Samsung's not one to make drastic changes to what already works. They've continued on with the IP68 rating under IEC 60529 first given to the Galaxy S8 all the way to the the Galaxy Note 10. If you're a little confused as to what this rating means, don't worry, it's actually p ...more
To bring things up to code with a new FCC standard, Android recently added an "Emergency broadcasts" feature that will make your smartphone notify you whenever a potential safety threat or Amber Alert is posted in your area. Even if you have your phone set to silent, these eme ...more
After years of user complaints, Samsung is finally letting us remap the Bixby button without the need of a third-party app. The new feature requires One UI a simple app update to Bixby, but there's one major downside: Samsung won't let you remap the button to open other digita ...more
When it comes to resistance to the elements, Samsung seems to believe in the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." They've carried over the IP68 rating under IEC 60529 that was first found on the S8 all the way to their tenth-anniversary flagship, the Galaxy S10. While ...more
Samsung's Good Lock app has has breathed much needed life into its TouchWiz UI by giving us the ability to customize our Galaxy phones in ways that previously would've required root or a custom ROM. One companion app in particular even lets you personalize your lock screen to ...more
The S9 and S9+ are both fantastic phones. However, there's no getting around the fact that the S9+ has its advantages. In fact, it's an objectively better smartphone than its smaller counterpart — Samsung has given the S9+ features not found in the S9, meaning you'll be missin ...more
Both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 have Oreo beta software available in the wild at this point. We devoted a number of articles to covering what's new in Oreo and went into detail about the bugs and hiccups on both the S8 and the Note 8. Still, many people are left wondering ...more
Chis Lacy's Action Launcher is easily one of the best third-party home screen apps for Android. If you're interested in the basic feature set of this impressive app, check our our overview of the top five launchers on Android. Today, we're taking an in-depth look at the brand ...more
When Disney teased an augmented reality game called Star Wars: Jedi Challenges running on a headset from Lenovo, fans had more questions than Disney had answers. When? How much? Can I be a real Jedi? With official word today from Lenovo and Disney by way of IFA 2017 in Berlin ...more
After watching Samsung's exploding phone fiasco this past year, I took comfort knowing that the likelihood my iPhone would suddenly combust was slim. However, after hearing about a recent incident in Wisconsin, iPhone owners may have reason to worry. According to a man named ...more
Pinterest, a worldwide catalog of ideas shared by over 175 million users every month, is dominated by Android users, who are now the app's fastest growing group. Pinterest has since taken notice, and has started to incorporate handy home screen shortcuts for users with Android ...more
No one is safe anymore, it seems. Google's Project Zero has just uncovered how easy it is for attackers to target your phone's Wi-Fi chip, which is essentially a mini processor for Wi-Fi that detects and processes networks. Most iPhone and Android phones run on a Broadcom Wi- ...more
Google and eight top Android partners have just signed the Android Networked Cross-License, nicknamed PAX. On the surface, this looks to be a peace treaty of sorts that could end several patent wars. The deal will allow creators of preinstalled Android apps to build off of a ...more
For years now, Xiaomi's smartphones, as well as any phone running Xiaomi's MIUI ROM, have had a subtle feature that makes the interface look all the more refined: Rounded display corners. But now, other manufacturers are getting in on the rounded corners craze, as the new LG G ...more
Google has a new smartphone, and if you own a TV or a computer, you've almost certainly heard about it. The ad campaign for the Pixel and Pixel XL is approaching iPhone levels of omnipresence, as Google has reportedly spent over $3.2 million on marketing, with that number expe ...more
If you find yourself switching between Android devices frequently—for instance, your Nexus 6P and a Samsung tablet—you've probably noticed how the button placement can be different. Normally, it's back, then home, then the recent apps button, from left to right. But Samsung de ...more
The Galaxy S6 might just be the best Android phone on the market right now. From a hardware standpoint, Samsung truly knocked this one out of the park with its finely-crafted build quality and amazing screen. But the lone drawback here is that TouchWiz is still as intrusive a ...more
Samsung phones have a pretty nifty little feature called Smart Stay that will prevent your screen from turning off while you're actively using your device. Trouble with this is that it's exclusive to Galaxy devices and it uses a ton of battery since it monitors the front-facin ...more
There are many different reasons that you might want to revert your Samsung Galaxy S5 back to stock. The main one would probably be that you need to return your device to the manufacturer for warranty purposes. And if you've used root to modify system-level files and component ...more
Whenever a new version of a phone comes out, there's always that one cool feature you wish you had on yours. For me, that's Group Play. On the Samsung Galaxy S4, you can easily share music, games, photos, and files to multiple devices using Group Play. While my older Galaxy S ...more
In spite of the degree of difficulty it is to install, CyanogenMod has steadily climbed the ladder to become one of the most popular third-party firmwares for Android devices. To increase its fan base, they even put an easy-to-download installer on Google Play to help people ...more
It's always a big deal when the company that makes Android releases a new phone. Google's Pixel series has made a name for itself in three short years behind its camera prowess, but now it's time to start competing with the major players. That said, Google should like how thei ...more
Whether it's for health reasons or just to look better, many of us want to get in shape. It's a long process that starts with nutrition, and dieting is never easy. Fortunately, there are some great food-tracking apps that will make it a lot easier to become a healthier version ...more
There are more than a few subscription-based movie streaming apps available for Android and iPhone, each with different benefits and varying pricing plans. Needless to say, it can get expensive fast if you sign up for multiple services because you can't decide on what's best. ...more
Clumsiness is the great equalizer when it comes to smartphones — it makes no distinction between the most expensive flagship handset and cheaper mid-range models. A hard drop onto pavement will usually result in a shattered screen, regardless of how pricey your device is. And ...more
It was bound to happen. And just as anticipated, it took less than a day before someone successfully rooted the new Nexus S smartphone from Google and Samsung. The Nexus S is powered by Google's new Android 2.3 OS (Gingerbread) and went on sale last Thursday. That day, Koush ...more
There are several different kinds of disc drives that come in different iterations of the XBox 360, and each one has to be hacked a little differently. This video will show you how to flash the ms28 drive used in some systems, the second part of the video will show you how to ...more
It's been about five months since Google first unveiled their prototype future computers running Chrome OS, and the time is nearly here for the Chromebooks to be unleashed on the public. But there are a lot of qualms over the release of Chromebooks, with most criticism coming ...more
Android users are probably already familiar with the doubleTwist Player (free) from doubleTwist, available on the Android Market. They recently added AirPlay support for users with AirSync ($4.99) that allows streaming to Apple TV and DLNA devices, which is sure to provoke som ...more
In the great smartglasses race, component makers, such as those that supply the crucial waveguide displays that make visualization of virtual content possible, have a vested interest in pushing the industry forward in order to ship units. On Tuesday, waveguide maker DigiLens ...more
Samsung simplified the interface in its Camera app for the Galaxy S20. It's easier to use for the most part, but now you have to go digging to access certain camera modes. To make up for this, One UI now lets you rearrange the tabs in the Camera app. The bottom tray has modes ...more
Pressing the side key on your Galaxy S20 wakes or locks the device, while pressing and holding the button activates Bixby. So "side key" is an apt name — it's not really a power button anymore. That begs the question, how exactly do you restart this thing? Well, here's what h ...more
Apple got rid of the iPhone's home button and assigned its long-press action (Siri) to the power button. Since it now did more than sleep and wake the screen and bring up the power off dialog, they renamed it the "Side button." Well, Samsung just removed the Bixby key, and the ...more
If you use Google Chrome on your computer, you've undoubtedly saved a ton of passwords since the browser always prompts you to. But Samsung uses their own password service on their phones by default, so you'll have to change a setting if you want to use your Chrome passwords t ...more
Smartphone photos look a lot better when you keep the camera steady, but selfies by nature make you do finger gymnastics to hold the phone while keeping your thumb free to hit the shutter button. If you have a Galaxy phone like the S10, however, there's an ingenious feature yo ...more
Having your phone's display suddenly dim and black out while reading is an annoyance we've all had to live with. If you have a Samsung Galaxy like the Note 10, however, there's a simple setting you can enable to take care of this problem once and for all. In fact, the Smart S ...more
When an app like Instagram won't let you save an image, your best bet is to take a screenshot. But then you're stuck with the rest of whatever was on your screen, so you have to go in and crop it down to just the image. Starting now, your Samsung device can do this for you aut ...more
QR codes are like smart little cubes of data. To unlock this data, you will need a QR reader. These are annoying because you typically have to download a third-party app, and some of these apps are shady. Luckily your Samsung Galaxy running One UI has a hidden QR scanner built ...more
Android is moving away from navigation buttons. Even with the transparent navigation bar on the Galaxy Note 10+, it still takes up space on the screen that could otherwise be used to show content. What's great about the Galaxy Note 10+ is that you can remove it, without instal ...more
|Choose Your View: Quick Bullet Points | Detailed Descriptions Android's newest major update is a special one — it's the tenth full version of the world's most commonly used operating system. The latest release, dubbed simply Android 10 (codename Android Q), was first showcas ...more
The navigation and status bars aren't very noticeable on the S10's home screen since they're transparent. The status bar will even change colors to match many apps. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the navigation bar. The navigation bar still shows up in its old, opa ...more
Once again, LG is mixing up its launch. Instead of the announcing the latest entry in G series later in the year, the LG G8 ThinQ was announced at Mobile World Congress 2019, shortly after Samsung's Galaxy S10 event. And instead of trying to match what other OEMs are doing, LG ...more
The Galaxy S9 is truly a sight to behold. With a class-leading display, the best camera ever put into a smartphone, and Samsung's cutting edge design, it might just be the best piece of hardware on the market. Having said that, some of the most useful additions are actually in ...more
Although expected to be only a modest upgrade over the S8, we can't help but be excited about the Galaxy S9's unveiling late next month. Among the many rumors and questions we're looking to see addressed, one of the biggest queries we have is, of course, with the price tag. We ...more
Samsung kicked off their Android Oreo rollout earlier this week. The update already improved the lock screen significantly with new wallpaper color-matching for the clock. With the newest update, we also get the ability to tweak the transparency of lock screen notifications. ...more
Google launched the Pixel 2 XL with a unique pinch-to-zoom feature in the YouTube app. The feature is pretty basic, allowing users to expand the video to full-screen on devices with 18:9 aspect ratios with a simple pinch gesture. Considering its simplicity, it was strange that ...more
With many of the companies working in augmented and mixed reality focused on the Augmented World Expo, the finance side of the industry has been relatively quiet. However, a pair of reports today signal that investors should remain happy for the foreseeable future. Both repor ...more
Google released its "Android Security: 2016 Year in Review" report last month, and to no one's surprise, included its own flagship phones. However, one surprise on the list was the BlackBerry PRIV, which Google named one of the best Android devices for privacy. The PRIV was B ...more
Applications are finally beginning to make use of Android 6.0's fingerprint authentication, letting users access sensitive information without having to enter (or unsafely store) complicated passwords on their phones. State Farm is the latest to join in by adding fingerprint ...more
Chances are your hearing isn't the same as the person next to you. Personally, I have moderate hearing loss, so I tend to turn the volume nob towards the loud side. For others, it may be that one ear is slightly better or worse than the other, not only in perceiving volume, bu ...more
Granting seamless access to your favorite or most utilized apps with just a tap, the Galaxy S5's "Toolbox" feature is one that plenty of other Android users wish they had. Instead of holding your breath for your manufacturer to implement something similar, or hoping that Samsu ...more
Samsung's Gear VR headset is a thing of beauty; unfortunately, it only works with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. That's where ImmersiON-VRelia's Head-Mounted Displays come in to play. With four different HMD models, we got a hands-on look at "The Go," which is not only affordable ...more
While the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is sure to get an Android 5.0 Lollipop update, there's no official confirmation on when exactly that will happen (rumors state January). In the meantime, there are a number of ways to get some of Lollipop's features on your KitKat device right n ...more
As soon as you plug a set of headphones into a Samsung Galaxy series device, a bar pops up in the notification tray that lets you select from a list of "recommended apps" for earphones. It's a convenient little feature that shows the apps you're most likely to use based on pre ...more
Your phablet's large screen is perfect for viewing movies and music videos wherever you are, but as gorgeous as the Note 3's screen is, holding it gets old and you can't always find something to prop it up at a decent movie-watching angle. But there's a secret you might not k ...more
Samsung and Microsoft do it out of the box, Google does it with a little tweaking, and they all do it well—multitasking. While we can hope for better (or simply any) multitasking integration for the next iteration of the iPad and iPad mini, a new jailbreak tweak eliminates the ...more
The fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S5 gets a little flack for its functionality, and that's mainly because the setup instructions ask you to swipe your index finger over the sensor to unlock your device or make mobile payments (and of course, because it was already h ...more
Well, that's one way to get a leg up on Samsung! Announced earlier today, Carphone Warehouse has stated that the new HTC One, dubbed the M8, will go on sale around 4pm on Tuesday, March 25th, "minutes" after the official announcement to unveil the product from HTC. According t ...more
The great thing about Android's customization is that you can either clutter up your home and lock screen with an infinite amount of awesome features and tweaks—or choose more of a stripped down minimalistic look. If you're someone who leans more towards a minimalistic look, a ...more
One of the coolest things for readers using the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is the stock Smart Rotation feature. While most smartphones use the accelerometer to adjust the screen orientation, Smart Rotation actually uses the camera to detect your face-to-screen angle and adjusts acc ...more