Innehållsförteckning för 78 från Android Advisor

A recent Microsoft blog post (see fave.co/3gtjesY) brought both good and bad news for those waiting for its dual-screen smartphone – the Surface Duo. The good news is that it will ship September 10. The bad news is that initially it will only be available to buy in the US, with a UK release thought to be some way off. It’s also very expensive. Microsoft will be charging $1,399 (around £1,050) for the base configuration of its dual-screen Duo with 128GB of storage (add $100 for 256GB). You’re not getting much for your money other than the pleasure of being first. It has last year’s top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, just 6GB of RAM, a relatively small 3577mAh battery and a single 11MP camera. It’s also heavy at 250g and not all that pocketable…

The two biggest Android phones of the moment couldn’t be more different. They’re so different, in fact, that there’s £830 between them: The Google Pixel 4a costs just £349, and the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra will set you back a whopping £1,179. But while it’s crazy to compare things like performance, design or battery life between phones so different in price, the camera is another story. The Pixel 4a’s photography chops are more high-end than its price tag would suggest. It has the same main camera as the £829 Pixel 4 XL, as well as the same camera app features, including Night Sight and Live HDR+. And because it’s a Google phone, we know the processing is off-the-charts awesome. But can it stand up to a phone that costs nearly…

When Samsung launched the Galaxy Note20, the biggest surprise wasn’t the faster screen, smoother S Pen, or more powerful processor. It was the promise of three ‘generations’ of Android updates, a first for the company. Now Samsung is expanding that guarantee to even more phones. While the company originally said the guarantee would only apply to its highest-end “S, N, and Z series devices starting with the S10”, Samsung has added its latest A-series phones to that list, so the Galaxy A51 and A71 will be sure to get Android 13 when it arrives in 2022. Here’s the full list: Galaxy S series: Galaxy S20 Ultra, S20+, S20, S10, S10+, S10, S10e, and S10 Lite Galaxy Note series: Galaxy Note20 Ultra, Note20, Note 10+, and Note 10 Galaxy Foldable devices: Galaxy…

Price: £399 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2YDiAmG You might not have heard of TCL before, but you’ve probably come across their products before. The Chinese tech behemoth doesn’t sell much under its own name in the UK – TVs, mostly – but it manufactures plenty more, including Alcatel phones and, until recently, the last few Blackberry mobiles. This year TCL has decided to put its name out there, starting with the launch of three phones in the West. The TCL 10 5G sits roughly in the middle of this set, offering some solid specs – including 5G support, if the name didn’t give it away – at a competitive price, with a subdued, professional (boring?) aesthetic that nods to the company’s recent history with Blackberry. DESIGN It’s probably fair to say that…

Do you have to spend £200 on a pair of earbuds to enjoy the best audio quality on a personal level? Absolutely not. There are hundreds of cheap wireless earphones out there that sound just as good as more expensive options, but their price sounds a million times better. But buying cheap earbuds can be a minefield, because you never really know what you’re going to get – especially if it’s from a Chinese brand you’ve never heard of. You could argue that you get what you pay for, except that really isn’t the case, and we’ve found some amazing products at significantly lower prices. To save you the headache of finding a pair of Bluetooth earphones that impress on more than just price, we’ve rounded up some of our…

Just when you thought BlackBerry phones were gone for good, a brand-new start-up is claiming that a new one is on the way. And in case you’re wondering, yes it will have a physical keyboard. In a press release (see fave.co/32l3X8Q), Texas-based Onward Mobility announced that is has entered into an agreement with BlackBerry and FIH Mobile Limited to deliver a new 5G BlackBerry Android smartphone with physical keyboard in the first half of 2021. Little else is known about the phone except that it will, according to the report, be “secure”, “feature-rich” and “enable productivity, without sacrificing the user experience”. The company’s CEO also told the Register that the phone will be an “everyday device” that’s “the most secure and productive” with things like “a top-notch camera, and the other…

The Ultra phone is here to stay. At its recent Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung announced two sizes of its Galaxy Note20 phone. The Galaxy Note20 Ultra model replaced last year’s Plus model at the top end. That makes two Ultras for Samsung, along with the previously announced Galaxy S20 Ultra. Which one should you buy (if you can afford the prices, both well north of £1,000)? We’ll go through the major points of comparison to help you decide. DESIGN As Samsung’s screens have gotten bigger over the years, the visual differences between the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note phones have shrunken along with the bezels. Both phones are basically all-screen now, with a sliver of black above and below the screen, but their shapes differ. The Note is taller with…

Price: £179 (inc VAT) from fave.co/31xXb0j The Galaxy Buds Live look like beans. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get on with reviewing the damn things. Samsung’s latest true wireless buds may have an unorthodox design, but don’t write them off just because of that. With wireless charging and active noise-cancelling these deliver a few premium features while nailing the basics like sound quality and battery life along the way. The design will be divisive – and has its pros and cons – but for some the Galaxy Buds Live will be the true wireless headphones to bean – sorry, beat. DESIGN The Buds Live don’t look like any other headphones out there, and for the most part I mean that as a compliment. The curved, rounded design is…

Price: £199 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2D5pgTd If you’re considering buying a smartphone for under £250 then you already acknowledge you’re going to be making some sacrifices. Camera, speed, build quality and more will take a hit compared to the phones hitting around £1,000. But cheaper phones can still do most of the things phones five times the price can, and the £219 Oppo A72 is no different. It runs Android’s Google Play Store, meaning there’s no app you can’t get. The A72 faces some strong competition for your money from other phones in the same price bracket, and while it does everything you’d want it to, it has some unfortunate performance issues that stop us from wholeheartedly recommending it. DESIGN Oppo has done a great job with the design of the A72, even if…

The Microsoft Surface Duo is a smartphone I haven’t tested yet – but based on what I do know, it already has me worried. It’s somewhat like the new crop of foldable phones in that it can fold and flip, and it runs Android 10 just like the Galaxy Fold. It also demands a sky-high price like the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip. But while folding phones are pushing the boundaries of what a display can do, and charging prices to match, you’re not getting that with the Surface Duo. Instead you’re getting a dual-screened device with giant bezels that’s running a version of Android overlaid with a heavy coating of Windows. That’s fine – lots of Android phones have personalized skins – but the Duo is…

Price: £1,179 (inc VAT) from fave.co/34uV3Il Our Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra review found three clear reasons to make the jump to this new flagship phone: Mystic Bronze, laser autofocus and the S Pen’s new 8ms latency. And if you’re looking for any reasons not to, well, there are plenty of those in this review too – namely, it’s gigantic, expensive and not a huge upgrade over the S20 Ultra. But if you’re a Note fan, you know exactly what you’re getting and you know you want it: the biggest, fastest and most powerful Android phone you can buy. For everyone else, it’s not so simple. Samsung’s flagships have become so good that reviews of them are all basically the same: yes they have the best specs, but they’re also the most expensive…

The Samsung Galaxy Note20 has only just hit shelves, but many of its features are already coming to the Galaxy S20. Samsung has announced that One UI 2.5, which debuted on the new Note, has already begun rolling out to S20 phones. Among the new features outlined below are enhancements to video recording, Samsung Notes, and DeX, but it appears the S20 won’t be getting the Note20 Ultra’s best feature: adaptive refresh. On Samsung’s newest Note, in order to conserve battery life the display will automatically lower to 60Hz when the phone is at rest or when using an app that doesn’t benefit from the higher refresh rate. We reached out to Samsung for clarification, but they pointed us back to the blog post for the new features, which doesn’t list…

Price: £289 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3lhVHPo The stylus used to be one of the defining features of ‘smart devices’, back in the age of the PalmPilot and its reign more or less continued until Steve Jobs famously berated the peripheral while introducing the touch-driven original iPhone in 2007 – changing attitudes towards smartphone interaction, forever. Of course, since then Apple’s – and the wider mobile industry’s – opinion of the stylus has softened, to the point that it’s been able to enjoy something of a renaissance. While today’s stylus-toting stars are namely Samsung’s Galaxy Note range and the pairing of iPad and Apple Pencil, there’s definitely room for more players in the space, especially at more affordable climbs; a region that Motorola is exploring with the Moto G Pro. WHAT’S…

Price: £129 (inc VAT) from fave.co/2EqWpcN Honor is back with yet another budget smartphone, this time with the Honor 9A. The successor to the Honor 8A comes with some great plus points like long battery life and a decent camera for macro shots, but you’ll have to go without Google Mobile Services. I spent some time with this phone to see how it holds up in everyday life. Keep on reading to find out whether the Honor 9A is the budget phone for you. DESIGN At a weight of 185g and 9mm thick, it’s on the bigger side of smartphones, but that’s quite in keeping with Honor as a brand. It won’t fit in smaller pockets and you can’t use it one-handed with ease, but the larger screen makes it a good…