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Republic Wireless is offering an interesting new product: SIM cards that come pre-loaded with either 30 or 90 days of (technically) unlimited data. The new cards don't require activation, an account, or even a payment method after purchase. There are a few caveats, though.There's always an asterisk when you're talking about unlimited data, and it's no different here. The cards do provide as much data as you want, but only a portion of it is at usable speeds: for the 30-day card, the first 20 gigabytes are at 4G speeds, and the 90-day card is allotted 20 gigs per 30 days (so 60 total, but divided into thirds). After you hit the cards' limits, any further data used will be 2G. Roaming also isn't included, so don't go buying one of these cards to take overseas.Strangely, the cards are activated when they're delivered, not when you pop them in your device, which limits their utility even further. But if you have a device that only needs data, these are a pretty solid deal, particularly the 90-day variant. They're not reloadable, though, so once your card expires, you'll need to get a new one if you want to continue getting service.You can buy the cards now exclusively on Amazon. The 30-day card is .99; the 90-day will run you .99.Source: Republic Wireless, Amazon
Unexpected device updates give us Android geeks warm fuzzies, and candidates for updates don't get much less expected than budget tablets — but here we are. We've received several reports that Samsung's Galaxy Tab A, released in the spring of 2016, is being updated to Android 8.1 Oreo.
If you're in the market for an affordable phone that's guaranteed to get some sweet Android 9 Pie action, have we got a pair of deals for you. Both the Sony Xperia XA2 and Xperia XA2 Ultra are on sale at B&H, and both are scheduled to get an update to the newest version of Android this spring.
Anki's Vector robot launched in October. The little guy is certainly cute, and it's always had a useful trick or two; it can tell you the temperature outside or set timers, for example. But starting next week in the US and Canada, Vector is getting a whole lot more practical with the addition of Alexa functionality.
Google's Wallpapers app is pretty excellent, providing an ample selection of high-quality backdrops for your smartphone, tablet, or Play Store-equipped Chomrebook. The app hit the Play Store just a couple years ago, and it's been tearing it up ever since, having already passed 100 million installs.
The Google Home Max is Google's biggest and best smart speaker, which makes it a front-runner for best smart speaker, period. It comes with a price tag to match, though, usually fetching $399. It's currently on sale all over the place for $349, but one retailer has an even better deal: department store Belk is selling the speaker for $262 — $137 off MSRP.
Have you heard about this website, Facebook? The social network is crazy popular, boasting more than two billion users — that's more than a quarter of the planet's population. As a testament to its wild popularity, the lite version of Facebook, appropriately named Facebook Lite, now has more than one billion installs on the Play Store.
Xiaomi's Mi Box S is already an almost-too-good-to-be-true bargain. For less than the price of a Chromecast Ultra, you get 4K, HDR streaming apps on your TV — and it works as a Chromecast receiver. The streaming box was down to $50 last month, and now it's even cheaper: just 40 bucks.
Translation is tricky, as you know if you've read any web page automatically converted by Google Translate; different tongues have different nuances that are hard to teach to an algorithm. Specifically, the way languages handle gender varies, and these discrepancies previously led to Google Translate to make assumptions and provide potentially inaccurate translations. Now, though, when gender is ambiguous in a translation input, the output will show both masculine and feminine terms, eliminating the guesswork.
E-books aren't very large; Amazon says its new 32-gigabyte Kindle Paperwhite can hold thousands at a time. But certain books available on Kindle — comics, for example — can take up more, and if your device's internal storage is already bursting, you may have trouble fitting your library onto it. But there's good news! The Kindle app now allows users to save books to external storage.
You've been able to send video messages on Google Duo since March. The current implementation isn't particularly elegant, though; it's more like leaving a voicemail than intentionally sending a message. The app will receive an update this week that simplifies messaging, eliminating the need to call your recipient before sending.
The official Android Twitter client seems to be taking inspiration from other apps with a batch of new features appearing for some users. Like many third-party apps, it's now showing which client tweets originated from, and there are YouTube-style video playback controls that skip forward or back a few seconds with a tap on the right or left side of the screen.
Messenger Lite, a stripped-down version of Facebook's popular Messenger chat client, has limited features by necessity; Facebook engineered the app to be optimized for budget devices and slow connections. While the simplicity can be refreshing compared to the bloated messes many Facebook-owned apps are becoming, it can also be constraining — but Facebook announced today that Lite is getting new tricks to bring it closer to its feature-rich older brother while maintaining its relatively light footprint.
Nokia announced the X7 for the Chinese market in October. At a hardware event in Dubai today, the company revealed its identity for the rest of the world: the Nokia 8.1. It's the same phone as was announced a few weeks ago — dual rear cameras, Snapdragon 710, and a competitive price tag — just with a new name.
Huawei is a fan favorite of many in-the-know Android enthusiasts. The Chinese electronics manufacturer puts out solid devices that tend to fly under the radar here in the US, like last year's Mate 10 Pro. It's not brand new anymore, but it's still got a lot going on, and it's down to $500 at a lot of retailers.When Jordan revisited the phone earlier this year, he found performance and battery life were still great, thanks to the Kirin 970 and a beefy 4,000 mAh battery. He questioned the device's value at $800 (which was a concern in Ryan's initial review, too), but a $300 price difference changes things. It's got pretty nice cameras, too, and six gigs of RAM, which is more than some flagships from this year.
YouTube Premium subscribers have been able to preview videos on the app's home screen for months now — videos play silently with captions until you scroll away from them. More people will be able to enjoy the feature soon, though, as the YouTube team has shared that "Autoplay on Home" is coming to non-Premium users over the next few weeks.
Wi-Fi-connected plugs can add smarts to just about any dumb appliance. Air conditioning window units, space heaters, lamps; anything that has a switch and plugs into the wall. They're generally an affordable way to dip a toe in the smart home water, and this deal makes them even more so: today only, you can snag a two-pack of TP-Link's HS100 smart plugs for just 20 bucks at B&H.
Fossil makes some of the most handsome Wear OS devices around, with simple, relatively traditional styling. From right now through the end of the week, many of their latest watches are on sale for $199. Depending on which you're interested in, that's a savings of up to $76.
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- Giant-sized figures not your cup of tea? Dead Zebra also has its Android Heroes & Villains III set on sale, down ten bucks to $36. It includes four three-inch figures — two heroes, two villains — one of which is outfitted with a hidden 1GB USB flash drive.
Have you been looking for a silly-large toy to occupy a bunch of space on your shelf or desk? Then boy, have we got a treat for you. Dead Zebra makes an absolute unit of an Android figure measuring nearly 10 inches tall, and it's on sale for $27.
YouTube has been streaming video since before some of our younger readers were born. Since its launch in 2005, it's become mind-bogglingly popular. It also comes pre-loaded on every Android phone with access to Google Play, which has led to a significant milestone in the app's history: YouTube has now seen more than five billion installations on Android.