers and other overlays, alter and trim videos frame-by-frame, adjust the speed, add transition effects and a whole lot more. You can also record videos straight from the KineMaster app. It can feel a little cramped on a phone screen, but otherwise everything works well. You can use the KineMaster Android app for free, but all your videos will have a KineMaster watermark and you can’t use them commercially. To remove the watermarks, allow commercial use and unlock additional assets (such as effects and overlays) you have to pay a subscription, but at £2.91 (roughly $3.70) per month it remains affordable. Moment – Pro Camera$1.99/£1.79 A truly great camera app arguably needs to both avoid clutter and be packed full of manual controls, so you can capture an image exactly as you want it, but that’s a tough balance to strike, and few manage. Moment – Pro Cameraarguably does though. It gives you full manual control, including RAW shooting, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, exposure compensation and focus. There’s also tap to focus, a timer, a grid and several different lenses. It’s an impressive toolkit, with the app focusing more on powerful utilities than gimmicky filters, but it all has a very clean, minimalist look. And it’s designed with ease of use in mind. You can double tap any setting to return it to auto or double tap the viewfinder to turn everything back to auto and all the controls are within easy reach. The main downside of this Android app is that it can’t currently shoot videos, but for photos there’s a good chance you’ll want to replace your current camera app with this, and video is apparently in the works. PhotoDirectorFree + optional subscription Your phone might have a powerful camera, but chances are it doesn’t come with much in the way of photo editing tools. Fortunately, PhotoDirector is an Android app can fill in the gaps. This app lets you adjust the tone, saturation, white balance and colors of photos you’ve previously taken, as well as adding filters and effects, which you can adjust the strength of and apply to all or just part of an image. You can also add text, stickers, frames, change the perspective, mirror the image, cut sections and a whole lot more. There are lots of tools, but PhotoDirector is easy to navigate and you can always undo your changes, so you’re safe to experiment. And that’s just the editing part of the app. There’s also a built-in camera, which lets you shoot new photos with various effects and see live through the viewfinder how they will affect the image. PhotoDirector is largely free, but if you want to direct to your best there’s a premium version that costs £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month, with discounts if you commit for three months or a year. This unlocks additional tools, boosts the output quality and removes adverts. LightX Photo EditorFree + $3.69/£3.49 IAP If you want an all-in-one photo editor for Android then LightX Photo Editor is a good choice, not least because most of the features are free. You can merge photos, add effects and filters, selectively apply colors to regions of an image, adjust the color balance, smooth and sharpen images, crop them, rotate them, draw on them, add frames and stickers, add text, create collages and a whole lot more. That’s all handled through the Android app's intuitive interface; bring up the main menu with a tap, select the category of edits you want to make (filters or frames, for example) and you’ll be taken to a menu with all the relevant options. Most of it is fairly self-explanatory, but there are also tutorial videos for if you get stuck, and for a one-off $3.69/£3.49 IAP you can get rid of adverts, unlock additional stickers and frames, and add the ability to save images in PNG format. SKRWT$1.49/£1.39 There are plenty of photo editing Android apps, but while most offer filters and effects few allow you to alter the perspective of a photo in the way SKRWT does. There are no stickers here, no makeup modes and no real effects. Instead there are tools to shift the perspective, change the ratio and correct lens distortion. You can also flip, rotate, mirror and crop images, but SKRWT isn't interested so much in modifying photos in unnatural ways, as in making them look exactly as you envisioned when you took them. It's a professional tool, but it's easy to use and you can always undo your changes if you don't like them. Our favorite Android apps for painting, drawing, sketching, design and animation. TattoodoFree + $5.99/£4.59 per month Tattoodo at its heart is a tattoo search engine, letting you search through millions of tattoo images, images that you can filter based on style, motifs or artist. As well as searching and browsing you can also follow artists, so their latest work will pop up in your feed, and you can save images to boards, so you can build up a library of designs that you like. If you have tattoos already and feel like sharing them with the world then images of them can be added to the app, and you can even book tattoo appointments and get free consultations through the Android app. If you’re a tattoo artist then you can add your store and designs and potentially find new customers through the app too. It’s completely free if you’re looking for or at tattoos, but if you’re an artist and want to get bookings through the app you’ll need to pay for a $5.99/£4.59 monthly subscription. HouzzFree Houzz is a one-stop Android app for decorating and furnishing your home. The app has numerous different sections, including a database of over 19 million photos to give you decor ideas, which can be filtered based on style, room and other things. These images can also be sketched on and shared. Houzz lets you buy millions of products (such as furniture) and materials from within the app, and there’s a tool that lets you use augmented reality to see how a product would look in your home. There are articles and videos related to remodelling and improving your home, too. You can find and hire interior decorators, architects and other professionals within the app, and there’s a community where users can ask and answer questions. Houzz isn’t an app that everyone needs on their phone, but it is one that’s definitely worth looking at if you’re considering redecorating or making other home improvements. OverFree + $59.99/£54.99 per year Over is designed primarily for adding text to images, which you might want to do if you’re making a poster or Instagram post, for example. The Android app lets you select from a wide range of canvas sizes, including some created specifically for different social media purposes, such as Facebook cover photos. Then you can add images, text and graphics. For images you can adjust the exposure, contrast and various other things; for text you can choose from a range of fonts, alignments and colors; and for graphics you can select from a range of pre-made designs, then adjust color, position and the like. Projects can have multiple layers, and when you’re done you can save the result as a JPG or PNG, or share it. It’s a handy app and everything that we’ve described so far is free, but for an admittedly hefty $59.99/£54.99 per year you get access to an ever-growing library of templates, hundreds of extra fonts, far more graphics and the promise of additional features in future. For the average user this probably isn’t necessary, but if you’re using it for work or need to combine images and text regularly then it could be worth the outlay. Draw.aiFree + various IAP Digital devices seem an ideal fit for drawing tutorials, yet few drawing apps seem to take advantage of them. Instead they often assume you already know what you’re doing or will learn outside the app, while many of the ones that do teach you rely on static images and text, but Draw.ai is an Android app that's more interactive. While not a comprehensive guide to drawing, it offers a large assortment of images and guides you towards recreating each one step by step, one line at a time. By which we mean the app will draw a line or two from the image, then make it appear faint so you can draw the same thing over it. This continues until the image is complete, after which you’re free to color it (without a guide). Once you’re finished, Draw.ai will show a short video of the entire process you went through. The actual drawing tools are more limited than some apps, but there is at least a handy undo button that erases the last line you drew or change you made – something beginners will be making use of a lot. Many of the images are free and more are added all the time, but to access everything you’ll have to pay a $5.99/£5.49 weekly subscription (with big discounts available if you pay monthly or yearly instead – you can get a full year for $59.99/£52.99). Sketch - Draw & PaintFree + various IAP Sketch – Draw & Paint is a photo editor, sketching app and art community all in one, and while it’s not the deepest option for any of those things, it’s fun and easy to use. On the sketching side you get a variety of different pen and brush types of different sizes and colors, along with the ability to add text and stickers and some basic tools, such as a ruler and layers. You can either start with a blank canvas or take or import a photo, which brings us to the photo editing aspect of this Android app: an aspect that relies on the same set of tools. As for the community, Sketch lets you upload your creations and share them with other Sketch users, as you can also browse through people’s artworks. There are categories for this, including ‘trending’ and ‘newcomers’, or you can just search for something specific. You can comment on or like any of the shared artworks, and follow their creator so you can more easily keep track of any other work they produce. The actual quality of work in the community is varied, but that means it should be less intimidating to share your own. Sketch – Draw & Paint is mostly free, but you can buy extra sticker packs or for £0.99 (around US$1.30) per month subscribe to Sketch Premium to unlock all the stickers, remove adverts, get a transparent background and be able to use a custom canvas size. DesygnerFree + $7.49/£5.99 subscription Desygner lets you unleash your inner graphic designer on your phone or tablet, but with an intuitive interface and thousands of templates it’s simple enough for beginners to use. You can combine text, shapes, images, stickers, backgrounds and more to create logos, posters, adverts, PowerPoint-like presentations, postcards or any number of other things where images and typography are important. Each component of your design can be moved, resized, rotated, flipped, duplicated or have its color changed, and you can work with multiple layers. Results can then be saved to your device to be used wherever you want. We suspect this Android app might be a bit limited for professional graphic designers, who may want more freedom to completely create designs from scratch, but for everyone else Desygner is a great way to make something that looks professional. The basic app is free but certain features, as well as the majority of the templates, require a monthly subscription which costs $7.49/£5.99. That’s probably worth it if you’re going to use the app semi-regularly, but if you just want to design something as a one-off you might find the free version good enough. Infinite Painter$7.99/£6.99 There’s no shortage of Android apps for digital artists, but Infinite Painter is one of the most feature-packed, with dozens of brush presets and the ability to create your own, along with layers, blending, editing tools and more, plus the option to export your images as JPEG, PNG, PSD or ZIP. But as well as being packed full of features, Infinite Painter also takes the time to show you how they all work, with detailed tutorials and guides, although the interface is so simple that you should be able to muddle your way through most things anyway. A lot of the features are hidden behind a paywall, with it costing $7.99/£6.99 to unlock everything, but the app includes a free seven-day trial, letting you try everything out before you decide whether you want to put money down, which if you’re a fan of digital art you probably will, because you get a lot for your money. Our favorite Android apps for learning new things, from history to music to coding and beyond. Women Who Changed the World$2.99 / £2.99 Women often get a raw deal in history, with their achievements less spoken of than those of men, but Women Who Changed the World aims to help change that, by celebrating and educating users about some of the most significant women in history. These include Rosa Parks, Amelia Earheart, Frida Kahlo, and many, many more, with their lives and achievements detailed through interactive stories, complete with illustrations and narration. Women Who Changed the world is clearly aimed at young children, with its cute art and basic interactions, but the histories it teaches about could and should be of interest to anyone. Time ImmersiveFree Smartphones have the potential to give us new, more engaging and immersive ways to interact with journalism, and with Time Immersive, Time is exploring that potential. The Android app contains Time stories that are engagingly narrated and instead of looking at flat photos or videos, you can view the subject of the story in full augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR). For the former, all you need is a compatible phone (which many are) and a flat surface, which you can then project – for example – a section of the Amazon rainforest onto. Viewing it from above, you can rotate your phone and move it closer or further to get a different perspective while listening to the Time story. Then, tap on points of interest for additional spoken content alongside a relevant photo or video. If you have a Cardboard VR viewer then you can get even more immersed, viewing the area almost as if you were there. At the time of writing the only available content is focused on the Amazon rainforest and the moon landing, but it’s well made, and more is promised. Elements of PhotographyFree + various IAP Thanks to smartphones, most of us now have a fairly capable and versatile digital camera in our pockets at all times, but many of us won’t know how to get the most out of it. That’s not necessarily a huge problem – phone cameras are typically designed to work well when you just point and shoot, but if you do want to take your photography to the next level then something like Elements of Photography can help. This Android app contains a number of tutorials that guide you through the various principles of photography, from basics like shutter speed and composition to more advanced lessons. Elements of Photography keeps things bite-sized and engaging by using small chunks of text and plenty of images rather than walls of explanation or time-consuming videos. You also get tips, tools (such as a depth of field calculator) and a quiz, though these, along with many of the tutorials, are hidden behind IAP. Still, unlocking everything only costs $7.99/£5.49, and there’s enough free content that you should be able to decide whether the rest is worth the money. Fluent Forever£8.99/$9.99 per month Fluent Forever is one of a growing number of language apps, but whereas most aim to gamify the learning process, Fluent Forever is rather more serious in its approach. That might make it feel a bit less accessible, but if you’re serious about learning a language then it could also work better, especially if the likes of Duolingo aren’t doing the trick for you. There are numerous different exercises in the app, along with explainer videos, but one of its core features is personalized flash cards, which let you select a card with an image of your choice for each word you’re trying to learn. That, along with pronunciation lessons, and a focus on only the words and grammar that are important to you, could be the trick to making you fluent forever. At the time of writing, the Android app supports French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. It costs £8.99/$9.99 per month, but there’s a two-week free trial. SmartPlantFree + $3.99/£3.99 per month There’s more to looking after many plants than putting them in the sun and giving them the occasional sip of water. Some need watering more often than others, some have different temperature or lighting requirements, some even require pruning or other care and attention. Knowing exactly what any given plant needs isn’t always easy though and we’re sure we’re not alone in wondering why plants we thought we’d looked after well had died. But with SmartPlant you don’t need to wonder any more, and you’re more likely to keep your plants alive in the first place. The Android app lets you build a database of any and all plants you own and it will automatically create a calendar for each of them, advising you on what to do at specific points of the year – for example telling you where to place it, when to re-pot it and how much to water it. And if you’re not sure what a plant is called then you can snap a picture of it to have SmartPlant identify it. The app also has general information on a wide range of plants, such as the type of soil they like and when they bloom. If you need more, then an optional subscription lets you talk to experts in-app. They can give you advice on general plant care, solving problems or any other plant-related query. FlowkeyFree + $19.99/£17.99 monthly subscription Flowkey is an Android app that aims to teach you piano, and can give you feedback on your playing just by listening through your phone’s microphone – no cables are required. As well as real feedback, Flowkey also offers a large number of video tutorials covering things like ‘Note Value and Rhythm’ and ‘Mastering Key Jumps’, plus a selection of over 1,000 songs that you can learn. These songs cover a range of genres, including classical, pop, jazz and more, and include famous pieces, such as Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, and Perfect by Ed Sheeran. The selection also includes songs suited for various different skill levels. There’s a lot here, but most of it isn’t free. There are a handful of free songs and tutorials to get you started, but to get much out of Flowkey you’ll have to invest in a monthly subscription. That’s not cheap, coming in at $19.99/£17.99 per month (albeit with big discounts if you commit for six months or a year). That could be a tough sell since you’ll probably still want proper lessons too, but you certainly get a lot of content for your money. Learn Java Pro$3/£3 Learn Java Pro is one of many apps focused on teaching you to code – in this case in Java, but where most take you through bite-sized exercises, this has both a coding area (where you can practice your Java skills) and an extensive library of tutorials taking you through basic and advanced aspects of Java. These tutorials aren’t interactive as such; they’re more like a textbook, which is the part of learning that’s missing from many other coding apps. But there’s a shortcut to the coding area at the top right corner of each tutorial, so you’re never more than a tap away from practicing what you’ve learnt. There’s also a library of practice programs, plus various questions and answers related to all things Java. Learn Java Pro works offline so you can read and practice anywhere, and all of the content is available for the one low price listed above, so while this Android app isn't free, it’s still rather generous and a great learning tool. Learn Spanish with LiricaFree + $9.99/£8.99 monthly subscription Learn Spanish with Lirica takes a novel approach to language learning, as it attempts to teach you Spanish through songs. The Android app lets you listen to a number of Spanish-language songs (many of which are famous) and has you learn the words that are used in them. You can watch the music video with the words appearing underneath, with or without an English translation, and then you can go through a song verse by verse, answering questions about what you’ve heard. There are a few different exercises, such as rearranging lyrics so that they’re in the right order or selecting the word that was used in the song, and as you go you can earn points and achievements. Lirica is more than just a gimmick. Songs are often catchy and memorable, so they make sense as a way to learn a language. There are two downsides to the app though. The first is that it only teaches you Spanish, and the second is that much of the content is hidden behind a fairly pricey subscription. But there’s enough free stuff to be getting started with it and if you like what you hear then a subscription could be worthwhile. Mobile Observatory 3 Pro – Astronomy$5.49/£4.99 Mobile Observatory 3 Pro – Astronomy is a comprehensive astronomy tool, letting you see details of the sky as it appears from your location. You can use it to check names and descriptions of celestial bodies that should be visible at the current time, or you can change to a different time or day. You can also get notifications warning you of celestial events that you should be able to see, and there are all sorts of other tools, such as a 3D view of the solar system, and the ability to see the sky in augmented reality with the details of what you’re looking at overlaid. There are tens of thousands of stars and planets included, along with information on moon phases, eclipses and plenty more besides. Although this isn’t a free Android app, given how much content there is it still feels very generous given that you get the whole app for one $5.49/£4.99 payment. Shepard Fairey AR – DAMAGED$4.99/£4.59 We’ve not always been entirely convinced by digital versions of real-world exhibits, but Shepard Fairey AR – DAMAGED is an Android app that does it right. The app is a digital version of Shepard Fairey’s DAMAGED exhibit and it’s a great option for anyone who can’t make it to the real show in Los Angeles. The app lets you walk around the exhibit with taps and swipes, or you can set it so that rotating your phone also changes your view in the exhibit. Or go even further and use an augmented reality mode that lets you physically walk around the exhibit, using your phone as a window into it. It’s not just the exhibit, either – you also get over 100 minutes of narration from Fairey explaining the various artworks, which combined show that the world – and especially the US – is in a state of crisis, but that much of the damage can be repaired. MasterClassFrom $89.99/£84.99 MasterClass gives you lessons in various skills, from cookery to acting to creative writing and a whole lot more, but how it really stands out is that these lessons are all taught by some of the best in the business. You can learn cookery from Gordon Ramsay for example, filmmaking from Martin Scorsese, tennis from Serena Williams or photography from Annie Leibovitz. Of course, this is an app, not a face to face lesson, so you’re not interacting with these people, but they’ve created video lessons and various other materials – such as workbooks – for MasterClass. This content in this Android app isn’t free; in fact it’s quite expensive, coming in at $89.99/£84.99 for a single course or $179.99/£169.99 for an ‘all access pass’, letting you access every course for a year. That’s steep, but it could be worth it if you’re serious about learning and want some top-class tuition. You can also explore the app and see video previews of any of the courses before paying. DropsFree + $10/£8.99 monthly subscription Apps have revolutionized language learning, but there’s more than one way to learn from an app, and while some focus on typing and speaking, Drops leans into the strengths of a smartphone by making all interactions swipe- and tap-based. Drops gives you a series of exercises to carry out each time you use it, taking various forms. One asks you to swipe a word to its corresponding picture, another asks you to tap pairs of words and pictures, and one breaks up a word or phrase into several parts and has you tap them in the correct order. There are others too, and Drops has a lot of content covering all sorts of categories from food to plants and even politics in a variety of languages. Impressively, the Android app also feels as slick and polished as Duolingo, without imitating it. Drops gives you five minutes of language learning each day for free, but the app is designed to be bite-sized and the makers claim this is enough to make progress. If you do want more though you can pay for unlimited access at a price of $10/£8.99, with discounts available if you pay for a year upfront. Our favorite Android apps for having fun on your phone or tablet, through watching videos, reading, socializing and more. Disney+Free + subscription Disney+ should need no introduction – it’s Disney’s Netflix competitor, and the Android app gives you access to Disney’s vast library of film and TV content on your phone or tablet, along with new and exclusive content such as The Mandalorian. You can stream content or download it, so you never need to go without, and given Disney’s massive library there’s an enormous amount of content on day one, making this near essential for any Disney fan. As well as the Android app, you will of course need a subscription, but you get a seven-day free trial at the time of writing, which should be more than long enough to decide whether Disney’s catalog is for you – if somehow you’ve not already watched enough Disney stuff to know. StadiaFree Stadia is Google’s big play to get into gaming, and more specifically game streaming. It essentially allows you to play AAA console and PC games on a phone screen, a TV, a laptop or a tablet, without having the high-end hardware that would usually be required to run them, as instead Google’s hardware does the heavy lifting and then streams the games over an internet connection. That also means you can seamlessly pick up on one device where you left off on another, and you don’t have to wait for games to download or update, you just need a fairly fast Wi-Fi connection. Well, that and compatible hardware, which at the time of writing limits you to Pixel handsets, a Chromecast Ultra, and a handful of other devices. So if you have, say, a Google Pixel 4, then the Stadia Android app can give you access to the sorts of games that would usually be found on an Xbox One or gaming PC. And going forward you can expect more phones and other devices to get Stadia support. YouTube KidsFree YouTube is packed full of great content for kids, but there’s also a lot of unsuitable stuff. The solution – assuming you don’t want to completely micromanage their viewing – is YouTube Kids, an app that’s been around for a while and has only got better with time. The app lets you select an age range for your child and will only show them age-appropriate content, though you can further filter what they can and can’t access if you want. YouTube Kids also lets you set up multiple profiles, so if you have more than one kid they can each have their own tailored safe space. You can also set timers to limit how long they can watch for, see the history of what they’ve watched, choose whether to let them search for videos manually (or be limited to channels that have been verified by YouTube Kids), and more. You have a lot of control, your kids get access to a lot of content, and it’s all wrapped up in a slick, colorful Android app that’s a joy to use. Trill ProjectFree Trill Project is an anonymous social network that lets you follow topics of your choice, post related content, reply to other people’s posts, and message them in private. You don’t get a profile picture or custom username, so anonymity is easy to maintain, but while in some apps and services that can lead to abusive behavior, here content is heavily moderated, and there’s a real focus on users being supportive. A lot of the topics on Trill Project deal with potentially heavy subjects like mental health, loneliness and sexuality, but there’s plenty of lighter content too, so whatever you want to say, this could be the place – as long as it’s in the spirit of the Android app and its community. GoodreadsFree Goodreads is all about finding, logging and reviewing books, and it’s pretty much essential for any avid reader. If you see a book that you think looks interesting, you can search for it on Goodreads and see the average user rating, along with often hundreds of user reviews in the Android app. Still interested in it? Then you can add it to your ‘want to read’ list, so you won’t lose track of the books you like the look of. Goodreads will also show you other books by that author and other books that readers of the one you’re looking at enjoyed, making it easy to find similar content you might like. There are also lists of books across a range of categories, helping you explore further and dig up books you might never have found otherwise. When you’ve read a book, you can give it a star rating and leave a review if you want, and you can also join groups, and add friends, making Goodreads a bit like a book-focused social network at times. With all that, plus reading challenges, personalized recommendations and a whole lot more, it really is a book-lover’s dream. UnrdFree + various IAP Smartphones have helped unlock new ways to experience stories and one great example of that is Unrd. Falling somewhere between an Android app and a game, Unrd lets you “live someone else’s life” by overlaying a fake phone interface on your screen, belonging to a character in a story. You can access their messages – including photos, videos and audio – and piece together a story from them. But you don’t get the whole story in one go – new messages arrive in real time over a number of days, making the experience feel more immersive and ‘real’. There are numerous stories here, so you’re not limited to just one, and more are being added over time across a number of genres. It’s worth noting that Unrd is different to something like A Normal Lost Phone, as while they’re conceptually similar, the latter allows for more interaction, having you do things like figure out passwords to access locked off parts of the phone. It’s more of a game then, where Unrd is more of a story. The core app is free but there are various IAP to unlock additional content in stories or get to it faster. It looks like some future stories may be totally locked behind IAP too, but at the time of writing all the available ones seem to be free. DepopFree Depop is a bit like eBay, but with a real focus on second-hand and vintage clothing, which is a refreshing change in a world where fashion is often seen as disposable despite the clothing industry’s massive negative impact on the environment. There’s a large selection of items, often at low prices and while clothing is the focus that’s not all you’ll find. There’s also tech, books, jewelry, music, art, films, magazines, sports equipment and a few other categories. As with eBay, you can sell as well as buy, and the Android app allows you to set up and manage your own store, as well as browsing other people’s. If you’ve got some clothes to clear out or just want to shop a bargain – while doing your bit for the environment – then Depop is a good place to start. VLC for AndroidFree You’ve probably come across VLC before, but if not you really, really should, because it’s one of the very best video player apps on Android. Even if you have tried it before, it could be worth revisiting, as it’s received several recent updates. This completely free app has almost everything you might want from a video player, including extensive file support (such as MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, Ogg, FLAC, TS, M2TS, Wv and AAC), support for DVD ISOs, network streams and network shares, the ability to add and display subtitles, adjust the aspect ratio, and alter the look and sound with an equalizer and filters. And those are just the headline features. There’s plenty more to dig into beyond this. We’re not the biggest fans of VLC’s distinctive orange color scheme, but that’s about the only thing we can find to complain about with this Android app, and it can be partially hidden if you switch to the black theme. SoonFree Soon is an Android app for keeping track of all the movies and shows you want to watch, the music you want to listen to, the bars and restaurants you want to visit, the books you want to read, and various other things. Simply tap on the relevant category (‘books’ for example) then type the name of the thing you want to remember. Soon will populate the entry with relevant details if it can find any. These might include the address if it’s a place, or the cast and crew if it’s a film, for example. In this way you can build up lists and have them all in one place, so you’ll never lose track of them. If you’re planning a trip you can also create a list of the things you want to do on it, and even collaborate on the list with other people. Each of the list categories also has a second screen where anything that you’ve marked as ‘done’ appears, so it doesn’t clutter up the main list, but so you can still easily check if you have watched, read or visited the thing, in case you can’t remember for sure. You also get a chance to rate the thing when you mark it as done, so you’ll have a record of what you thought of everything too. RAM and Game Booster$0.99/£0.59 Some smartphone makers have put a big focus on gaming modes, such as Huawei with its GPU Turbo feature, but if you don’t have a handset with these sorts of features there are still things that can help, such as RAM and Game Booster. This Android app helps by freeing up RAM, which it can do on-demand or when specific games are launched. You can also set RAM and Game Booster to free up RAM when RAM usage reaches a set percentage, after a set period, or when the app judges that the device requires it. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an app aimed at freeing up RAM, but the various settings for when it happens are more comprehensive here than on most rival apps. This still won’t turn a low-end phone into a gaming powerhouse, but it could make a small difference to performance. Our favorite Android apps for working out, reducing stress and crafting meals. Moshi: Sleep and MindfulnessFree + $39.99/£29.99 yearly subscription If you have a young child who often struggles to get to sleep then Moshi could help. The app contains a large selection of ‘sleep stories’, which take the form of soothing, kid-friendly audio stories, many of which are narrated by big names like Patrick Stewart and Brian Blessed. And they’re well thought out. Each story becomes increasingly sleepy as it goes on, and slowly fades out at the end, rather than suddenly stopping. They also contain musical transitions that are apparently designed to be mesmerizing. Moshi also includes tracks that are just soothing music, and even some meditations, and new content is added weekly. All this doesn’t come for free – you’ll have to shell out $39.99/£29.99 per year, but you can get a seven-day free trial, and can you really put a price on ensuring your kids get a good night’s sleep? SleepTownFree + $1.99/£1.79 IAP Keeping a consistent sleep schedule can be almost as important as getting enough sleep, and SleepTown aims to help with that by letting you build a colorful town if you stick to your goals. When you set up the Android app, you tell it the times when you want to go to bed and get up. Then it’s a simple case of tapping a button in-app when you turn in for the night and when you get out of bed so it knows when you were asleep (or at least trying to be asleep). Stick to your goal and a random building will be constructed in your town each day. Fail, and construction of that day’s building will fail, though it does allow you up to two days off each week. As well as building up a town over time, you’ll also be building up a log of the times and durations of your sleep. There’s also a Pro version, which you can unlock for $1.99/£1.79. This lets you choose which building to construct next, back up your data, unlock achievements, and earn reward tickets, which can be used to increase the chances of getting rare buildings. The sleep incentives offered by SleepTown certainly won’t work for everyone, but if you struggle to switch off the lights at a reasonable time or often hit the snooze button in the morning, and you like the idea of being rewarded with virtual buildings for your efforts, SleepTown could make a real difference. Vanilla BeanFree Ever more people are becoming vegetarian and vegan, but while the availability of vegetarian and vegan food in restaurants is also increasing, you still won’t find it everywhere. That’s why Android app Vanilla Bean is so handy, as it will tell you which nearby restaurants have vegan and vegetarian options. Using filters you can also search for places that are purely vegan or veggie, and places that offer some combination of gluten-free, organic, raw, fair trade, and locally sourced food, as well as filtering by price. The results list shows you at a glance which of those things applies to a given restaurant, while tapping on a restaurant will provide an overview of it, along with its address, opening hours, photos and reviews. Those last couple of points are where Vanilla Bean falters slightly right now, as there aren’t yet many pictures or reviews, but as a user of the app you can add your own. SnoreFree$9.99/£9.99 per month Curing snoring can be a tricky task, as the cause and effective remedies vary from person to person and often prove elusive. One unusual approach that you might not have tried is mouth exercises designed specifically to reduce or completely stop your snoring. As you’ve probably guessed by now, SnoreFree contains exactly these exercises. Created by Viennese speech therapist Dario Lindes, these exercises have apparently led to an over 80% success rate over the many years he’s been using them. Each technique is explained in detail and accompanied by a demonstration video, so they’re easy to get to grips with, and you’ll be guided through a 10-15 minute routine every day. You do have to pay a moderately expensive subscription to use the Android app, but discounts are available if you commit for a year, and you can test out some of the exercises for free. SuperBetterFree SuperBetter isn’t new, in fact it has been changing people’s lives for years now, but the fact that it’s capable of doing that makes it well worth highlighting. The Android app essentially gamifies the process of looking after your physical and mental wellbeing, providing you with quests, power ups and bad guys to beat, all of which take the form of small tasks, such as drinking a glass of water, or walking around the block, or things to avoid, such as overeating. Completing the challenges awards you achievements, unlocks new challenges, and helps level you up – in game, and in real life. Sticking with SuperBetter can help you build good habits, kerb bad ones and generally become happier and healthier. BrightmindFree + $94.99/£87.99 yearly subscription Meditation apps have flourished on mobile. At this point there’s quite a large number of high quality ones, but whether you’re looking for a change or haven’t quite found one that’s the right fit yet, Brightmind could be worth a look. This Android app aims to tailor the experience to your needs more than some other meditation apps, as you can pick whether you want a male or female voice guiding you, and tell the app what your main goal with meditating is, be it to relieve stress, communicate better, or a number of other things. Doing this lets the app highlight meditation courses that it thinks are most relevant to you. Once you actually get down to meditating, you can also choose the duration of the meditation, and if you don’t want a guided experience there’s also a self-guided meditation mode, which lets you pick a duration and optionally add interval bells. Brightmind contains hundreds of meditations, but most of them require a subscription. This costs $94.99/£87.99 per year. The app supposedly also offers a monthly subscription, but we can’t work out how to access it. It does at least give you a seven-day free trial before charging you for the year though.
FibriCheckStarts at €3.99 (around $4.50 / £3.50 / AU$6.50) per month Recent Apple Watches and the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 have an ECG (electrocardiogram) built in, but phones so far are left out. FibriCheck though promises to be just as good, and it works on Android handsets with no special hardware. By placing your finger on your phone’s camera, the FibriCheck app can measure your heart’s rhythm and detect any abnormalities – which could be signs of atrial fibrillation, among other things. The Android app generates an instant report that you can download and – if you wish – share with your doctor, and optionally you can also get your measurements reviewed in-app by medical experts (though this costs more). After a 1-day free trial, which is worth doing just to get a one-off reading, you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription to keep using Fibricheck. The basic subscription starts at €3.99 (around $4.50 / £3.50 / AU$6.50) per month, while getting a review of each reading by medical experts along with a more detailed report starts at €10.99 (roughly $12 / £10 / AU$18). In both cases that’s if you commit to a year upfront. The prices go up if you pay monthly. It’s not cheap then, but it is a remarkable feature to have access to on your smartphone. And if you’re skeptical of the accuracy it might reassure you to know that FibriCheck has been CE-certified and FDA-approved. Mission AdventureFree + various IAP Mission Adventure aims to turn any walk into a mission, or, er, an adventure. Aimed primarily at young children, this Android app allows a route setter (that’s you) to create a walking route on a map of the area around you. The route will have a number of markers on it, and at each marker part of a story will unfold. For free you get access to a swashbuckling tale, where players will interact with pirates and explore the seas by walking (or sometimes running) from one marker to another, and by answering nautical questions. The story has three chapters, with each walk forming one chapter. There are then two additional stories that can be purchased for $2.99/£2.99 at the time of writing. So there’s not a ton of content, but stories can play out differently based on the decisions you make and whether you get questions right or wrong. The developers also have more story packs in the works. In fact, by the time you read this, some might be available. And while it lasts, Mission Adventure has the potential to be a lot of fun for youngsters, and a useful tool for getting them out of the house – if not away from screens. WisdoFree Many of us have struggles in our lives, but you don’t need to struggle alone. With Wisdo, you can join one or more groups focused on an issue you might be facing, such as anxiety, depression, or eating disorders. Though there are also groups for things like learning to meditate and becoming an activist, so it’s not all directly tied to health. You can optionally share more details of what you’ve been through on your profile, while within groups you can post messages, and read and reply to other people’s posts, offering support and guidance. You can also have private conversations with people in the app, with the idea being that people who have been through the things you’re struggling with can help guide you, or vice versa. It’s an Android app that’s clearly connected with a lot of people – so much so that it’s a ‘2019 Google Play Award Winner’ for ‘Social Impact’, so if you think you could use a friendly ear – or offer one – then it’s definitely worth downloading. Bedtime CreaturesFree + various IAP Bedtime Creatures is an Android app that plays relaxing music and nature sounds to help you chill out, sleep, or to drown out background noise. Lots of other apps have a similar goal, but Bedtime Creatures is unusually cute and colorful. Each sound has a related animated scene with a cartoon animal, including a raccoon by a campfire, a panda in a bamboo forest and several others. Each scene has its own music and background audio, and you can unlock additional sounds to add to the mix using gems. You’ll also need gems to unlock additional scenes. These gems can be bought, but you start off with enough for a few scenes or a bunch of additional sounds and simply launching the app sometimes rewards you with gems. You can also customize the appearance of the animals with clothes, which can be bought with a second currency earned over time through simply using the app. Though this currency can also be gained by watching adverts (which are never forced on you) or swapping gems for it. Having two currencies in what’s ultimately quite a simple app seems excessive, but since everything ultimately can be obtained with gems and nothing is vastly expensive at the moment, you can just buy a pack of gems, unlock everything you’re interested in and ignore the rest. FreeMind MeditationsFree + $10.99/£9.99 monthly subscription FreeMind Meditations is one of many meditation Android apps on Google Play, but it aims to stand out through its use of music. The meditations include bespoke ‘MetaMusic’ created by film composers and professional musicians, and beyond being enjoyable to listen to while meditating, this music includes trigger sounds that supposedly evoke specific states of mind and help you engage more deeply and easily with the meditations. We can’t say with any certainty how well this worked for us, but it definitely doesn’t detract from the experience and if you struggle to get into meditations usually, FreeMind might be the solution. That aside, this has most of what you’d expect from a mediation app, including a large library of meditations covering various topics. There are more than 250 in all, but only 14 are free – the rest require a subscription. EndomondoFree + £9.99 (roughly $13) monthly subscription If you run, cycle or even like to track your walks then there’s a good chance you’ve come across Endomondo before. As one of the oldest, biggest and best apps in the business - it stays that way thanks to regular updates; at the time of writing the app was updated less than two weeks ago. Even if you don’t run or cycle you might still want to check out Endomondo, as - despite its GPS-tracking specialities - it can also track more than 60 other sports, such as golf, climbing and ice skating. Alongside route and distance tracking, Endomondo can also track your speed, pace, calories and more. Ff you’re doing a sport that can’t be tracked with GPS then you can manually enter your workout, so you’ve still got a log of your achievements. Additionally, you can link Endomondo to heart rate monitors and cadence sensors to incorporate their data into your records. The app can also be connected to auxiliary fitness accounts such as Google Fit, Garmin Connect and Polar Flow, so all your health and fitness data will be in sync. Endomondo also lets you create goals for individual workouts or for your week, so you have targets to hit - the Android app will even alert you when you achieve a personal best. Plus, you can create and participate in challenges against friends and other users of the app. And if all that isn’t enough then you can also subscribe to Endomondo Premium, which adds heart rate zone analysis, interval training, personal training plans, access to advanced statistics (such as how far you’ve run in total each month), and more. Simple HabitFree + $9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription Meditation apps are meant, among other things, to relax and de-stress us, but if you’re anything like us they run the risk of doing the opposite, becoming chores that we feel guilty for neglecting. Simple Habit doesn’t completely solve that problem, but it gets some way there, by offering short 5-minute meditations, that you can easily fit in at any point during your day. Other meditation apps have short sessions too, but there are usually only a few of them, mixed in with longer meditations, while they’re all short in Simple Habit (though we do have to point out some stretch beyond 5 minutes to cater for those that do want a bit more relaxation). Simple Habit also has a variety of different teachers to guide you, so if you don’t get on with one (or just get bored of their voice) there are plenty of others to choose from. The rest of the Android app is as you’d expect, with meditations designed around specific life circumstances, goals or moods, and a simple interface that doesn’t get in the way. Like Headspace, most of the meditations are locked behind a subscription, but you can listen to a handful for free to see if Simple Habit is for you. Our favorite Android apps for making music, listening to music, finding podcasts and everything else to do with audio. Muviz EdgeFree + various IAPs Muviz Edge adds visuals to your music by displaying a music visualizer around the edges of your phone’s screen while music is playing. It works with streamed or local content from any app and you can customize the visuals, choosing from a number of patterns, and adjusting the colors, speed, and more. You can even get Muviz Edge to automatically match the colors of the album art for whatever you’re currently listening to. It’s a bit limited in that a visualizer along the edge of your screen can only do so much – no matter how you tweak it all we’re really talking about is colored lines moving around the screen edge, but it still looks good. It also requires IAPs to unlock some of the patterns and certain other features, but there’s enough here for free that it’s worth downloading even if you’re not prepared to shell out for all the extras. Volume Panel Pro$0.99 / £0.59 Volume Panel Pro is a replacement for your smartphone’s standard volume controls. Hit the volume key on your phone and you’ll see this instead, which in many cases will be an upgrade. The Android app can display volumes for calls, media and alarms all in one go, so you don’t need to dig into menus to change individual settings. You can also choose which side of the phone screen to display the volume controls on and how far from the top, change the colors of both the panel and the sliders, choose which volume gets altered by default, choose how long the volume panel stays visible after you hit a volume key, and more. It’s not a game-changing feature, but it’s a well thought out and customizable improvement on most standard Android volume controls, and it’s easily worth the low asking price. Pocket CastsFree + $1.19 / £0.99 monthly subscription We’ve covered Pocket Casts before, but it’s worth highlighting again because it’s now free. That doesn’t mean you’ll be bombarded with adverts or have your data sold; this Android app is truly free with no strings attached. Those who want more or want to support the developers can subscribe to the new Pocket Casts Plus service (for $1.19 / £0.99 per month or $11.99 / £9.99 per year), which unlocks extras like desktop players, additional themes and the ability to upload and play non-podcast files on Pocket Casts. But for everyone else, it’s the same app that so many have known and loved for years, complete with a slick interface and all sorts of handy tools, such as a volume boost for speech, the ability to change the playback speed and trim silence, Chromecast support, and a whole lot more. The developers promise that the free version won’t be neglected either – this is still their core product and will continue to get updated and have new free features added. So if you’ve not already tried Pocket Casts there’s never been a better time. LuminaryFree + $7.99/£6.99 per month Luminary is a podcast app that, as well as packing in access to most of the podcasts you know and love, also has its own exclusive content that you won’t find anywhere else. Access to those exclusive shows – over 40 of which are either out or in the works at the time of writing – is the main reason to choose Luminary over other podcast players, but to get that access you will have to subscribe at a cost of $7.99/£6.99 per month (following one free month). These exclusives are ad-free and in many cases come from big names like Lena Dunham and Trevor Noah, but even if you’re not up for paying, Luminary could still be worth considering. Stick to the free content and this is basically like any other podcast app, but it’s a polished one, with an attractive interface and loads of features, including the ability to cast podcasts to speakers, download podcasts for offline listening, get new podcast suggestions based on what you like, change the play speed, activate a sleep timer, and more. The only real downside to Luminary at the moment is that while it offers exclusive content, the Android app also lacks a few big-name shows that you’ll find on other platforms, such as Reply All and The Daily, so if any of your favorites are missing, you’re best off podcasting elsewhere. Audm$7.99/£6.49 per month Audm essentially turns articles into podcasts, by having them read aloud. But unlike some apps this isn’t a robot doing the talking, it’s a real person, making it far more engaging to listen to. In fact, it uses “celebrated audiobook narrators”, so it’s professionally done, and there’s a lot of content, with articles from dozens of popular sources such as Wired, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and many more, with new stories added every week. The Audm Android app lets you browse all the content, or filter based on source or narrator. You can also read the articles, or read along with the narration, having it scroll in time with the spoken words. And you can change the narration speed, and have articles downloaded for offline listening. It’s a good app, good enough to justify a subscription, which Audm charges at $7.99/£6.49 per month after a three-day free trial. Pocket Casts$3.99/£3.99 Pocket Casts has long been our podcast player of choice, but the Android app is a very different beast today to what it once was, thanks to a major update bringing it to version 7. It’s an update that’s mostly for the better in our opinion, but not without its critics. Love it or hate it though, it’s a big enough overhaul to warrant highlighting Pocket Casts again. It also makes the app worth revisiting if you tried it before but didn’t get on with the old version. The changes include a whole new look and a wealth of new features, such as up-next syncing, listening history, the ability to play podcasts without subscribing, improved recommendations, the ability to search for specific episodes, new swipe controls, a draggable player and a whole lot more. If you’re used to the old version of the app then version 7 will take some getting used to, but we reckon most people will come to love it. Poweramp Music Player$3.99/£3.39 Poweramp is an old favorite in the world of music player apps, but a massive overhaul has brought it to version three, complete with a new audio engine which supports hi-res output and additional file formats, including opus, tak, mka, dsd, and dsf/dff. The overhaul also added tempo controls and a reverb effect, updated the UI to make it a whole lot more modern (complete with light and dark themes) and made navigation more intuitive. That’s all building on top of an already brilliant app that has a 10-band graphic equalizer, support for most audio file formats, and all sorts of tools and options, such as gapless playback and crossfade. The app can display lyrics and download missing album artwork, and there are widgets, a tag editor, and numerous additional themes available to download. Few Android apps match Poweramp for features, and as of V3 it’s one of the best-looking music players on Android too. It’s well worth the price tag if you play much local audio, but it comes with a 15-day free trial, so you can try it out before paying. YouTube MusicFree + optional $9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription YouTube Music is an Android app that puts the shows and shorts to one side and is all about the music. It’s all here, presented with personalized recommendations and a constantly updated ‘hotlist’ of trending tracks. There are also numerous playlists, and you can create your own. That’s all free, but to get the most out of YouTube Music you need to pay for YouTube Music Premium, which costs US$9.99/£9.99 per month and lets you listen offline, with your screen off, or while using other apps. It also gets rid of the adverts. However, if that sounds appealing you’re probably best off paying for YouTube Premium. This subscription costs slightly more at US$11.99/£11.99 per month, but also gives you access to the main YouTube site and apps ad-free, lets you watch YouTube originals, enables you to play videos in the background, and more besides. TaoMix 2Free + various IAP TaoMix 2 is an ambient noise Android app designed to drown out the outside world and help you relax, sleep or focus. There are lots of sounds to choose from, such as birds chirping, rain, waves, wind, a fireplace, a thunderstorm and many more. But you’re not limited to one sound – you can build a soundscape by selecting several at once. Each of these sounds appears as a circle on your screen and there’s another circle which can be made to move around the screen, and which makes each sound more prominent when it overlaps with them, so the soundscapes vary over time based on the movements of this circle. You can save any soundscape you make to easily return to it later and you can set a timer, so the soundscape will automatically turn off after a set period of time. You can even record your own sounds. The core app is free, but to get the most out of TaoMix 2 you’ll want to invest in some of the sound packs to bulk up the available selection. These start at £0.69/US$0.99. Our favorite Android apps for taking notes, writing and editing documents and generally working on the move. Typewise KeyboardFree + $1.99/£1.89 monthly subscription Typewise Keyboard aims to reinvent the smartphone keyboard, by opting for hexagonal keys which are 70% larger than typical smartphone keyboard keys and therefore easier to hit, reducing typos. Typewise Keyboard also has numerous gesture controls, which can speed up typing significantly once you get used to them, as can the presence of not one but two spacebars, or rather, space hexagons. Other notable features include a focus on privacy, as everything is stored locally, and an absence of permissions (there’s just one required in order to enable vibration). There’s an autocorrect feature too, and if you don’t get on with the hexagons you can switch to a more conventional layout – although if you’re going to do that then there are a lot of strong alternative keyboards. Typewise is mostly free, but for $1.99/£1.89 a month (with discounts if you pay for a year upfront) you can access numerous themes, along with vibration and various additional settings and options. We’re not big on paying a subscription for a keyboard, but most users probably won’t feel the need and there is also a lifetime licence available for $24.99/£19.49. In any case, the free version is definitely worth a try, and worth persevering with for at least a few days, as it does have a learning curve, but we were impressed once we got the hang of it. FleksyFree + various IAP Are you bored of using the same old keyboard? If so, then you might want to give Fleksy a try, as it’s stylish and near endlessly customizable through dozens of themes. Of course, the Android app also does the actual job of being a keyboard admirably. In our experience you can type on it quite fast with minimal mistakes, and the autocorrect works well. It also has extras such as GIFs, handwriting support, gesture controls, and even a whole ‘Fleksyapps’ section, which lets you access a number of apps from within the keyboard. Say, for example, you’re mid-conversation with a friend, trying to decide where to go for lunch. Usually if you want to look places up, you’d have to switch to another app, but with Fleksy you can just access Yelp from within the keyboard and keep on typing. You can also access the likes of YouTube and Skyscanner, and we expect other apps will be added over time. For the most part Fleksy is free, but certain themes cost ‘Fleksycoins’, which can be obtained through doing things like watching adverts (which are never forced on you) and earning badges from your use of the app, or purchased with real money. Email TypeAppFree + various IAP With the death of Inbox by Gmail, there’s a good chance you’re looking for a new email app, and the clunkily-named Email TypeApp might fit the bill. The Android app is absolutely packed full of features, such as a unified inbox for multiple email accounts, Android Wear support, a customizable look, account color-coding, configurable menus, read receipts, the ability to unsend emails, and more. It also has customizable Do Not Disturb days and hours – a feature that’s sadly missing from some alternative apps. Email TypeApp is also mostly free. A few extra features such as send later and VIP notifications are chargeable, but you can unlock everything for $6.99/£5.99 and chances are you’ll be happy with the free content anyway. JotterPadFree + various IAP If you have an Android tablet with a keyboard you might be considering doing some serious writing, and if you’re considering that then you should definitely consider using JotterPad. This isn’t a new app; rather, it’s an old favorite of many that’s regularly updated, ensuring it remains one of the best options for writing on Android. The core of the Android app is a distraction-free text editor, but dig into the menus and there are all sorts of tools and options. There’s Markdown support for example, a word count, cloud storage, a phrase search, a built-in dictionary, a dark theme, a rhyming dictionary, numerous fonts, and more. Some of this stuff is hidden behind IAP, the main one being ‘Pro’, which costs $14.99/£12.99. That might seem steep, but it’s a one-off payment and if you’re writing an essay or novel on JotterPad then you should easily get your money’s worth. Writer ToolsFree + $4.99/£4.99 monthly subscription Writer Tools is a set of tools for anyone who’s setting out to write a novel. The app makes this daunting task a bit more manageable by letting you create characters and locations. These sections store these details so they’re always readily available, and help you flesh them out. For example, the character creator lets you fill out all sorts of optional details such as their greatest fear and best memory. Writer Tools also has a built-in thesaurus, lets you jot down ideas and notes, create timelines, set quarterly writing goals, and more. You can also back-up your work to the cloud, so you’ll never lose it. This is all free, but for a monthly subscription you can get rid of adverts, access all your historic backups, add images to your characters and locations, switch to a night mode, and more. There’s a lot in this Android app, which goes some way to justifying the price, but many users will be fine with the free version. OfficeSuiteFree + £8.49 (around $11.10) IAP If you’re looking for office software on Android there are really only a handful of options, and OfficeSuite is one of the best, thanks largely to how feature-packed it is. You can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations or PDFs, and you can start from scratch or use one of numerous templates as a jumping off point. You can share documents and message contributors from the Android app, save work to the cloud, open two documents and work on them both at once in split-screen, cast presentations across multiple devices, and a whole lot more. Most of the features in OfficeSuite are totally free, but if you’re using it a lot it’s probably worth upgrading to OfficeSuite Premium, which, among other things, lets you save files in more formats and unlocks more PDF tools, such as the ability to convert PDFs to Word or Excel format, and create and use digital signatures. Microsoft WordFree + $6.99/£5.99 monthly subscription Microsoft Word probably needs no introduction, but if you do much word processing on your tablet (or even your phone) and haven’t tried the Android app then you really should. You essentially get the full version, allowing you to view, create and edit documents of various styles, including newsletters, brochures and more. You can change the font, text color, margins, add bullet points and most other things possible from the desktop version of Word, via a slick, polished interface that’s pleasingly minimal most of the time. You can also save your documents to OneDrive, so they’re accessible from other devices. Many of the features are free, but you’ll need an Office 365 subscription (which starts at US$6.99/£5.99 per month) to unlock the likes of page and section breaks, columns, different page orientations, and the ability to track and review changes in the Android app. Otter Voice NotesFree + optional subscription Sometimes you don’t have time to take notes. Recording audio can come in handy, but often means spending time transcribing it later. Not so with Otter Voice Notes. The Android app will automatically transcribe what’s spoken using AI, and you can teach it to recognize your voice so it can differentiate between speakers. Once the audio is transcribed you can read it and correct any mistakes manually. The audio is also recorded, so you can listen back to the recording as well. The really clever bit though is that Otter will detect keywords automatically, so you can search for a word and the app will find where it appears in any of your recordings. It’s a great feature that makes it easy to find specific information, even if you’ve recorded hours of audio. You can also create groups, allowing you to share recordings with others, and all of your recordings are stored in the cloud so you can access them on any device and they won’t take up space on your phone. The only two problems we’ve found so far is that longer recordings can take a while to be transcribed, and the transcription isn’t always perfect. It’s usually good enough that you can tell what it means though, and you can correct any errors so it’s not a big deal. Chambers Thesaurus$4.99/£2.99 There are a number of thesaurus apps on Google Play and some are free, but if you’re regularly writing – or looking words up – on your Android device, then Chambers Thesaurus is one of the best options, and worth the outlay. It has entries for almost 40,000 words, along with around 400,000 synonyms and antonyms, and they’re browsable alphabetically so you can read through the thesaurus if you want, rather than simply searching for a word. When you do search, you’ll get results as soon as you start typing, and not just for words that fit the spelling, but also similarly spelt words, those that sound similar, and those that are often confused for one another. You can also bookmark entries and cross reference with the Chambers Dictionary or WordWeb apps (if you have them), or look the words up on Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Google, all with a tap from Chambers Thesaurus. Data is stored locally, so you don’t need an internet connection to use the Android app itself, and there are all sorts of customization options, letting you change the color scheme, font size and more. Our favorite Android apps for improving productivity, whether through to-do lists, focus timers or other tools. Duet Display$19.99/£19.49 Duet Display is an Android app that lets you use your phone or tablet as a second screen for your PC or Mac. Simply launch the Duet Display Android app as well as the free Duet desktop app, and the latter will detect your phone or tablet and turn it into an extra screen. You can control your desktop from this second screen using taps and gestures, even if your PC or Mac isn’t touchscreen itself, so it potentially gives you a new way to interact with your computer, and at the very least it gives you more space. It also works without any wires, though you can use a USB connection if you prefer. It’s not particularly cheap at $19.99/£19.49, but it does something no other app that we know of can. TwobirdFree Twobird is a new email app but it goes beyond email by also offering a space for notes, complete with a simple built-in to-do list feature and the ability to easily create tables. You can collaborate on notes too, nest them inside emails, and leave comments for other participants – best of all, those participants don’t even need Twobird. The email bit is still the focus of Twobird though and it does a good job of that too, with a minimalist interface but various tools tucked away if you need them, such as the ability to set a ‘reminder’ to respond to an email, by having it pop back up in your inbox at a time that suits you. So the Android app looks good, works well and has more features than you might expect at first glance. It also supports multiple email addresses, though it’s limited to Gmail, which is its one main issue right now. If you use Gmail though, and like the idea of having your emails and notes all in one place, then Twobird is an app worth getting. Yahoo MailFree + monthly or yearly subscription You probably don’t use Yahoo for your email, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the Yahoo Mail app, as it works with other email services and is impressively powerful. Highlights include the ability to see every file you’ve ever received all in a single place, as well as being able to view all the mailing lists you’re subscribed to in one place – and easily unsubscribe from any you don’t want with a single tap. You can also view receipts, or see mail just from people (rather than companies and robots), and there are a number of customization options too, so you can for example change the theme (for each linked email account individually), and customize what swiping left or right over a message will do. The Android app gives you all this free, but for $0.99/£0.89 per month or $9.99/£8.99 per year you can get rid of adverts. Microsoft To DoFree Microsoft To Do has progressed slowly, but it has reached the point now where it’s genuinely one of the best list-making Android apps. It’s now much prettier than it once was, for a start, with full-color customizable backgrounds and the sort of polished overall appearance you’d expect from an app by a company as big as Microsoft. The list-making part is good too. You can group lists, decide whether completed entries should be hidden or simply struck through, and star important tasks, all of which will then also appear on a separate ‘Important’ list. There’s also a ‘My Day’ section, helping you focus just on the tasks that you want to get done in the next 24 hours. Within each list you can choose to sort by importance, due date, creation date, or alphabetically. You can create collaborative lists or share a copy of a list. And if you’re currently using Wunderlist you can import all of your content from that (as Microsoft owns that too). Expenses: Simple TrackerFree Expenses: Simple Tracker is a simple, speedy way to track expenses. Simply tap the ‘Add Expense’ button to add an expense, including the amount, the currency (though you can separately choose a default currency, so you’ll only have to change this when using another), and the date that the expense occurred – with the current date selected by default. You can also add optional notes and tags, the latter of which you create yourself. You may want to do this to separate your expenses into different categories, such as ‘bills’ and ‘groceries’. You can attach multiple tags to an expense if it fits into more than one category. The main screen of Expenses: Simple Tracker will then give an overview of your expenses. It initially shows your all-time expenses total, with a list of these expenses below, sorted by date. However, you can also choose just to see expenses from the current day, the week or the month. And you can filter by tags. So if you only want to see what you’ve spent on socializing, you can do that – as long as you tagged the expenses in the first place. You can’t connect a bank account to the Android app, which is both a blessing and a curse. It keeps it simple, but means you have to manually enter every expense. Still, it’s slick and it’s free – so downloading the app won’t be something you have to add to your expenses. ChecketryFree + $2.99 (around £2.45) monthly subscription Checketry is a file and download manager that lets you keep tabs on and manage downloads that are happening on your PC, from your phone. The Android app can access downloads from Chrome and Firefox (with the appropriate browser plugins installed), manage torrents and even control your Steam downloads. The free version mostly just lets you view current, queued and finished downloads, but upgrade for a monthly or yearly subscription and you can also pause or cancel downloads and even access some remote desktop tools, such as the ability to shut down your PC from afar. It’s a great tool if you ever leave downloads running on your PC while you’re not at your desk, and is worth a download even if you stick with the free version. CronoFree If you use Chrome on your computer then with the help of Crono you can very easily get all of your smartphone notifications on your desktop, and even reply to messages. Simply install the Android app on your phone and the Chrome extension on your computer, then scan a QR code, similar to how you log in to WhatsApp Web, and from there – like WhatsApp Web – your messages will pop up in your browser. You won’t be limited to WhatsApp messages, though – emails, SMS messages and other chat apps are all supported, as is replying to the messages. You can view calendar notifications, any timers you have running, and pretty much anything else happening on your phone as well. Crono also lets you reject calls from your browser and ring your phone, which is handy if you’ve misplaced it. And all of the notifications sent through Crono sport end-to-end encryption, so it’s secure too. MyScript Calculator 2$2.99 / £2.69 At times, MyScript Calculator 2 feels a bit like magic. The Android app lets you write out a calculation by hand, so you’re not reliant on calculator buttons, then its turns it into neat text and solves it for you. In our tests – with our exceedingly messy handwriting – it knew what we were writing every time. It goes way beyond the basics too, with support for brackets, logarithms, constants, roots, trigonometry, and more. It also lets you write calculations over multiple lines, scribble out mistakes (or hit the undo button), and drag and drop elements of the calculation to move them around, updating the answer as you do so.It saves previous calculations so you can always return to them, and lets you share your sums with other apps. The only problem our maths-muddled brain faced was remembering how to write complex sums in the first place, but if you know how to write them, MyScript Calculator 2 is sure to know how to solve them. Our favorite Android apps for customizing your device and improving its security. CometinFree + various IAPs Cometin is really many Android apps in one, but they’re all focused on tweaking and improving your Android experience. What does that mean? Well, Cometin has numerous modules which you can choose to activate, each of which has different functionality. One for example gives you more control over your screen’s auto rotation, letting you enable ‘full orientation’, which allows you to rotate the screen to 90, 180 or 270 degrees, or to force a specific orientation. There’s also an ‘Ambient Display’ module, which lets you activate an always-on display or wave over your phone to show the time. There are several other modules beyond those, with more likely to be added over time. Most of the content is currently free as well, though there a few IAPs, most notably one that lets you activate more than five modules at once. Vivaldi Browser BetaFree Don’t let the ‘beta’ in the name put you off – this Android app is worth getting excited about. Vivaldi Browser Beta is an Android version of the Vivaldi desktop web browser, which is enormously customizable and full of thoughtful features. The Android version has things like Speed Dial, giving you quick access to your favorite sites whenever you open a new tab, a built in notepad, and the ability to switch search engines from the search bar itself, just by typing the first letter of their name before your query. Vivaldi Browser Beta also lets you sync your bookmarks, notes, passwords and more across devices (using end-to-end encryption), use private browsing, add searchable descriptions to bookmarks, screenshot entire web pages, switch to a dark mode, and more. If you’re used to Chrome then the layout might take a little getting used to, but this Android app is well worth the effort. Tor BrowserFree Tor is probably the most secure and privacy-focused web browser available on desktop, and now you can get Tor Browser for Android. The app uses multi-layered encryption, with your web traffic relayed and encrypted three times. It also blocks trackers, prevents surveillance and resists fingerprinting. The Android app is, if anything, probably overkill for most people, but the interface – based on Firefox v60 – is fairly slick, so there aren’t too many downsides to using it. And as well as making your online activity more secure, Tor can also bypass many regional restrictions on websites, so it achieves many of the same things as a VPN. It’s also completely free to use. MIUI-ify Notification ShadeFree + $2.49/£1.99 IAP Phones are getting bigger, but hands aren’t, which can sometimes pose a problem when it comes to accessing the notification shade, as this typically sits all the way at the top of the screen. With MIUI-ify Notification Shade you can move it to the bottom, but this is more than just a simple switch of positions. The app also lets you customize the colors and overall look, the size and position of the area you have to swipe over to bring it up, and to pick exactly what shortcuts appear on the shade, among other things. It works well too, and looks good doing it; the name might be clunky, but in practice MIUI-ify Notification Shade is anything but. The core Android app is free but many of the customization options require a one-off $2.49/£1.99 IAP, which should be worth it if you plan to use this app. Betta Fish Live WallpaperFree + $0.99/£0.69 IAP While live wallpapers can be a little harsher on battery than their static siblings, there’s no denying that they often look great, and Betta Fish Live Wallpaper is one of the best examples. This Android app allows a betta fish (aka a Siamese fighting fish) to swim around your home screen, with beautiful animations and lots of detail. It’s even slightly interactive, as you can block the fish’s path with a tap or swipe on the screen. That much you get for free, but for a $0.99/£0.69 IAP you unlock the ability to change the colors of both the fish and the background, change the fish’s movement path, turn the bubbles off, and more. We’d say it’s cheap enough that it’s worth the outlay if you like what you see, but either way you can turn your phone into an eye-catching digital fish tank. Abstruct – Wallpapers in 4KFree + $1.99/£1.99 IAP Abstruct is the official wallpaper app of the man behind the wallpapers used by OnePlus phones, and it includes both those wallpapers and many others created by him. At the time of writing there are over 300 in all and they’re all available in 4K resolution. They’re also absolutely gorgeous. As the name suggests, they’re mostly abstract, but they’re split into galleries that are each distinct from one another. There’s one that shows real-world landscapes made to look alien for example, and another where all the designs are made up of polygons. Many of these galleries are free, but access to everything in the Android app requires a one-off payment of $1.99/£1.99. Paying for wallpapers might seem odd when the internet is packed full of them, but these are good enough that if you like their style it’s worth the outlay – this is one of very few wallpaper apps that we’ve spent money on. App TilesFree If there are any Android apps that you pretty much live inside then App Tiles could be for you, as it makes accessing them even quicker and easier. It does this by letting you add a shortcut to them on your notifications screen, just like you probably have shortcuts to various settings up there now. App Tiles lets you assign up to six such shortcuts for any apps on your phone, so rather than returning to the home screen to launch one of them you can do so with a swipe and a tap. This won’t always be faster, especially if you’re already on the relevant home screen, but it gives you one more way to get into them and is sure to save time on some occasions. We wouldn’t say this is essential for everyone, but it works perfectly in our tests and it’s totally free, so it’s well worth checking out if the idea appeals. ResplashFree Resplash is a wallpaper Android app that uses content from Unsplash – a site full of free stock photos that you can use for anything. As it’s using content from such a well-established site, Resplash has a massive library, with over 100,000 images, but it’s still easy to find specific styles of photo by searching or browsing by category. As well as downloading images or setting them straight to your wallpaper, you can also favorite them, so you’ll always be able to find them again, even from a different device. Resplash offers a surprising amount of personalization too, letting you change the theme and the way images are displayed (as a list or a grid, for example). You can also choose the quality of images when you download them or set them as a wallpaper, with options ranging from ‘thumb’ to ‘raw’. Best of all, it’s completely free, though if you do feel like supporting the makers of the app there is an option to donate. SAFEFree SAFE is an Android app that’s designed to, well, help you ensure your phone is safe. It guards against intrusion - whether it’s from hackers, viruses or nosy eyes. It does this by giving your device four scores. One for its configuration, one for connectivity, one for apps and one for the operating system. Each of these scores is out of five, with higher being better and suggesting a greater level of security. But you get more than just a number. You also get a breakdown of everything that affected the score, with positives in green and negatives in red. If you tap on any of these you can get additional information, complete with help in solving the problem if it’s a red thing. Bear in mind that you might disagree with SAFE as to what is and isn’t a problem. For example, it will flag having Bluetooth or NFC on as security issues, which technically they are, but they’re also useful (and essential in some circumstances). You probably won’t want to fix everything, but SAFE could end up highlighting some issues you didn’t know about and making your device safer in the process. Widget Drawer$0.99/£0.89 Widgets are a potentially great feature of Android phones, but they can take up a lot of space and leave your home screens feeling cluttered. So, what if you could hide them, but in a place where they’re never more than a swipe away? That’s the concept of Widget Drawer. The Android app places a ‘handle’ on your screen, which is basically just a narrow colored line running part way down one edge, and if you swipe it you can see a screen full of widgets. You can choose which widgets to put on that screen, resize them and move them around. The handle itself is accessible just about everywhere other than your lock screen, so you can even access your widgets when inside other apps. You can customize the size and color of the handle, and when in the Widget Drawer you can return to the screen underneath either by hitting the cross at the bottom or just tapping any empty space. It’s the sort of useful app that you might end up wondering how you ever lived without. Or at least it will be with a bit more polish. At the moment resizing widgets feels a bit more clunky than it needs to be and we can’t find a way to remove widgets from the drawer without reinstalling the app. There might be one, but it’s either not obvious or not working for us. However, that’s not such a surprise, as Widget Drawer is still in early access, so we’d expect it will improve over time. BlurFree + $39.99 (around £24) per year Blur is essentially a one stop Android app for privacy and security online. As you might expect then, it has a number of different features, but the most interesting is perhaps Masked Cards, which lets you shop online without ever entering or exposing your real credit card information. This works through the creation of disposable virtual credit cards through Blur, so essentially you give retailers a temporary card number that will only work for that one transaction. You can mask your phone number and email in similar ways. Blur also includes a password manager, so you can create and store passwords in the app and have them auto-filled when you go to a login page for other apps or sites. Masked emails are free, but most of the other features require a subscription, costing $39.99 (around £24) per year, with discounts available if you commit for two or three years. Note also that the card masking element only works in the US, but Blur is working on making it more widely available. Malwarebytes SecurityFree + $1.49/£1.19 monthly subscription While there are various security features already built into Android, you can’t be too careful, so it’s well worth considering adding Malwarebytes Security to your Android app arsenal. Malwarebytes can scan your device for viruses, adware and malware, but it also offers proactive protection, with real-time ransomware shields, protection from phishing URLs when using Chrome, alerts when there’s a malicious link in a text message, and the ability to block unwanted calls. Malwarebytes can also conduct a privacy audit on your phone, showing you at a glance what privileges your apps have. Most of these features are only available in the premium version, which costs $1.49/£1.19 per month or $11.99/£10.99 for a year, but you get a 30-day free trial and if you don’t want to pay you can still scan and clean your phone with the free version. Our favorite Android apps for planning a holiday, checking the weather and getting around without getting lost. Appy WeatherFree + $3.99/£3.99 yearly subscription It’s not easy to get excited about weather apps, and we can’t claim that Appy Weather changes that, but most of us probably do use one or more of them regularly, and Appy Weather is well worth consideration. Once a Windows Phone app, it’s finally made its way to Android, where it stands out through an attractive, minimalist and easy to navigate interface that has a look unlike most other weather apps. Whether you like the style will be subjective, but feature-wise it has got everything most users need, including forecasts for the current day and the next seven days, complete with the temperature, what it ‘feels like’, precipitation, cloud cover, visibility and a whole lot of other details. Information is largely presented on easy to read graphs and with large, clear text, and the forecasts come from Dark Sky, which is generally accurate in our experience. A sticking point might be the cost – the free version only lets you search for a forecast five times per day. To remove that limit, get rid of adverts, and unlock widgets, you’ll need to subscribe for $3.99/£3.99 per year. Subscribing to a weather app might seem unappealing, but most users probably won’t need to. After all, how many times a day do you really check the weather? Plus, the app’s author does a good job of justifying the price, as not only is it a great Android app, they explain that the service used to retrieve the weather isn’t free, so for the app to be sustainable a subscription model is currently necessary. Culture TripFree Whether you’re heading abroad or just want to get more out of the city you live in, Culture Trip could help. Search for a place or just use your current location and the Android app will serve up a selection of articles, covering things to see and do, and tips and tricks relevant to the location. Some of these articles also include videos, and Culture Trip doesn’t stick just with the obvious stuff (for example, a search for New York turned up articles such as The Enchanting Witches of New York City), but there’s plenty of more conventional content too, like lists of the top 20 sights you need to see. You can bookmark things you’re interested in and download content so you can access it offline – ideal if you’re going to be roaming abroad. There are also links to book hotels and the like straight from the app, and with images everywhere and a nice layout, it’s a pleasure to use and get inspired by. Atmosphere WeatherFree + $3.99/£3.69 annual subscription Atmosphere Weather aims to stand out from the weather-watching crowd by presenting the forecast like a 24-hour clock. Each hour of weather is presented by a segment on the clock face, giving you a clear way to instantly see the hour-by-hour weather for the next day at a glance. As well as seeing written temperatures on each hour, there’s also color-coding to represent the different temperatures and how clear the sky is. You can even get calendar events displayed on the weather clock, and away from that screen there’s also a radar view, complete with wind speeds and directions. The clock is the main feature though and it’s a genuinely useful and different twist on weather forecasts. The only downside is that after a two-week free trial of the Android app, you have to either put up with ads or pay a subscription, which will cost you $3.99/£3.69 per year. We'd have preferred to see a one-off payment option, but if you use the app regularly it should be worth the outlay. Fog of World$4.99/£4.49 Fog of World is a new, fun take on mapping apps, as it’s inspired by the ‘fog of war’ that you get in some video games (that being fog that obscures areas of a map that you’ve not been to yet) but applies it to the real world. The Android app gives you a detailed world map, but applies fog to it. Unlike most games the fog doesn’t actually hide the map, it just dulls it a bit. When you’ve been somewhere the fog is removed, so over time you can see all the places you’ve been on a single world map, based on which bits don’t have fog. To make it more interesting you can level up as you make progress and unlock various achievements, such as for visiting a certain number of countries or crossing the equator. You can also sync your data so it’s available on other devices. Fog of World isn’t going to replace Google Maps for your navigation needs, but it’s a fun, visual way to see where you’ve been, covering everything from a trip to the local store to your various holidays. CARROT WeatherFree + optional $3.99/£3.39 yearly subscription After a long stint on iOS, CARROT Weather has finally come to Android, and if you like a dose of snark with your forecast it’s worth getting excited about. Because as well as providing accurate forecasts powered by Dark Sky, CARROT Weather is home to an ‘AI’ that insults you and revels in your weather-related misery. This takes the form of more than 6,000 lines of dialogue, each of which can optionally be spoken aloud by its synthetic voice. With cute illustrations as well and even a game that sees you following clues to hunt down secret locations, CARROT Weather has more personality than any rival app. The Android app is also good for the important matter of telling you the forecast, as you can see hourly and daily forecasts, complete with humidity, UV Index, wind speed and more. The core app is free, but for US$3.99/£3.39 per year (or US$0.99/£0.89 per month) you can unlock a customizable widget, animated satellite maps, and get rid of adverts. MoovitFree Moovit isn’t new, but if you ever use public transport it’s an Android app that's well worth knowing about. Simply type a destination and Moovit will give you a selection of ways to get there, using all the public transport routes available. Tap on a route to get full directions or even a map with live navigation (complete with alerts telling you when to get off the transport you’re on), or further filter your results to minimize walking, use the least number of transfers or cut out certain transport types entirely. There are also handy features like the ability to save regular destinations and favorite the bus and train lines you use a lot, so you can quickly see their timetables. Transport timings are real-time where available, so you’ll know if the train or bus is running late, and you can download various maps for offline use. You can also use Moovit all over the world, with transport details for new cities regularly added. All in all, it’s one of the slickest, most feature-packed public transport navigation apps you can get. ZomatoFree Ever need some inspiration for where to eat? If so, Zomato has you covered. The Android app can show you nearby restaurants in a list or on a map, and you can filter results in numerous ways. Only want to see Chinese restaurants? No problem. Need somewhere that accepts bookings? You can do that. After outdoor seating? That’s fine too. And those are just a few examples of the many filters on offer. There are also ‘collections’, which highlight restaurants that fit a specific theme, such as ‘great breakfasts’ or ‘celebrity chefs’, and when you’ve found somewhere of interest you can get loads more information by tapping on it. You can see the opening times, pictures, reviews and ratings from other users of Zomato, menus, average costs, recommended dishes, contact details and a list of pros and cons. From here you can also add your own review, rating or photos, call the restaurant or bookmark it so you don’t forget about it. There’s also a social side to Zomato; you can follow other users, allowing you to see when they review a restaurant or say that they’ve visited it. Zomato has a lot to offer, and it could help you get out of your culinary comfort zone. Climendo$3.99/£3.49 The problem with weather apps is that, for the most part, they only use one source for their data, but Climendo uses lots, and then works out what the most likely weather at any given time is. The complete selection of weather providers that it uses includes AccuWeather, Weather Underground, NOAA, Met Office, Foreca, Dark Sky, SMHI, YR and World Weather Online – though only the most accurate ones for your location will be used. You can see hourly or 10-day forecasts, complete with the likelihood of each being accurate, or you can dig down to the individual forecasts from each weather provider, to see how they vary. Climendo lacks some of the more detailed information found in other Android apps – such as humidity and UV index - but if you just want accurate information on whether or not you need an umbrella then this app is up there with the best. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date, price, news and leaks Posted: 15 May 2020 07:24 AM PDT The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 phones one of the biggest devices coming towards the end of 2020, and with the Galaxy S20 handsets out the way the Notes are the next big releases expected from Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy S20, as well as the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra, constitute Samsung's first flagship phones of the year, and we'd expect a lot of the tech shown off in them to come in the Galaxy Note 20 phones. The DNA of the Notes might also be affected by the Galaxy Note 10 Lite launched in January 2020, which was the first ever chance to pick up an S Pen stylus phone for cheap, beckoning in a future of affordable stylus phones. So the potential existence of a Galaxy Note 20 Lite means Samsung has the opportunity to create a truly top-end phone in its 'Plus' model, which could be as big or even bigger than the 6.9 inches of the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Before the Samsung Galaxy S20 came out we were expecting it to be called the S11, and we were also expecting this phone to be the Note 11, although that seems unlikely now. Saying that, some of the early phone leaks refer to the Note 11, but that's just referring to this handset. So you can have an idea of what's to come with the Samsung Galaxy Note 20, we've collected every leak we've heard so far. On top of that we've got a wishlist of what we want to see in the Samsung Galaxy Note 20. Since the stylus is so central to the phone’s identity, we want to see the S Pen become a true extension of the device: more physical controls, more reason to pull it out of the phone. Latest story: The Samsung Galaxy Note 20's in-screen fingerprint sensor might be much bigger than in previous models, meaning using it to unlock your phone isn't as much of a hassle as you may be used to. Cut to the chase
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date and priceGiven previous phones in the line came out in August or September of their year, we’re expecting the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 to be released in August 2020. We haven't heard any leaks or rumors, though. One thing we can be confident of is that it's coming, and this year. Not only because Samsung always releases its Note handsets on a yearly cycle, but because the company has now specifically said that a new Note is on the way in 2020. As for cost, the Note 10 was released at a starting price of $949 / £869 / AU$1,499, so we’d expect a starting pricetag around there or even higher. The larger Note 10 Plus cost $100 / £130 / AU$200 more, so we expect a similar price jump for the inevitable Note 20 Plus. This price scheme has become pretty standard for top-tier flagship phones. It’s likely that Samsung’s flagship phones will come with 5G capability across the whole range – the Snapdragon 865 chipset is expected to be at the heart of the almost all 2020 flagship Android phones, and Qualcomm's new chipset is coupled with a 5G modem. That brings up an issue for all 5G phones in 2020. The Note 10 Plus 5G was sold by Verizon in the US for $1,299 (around £974 / AU$1,888), so we’d expect a higher-than-normal price tag for any 5G-capable version of the Note 20. Should I wait for the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 or buy a discounted Samsung Galaxy Note 10 now?The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date is still months away, if the August 2020 launch window stays constant, so you should probably consider the discounted Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10 Plus if you need a new stylus phone in the next days, weeks or even months. In an ordinary year, this is a long time to wait anyway – like, say, if you broke your phone and need a replacement ASAP – but it’s possible Samsung's launch date might be pushed back due to the coronavirus. We don't know if the phone is far enough along in production that it will avoid these delays, but we'll report it first here if we find out. In any case, if you need a new top-tier Samsung phone now (and have ruled out the Galaxy S20 range), you’re looking at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or the larger and higher-spec Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus. Here are the best prices in your region: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 leaks and newsThe Samsung Galaxy Note 20 is still months away from being released, but there’s been a few potentially revealing leaks that give us a first look at the phone. Let's start with something disappointing - there might not be a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and it seems there will only be two phones in the range (the 'base' device and the Note 20 Plus). However the same source that provided that information suggested the Galaxy Fold 2 could functionally replace the Ultra, acting as the top-end device in the line. Now, let's get into some section-specific leaks, news and rumors on the phones: Design and displayThe Samsung Galaxy Note 20 screen might curve at the top and bottom as well as the sides, according to one patent, which would make the phone look a lot more pebble-shaped than the Note 10. A Samsung patent won just after the Samsung Galaxy 20 launch shows a phone with a display that curves all the way to the rear of the body, but with physical buttons that protrude from the curves of the screen. Could this be the Galaxy Note 20? We're not sure, as it could be a 2021 phone (or never materialize in reality), but we'd hope so. We've also heard that the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 could have a 120Hz refresh rate screen that's 'more fine-tuned' – they don't say what it's more fine-tuned than, but presumably they mean the Galaxy S20. Either way, this could mean it's less of a drain on battery, or has better automatic refresh rate detection. We're not totally sure yet, and the tweeted message was rather cryptic. The Note 20 could also pack an in-screen front-facing camera, which would sit under the full display instead of within a notch or pin-hole, industry sources told South Korean tech site The Elec - and backed up by a tweet from notable leaker @UniverseIce. That might seem unlikely, but Samsung itself has released an advert which shows a Note-like phone with no visible camera. You can see it in the video below at the 55-second mark. And that's not the only time it has shown this device. The company also posted an image on its site showing a mystery phone with the same design. You can see it below, it's the center phone, and again, there's no visible front-facing camera, which could mean this is built into the screen. There are of course other options - it could use a pop-up camera, and in the case of the image below it could be in the obscured top left corner (though that's not an option in the video above). Or, perhaps most likely, this could just be a generic design, rather than one that shows a real phone. Indeed, reports elsewhere have suggested the in-screen camera tech isn't ready, so we wouldn't count on it. If Samsung does stick with a punch-hole for the Galaxy Note 20 then the company might at least make the most of it though, as five Samsung patents have detailed a status indicator that would either encircle or sit beside a camera cut-out, and could display things like download progress without turning the screen on. Finally, we've seen a Samsung foldable phone patent that seems like the Note 20 - except it's a foldable phone. While this could suggest Samsung's new stylus device folds, it seems more likely that the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2, which could come out alongside the Note 20s, will have a stylus too. CameraPatents meanwhile suggest the Note 20 might pack a spectrometer - a component that analyzes objects to discover its chemical composition. While it wouldn’t be the first phone to pack the device after the Changhong H2, as pointed out by LetsGoDigital, the Note 20 would be a phone with a much wider release. Curiously, that's the only camera or sensor leak we've heard so far, so we don't really know what resolution or lenses the snappers on the phone could have, or if there are any post-processing tricks that will change the way you take photos. Expect more on this front soon, though. Specs, features and batteryThe Samsung Galaxy Note 20 will allegedly come with the same Snapdragon 865 chipset that debuted in the Galaxy S20 line - which makes sense, as they're packed with the Snapdragon X55 modem to enable 5G connectivity. Saying that, one leaker thinks the phone will come with a Snapdragon 865 Plus processor instead, based on a leaked benchmark test for the device which puts its scores as lower than the iPhone 12's. Having said that, we've elsewhere heard that there won't be a Snapdragon 865 Plus this year. Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite Some regions though could get an upgraded chipset in the form of the Exynos 992. Samsung typically uses its own Exynos processors in most regions outside the US, and it's rumored that an Exynos 992 could be used instead, offering a slight upgraded on both the Exynos 990, used in the Galaxy S20 outside the US, and on the Snapdragon 865. There might only be 128GB storage in the Samsung Galaxy Note 20, at least in its smallest variant, and there wasn't a device with this amount in the previous range. That suggests there could be a more budget-focused handset in the range, perhaps a phone that's 'Lite' in all but name (or even 'Lite' in name too!). One source claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 could have a battery of around 4,000mAh - up from 3,500mAh in the Galaxy Note 10. That new size would put it in line with the Samsung Galaxy S20, and would likely mean that the Galaxy Note 20 Plus would also get a bigger battery. Samsung Galaxy Note 20: what we want to seeSince we haven't heard many rumors about the Note 20, we'll speculate as to what we want to see - improvements on last year's model and innovations we think would set the upcoming phone apart. 1. More capabilities in the S PenThe S Pen has been the real selling point for the Note series - a stylus tucked neatly in the phone for those who hold a torch for Palm Pilot-style productivity. But aside from a couple of new capabilities introduced over the last couple years - a button that operates as a camera shutter, a few half-baked gestures - the S Pen remains primarily a writing implement. Instead, we’d love to see the S Pen evolve into more of a proxy for the phone. If they can introduce one button, why not a couple more? It would be very handy to keep the phone in your pocket or perched for video and use the stylus to fiddle with volume and media navigation. Better yet, it would be great if the S Pen was used as a more universal remote across Samsung’s device family - maybe substituting a four-way joystick for the click-top so users can navigate. All we really know is the S Pen is not living up to its potential. 2. ‘Budget flagship’ versionWe’re big fans of the Samsung Galaxy S10e and the standard iPhone 11 for their value as budget flagships of their respective lines, and we’d love to see a more affordable version of the Note family. This isn’t a crazy idea - there already seems to be a Note 10 Lite in production, if this leak to is to be believed. But if a Lite version of the last Note isn’t in the cards, getting one in for the next version would be a great opportunity not just to get the S Pen in more hands, but to play around with the Note design in general. Previous phones in the line are sleek yet wide phablets, but why not take a page out of the Google Pixel 4’s book and give the Lite/budget flagship version a funky look? 3. Better cameras, specs, etcLike every year, we’re hoping the Note 20 gets improvements on its predecessor - most importantly in the cameras. And since they usually get similar if not identical lens suites as in that year’s Samsung Galaxy S-series, we can hope that the developments coming in the Galaxy S11 get ported to the Note 20. So the rumor of a 108MP camera headed to the S20 Plus would be great to look forward to in the Note 20 - and in the same report, a 5,000mAh battery. Both are good improvements, and we’d love to see battery life extend to breach two full days, especially with the screen-intensive S Pen functionality. One thing we pretty much know for sure: the Note 20 will get the same Snapdragon 865 chipset headed to all top-tier Android phones in 2020, which we recently got our hands on - and found it outperformed Apple’s A13 chipset that’s in the iPhone 11 line. 4. Seamless displayWhile the punch-hole is certainly a less obstructive upgrade from the notch, there are still compromises: we’d love to see a screen without any break whatsoever. That probably means an under-display window for the front-facing lens, which is something a leak actually suggests might happen. The Note 20 might not end up being the first phone with this development, but given its status as the sleeker design-oriented flagship in Samsung’s lineup, we would like to see that big phablet display go seamless. 5. Cheaper 5GThe Galaxy Note 10 5G cost far more than its 4G counterparts with only minor spec and camera upgrades, putting connectivity to the next-gen networks out of the hands of most folks. It would be great to see this cost shrink, full stop. 2020 probably won’t be the year that every flagship phone comes 5G-capable as a standard, but it’s going to be a lot harder to access if every 5G phone costs half again as much as its standard version. Given the Note line traditionally comes out toward the end of the year, though, Samsung could get ahead of the curve by trimming the price for a 5G Note 20 - and further differentiate it from the upcoming Galaxy S20.
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| Posted: 15 May 2020 07:19 AM PDT Companies all over the world have ordered employees to work from home in response to the introduction of widespread quarantine and social distancing measures. Top of the list of concerns for many businesses is whether employees are properly equipped to go virtual-only. The lack of appropriate software could prove a significant stumbling block for workers asked to suddenly abandon their office workstations. Thankfully, technology vendors of all shapes and sizes have come to the rescue, with many offering free access to premium services for a limited time. Here’s a rundown of the best free products and services to help your business navigate the ongoing pandemic: *We update this guide daily with all the latest offers, so be sure to check back regularly.
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| The best Memorial Day sales 2020: deals from Home Depot, Best Buy, and more Posted: 15 May 2020 07:15 AM PDT Memorial Day 2020 is just over a week away, which means you can find fantastic deals right now leading up to the holiday event. Memorial Day sales include huge discounts from your favorite retailers like Home Depot, Amazon, and Best Buy on items such as patio furniture, TVs, laptops, grills, mattresses, and more. The best Memorial Day sales:
Our best Memorial Day sale picks:When is Memorial Day 2020?Memorial Day is an American federal holiday that always falls on the last Monday in May to honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. This year Memorial Day is on Monday, May 25, with the long holiday weekend kicking off on Friday the 22. When do Memorial Day sales start?Most Memorial Day sales start the week before the actual holiday on Monday the 18, and some retailers don't start their promotions till the weekend before. All sales will last through the holiday weekend, and most will end on Memorial Day. What are the best Memorial Day sales?The biggest categories discounted during Memorial Day include appliances, patio furniture, mattresses, and laptops. Because Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer, you can find discounts on several outdoor items such as grills, patio furniture, planters, and camping equipment.
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