Biometric security has been a core part of our smartphones for the past several years, and fingerprint sensors have only been getting better over the years. Now, though, as a war mounts up against smartphone bezels, fingerprint sensors are losing out. That is, until they end up under the display, as Synaptics is doing with its new Clear ID sensor.
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We’ve seen a lot of Google Assistant powered speakers hit the market in the past few months, and even more made their debut at CES 2018. However, a new Assistant form factor entirely also made its debut this week: smart displays.
Virtual Reality has never really impressed me all that much, but that’s mainly because my experiences have primarily been restricted to smartphone powered headsets. I think Google’s Daydream VR platform is solid, but rarely end up using it because of what’s required. Now, Daydream is finally coming to standalone hardware, and I’m finally excited…
Sony’s Xperia devices are easily forgotten in the US market, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re excellent smartphones. However, in the States, they’ve often had one major flaw, and that’s been the disabled fingerprint sensor.
Google has been trying to get Assistant in just about every part of your digital life, and its latest expansion has been to headphones. Following the Bose Qc35 II’s intro to Assistant Built-in headphones, Google debuted the Pixel Buds at its October 4th event. Now we’ve got a pair on hand, so let’s see what’s in the box and how to set them up.
Back in 2014, the original Moto X quickly became my favorite phone on the market for its uniquely customizable design and clean, yet intuitive software. The Moto Maker service allowed buyers to choose the phone’s colors (and build materials on later models), add a printed signature to the back, and even include a message on the bootscreen.
The new Moto X4 does none of that, and while ditching Moto Maker is definitely a bummer for longtime fans like myself, that doesn’t stop the X4 from being one of the best values around.
LG has a funny habit of announcing new phones way ahead of their release, then losing excitement from the would-be buyers who get tired of waiting and decide to buy something else. That’s a shame, because LG has really started to offer some phenomenal flagship devices.
That couldn’t be more true of the V30, which we’ve already had for months in the forms of both retail and preview units, but the phone only just launched in the US over the past week, and you know what? The V30 is the best phone LG has ever made, and I’d even say it’s one of the best Android phones of the year — with some caveats, of course.
The Alcatel Idol 3 was one of the first phones I ever reviewed, and it was so impressive that I’ve since associated the Idol brand with high performance and low-cost. The budget market has gotten more aggressive since then, however, with excellent devices like the Moto G5 offering near-stock Android software at similarly low prices … so can the Idol 5 still compete?
When our initial reviews of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL went live earlier this week, it’d be generous to say that some people were unhappy with our findings. Both Ben and I criticized our respective review units for some of the aspects of their hardware, but most of our complaints were reasonably subjective — and regardless, a phone’s hardware only tells half the story.
In this week’s Friday 5, we’re covering five of the many reasons why you should still consider picking up the Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL.
It’s been a while now, but a few years back, the Moto X was my favorite line of smartphones. I loved the close-to-stock software, and having the ability to choose whatever colors and materials my phone was made of; it really gave off the feeling of a phone tailor-made for you, and only you.
After a two-year hiatus, Motorola is finally refreshing its enthusiast brand with the Moto X4, that ditches my beloved Moto Maker but brings a clean and familiar software experience and a much more modern design.
When ZTE unveiled its new foldable phone, the Axon M, yesterday at Duggal Greenhouse, it made some pretty grandiose claims, saying that it was “creating a new smartphone category.”
That didn’t seem entirely true to us, as we’ve seen a few similar phones in the past like the Kyocera Echo, but this latest attempt seems to be the most refined take yet on a niche design.
Last year’s Pixel XL was one of my favorites phones of all time, if not my favorite. It had stellar performance, great specifications, comfortable hardware, and lots of software features I could appreciate. On top of that, it had what is still one of the best cameras on a mobile phone, but it wrapped all of that in a design that wasn’t very good-looking and did have some missing features.
Now, we’ve got the Pixel 2 family, and Google has made some major improvements. The larger of the two phones, the XL, is the one getting all the attention, and rightfully so…
Last year’s Pixel and Pixel XL replaced the Nexus lineup as the de facto flagships for stock Android purists, and they ended up being some of the best phones on the market. Naturally, we were excited to get our hands on their sequels, and I’ve spent the weekend with the Pixel 2.
Our full review is coming soon, but in the meantime we wanted to give some of our early impressions on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL — and I was tasked with sharing my thoughts on the smaller one.
With so many new and amazing phones coming out like the LG V30, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL, it’s easy to forget about some of the year’s more underrated devices. This week’s Friday 5 is all about highlighting those phones to remind you that you don’t need to spend upwards of $1000 for a quality device.
We say it every time there’s a new smartwatch to review: the entire product category of smartwatches is quickly becoming a dying breed as interest and sales dwindle. Luckily for those who still appreciate the convenience of accessible notifications on their wrist, Michael Kors released two new watches that blend fashionable design and modern software.
Now that the LG V30 is finally available in the US, it’s starting to make its way into the hands of eager customers looking to try its terrific new video capabilities, quad DAC, and OLED display.
We already have quite a bit of V30 content, but we thought now would be the perfect time to go over some of the first things you might want to do with your V30 after pulling it out of the box.
The LG V30 was announced over a month ago, and we’ve been testing a pre-production unit since shortly after, but today LG finally sent us a retail unit that mirrors the experience that anyone buying a V30 this month should have.
Every six months or so, Sony releases a new flagship phone to the world that looks more or less exactly like the last one. The previous Sony phone we reviewed, the Xperia XZ Premium, brought one of the first mobile 4K displays and an ultra-glossy glass design.
Conversely, the Xperia XZ1 shrinks down in display size and resolution, and instead opts for a matte aluminum design. It carries over some of the best features of the XZ Premium and improves on others, but is it enough to be worth your time and money?
In just two days, Google will finally announce the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but as always, there have been plenty of leaks ahead of time showing us exactly what to expect from the new phones. Now that we have a good idea of what’s coming, we wanted to highlight some of the new features we’re most excited to see.
We’ve already compared the Pixel XL to one of the best phones of 2017, the Galaxy Note 8, and visited some of the reasons why it’s still one of the best Android phones on the market. Nothing is perfect, though, and to close off Pixel Week, we wanted to look at some of the ways the Pixel and Pixel XL fall short and where the Pixel 2 might be able to pick up the slack.
We’re just six days away from Google announcing the second-generation Pixel lineup (along with some other expected products, including some new Google Home devices), and in the meantime we wanted to revisit the original Pixel and Pixel XL. Too often, tech sites including ourselves get caught up in the craze of new devices and neglect to look at how well (and sometimes, how poorly) the older devices have held up.
The Pixel and Pixel XL were some of our favorite phones when they launched last year, and though we’ve since seen dozens of great new devices, we’re still terribly fond of Google’s in-house projects, which have aged better than just about any other Android phones we’ve seen.
We’re excited to see Google unveil the Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 next Wednesday, but the original Pixels are still some of the best smartphones on the market. With so many new trends like dual cameras and edge-to-edge displays popping up in 2017, we wanted to see how well the Pixel XL holds up against some of today’s modern flagships, in what we’re calling Pixel Week.
Motorola has consistently been putting out great phones in the budget category since the original Moto G, and the new Moto G5S Plus looks to continue that trend with a metal body and a spec bump over the Moto G5 Plus we reviewed earlier this year. As we unbox the phone and start prepping for our full review, this week’s Friday 5 is all about its most noteworthy features.
Security used to be more or less the same on just about every phone. You could set up a PIN or pattern to keep nosy friends out, and there would almost always be a fingerprint sensor built into a home button underneath the display for faster access. These days, as bezels continue to shrink and phone makers simply don’t want anything but screen taking up space on the front of their phones, fingerprint sensors are starting to look a little different, and some are even going away entirely.