About Taylor Kerns
Taylor was an amateur phone nerd for the better part of a decade prior to joining Android Police in 2018, where he's since authored more than a thousand articles about all things Android. Taylor serves as Gadgets Editor, and you'll see his byline on editorials, reviews, comparative buyer's guides, and technical explainers, as well as the occasional piece of breaking news. He's got soft spots for personal audio, wearable tech, smart lights, and mobile photography. There's a good chance he's carrying a Pixel phone right now. In his time away from AP, you'll probably catch Taylor hanging out with his two dogs, playing Xbox, or out shooting with his beloved Fuji X-T5. Send him memes and fan mail at taylor@androidpolice.com.
Latest Articles
The 15 best Prime Day 2021 deals you can still get
Maybe your procrastination paid off
Prime Day 2021 is almost over, but that doesn't mean the deals have dried up completely — there's still a few hours to save big on all kinds of tech goodies. Here are 15 of our favorite deals you can still score right now.
Amazon's big event is drawing to a close, but there are still plenty of bargains available through the end of the day. Here are our 100(-ish) favorite deals from Prime Day 2021.
How's your Prime Day been? Grab any good deals? Here's one you may be interested in: Amazon wants to give you 10 bucks to spend on anything on the site. All you have to do is buy $40 in Amazon gift cards.To get your virtual tenner, all you have to do is click a button (here) and enter code GCPRIME2021 during checkout while you're buying at least $40 on an Amazon gift card. You can also click the aforementioned button and reload your own balance by $40 or more. Note you can only use the credit on items sold by Amazon itself — but considering Amazon sells everything under the sun, you're still free to use your $10 on just about anything.
Unsatisfied with your Prime Day haul? Splurge on this luxury alarm clock
The Loftie clock is 25 percent off for the rest of the day
If you're like me, sleep isn't a given; any number of things can disturb a restful night in bed. Your phone is one of them: aside from it beaming light directly into your eyeballs, the internet can be distracting when you're trying to wind down. One solution: an alarm clock! This particularly fancy model from Loftie is at its lowest price ever today, if you're into that sort of thing.
You can score a rare discount on a Nintendo Switch Lite today — with one caveat
It may have an accent, but it's on sale
It's become a running joke that Nintendo's games hardly ever go on sale. And it's true: while big-ticket releases from the likes of Ubisoft or EA are liable to be in a BOGO sale three months after release, Nintendo toes the MSRP line for as long as possible.
Android TV is doing some last-minute prep work for this week's arrival of Stadia support
You'll have to wait until Wednesday to actually play anything
Read update
If you've owned a Chromecast with Google TV since last fall's launch, your long wait for Stadia is nearly over. Despite having been on the market for nearly a year and a half now, Stadia still isn't officially playable on Android TV — but that's changing, and soon. Earlier this month, Google announced that there'd be an official Stadia client up and running on Android TV on June 23rd, but if you're really impatient, you can get the app pre-installed on your device right now.Starting June 23rd, Stadia will be available for download on any Android TV device. Similar to early mobile support, only a handful of devices are officially supported, but the list includes several of the most popular Android TV dongles, boxes, and sets. If you're using one that's not on the list, you can still download the app and enable "experimental support" to play, but Google warns it might not be an ideal experience.Here's the full list of devices that'll be fully supported out of the gate:
Have you heard? It's Prime Day! Yes, Amazon's annual parade of paradoxical wallet-destroying savings has started, and unlike last year, there are plenty of good deals to go around — including a bunch of nice prices on Chromebooks from the likes of Asus, Lenovo, and even Google.Amazon is offering savings of up to $250 on many Chromebook models — but of course, the biggest discounts are on models that are pricier to begin with. Here are five of the best deals going right now:
Samsung's best tablets are on sale and come with free Galaxy Buds Pro, today only
$130 off the Tab S7 and S7+, plus some free Buds
Samsung more or less dominates the high-end Android tablet space with its Tab S series, and while they're not as pricey as, say, an iPad Pro, they're not exactly cheap, either. If you've been hemming and hawing about picking one up, here's a deal you'll be interested to hear about: today, Samsung is offering $130 off both the Tab S7 and Tab S7+, plus a free pair of Galaxy Buds Pro with either.
Nvidia Shield TV is getting a Google TV-like facelift
With an emphasis on a̶d̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶i̶e̶s̶ content discovery
Shield TV devices are widely regarded as some of the best Android TV boxes money can buy. Nvidia's historically been great about software support, too, providing updates for years. A new one is landing today: Shield TV is getting a revamped home screen that looks a bit like the Chromecast with Google TV's.
Should you buy the 2020 Pixel Buds or the new A-Series?
It all comes down to the deals
Google's newest earbuds, the Pixel Buds A-Series, are now available. They're explicitly mid-range and don't have all the bells and whistles of last year's Pixel Buds, but their MSRP is also a lot lower: $99, compared to $179 for the 2020 model.
The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch is still available and cheaper than ever
Grab one for $40
Before Switch, before smartphones, even before Game Boy, Nintendo released a line of handheld games (and watches) under the Game & Watch brand, and for Mario's 35th birthday last year, we got a special-edition one that runs the NES version of Super Mario Bros. Nintendo stopped production at the end of March, but you can still find these. In fact, they're cheaper than ever from multiple retailers.The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch comes with Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 (the Lost Levels one, not the turnips one), and some other fun functionality like a Mario-themed clock. Its tiny little screen is backlit and it charges by USB-C, so it's both a collectible and something you might actually play.
Get your house ready for summer guests with up to $99 off Nest speaker and display bundles
Music? In multiple rooms? Such luxury!
A lot of Google's hardware tends to be polarizing, but its recent Nest speakers and displays are pretty much universally liked. They're not terribly expensive, either, with the entry-level Nest Mini and Nest Hub starting at $50 and $100, respectively. If you're looking for a whole bunch of new kit, though, today's sales on eBay might interest you: you can save up to $99 on Nest bundles.
Hoard files on the go with this discounted 1TB USB-C flash drive
Finally, you never have to be away from your 20 favorite 4K Blu-ray rips again
It doesn't seem all that long ago that storage capacities measured in terabytes seemed like science fiction, but the cost of those TBs has fallen fast. Case in point: this little USB-C flash drive from SanDisk packs a whole terabyte, and it's $118 on Amazon right now — more than half off MSRP and down about $15 from recent street prices.The little fella is rated for transfer speeds of up to 150 megabytes per second and has both a USB-C connector and a USB-A one, one at each end. There's also a convenient loop on it, so you could keep it on a keychain.
One of the best ways to game on Android is finally affordable with this Amazon deal
It's no Switch, but it sure beats touch controls
Listen, mobile games: you gave it the old college try with touch-screen controls. Sometimes, sure, it worked OK, but more often than not we found ourselves craving the sort of responsive input you only get with a proper, physical controller. Luckily there are plenty of solutions available to Android gamers, and one of the better ones is Razer's Kishi. Normally retailing for $80, earlier this week we spotted it for a much more reasonable , and if you haven't jumped on it yet, that deal's still available.The Kishi is a neat little controller that expands to grip your phone and folds up into a pocketable size when not in use. Just be sure to check if it fits your device before you order — some bigger phones won't work without modifying the controller.
There's been a lot of buzz this year about Apple's fancy new M1-powered iPads and iMacs, but the chip isn't actually new. It debuted in a handful of devices last year, including the delightfully compact Mac Mini. That means Apple's li'lest desktop packs quite a punch for its size — and you can scoop one up for $70 off its normal going price on Amazon right now.This particular model comes with the aforementioned M1 chip, plus eight gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigs of storage, which should be plenty of headroom for regular computing. It's also small enough to attach to the backside of your monitor, which is just delightful.
The best Wear OS watch is at its lowest price ever on Amazon right now
Grab a TicWatch Pro 3 for $210
Wear OS has drawn more than its fair share of criticism, but well-equipped watches that run Google's wearable OS are actually pretty nice to use. Mobvoi's TicWatch Pro 3 is among the best equipped out there, rocking a Wear 4100 chip and a whole gigabyte of RAM — and you can get your hands on one for $90 off in today's sale on Amazon.In addition to its beefy internals, the Pro 3 also has a second LCD display built over its face that tells the time when you're not actively using the watch, which saves a ton of battery. It also renders Wear OS in 60 glorious frames per second, which is twice as fast as most Android wearables.
Get last year's Pixel Buds for even less than the new ones right now
Grab a pair of Google's flagship earbuds for 90 bucks
Google just announced a new pair of wireless earbuds: the $99 Pixel Buds A-Series are a stripped-back version of last year's $179 Pixel Buds, and they're pretty good, but they lack some nice-to-have features like wireless charging. If you want the full-featured older pair, you're in luck: you can snag a pair for 90 bucks today, even cheaper than the A-Series.
Fuji's new Pokémon-themed mobile printer is a nostalgic Nintendo Switch accessory and I love it
It's no Blockbuster Video, but it scratches an itch
Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and savvy legacy companies know how to capitalize on it. Nintendo and Fujifilm, two such companies with more than 200 years of combined history, have teamed up to create the ultimate nostalgia trap: an adorable Pokémon-themed instant photo printer. It connects to your phone to pop out tiny prints of your favorite photos — or, using a special app, Nintendo Switch screenshots.Released in conjunction with New Pokémon Snap, this special edition Instax Mini Link is meant to evoke the feeling of printing out your favorite critter snaps at Blockbuster, a millennial rite of passage. It's not cheap, but it's a ton of fun — especially if you've got little ones of your own to share it with.
This is the best Pixel Buds deal we've ever seen, and it surely won't last
That's nearly half off
Rumors are swirling about a new, quite probably less-expensive pair of Pixel Buds, but the existing set has seen some big discounts lately. None bigger than this, though: the 2020 Pixel Buds are down to just .99 at Verizon.
Get the M1 iPad Pro at its lowest price yet from Amazon and Walmart
Desktop-class power in an 11-inch tablet
Android's got some good ones, but the iPad is widely considered to be the gold standard when it comes to tablets. This year's iPad Pro models pack the same Apple-designed M1 chip that's used in the new iMacs, so they're crazy powerful for tablets. The 11-inch model is also already on sale: you can get it for $50 off at Amazon and Walmart.You may be wondering why you'd need a high-power desktop processor in your tablet — and truth be told, you really don't. The iPad can't run desktop apps, and there are few (if any) mobile apps that can take full advantage of the M1's grunt. Still, that means you won't need to replace this thing either until Apple stops supporting it or until it physically breaks — both of which should be many years from now. It's also got a 120Hz display and a USB-C port — features Android users have begun taking for granted in high-end devices that still aren't common in Apple hardware.