Innehållsförteckning för 77 från Android Advisor

Samsung’s phones may be the among the most popular Android handsets, but they’re also the furthest from Google’s vision, with their own app store, UI and digital assistant. But with the launch of the Galaxy Note20 (see page 34), a new report from Bloomberg suggests (fave.co/3io62qP) that Google is looking to rein in some of Samsung’s freedom. According to correspondence between the two companies, Google is looking to take back search on Samsung’s handsets, the foundation for everything Android does. The two companies are discussing a deal that would, according to the report, “promote Google’s digital assistant and Play Store for apps” on Galaxy devices. That would be a major change over the current system. While the Play Store and Google Assistant are built into Galaxy phones like they are on every Android…

Price: £349 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2CdDOzA It may have felt as though Google’s new mid-range phone would never arrive, but the Pixel 4a is finally here. On the whole, Google has done another fantastic job of getting the key things right here and at a cheaper price than the Pixel 3a. However, tech nerds are likely to be tempted by some rivals due to a couple of missing features. When I say the Pixel 4a is here, that means the phone is official at long last. However, you can’t actually pre-order it until 10 September, then it won’t start shipping until 1 October. The question is whether the Pixel 4a is worth waiting for. DESIGN It’s a case of the same but different when it comes to the Pixel 4a’s…

At long last and longer rumour, the Google Pixel 4a has arrived, adding another strong entry to a very crowded mid-range market. As premium phone sales continue to plummet due to the coronavirus, the Pixel 4a should be the 2020 value phone to beat, with surprisingly good looks and an aggressive £349 price tag. But while the Pixel 4a brings all the things you’d expect from a Google phone – namely an optimized UI and an excellent camera – it might be too little, too late. Google has built an excellent phone for an excellent price, but so have so many others. In just the time since it was originally rumoured to launch at Google I/O in May, the Samsung Galaxy A51, OnePlus Nord (see page 54) and TCL 10…

The Galaxy Note20 Ultra is without a doubt the best phone Samsung has ever made. It’s loaded with the specs and features that Android enthusiasts and Note loyalists want and need, and can take on any and all contenders, including the upcoming iPhone 12 Pro Max. There really isn’t a thing I’d change about it. And yet, I’m finding a hard time justifying its existence. As the designs, performance, and features for Samsung’s two flagship lines continue to blur, the difference between the flagship Galaxy Note and Galaxy S phones has become little more than the S Pen. Take a look at the specs for the two phones: Galaxy S20 Ultra Dimensions: 166.9x76.x8.8mm Display: 6.9in (3,200x1,440; 496ppi) Dynamic AMOLED 2X capacitive touchscreen Processor: Exynos 990 RAM: 12GB LPDDR5 Storage: 128GB/512GB…

If steady updates are your priority when choosing which Android phone to buy, you basically have one option: the Google Pixel. Google famously promises three years of Android version and security updates with all Pixel purchases, which is at least a year more than any other Android phone maker. Now Samsung is stepping up to change that. As part of its Unpacked announcements that brought the Galaxy Note20 and Galaxy Note20 Ultra, Samsung announced that its new phones will receive OS updates for “up to three generations”, including the “latest features” and “latest security”. That’s a huge commitment over the two generations it previously promises and excellent peace of mind for anyone buying a new Galaxy phone. Samsung said that the guarantee applies to all “[Galaxy] S, N[ote] and Z…

Price: £319 from fave.co/3fElEVq Sony’s smartphone release schedule has slowed to an absolute crawl in recent years, but that makes those times when a phone does hit the market all the more exciting. Queue the Sony Xperia 10 II – a phone with some unique flavour in an overcrowded mid-range market. Last year’s Xperia 10 and 10 Plus were middling mid-rangers, namely because of the ageing chipsets at their hearts, but also due to the fact that, beyond their elongated displays, they didn’t do enough to differentiate themselves in a fiercely aggressive segment of the phone space. The Xperia 10 II (that’s pronounced “ten, mark two”, for clarification – messy, but we’ll move on) looks as though it’s addressed many of its predecessors’ shortcomings. By being a singular device rather than 2019’s twosome,…

Just like your PC or Mac, a lot of what ails your Android phone can be fixed with a simple restart. Laggy navigation, crashing apps and system quirks can be cleared easily that way. But some maladies need more than a restart. Here’s how to remedy those peskier problems. BLUETOOTH DEVICES WON’T CONNECT If you own an Android phone – especially a Pixel or a Galaxy – you’ve encountered this: The Bluetooth device that you were using yesterday simply won’t connect anymore. You could try toggling the Bluetooth switch, but even if that works it’ll likely be a temporary fix. But other than waiting for the next Android update, there are a few things you can try. You could unpair the device from your phone in the Bluetooth settings and…

Microsoft continues to forge closer ties between Windows and Samsung products. The company announced recently that users who pair Windows’ Your Phone app with a Samsung Galaxy Note20 will be able to pin one or more Android apps to their Windows taskbar. Your Phone users will be able to interact with multiple Android apps via the Your Phone app – up to three, Microsoft showed off at the Galaxy Unpacked 2020 virtual event. (Microsoft said a total of five will be supported.) Even better, via a persistent virtual connection between phone and PC, you’ll be able to pin those Android apps to your PC’s taskbar, beginning in November. Samsung and Microsoft also showed off additional capabilities that bring the two companies closer together. For example, Samsung Notes will be able to integrate…

The iPhone SE might be Apple’s unexpected hit of 2020, but there’s a new competitor in town: the Google Pixel 4a. But Google’s newest mid-range handset is going to need a lot more than a low price to take on Apple’s mighty budget blockbuster. Here’s how the two phones measure up. DESIGN I never thought I’d see the day when Google designs a nicer phone than Apple, but it is hard to deny the Pixel 4a’s good looks. It has relatively slim and uniform bezels all around thanks to its hole-punch camera, an extremely compact and light frame, and a classy all-black exterior. Even with a far-bigger display, the Pixel 4a has very similar dimensions and weight as the SE: Pixel 4a: 144x69.4x8.2mm, 148g iPhone SE: 138.4x67.3x7.3mm, 143g When it…

You might think the new £849 Galaxy Note20 and £899 Galaxy S20 are two peas in the same pod as ‘affordable’ counterparts to their high-priced Ultra siblings. They’re not. While the Galaxy S20 is basically a smaller version of the S20 Ultra, with the same chip, RAM, and screen tech as its pricier sibling, the Galaxy Note20 shares very little with the Note20 Ultra. Samsung has set the cheaper Galaxy Note20 apart from both the Note20 Ultra and the Galaxy S20 Ultra with a number of changes, many of which might make buyers think twice about buying one. Here’s why your £849 might be better spent on the slightly older Galaxy S20 – or not. 1. THE NOTE20’S PROCESSOR IS FASTER THAN THE S20’S… Samsung has opted to outfit the Galaxy…

The follow-up to the Galaxy Fold is such a departure from the original beleaguered model that Samsung gave it a new name. The Galaxy Z Fold2 would seem to fix much of what was wrong with the original Fold, bringing bigger outside and inside screens, better cameras and a smarter design with a stronger screen and sturdier hinge. Whether that fits into ‘the new normal’ Samsung is selling with the Galaxy Note20 is another story. While Samsung continuously stressed during Unpacked how its line-up of new ‘power devices’ are built for the new way of doing things remotely, the original Galaxy Fold doesn’t really fit that mould. It’s a device for traveling light and convenient, and, let’s face it, to be seen by others. Even for those able to afford the…

Price: £379 from fave.co/2DNYVZJ OnePlus made its name undercutting flagship phones, but over time the brand slowly became exactly what it had originally set its stall against. I loved the OnePlus 8 Pro, but – like many others – noted that it is a flagship through and through, with the price to match. Enter the OnePlus Nord. Much has been made of the company’s return to the mid-range market – even Apple couldn’t generate this much hype around an affordable phone when it launched the iPhone SE – and it’s fair to say that expectations were high. So has OnePlus done it again? Well let’s put it this way: I moved from the OnePlus 8 Pro to the Nord for this review, and even though that phone costs more than twice as much, I’m…

If you’re spending time poring over Android phone spec sheets when deciding which phone to buy, then you know there are basically two processors to look for: the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip – right now, that would be the Snapdragon 865 or slightly faster 865+ – and everything else. Smartphone processors move so fast that even the previous year’s flagship processor’s speeds are old news. That’s changed this year. Along with the high-end Snapdragon 865 that powers flagships like Samsung’s Galaxy S20 and the Snapdragon 865+ for even higher-end gaming phones, Qualcomm is also selling the Snapdragon 765 and 765G chips, which raises the middle tier substantially. While mid-range phones have typically run Snapdragon 6 and 7 Series chips, the 765 is a different animal. For one, it has an…

As summer slowly winds to a close and the first day of remote learning remains weeks away (for many of us, anyway), it’s easy to let the children go nuts on their tablets. Luckily, Google Assistant has a new feature to help keep young ones from disappearing into their bean bags. Available now in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and India, the new Family Bell feature lets you create bells that sound on your Google smart speakers and displays, just like the bells at school. For example, you can say “Hey Google, create a Family Bell” to set reminder bells for breakfast, the start of a virtual camp day, breaktime in the back garden or lunchtime. Your various bells can recur every day or on specific days of the week, and you…

Google’s new Pixel 4a doesn’t have the latest processor, cutting-edge space-zoom cameras or a 120Hz display. It doesn’t even have wireless charging. But with a £349 price tag, 5.8in display, and the best design Google has ever shipped, it just might be able to take on Samsung’s Galaxy Note20 behemoth (see page 34 for details). At first glance, the Pixel 4a doesn’t look much like its namesake, the Pixel 4, but it’s not hard to see the influence in its rounded silhouette and raised square camera array. There’s a sleekness here that we haven’t seen in a Google phone before, though. Google offers just one size of the Pixel 4a and just one colour as well, but it’ll likely nail most people’s sweet spot: 5.8 inches and black, with a mint-green…

If you don’t want to spend £1,179 on the Galaxy Note20 Ultra, Samsung has a more affordable option for you: the Galaxy Note20. Like last year’s Note10, the Note20 is a less-loaded handset, meant to bring the Note experience to a less-demanding crowd that still wants all the productivity benefits provided by the S pen. It could have been one of the best phones of the year. Samsung has made all the right moves with the Note20, prioritizing a big screen, top-of-the-line processor, 5G modem and excellent camera. Looking at the spec sheet, I’d expect the Note20 to cost about £650. This would make the Note20 one of the best premium Android values this side of the £549 OnePlus 7T. The only problem is it costs £200 more than that…

The Galaxy Tab might be a distant second to the iPad when it comes to tablet market share, but Samsung is hardly ready to concede the crown. Its newest tablet, the S7+, isn’t just its best and biggest, but it’s easily the closest you’re going to get to an iPad Pro without shopping in an Apple Store. Samsung’s Galaxy S tablets have always showcased the latest tech and specs, and the S7+ is no different. It offers the Snapdragon 865+ processor, up to 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, a giant 10,090mAh battery, and 5G support. But what gives the S7 its ‘plus’ designation isn’t the specs, rather it’s the 12.4in screen, the biggest in a Samsung-made Android tablet since the 18.4in Galaxy View. That’s about two inches bigger…

Price: £299 from fave.co/2XOUx3X Motorola’s budget-friendly smartphone collection has got a little out-of-hand recently, with a smattering of Motorola One and Moto G-themed devices on-sale, all at a similar price point. The Moto G 5G Plus could be the best of the bunch, offering a huge 5,000mAh battery alongside a tall 21:9 90Hz display, great performance and the ability to take great snaps. But while it’s surprisingly capable on the inside, the Moto G 5G Plus isn’t the best-looking smartphone available at the moment, especially compared to the likes of the Realme 6 Pro and OnePlus Nord. But, if you favour function over form, then this is one to consider. DESIGN The Moto G 5G Plus is a no-thrills smartphone when it comes to design, but that’s not really a…

Just because you aren’t buying a new phone this year doesn’t mean the one you’re using has to look as old as the day you bought it. We’re not talking about a new case or even a deep cleaning – we’re talking about a digital makeover that makes your old phone look and feel like a brand-new one. FOR AN EXTREME MAKEOVER 1. Download a new launcher Your Android phone comes with a launcher installed – Pixel, One UI Home, OnePlus, and so on – but the beauty of Android is you don’t have to keep it. You’ll find numerous launchers in the Play Store that open up your Android phone to nearly limitless opportunities with themes, icons, features and optimizations that you won’t get out of the box. There are…