by crissly | Oct 15, 2023 | Uncategorized
We test a ton of Android phones. We like the ones below, but you’ll be better off with one of the options above. If you haven’t yet done so, check out our Best Cheap Phones guide for more.
Google Pixel 6A for $349: Google’s continuing to sell the 2022 Pixel 6A (8/10, WIRED Recommends) at a marked-down price (try not to pay more than $300). It’s still excellent value and a worthy purchase. It’s powered by Google’s first-gen Tensor chip, which means you’re getting some of the best performance for the money, and it supports all the same great (and helpful) software smarts as the flagship Pixel 6 series. It’s got an OLED screen, a decent camera system, and lengthy software support. There’s no wireless charging and it has a 60-Hz screen.
Google’s Pixel 7 for $449 and Pixel 7 Pro for $649: The 2022 Pixel 7 series (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are good buys if you can find them at these prices (or lower). The Pixel 7 gives you practically everything you’d want, from wireless charging to a 90-Hz screen refresh rate. The Pixel 7 Pro is even bigger with a 6.7-inch screen and it has a 120-Hz refresh rate. Both feature Face Unlock, but this isn’t secure like the version on the Pixel 8, so you’ll have to rely on the fingerprint sensor to access sensitive apps. Cameras are a big part of Pixels, and the Pixel 7 Pro outshines its sibling with an upgraded ultrawide with autofocus, enabling a Macro Focus mode for close-ups. Its telephoto camera has also improved, with excellent 5X optical zoom. These Pixels will receive four more years of security updates, which is great, but only two more OS upgrades, which is not as good as the latest models.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 for $1,499: The Fold5 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) remains an excellent big-screen folding smartphone. The cameras can take some great photos, the displays can get shockingly bright, and Samsung promises lengthy software support. But the introduction of the Pixel Fold has shown me how much more I prefer the wider front screen. The Fold5’s external screen feels too narrow, and some apps feel squished (though it’s a little easier to grasp when closed). There aren’t too many changes from its predecessor, meaning it’s still a good idea to buy the Fold4 at a discount if you really want to enter the folding phone world.
OnePlus 11 5G for $600: This OnePlus 11 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is frequently sold at this price, so avoid the MSRP. It’s a speed demon, but it isn’t my first choice of phone, nor is it my second. It feels tremendously fluid and responsive, thanks to the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset inside (and all the other optimizations), and it recharges so quickly with the included adapter and cable—you can go from 0 to 100 in roughly 20 minutes. It’s got a stunning 120-Hz 6.7-inch AMOLED screen, nice stereo speakers, and a reliable battery that easily lasts more than a full day. Even the Hasselblad-tuned cameras produce some nice results, and OnePlus is now matching Samsung with a promise of four years of Android OS upgrades and five years of security updates (though these are bimonthly instead of monthly). It’s not all rosy though. There’s no wireless charging, no support for millimeter-wave 5G, and the water resistance is only IP64 when nearly every phone at this price has an IP67 rating (rated to survive submersions). The overall software interface also isn’t my favorite. But hey, at least it’s pretty! It works on all three major US networks.
Sony Xperia 1 V for $1,398: Sony’s latest flagship phone (7/10, WIRED Review) is super expensive. But it’s one of the few smartphones with a 4K OLED screen, and it’s rare to see a high-end phone with a headphone jack. There are a lot of toys for camera nerds, whether you want to capture a photo with manual settings or use Sony’s Cinema Pro app to capture cinematic footage. You can even use the phone as an external monitor for your camera. It’s a shame Sony has a short software update policy, and its camera system is still too clunky.
OnePlus 10 Pro for $450: OnePlus’ 2022 flagship phone is good but not great (7/10, WIRED Recommends), though it’s a smart buy at this price. It’s spiffy and has powerful hardware, including a 120-Hz AMOLED screen that gets bright, speedy performance, and some of the fastest wired and wireless charging you’ll find in the US. (Yes, unlike the OnePlus 11, the older phone has wireless charging support). It’ll get two more OS upgrades and three years of security updates. You should know that there’s no millimeter-wave 5G here, just sub-6, which is odd for a flagship.
Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola for $700: This Motorola phone is a collaboration with Lenovo’s ThinkPad department, maker of the famed business laptops with the little red nubs. It’s a pretty good phone all-around (7/10, WIRED Recommends), with features like flagship performance, two-day battery life, and an OLED 144-Hz screen, but it just doesn’t measure up to its peers at this price.
Motorola Edge+ 2023 for $800: A Motorola smartphone with contactless payment support, 5G, wireless charging, plus a promise of three OS upgrades and four years of security updates? Say it ain’t so! The Motorola Edge+ finally matches its peers on several counts and exceeds them in some ways. It has a bright 165-Hz OLED screen, it’s lightweight, and its 5,100-mAh battery easily lasts two days. The downside? The cameras are not as good as the cheaper Pixel 7A. Read our Best Motorola Phones guide for more picks.
OnePlus Nord N30 5G for $300: This OnePlus phone (6/10, WIRED Review) doesn’t break the mold, and you should absolutely pay up for a Pixel 6A or any of the phones above if you can. But if your budget is really tight and this phone goes on sale, it does the job. Performance is good, and there’s two-day battery life.
by crissly | Sep 24, 2023 | Uncategorized
A Magnet is one of those things that always remain wondrous. As a kid, I used to chase a broken magnet with its repelling end and pretend it was a cop car chasing a robber. Now, it’s similarly satisfying to slap magnetic accessories to the back of an iPhone. It just clicks into place! No wires, screws, or clamps to deal with. It’s wonderful.
MagSafe is the name of Apple’s accessory system that’s integrated into the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14, and iPhone 15 range. A ring of magnets on the back of the phone (and in MagSafe-enabled cases) lets you attach various magnetic accessories, like a battery pack that recharges the iPhone wirelessly so you don’t need to hold it or carry a cable. We’ve covered protection for your iPhone in our Best iPhone 14 Cases, Best iPhone 13 Cases, and Best iPhone 12 Cases guides, but these are our favorite MagSafe accessories to increase their utility.
Updated September 2023: We’ve added accessories from ESR, Belkin, iOttie, Nomad, Moft, Casetify, Ohsnap!, Oakywood, and Peak Design.
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by crissly | Sep 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
With the release of Android 14 creeping closer, Google just announced a makeover for the Android brand, which was last updated in 2019. The logo has been modernized, and the Android mascot, called Bugdroid, has a fresh 3D look. The company also unveiled a handful of new features for Google apps and Android devices, including a Google Assistant-powered widget and the option to store digital versions of library and gym cards in your Google Wallet.
The new look is designed to “reflect Android’s core ethos of being open, iterative, and inclusive.” From now on, it’s Android with a capital “A,” and the Android logo has grown curvier, bringing it closer to the style of the Google logo. The tiny green robot that has long served as Android’s mascot has been rendered in 3D and has a new visual identity, with fresh colors (including a natty rainbow finish), accessories (like a headband and hat), and some playful animations.
Hot on the heels of the Android rebrand comes Google’s quarterly Android feature drop. First up is the Assistant At a Glance widget for your home screen, a revamp of the existing At a Glance widget. It employs machine learning algorithms to offer snippets of relevant information, such as local weather, travel updates for your flights, and handy event reminders.
A new feature called Image Q&A on Google’s Lookout app uses artificial intelligence to generate detailed descriptions of images, so instead of relying on rudimentary alt tags, people who are blind or have low vision can get proper descriptions of an image and even ask follow-up questions to learn more about it. Google has also added another 11 languages to the Lookout app, including Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Google Wallet is getting the much-needed ability to import and digitize passes with barcodes or QR codes. That means you can upload a photo of your gym pass or library card and store a secure, digital version of it in Google Wallet, which will come in handy when you forget your actual wallet again.
Android Auto is getting support for Webex and Zoom audio conference calls. Yes, that means you can join meetings on either platform and browse your schedules on your car display. You can mute your mic and end the call through Android Auto. Handy for when you’re running late but really need to join a call. Implementing it into your car’s system hopefully means you won’t use your phone while driving.
The final new feature is tied to Google Assistant—you can add sleep-tracking data from Fitbit or Google Fit into a Google Assistant Routine. Say, “Hey Google, good morning” after you set it up to get a recap of your sleep stats alongside your morning news, including when you fell asleep and how many hours of shuteye you managed to get.
These features are rolling out starting today and do not require an over-the-air system update. Instead, keep an eye out for app updates in the Google Play Store.
by crissly | Jul 6, 2023 | Uncategorized
Most impressive is battery life. There’s a 5,100-mAh cell, and this phone easily lasted two full days of average use. Even heavy users should expect to get through a full day without requiring a top-up. When you do need to recharge, you can use the included 68-watt charging adapter or a wireless charger. Motorola is one of the few phone makers to still include a charger in the box.
Where it loses points is the camera system. A 50-megapixel primary camera is joined by a 50-MP ultrawide and a 60-MP selfie camera. In my photo comparisons, the Edge+ took some sharp shots, but it had a hard time keeping up with the $499 Google Pixel 7A. Motorola’s results are often oversaturated and overly brightened, and they tend to deliver slightly off skin tones. In low light, I frequently had to retake photos because the first result was blurry. If the camera is important to you, I’d avoid buying any Motorola phone. Consider the Pixel 7A or Samsung Galaxy S23 instead.
Motorola promises three Android OS upgrades and four years of bimonthly security updates.
This phone is the result of a rare (public) partnership between Motorola and its parent company, Lenovo. If you’re familiar with Lenovo’s popular line of ThinkPad business laptops, the ThinkPhone (7/10, WIRED Recommends) tries to emulate the look, down to a red, customizable button on the left side of the phone that’s meant to look like the red nub on a ThinkPad’s keyboard. Technically, it’s an enterprise phone, but you can buy it unlocked at Motorola or Lenovo, and I like it!
It’s similar to the Edge+ in many ways, though there are some small changes that explain the slightly lower price. For starters, it doesn’t have a curved glass display, though you might like that. The OLED screen is a little smaller at 6.6 inches, with a refresh rate that goes up to 144 Hz. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, which is still a flagship processor but isn’t as powerful as the Gen 2.
Still, the 5,000-mAh battery lasts two days, and there’s a 68-watt charger in the box, along with wireless charging support. It retains an IP68 rating for water resistance, has NFC for tap-to-pay support, and comes with 256 GB of storage.
There’s a 50-MP primary sensor, a 13-MP ultrawide, and a 32-MP selfie camera. I actually preferred many of the photos from the Lenovo ThinkPhone to some of the shots I took on the Motorola Edge+, but these cameras still don’t measure up to their peers.
Motorola promises three Android OS upgrades and four years of bimonthly security updates.
Motorola’s first folding smartphone from 2020 had a lot of flaws, but its successor levels up the game in a few ways. The Razr+ (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a folding flip phone—essentially, it’s like a traditional phone you can fold in half. Yes, you can flip open the phone to answer a call and flip it shut to end it.
When it’s closed, the larger 3.6-inch OLED exterior screen can show you notifications, apps, and handy widgets to check the weather, calendar events, and news. It even lets you play simple games. You can also use the superior primary cameras—which would typically be on the “back” of the phone but are now at the front—to snap selfies and use this external screen as a viewfinder. They’re some of the sharpest selfies you’ll snap.
by crissly | Jun 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
The software experience is almost like a miniaturized version of the Pixel Tablet I recently reviewed. There’s a taskbar at the bottom of the screen that you can drag up in any app. Press an app and drag it to one side of the screen and you’ll launch it in split-screen mode—that’s pretty much it. There are no other unfamiliar gestures or controls you need to learn.
Split-screen is fantastic when you have apps that don’t look scrunched up. I’ve used Chrome with Telegram to send my partner suggestions on where to order dinner without having to juggle apps. I’ve looked at my calendar and responded to people on emails and Slack to tell them when I’m free. I’ve had a phone call with my local utility company as I looked up my account number on the right-hand screen. None of this was impossible on a normal phone, and having these abilities just makes the little things so much easier.
Google says it updated more than 50 of its apps to make use of larger screens on tablets and folding phones, and the results are great. Gmail’s two-pane view lets you see your list of emails on the left, and the content opens up on the right screen. Google Maps gives you a desktop-like experience where you can see the location on the right and details about a place on the left. Chrome doesn’t offer up desktop mode by default, but you do get tabs at the top to quickly switch between them.
There are a few apps I love opening up the Fold for, like Reddit Sync, my favorite third-party Reddit app (that’s about to die in a few days). It displays Reddit posts on the left screen and opens the thread on the right, so you can scroll through comments and easily tap on the next post to move on. This rings true even in messaging apps like Telegram, Google Messages, and WhatsApp. Airtable and Google Calendar look fantastic too.
But naturally, not all apps are created equal. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are a few of the many apps that aren’t optimized for big-screen Android and open up with black areas on the side of the display. You can expect this situation to improve as foldable devices gain more popularity, but it may be a while.
As for the cameras, there’s nothing to worry about. The hardware isn’t as good as what you’ll find on the Pixel 7 Pro, but it gets close, and you still end up with the same great Pixel camera experience. There’s a 48-MP main camera joined by a 10.8-MP ultrawide and 10.8-MP telephoto with 5X optical zoom. The exterior selfie camera is 9.5 MP, and the inner selfie camera is 8 MP. You might think the innermost camera is quite poor, but it’s not. It easily earns a win over the inner camera in Samsung’s Fold4 with well-exposed selfies.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Google Pixel Fold, main camera. This is Tobu and he is very cute. There wasn’t a lot of light in this room but my pup’s face is tack sharp, and the colors are realistic.
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