The Galaxy S26 series doesn’t have Qi2 magnets and the official excuse for why ignores the big picture.

Samsung’s standout color for the Galaxy S26 series is its “Cobalt Violet,” and while I’m always down for purple smartphones, this one is underwhelming simply because it can’t decide what it wants to be.

Whether it’s because of increased chip costs, inflation, or a combination of both, Samsung is putting users in a tough spot. The Galaxy S26 series is filled with technically excellent devices, but the only one worth buying might be the one that costs $1,299.

The overall design of the Galaxy S26 Ultra is mostly familiar, but some subtle tweaks such as rounding the corners really make for a nice hardware upgrade.

YouTube has spent the bulk of its existence fighting against unsanctioned download sites and ad-blockers, but the past few years have seen Google really ramp up its war. Ad-blocking users have been treated to missing comments and video descriptions, error messages, missing view counts, increased buffering, loading failures, and much, much more. I get it — no one likes ads, and YouTube’s ads in particular have gone from 5-second pre-rolls and mid-video breaks to something far more in line with traditional streaming services. Modern YouTube ads often feel like they’re overwhelming the video that surrounds them.

Take a peek in Android’s settings menu, and no matter what smartphone you have, you’ll probably find Google’s Digital Wellbeing suite hanging around. At first glance, Digital Wellbeing is perfectly modern, sporting an updated Material 3-friendly design and a whole slate of features like app timers, Bedtime mode, and more. It even has its own space within the settings menu on Pixel, rather than being buried within sub-menus like other useful tools.

Foldables opened the door to a whole new world of smartphones just a few years ago, but somehow the entire Android market has settled into just two form factors – clamshell flip phones and book-style devices that just open up to double the width of a normal smartphone screen. As the inevitable “iPhone Fold” approaches, though, it seems Apple is looking to revive a form factor that Android brands, including Google Pixel, once tried, but failed to keep around, and there’s a clear reason why that happened.

Well, that didn’t take long. After word of an early build of One UI 9 for Samsung’s upcoming foldables leaked out, we’re getting our first look at what the company’s wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 variant might look like, and in a twist, it’s even wider than Google’s original Pixel Fold.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series was expected to deliver on a few key upgrades that were long overdue, but that all went out the window last year when Samsung apparently decided to go all-in on avoiding a price hike. Despite killing those upgrades, though, leaks suggest that the price is going up anyway.

After months of leaks, renders, and just a little bit of head-scratching, the Pixel 10a is finally official. While we’ll have to wait until a more complete unveiling to learn about its specs, those same leaks have done a pretty good job in painting a picture of a very familiar A-series launch from Google. Assuming everything we’ve heard about the Pixel 10a is true, if you have any interest in grabbing a new budget phone this year, picking up a Pixel 9a right now is going to save you an easy $100 without making much of a sacrifice.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 trio is shaping up to be an interesting launch — it’s just that the phones themselves aren’t actually the interesting part. We already know that a lot of what could’ve made the S26 lineup different from its predecessors has been thrown out the window thanks to failed concepts and stiff competition. Now, Samsung needs to try to tease a lineup that appears unchanged even by this brand’s own standards, and so far, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold is finally going up for sale in the US this Friday, but as expected, it won’t come cheap. You’ll have to shell out $2,900 before tax for the company’s first tri-folding smartphone — nearly $1,000 more than Samsung’s already-expensive Galaxy Z Fold 7.

For the first time since the original’s release in 2021, Apple finally has new AirTag hardware, with the “new AirTag,” aka AirTag 2, delivering some hardware improvements that make me a little jealous as an Android user.

A major ice and snow storm is hitting huge parts of the United States this week, and in preparing for the storm, I was watching the forecasts closely across a slew of different weather apps for Android. And, sadly, Pixel Weather was perhaps one of the least accurate I was using.

If you’re a regular 9to5Google reader, you probably already know the turbulence happening inside the consumer electronics space. We’re all collectively looking down the barrel of significantly higher prices across the board, primarily — though not exclusively — thanks to increased component demand from AI companies. Put simply, buying a smartphone in 2026 is about to suck, but with a little bit of planning, you aren’t completely out of hope.

OnePlus has come out to confirm that it is not shutting down following an “unverified” and “unsubstantiated” article that claimed the company was on a fast path to shutting down. However, that was obvious given that the article itself had absolutely no new information to share.

As all attention moves over to Gemini, the experience of Google Assistant just continues to crumble, and that’s getting especially bad for Android Auto users as of late.

I’m a really big fan of how Google designs its smartphones, but if there’s one nitpick I have, it’s that the base Pixel phones keep getting a glossy glass finish on the back. After throwing a simple clear matte skin on the back of my Pixel 10 recently, I’m even more convinced Google needs to switch going forward.

Clicks might have cut its teeth developing add-on keyboards for various smartphones — first iPhone, then Android — but its latest announcement appears to be its most promising yet. The Clicks Communicator feels like the first real minimalist device to potentially provide a substantial improvement over your daily driver, even if many of us might feel it’s better as a secondary device rather than a replacement for whatever you already own.

A few months out from its likely launch window, we’re finally starting to get some insight into what Google’s next Pixel might look like. I’m not talking about the Pixel 11, of course — it’s the Pixel 10a that history suggests is set for a spring launch, bringing another value-focused smartphone to consumers. And yet, based on the few pieces of information we’ve seen so far, I’m not sure waiting for the Pixel 10a is the smartest move for your wallet.

This latest Pixel drop brought one of my biggest fears to Android: notification summaries. It’s something Apple botched in iOS 18 last year, and something I didn’t feel like Android needed given its top-tier notification management. After a week with the feature, though, I’m of two minds. Google is definitely doing this the “right” way, but does that mean I’m likely to leave this tool enabled for weeks to come? Unfortunately, not quite.

On the backs of the Pixel 10 Pro XL and latest iPhones, Qi2 25W has been heralded as the “next big thing” in wireless charging. Yet, it really doesn’t feel worth the effort of seeking it out for two key reasons.

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a pile of aging external batteries. Up through this year, I’ve had countless 10,000mAh bricks — the classic “big battery” size through most of the 2010s — along with a handful of smaller cells designed to offer something a little more pocketable and portable. If you haven’t upgraded your battery bank collection in a while, though, it might be time to make a change, especially if you don’t mind dropping some serious cash for a life-changing power solution.

The fight between Disney and YouTube TV might seem fairly commonplace on the surface, especially if you’ve followed any carriage disputes in the pre-streaming era. But despite Google’s cable replacement showing no signs of slowing down its growth, the stalemate between it and the House of Mouse has already expanded well beyond its usual scope, without any signs of peace coming any time soon.