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The Moto G6 is one of the finest budget smartphones you can get. It has capable specs and a reasonable $250 price tag. You can get the G6 for even less today on Amazon. It's on sale for $200, and this is the standard unlocked phone, not Amazon's Prime edition.The Moto G6 has a Snapdragon 450, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a big 5.7-inch 18:9 display. One of the most appealing things an unlocked Moto phone like the G6 is that it works on all major carriers—so many unlocked phones are GSM and LTE only.
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As we always say, it wouldn't be a Google device launch with a few bumps along the way. If one of those bumps caused you to break your shiny new Pixel 3 or 3 XL, you could be in for a rude awakening. For many owners, there does not appear to be any way to repair the phone right now.
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Four years on, there's really only one Android TV device you should buy: the NVIDIA Shield. The problem is that NVIDIA's box tends to cost more than all the lesser over-the-top streamers. You get more for your money, and there are occasional sales. Like right now, for example. The Shield TV is on sale for $139.99 on Amazon, which is $39 off the usual price.The version on sale today is the base model from 2017. That's when NVIDIA rolled out the tiny redesigned unit. It only has 16GB of internal storage (the 500GB version is physically larger), but you can connect USB storage to add more content to your device. Despite being a few years old, the Shield still has more power than most set-top boxes with its Tegra X1 SoC.
International roaming used to be catastrophically expensive 100% of the time, but it's slightly less so now. T-Mobile helped pave the way for that when it started offering free 2G roaming in most countries. Leaked documents indicate that Tmo is planning a new add-on for its One plans that gives you unlimited international roaming, but it's spendy.
It's getting to be that time of year. No, not the holidays—that is coincidental. It's getting to be the time of year when major retailers start discounting the hell out of things to get you in the door. Case in point, Best Buy has Samsung's current-gen Galaxy phones on sale for $150-520 off. There are various catches, but that's a lot of potential savings.
Fossil has been one of the few companies keeping Wear OS afloat over the past several years as we waited and waited... and waited for a new Qualcomm wearable chip. Well, the Snapdragon Wear 3100 is out there, and now Fossil is launching its first smartwatch with one. The generic-sounding Fossil Sport Smartwatch is a colorful, feature-rich wearable, and it's out in just a few days.
Samsung is among the last remaining outposts for committed notch haters, but they may soon have to accept the inevitable. At Samsung's developer conference today, the company talked about building on its "Infinity Display" designs. That culminated with the Infinity Flex, but before that Samsung teased upcoming Infinity Display designs, and three of them have notches.
Ever since Google bought Waze, we've been waiting for some of its more popular features to worm their way into Maps. A few months back, we got a hint from an APK Teardown that Google was preparing to add incident reports to Maps. Now, this feature seems to be appearing for at least some Maps users.
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Verizon's prepaid service used to be of questionable value, but the carrier has aggressively lowered pricing in recent years. In 2017, it announced simplified, cheaper pricing for prepaid, and now it's making prepaid plans an even better deal with more date for fewer dollars. You can even get unlimited prepaid data for as little as $65.
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Google's history with Android Easter eggs goes all the way back to Gingerbread when it snuck a weird phone zombie painting into the OS. Ever since then, you've been able to tap on the version number to get a neat little animation or game. The Android Pie bonus was a little disappointing, but it's improved on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL. Those phones have a hidden drawing app Easter egg.
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There was a time when the Google app was just a search box for your home screen (the package name is actually "googlequicksearchbox"). Now, it's an integral part of your phone that can add new and wonderful features via an update. Unfortunately, it can also introduce new and infuriating bugs. Case in point, a recent Google app update is causing launchers to ping your location every time you go home. Which launchers? It looks like all of them.
We were a bit perplexed a few weeks ago when Google announced its $79 wireless charger. After all, there are other 10W wireless chargers out there for much lower prices. Then, we found out only Google's official Pixel Stand can charge the Pixel 3 and 3 XL at full speed. Oddly, other wireless chargers still displayed as "Charging Rapidly" on the phones. Google appears to have fixed that in the November OTA.
Yes, Barnes & Noble is still selling Nook devices. It can be easy to forget since you hear about the Nook so rarely, but the company is rolling out a new one just in time for the holiday season. Unlike past Nook tablets, this one isn't a re-branded Samsung tablet—it's just the Nook Tablet 10.1.
Everyone likes free money, and you can maybe get some of that right now in the Play Store client on your phone. We've gotten numerous reports of a free credit offer appearing in the store, and some AP staffers have seen it themselves. So, what are you waiting for?
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Google added Wi-Fi hotspot functionality to Android way, way back in the days of Froyo, but it took carriers several years to come to terms with it. Now, you can share your LTE connection with a few restrictions on most devices and carriers. The Pixel 3 and 3 XL do something new with hotspot mode. You can enable the Wi-Fi hotspot while you're connected to Wi-Fi, allowing your phone to share that connection with other devices.
Google's Pixel Stand does not come cheap, but you'd naturally expect it to work flawlessly if you decided to drop $79 on it. Well, Google might have some work to do there. Some Pixel Stand owners are beginning to complain that photo frame mode, one of the exclusive Pixel Stand features, just doesn't work.
Google rolls out new security features in every version of Android, but some changes only apply for apps that target newer API levels. Thus, Google announced late last year it was cracking down on apps built for older versions of Android. Today is the big day—developers can no longer upload anything to the Play Store without targeting at least API level 26 (Oreo 8.0).
Much less work is getting done at Google offices around the world today as thousands of employees have walked off the job in protest. At issue is the way Google handles sexual harassment claims, spurred by the recent news that Android co-founder Andy Rubin was paid a $90 million severance after another Googler accused him of harassment. The organizers hope this protest will draw attention to the issue and improve workplace safety and equality.
This is a sad day for rabid OnePlus fans who always need to be on the latest software build. The much-beloved Oxygen Updater app can't grab the latest software build for you anymore, leaving you at the mercy of the slow rollout. Might as well go buy a Samsung phone, right?
The history of Android is peppered with the occasional dual-screen phone, but none of them have made an impact beyond shock value. None of those secondary screens have solved a problem well enough to be a success, but Nubia is the latest to try with the Nubia X. This phone has a 6.26-inch LCD on the front with a 93.6% screen-to-body ratio. A smaller OLED display lives on the back of the phone, eliminating the need for a front-facing camera. Yes, this is yet another way to avoid the notch.