Nexus One

Android Beam is one of those features that makes you look at technology in awe, wondering how exactly something like that works. From a user's standpoint, you simply bring two devices together back to back, and what you're seeing on one screen almost immediately appears on th ...more

If you have a specific app you want to lock so that others can't access it, the most secure way of doing so is with biometrics. While there are options to lock apps with either a PIN or pattern, these can easily be figured out with a simple glance over your shoulder. It's much ...more

Smartphones generally have limited storage, but counter this issue with an always-on internet connection. This led to the proliferation of cloud storage services, which allow us to store and access our large media libraries remotely. The problem here is that most cloud storag ...more

Android's auto brightness feature was recently updated, and as of version 5.0, a new "Adaptive brightness" feature was added. This allows users to set a preferred overall brightness level, but still have the ambient light sensor adjust the backlight accordingly. For many folk ...more

Since the Nexus Player is an Android device at heart, there are already several internet browsers that can be used on the streaming set-top box. Chrome, Firefox, and a few others will run perfectly fine, but the trouble with these is that you need a mouse to use them. If you ...more

When ringtones and vibration alerts miss the mark and fail to grab your attention, causing you to miss an important call or text, LED flash alerts are a great backup plan. While we already showed how to activate this on Samsung devices, the apps shown below make this feature e ...more

There's a reason that YouTube continues to be the most popular video sharing site on the planet—ever since its purchase by Google, they've always made sure to load YouTube up with extra features to keep it ahead of the pack. Starting today, users can now upload full 360-degre ...more

With Android devices getting bigger by the year, you'd think there would be a native multitasking solution by now. While Samsung and LG have included such features in their customized builds of Android, the stock base that manufacturers start with still doesn't include multita ...more

Android Lollipop promises tons of new features and functionality when it comes to a device near you, but as we wait, it's almost painful to see the screenshots and demo videos from Nexus devices and how downright pretty the new operating system looks. If you're still stuck wi ...more

Android "Lollipop" introduced a ton of cool new functionality. Unfortunately, the Nexus 5 didn't get all of these features, as some were exclusive to other devices. For example, the Ambient Display function on the Nexus 6 that shows new notifications as they come in with a bla ...more

At $349 off contract, the Nexus 5 has always been one of the best bang-for-your-buck smartphones on the market. In order to keep the price that low, however, Google had to pass up on some of the minor features that other flagship phones offer. Stereo sound, for instance, is b ...more

With Nexus devices already enjoying Android 5.0 Lollipop, most other manufacturers are scrambling to get their flagships updated to Google's latest operating system. While HTC has promised Lollipop by the end of 2015, OEMs such as Motorola and Sony have already issued updates ...more

The volume is maxed out, but that doesn't stop me from hitting the volume key on my Nexus 7 in hopes that it will magically get louder. This happens to me everyday as I watch videos or play music. The simple fact is that a Nexus 7 tablet just doesn't get very loud. At least, n ...more

Google's got a hit on its hands with this one. Android 5.0—AKA "Lollipop"—will be making its official debut next month, but a new preview build has given us a glimpse into the future, which looks brighter than ever. New accents, beautiful animations, and a lighter overall col ...more

If you're like me, then you've got an incredibly complicated Wi-Fi password with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. When friends or family come over, it can be really hard to relay the password correctly. Repeating it out loud is usually hit or ...more

Most of the time, the LED notification light on the front of your Android device just sits there doing nothing. Other than that brief period of time between when you receive a notification and when you turn your screen on, it's practically useless for anything other than showi ...more

If you have a custom recovery installed on your Android device, the first thing you should have done as soon as you finished installing it was to create a Nandroid backup. But if you didn't, I'm not here to judge—I'm here to show you a much easier way. What Exactly Is a Nandr ...more

It happens to everyone: you set a lock screen password in a hurry and cannot remember it the next day. To unlock your device again, you need to reset the password (or PIN, pattern, etc). There are two official methods of doing this. #1. Reset Your Lock Screen (Patterns Only) ...more

Android uses a set of permissions that apps can request to perform certain actions, and you're notified of these permissions each time you install an app. The problem here is the fact that you aren't given any built-in way to deny apps these permissions (although Danny just sh ...more

Arguably Chromecast's biggest feature since its launch, screen mirroring functionality started rolling out to select devices earlier this week, and in a word, it's awesome. With minimal latency (lag), screen mirroring expanded the functionality of our $35 dongles to a great e ...more

There is no SD card support on the Nexus 7, so managing internal storage can be tricky. There are ways to free up space, but the biggest space hog on my tablet is music, and that's not something I'm willing to delete just yet. I could add more storage space with a USB drive, ...more

If hearing the names of classic PC games like Commander Keen, Fallout, Master of Orion, and Wolfenstein 3D send you into a fit of nostalgia, then DosBox Turbo is the perfect app for your Android device. DosBox Turbo is a highly optimized and feature-enhanced Android port of D ...more

Rooting your Nexus 7 tablet is now easier than ever. Previous rooting methods required connecting your tablet to a computer and using any one of a number of programs and/or ADB commands. Now, it's as easy as downloading an app on your phone and tapping one button. Who can we ...more

Remember the feeling you had the moment you removed your shiny new Nexus device from its packaging and booted it up for the first time? You swiped through the app drawer at lightning speed and thought to yourself, "This is the last Android phone I will ever need, they just are ...more

The beauty of having a Google Play Edition HTC One is the ability to get as close to stock Android as possible while still getting some extra non-Google, proprietary HTC features. The newest version of Android, 4.4.3, has just hit the Nexus and Google Play Edition line of phon ...more

HTC's Sense 6 has been out for over a month now with the One M8, and most of you have probably played around with its better known features, like the new Camera app and Harman Kardon audio. As great as those features are, there is still much more to be found underneath the su ...more

If you've followed our guide on unlocking KitKat's real full screen capability using the immersive mode mod, then your status and navigation bars will be hidden when not in use, giving you a more expansive full screen experience. As great as that is, immersive mode can be fru ...more

With apps and games getting bigger and more memory-hungry every year, storage space is at a premium. High-definition videos and photos of innumerable pixels certainly don't help the matter, either. Sometimes, the things that can soak up our storage the most are things we're n ...more

Earlier this morning, Twitter announced (through a tweet, naturally) that it has acquired Cover, roughly a minute after Cover made the same announcement. Cover Lock Screen, a lockscreen replacement app, has been vastly popular during its first year. The app places relevant sho ...more

You did it! You got your hands on the much coveted all new HTC One (M8). Last year's M7 model, also named the One, was very well received critically, and HTC continues its smashing design here with stereo speakers that kick and curves that don't quit. Simply put, there's a lo ...more

I never really cared much for the clock widget on my Nexus 7, mainly because it only gave me two styles—analog and digital. There are many different styles of clock widgets available on Google Play, but the majority of them just don't look good enough for me. Ideally, I'd lik ...more

You've seen it a million times. You try to do something on your Android device and a box pops up asking you which app you'd like to use. You could try Photos, Gallery, Drive, Picasa Web Albums...the list is fairly extensive sometimes. And what's worse, after that you have to s ...more

The app formerly known as Google Experience Launcher is now officially called the Google Now Launcher in honor of its most prominent feature, Google Now. Only problem is, this launcher is still exclusive to the Nexus 5 smartphone. Thankfully, "exclusive" in the world of Andro ...more

My friends can be pretty shitty sometimes, but they're my friends nonetheless. On various occasions, they've secretly taken my device and made me look foolish by posting crude and embarrassing posts to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. With friends like these, who needs enemies ...more

Sometimes, taking a picture of your friend doing a crazy stunt just doesn't suffice. Getting the progression of the stunt in one image does! Regular pictures can lack depth sometimes. Not only are they sometimes boring, but capturing someone midair or mid-anything is hard! Ba ...more

You know what's awesome? You own a Nexus. That means, with Google's blessing, you have easier access and control over your device than other manufacturers allow. You can really dig in and do some interesting things if you root. The big 'R' word can be intimidating for the new ...more

If you're like me, then you were a little disappointed after updating your Nexus 7 to KitKat and realizing that not much has changed. The old Jelly Bean look still occupied your home screen, and there wasn't really anything noticeably new overall. All of that waiting and antic ...more

It seems nowadays the word "easy" has taken on an alternate meaning. When I see "easy," I expect a quick and painless process, but when it comes to flashing or installing a custom ROM, easy means anything but. That's the main reason I've avoided installing CyanogenMod on my S ...more

While the new Android 4.4 KitKat is only available on one device at the moment (damn you Nexus 5), it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy some of the features it has to offer on our non-KitKat devices right now. We can already get the KitKat launcher and Google Now on our Samsun ...more

The integration of technology into automobiles is becoming more and more widespread each year. Tesla's Model S features a 17" display in the middle of the dash with navigation, music control, and even an Internet browser. Mercedes is working on incorporating Google Glass into ...more

One of the coolest features of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is Group Play, which lets you connect other Samsung Galaxy S4s up to yours so you can use them as extra speakers to create a surround-sound stereo of sorts. While the feature is definitely cool, there is a downside. It can ...more

Anyone who uses a computer on a regular basis probably knows how to access the task manager to check system resources and usage stats. However, on a Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Android device, it may not be so obvious. There's no equivalent to Control-Alt-Delete, but it's still ...more

Usain Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.58 seconds, an insane record-breaking time that might not ever get beat. As fast as that is, wouldn't it feel like a travesty if your Samsung Galaxy S3 took that long to open up Wikipedia? Surfing the web on my GS3 is pretty fast, but why not ma ...more

One thing that gets overlooked on Facebook is the amount of videos you can watch, and I'm not just talking about videos uploaded directly by Facebook users—I mean everything ever shared—YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Vimeo, etc. Sometimes one of those videos is just so good that y ...more

With over a billion videos uploaded to YouTube, passing your time browsing through the immense library can be an emotional roller coaster ride. One second you're bawling your eyes out over this devastatingly sad clip of Oden the dog's last minutes with his owner, and the next ...more

What's the most installed Android app in the world? Facebook? Gmail? Maps? While those all have well over 100 million installs, the one that takes the cake—and always will—is Google Play. I’ve been an Android user ever since the G1, when Android was unpolished, buggy, and the ...more

For being an inexpensive tablet, the Nexus 7 packs a 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution into a relatively small display, offering a very sharp-looking 216 pixels per inch. What does that mean? It's one of the best e-readers on the market. An often overlooked feature that's embedded ...more

When it comes to our smartphones and tablets, we're always on the lookout for ways to beat the oh so common rapid battery depletion problem that affects practically every mobile device. We'll do anything and everything to keep our battery life at an optimum, from turning off c ...more

Prepaid phones are becoming more and more popular, and tons of people can see the benefits of switching now that some companies are offering prepaid services that are on par with the big players. For a lot of folks, the only thing keeping them from switching is the huge early ...more

We're set to see the actual debut of Google Daydream on October 4, and it'll hopefully serve as a significant step up from Cardboard—their current virtual reality smartphone platform. If you want to get an early taste, you can set up a development kit—you just need two phones ...more

The Chicago Bulls may not be very relevant in the current NBA standings, but they do lead the league in one other area. With an assist from Nexus Studios, AT&T has debuted StatsZone, an augmented reality experience that presents game statistics in an immersive format, in the ...more

Besides the Apple vs. Samsung competition, few battles are as vocal as the battle between the best Pixel and best iPhone. This year, it's the Pixel 3 XL and iPhone XS Max, two phones that are equipped with minor hardware updates from their predecessors, though both showcase si ...more

One of the issues with rooting your device is the inability to update your phone via OTA. Any security patches or software updates pushed out by the OEM are lost because your bootloader is unlocked. However, you still can update your device, it just a take a bit more effort. ...more

These days, it seems new phones get announced every other week. We've grown accustomed to glossing over the specs, looking at some press renders, then moving on to check out the next phone. If you had done this in September 2008, you might have overlooked what would become one ...more

In the Android community, Samsung's slow updates have long been the accepted norm. With the Note 8's recent Android Oreo update, Samsung completed annual version updates to their 2017 flagship lineup. Now is a great time to look back on how Samsung has fared with updates over ...more

Last week, augmented reality startup Proxy42 released Father.IO, a multiplayer game that turns any indoor or outdoor space into a laser tag arena. A $40 Bluetooth-connected, infrared sensor-equipped device called the Interceptor converts your standard iPhone or Android smartp ...more

Update 10/23: The hits just keep on coming. We're now seeing reports of a "smearing" effect when scrolling through apps on the Pixel XL 2. We'll expand on that at the bottom of this article, but it's still worth reading the background information on issues with LG's new POLED ...more

It just keeps getting harder to enjoy all of the benefits of root without sacrificing features. Thanks to SafetyNet, we've lost the ability to use Android Pay, Pokémon GO, and even Snapchat to an extent. But the most recent news on this front is perhaps worst of all: Netflix h ...more

It's that time of year again. The world's largest electronics companies are sending representatives to the annual Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, and for gadget lovers like us, that means we'll get our first look at some of this year's biggest upcoming flagship smart ...more

As we reported first here on Gadget Hacks, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL have unlockable bootloaders, with the exception of models purchased from Verizon. This means that once the TWRP custom recovery is installed, you can flash ZIPs and even root your device in a few taps—as ...more