Ben Schoon is a Senior Editor at 9to5Google, working for the publication as one of its primary news writers since 2016.
In 2013, Ben helped start an independent tech publication where he learned the skills used at 9to5Google including writing, product photography, and videography. He is located in the city of Winston-Salem in North Carolina where he lives with his wife Melissa. Ben is an avid disc golf player.
He primarily covers Android products, including Google Pixel devices, Samsung Galaxy smartphones, as well as devices from OnePlus, Oppo, Motorola, and more. Beyond just covering news about these products, Ben also spends time using these products himself, speaking from experience with the articles he writes. Some of Ben’s most recent hands-on reviews include; Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel Watch 2, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, Motorola Razr+, HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook, and more.
Ben is also a leading source for information about Google’s Android TV, diving deeply into important parts of the platform including its powerful Operator Tier, explaining future changes to the platform, and reviewing its products such as Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield TV, and more.
In 2019, Ben leaked one of the first in-person photos of the Pixel 4 before later revealing the Recorder and Pixel Themes apps months ahead of launch. In 2020, Ben also reported on multiple upcoming Pixel devices including Pixel 5a and the first report of Google working on a foldable Pixel smartphone. That same month, he was also the first to correctly report the $49 price point of what became the Chromecast with Google TV.
Ben Schoon is active on Twitter, @nexusben, but can also be found on Instagram and LinkedIn. For questions or tips, you can email him directly, and his portfolio is also available online.
Email: schoon@9to5mac.com | Encrypted Email: benschoon@protonmail.com
After selling out in barely 48 hours when it launched earlier this month, Lenovo has re-stocked the Legion Tab, its small yet powerful Android tablet.
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Samsung has been leaning heavily into trade-in deals for years now, and the offers for its latest Galaxy S25 series are significantly better than the last generation. Here are the highlights, and how to get an additional $50 off.
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Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 series is unsurprisingly not particularly colorful, but what’s more annoying than that is the new naming scheme the company has gone with which leave truly bizarre descriptions of the various colors at the very least, and feel like a failed attempt to capture the charm of past Pixels.
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Oppo’s upcoming Find N5 foldable is the basis for a future OnePlus Open sequel, and it’s thankfully fixing one of my biggest complaints about the original.
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Samsung has made a change to the S Pen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra which removes remote control features that have been in place for years, and the reason is because essentially no one was using those features.
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Following its launch earlier this month, a new software update is now rolling out to OnePlus 13 which delivers improvements to the already-great camera, as well as adding a new AI feature to the mix.
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Battery health is becoming a more crucial part of smartphones as support timelines grow, and one helpful point of reference is the ability to see how many cycles your battery has gone through. Google Pixel phones added a battery cycle count last year, and now Samsung is adding the same functionality to Galaxy S25.
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Nearly a decade late, Samsung has finally started supporting Android’s Seamless Updates feature, including on its new Galaxy S25 series.
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Notifications are a key part of any device, and they can really make or break an experience. With its One UI 7 update that debuted on the Galaxy S25 Ultra this week, Samsung has decided to adjust lock screen notifications in a way that makes them effectively useless.
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After teasing its debut late last year, Samsung has offered a public look at its upcoming Android XR headset, “Project Moohan,” at its latest Unpacked event.
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Samsung has officially confirmed that the Galaxy S25 series will be using the Snapdragon 8 Elite from Qualcomm in all regions, and with satellite connectivity too.
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First unveiled at CES earlier this month, Google TV has announced that it will begin rolling out an experimental feature, “News Briefs,” which is powered by Gemini.
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Samsung capped its Unpacked event today with a teaser for its upcoming thin smartphone, the Galaxy S25 Edge. At the San Jose event, we were able to get a quick look at the Galaxy S25 Edge, including a few details about the device.
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Samsung has just officially teased its upcoming “Galaxy S25 Edge,” with the thinner smartphone coming later this year.
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With its One UI 7 update, Samsung is adding support for “Live Notifications” and the “Now Bar,” the company’s take on the “Live Activities” functionality Apple has been building out on iPhone for a while. With the Galaxy S25 now official, Samsung is confirming additional support for apps including Google Maps.
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Qi2 is finally happening. Two years after it was announced, Samsung is adopting the latest Qi2 standard in the Galaxy S25 series, but it’s not in the way you probably hoped, and you’re going to run into an immediate problem with existing accessories.
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Samsung just announced the Galaxy S25 series and, ahead of that, we’ve had a chance to try out the new devices. At a glance, they look pretty familiar but, on closer inspection… they still look pretty familiar. Here’s everything we found new with the hardware.
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Samsung is launching its new Galaxy S25 series this week, with the trio of new devices not bringing all that many hardware upgrades, but leaning even heavier into AI features, all with the same pricing.
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A lack of wireless charging was a significant downside of the OnePlus Open, and it’s now been confirmed that the Oppo Find N5, the base of the OnePlus Open 2, will add support for Qi charging.
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Samsung confirmed months ago that its Android 15 update, One UI 7, would be launching with “upcoming” Galaxy S devices in 2025. Now, just a day ahead of its big Galaxy S25 launch event, Samsung is saying that yet again.
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For many YouTube TV viewers on Roku, a problem with fast-forwarding while watching DVR recordings is causing playback problems as the content is left frozen.
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Thanks to its new lease on life, the Pixel 7 Pro is once again a device worth considering, and an ongoing offer to kick off 2025 is worth a look.
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One place where foldables have often lacked is when it comes to water and dust resistance. While no one has figured out a really good solution for dust, Oppo is teasing that the Find N5 and OnePlus Open 2 will have stellar water resistance.
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A strange issue with the Disney+ app on the Google TV Streamer is causing video playback to fail, and there’s no apparent fix.
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