Best card games for Android

Classic card games and fantasy card worlds on your Android phone? Yes, please!

For some, card games are the ultimate way to relax. Killing time on your morning commute or unwinding at the end of your day playing card games can happen on your phone now, which is fantastic. You can play solo or face opponents in virtual game rooms any time, day or night, in casino-style games or fantasy card games of every kind.

We’ve collected the best of both worlds with our rundown of the best card games for Android.

• CardShark
• Gin Rummy Plus
• BlackJack 21
• PokerStars Poker: Texas Holdem
• Euchre Free
• Magic: 2015
• Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft
• Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
• Card Crawl
• Exploding Kittens

CardShark

Play Classic Solitaire and a number of its variations in this multi-game app. Additional games include Limit Texas Hold ‘Em, Spades, Egyptian Ratscrew, Crazy Eights, Kings Corner, Concentration; a total of more than 40 games to choose from.

It has a good-looking 3D interface that’s easy to use and figure out for each game. The app automatically saves your games and updates to new versions as you need or as you progress in skill.

Download CardShark ($2.99)

Gin Rummy Plus

In Gin Rummy Plus, you can play live against others from all over the world or invite your friends to play at your table. It features progressive jackpots and allows you to play at various skill levels; why not hop back onto a lower-level table to hone your skills before taking on a real card shark?

There’s no need for in-app purchases in order to get more coins or progress through different games (but they’re offered if you want). Every coin earned comes right from your own skill progression. The real-time leader boards keep things competitive and give you a heads-up when you’re about to join a table of experts.

Download Gin Rummy Plus (Free with in-app purchases)

BlackJack 21

Sometimes you just want to play high stakes like you’re in Las Vegas but not drop all that money. There’s plenty of opportunity to improve your game, whether you’re an old pro or brand new to the table. The live games against real players will teach you new strategies every time. You can opt to play live, or explore other tables to get an eye on the action.

If you play your best and crack the weekly top 10 leaderboard, you’ll be eligible for fun in-app prizes! You also earn in-app Diamonds every time you play. Alternatively, you can opt to purchase them from the in-app store, but no purchase is necessary.

Download BlackJack 21 (Free with in-app purchases)

PokerStars Poker: Texas Holdem

You’ve seen the commercials for PokerStars, and it actually lives up to the hype, which isn’t always the case for such an advertised app. The poker tables are suitable for all levels, and the app features a built-in support site and forums so you can get tips and tricks from the experts. Play in tournaments or quick Sit and Go games when you have limited time. If poker is a new game for you, the app will be your teacher, and no real money will be on the line.

It’s a free download that offers in-app purchases if you want to play more competitively. You can select bundles of chips at various price points, or earn chips as you play and improve at the tables.

Download PokerStars Poker Texas Holdem (Free with in-app purchases)

Euchre Free

Euchre is a simple game to learn and it’s played in quick rounds, called tricks. Four players play in teams of two, and the goal of the game is to play your highest cards one at a time to win all the cards on the table. You and your partner earn points by strategizing which cards are best to play and when to lay down your Trump cards.

A great feature in Euchre Free is the ability to choose who you partner with and who you play against. There are levels that range from beginner to expert, so you’ll be well-matched at your table of choice. You can customize your backgrounds or use your own photos, which enhances the simple and smooth game interface. There are also hints and help available, as well as stats for every player at your table.

Download Euchre Free (Free)

Magic: 2015

The new offering from Magic is a build on Magic: The Gathering, in which you hunt mystical creatures across the Multiverse and earn cards you will use later to win battles. It’s a strategy-based trading card game with the goal of creating the ultimate deck.

You can buy booster packs via in-app purchases if you don’t want to wait to earn the big cards. You’ll have the option to play against friends or strangers to test the strength and ingenuity of your deck, so make sure you’ve stacked it well. It all might sound a bit complicated if you never played the traditional Magic card game, but the introductory tutorial lays out all the rules and goals quite well for beginners.

Download Magic:2015 (Free with in-app purchases)

Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone is a card-based strategy game set in a fantasy world. Play cards to cast a spells and summon your minions as you fight to win battles. Rather than go through a tutorials, you’re thrown right into introductory missions that teach you the ropes as you play. Additionally, before playing against other live players in the battle arena, you can engage in practice matches against computer-controlled heroes.

Your cards and points can be transferred from your phone to your tablet or computer, since your cards and awards are linked to your Battle.net account and will travel with you. The in-app purchases unlock new battles and give you access to rare, coveted cards.

Download Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft (Free with in-app purchases)

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Play in the world of Vigil, besieged by ancient monsters banished long ago and eager to return to terrorize your home. Build your arsenal of cards by earning Heroes and defeating Monster cards in every battle.

The game has an intricate backstory of characters and origins; you’ll learn to manipulate the board with the help of The Enlightened and defeat your enemies with the knowledge of The Void. Your in-app purchases can be complex sets of cards or individual cards of high game value that are tough to earn.

Download Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer (Free with in-app purchases)

Card Crawl

Card Crawl features solitaire-style gameplay served to you in four different game modes. Typical games last two to three minutes, so they’re perfect for commutes or quickly passing some time when you’re stuck standing in line.

As you play, you unlock ability cards and clear out dungeons to build your decks. You can check your progress against other players through an integrated leader board within Google Play.Try Card Crawl for free, and once you’re hooked, you can continue via an in-app purchase

Download Card Crawl (Free with in-app purchases)

Exploding Kittens

Exploding Kittens plays like Russian Roulette: players draw cards until someone unfortunately draws an Exploding Kitten, which ends their game. You’ll play in groups of two to five people, and you can choose to play against your friends or strangers.

It’s a deceivingly simple game and you need a solid strategy to stay alive. Hilarious cards like Nothing but cat butt keep you laughing while you try desperately not to be killed right out of game.

Download Exploding Kittens ($1.99)

Show your cards!

Got a favorite card game that you’re hooked on? Shout it out in the comments below!

Amazon introduces Page Flip to help you page through ebooks while saving your spot

Amazon has announced a new feature for its Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, and Kindle mobile apps that brings the electronic reading experience closer to that of an actual book. The new Page Flip feature allows you to flip through a book while saving your current place, allowing you to quickly peek at previous or future chapter, appendices, and more.

Page Flip will come with a number of interesting new features. Here’s what Amazon says to expect:

• Save your place: Want to reference a chart or map on another page while you’re reading? Page Flip “pins” your current page to the side of the screen when you swipe away from it to explore other parts of the book. Tap your pinned page to instantly jump back to it.
• Get a bird’s eye view of the book: Looking for a picture or a passage you’ve highlighted? Zoom out to get a bird’s eye view of the book and quickly find what you’re looking for.
• Go ahead, explore: At a glance, easily recognize specific pages as you jump around. Pictures, charts, your highlights, and the layout of each page are easy to see with Page Flip’s pixel-accurate thumbnails that automatically adjust as you change your font and margin settings.

Page Flip will be rolling out soon as a free update for Amazon’s Kindle apps and products. You can grab the Kindle app from the Google Play Store.

Moto G4 and G4 Plus will be available on July 12 starting at $199

The Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus will be officially available starting on July 12 at select retailers. Best Buy, B&H, Amazon and others will begin carrying both models then, with Republic Wireless making them available on July 28. Pricing for the Moto G4 starts at $199, and the G4 Plus will be available from $249.

These will be unlocked versions and compatible with both GSM and CDMA networks Motorola says.

In the U.S., the new Moto G⁴ will be available starting at $199 and Moto G⁴ Plus will be available starting at $249 beginning July 12 at Amazon, Best Buy, BrandsMart, B&H, Car Toys, Fry’s, MicroCenter, Motorola, Sam’s Club and Walmart.com. Moto G⁴ and Moto G⁴ Plus will be available at Republic Wireless beginning July 28.

To sweeten the deal, Best Buy will also be offering a $50 gift card with in-store and online purchases of either model made through July 30. Will you be picking one of these up? If so, let us know which one in the comments.

More: Moto G4 Plus review

Avatar movie franchise is coming to your phone as a mobile strategy game

Kabam has announced plans to release a massively multiplayer mobile strategy game that will be based on the Avatar sci-fi movie franchise from writer-director James Cameron.

Kabam, which has most recently launched Marvel Contest of Champions and Star Wars Uprising, stated in its press release that it will be working closely with 20th Century Fox and Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment on the Avatar game.

The new product will combine the characters and environments from the Avatar films with an innovative game design and the highest production values to bring the world of Pandora to life.

No release date for the Avatar mobile game was announced. The original Avatar movie was released in theaters in 2009 and went on to become the biggest international box office hit of all time (without adjusting for inflation), bring in over $2.7 billion. Cameron has plans to release four sequels to Avatar, with the first due out in December 2018.

When you buy a Chromebook, get as much storage as you can

Size matters when it comes to the storage space on your next Chromebook. Go as big as you can!

Chromebooks are inexpensive laptops, and some people even go as far as calling them network appliances. They fit the bill for the most part — they are designed to use remote servers for file storage (think Google Drive) and are a great interface to a computer network (the internet). But they also can run local programs, and with Android apps and the Play store coming to Chromebooks, they’ll be running even more of those local apps.

The Chromebook Flip’s 16GB of storage is going to become an issue.

We’ve been saying for a while that your next Chromebook should have a touch screen, and we can add another must-have to that list — the model with the biggest “hard drive”. Yes, the word hard drive is in quotes. That’s because most Chromebooks use internal flash memory and not a spinning disk, but we want to make sure everyone knows what we’re talking about here — you want as much space as you can get for Chrome apps, Android apps and files you download or create. The ASUS Chromebook Flip (which has Android apps and Google Play for testing on the Chrome Dev channel) is a great little laptop to run both Chrome and Android apps. But the 16GB of storage will prove to be a pain-point for a lot of us.

Google says new Chromebooks that are better suited to run Android apps are coming. We hope that means models with more storage! Just like your Android phone or iPhone, 16GB just isn’t enough once you deduct the space taken by the system and start adding some apps. A 16GB (and maybe even a 32GB) Chromebook isn’t going to be any different. It already takes a bit of file management for some of us, and that’s before we add Google Play apps into the mix.

We know the folks who make laptops like to charge more for premium features like high-capacity drives, but this is one time where we need to bite the bullet and pay up. If you’re in the market for a Chromebook — whether it’s your first or you’re just shopping for an upgrade — storage space is important. Buy as big as you can afford once Chromebooks with more storage become available.

Facebook launches Save and Share extensions for Chrome

Sharing and saving content around the web via Facebook just got a little easier if you’re using Chrome. That’s because the social network just announced the launch of two new Chrome extensions, appropriately called “Share to Facebook” and “Save to Facebook,” that do just that.

As you’d expect, using either extension is a simple affair. The Save to Facebook extension allows you to save articles to read later on Facebook with one click, much like Pocket. The Share extension, on the other hand, will allow you to create a post and share your current page to Facebook from anywhere.

If you’d like to try either extension, you can grab Save to Facebook or Share to Facebook on the Chrome Web Store now.

VPInput lets you quickly bounce between your PC and LG phone

LG has announced a new app for its G4, G5, and V10 smartphones that wirelessly connects them to your PC. Called VPInput, the app allows you to control your phone using your PC’s mouse and keyboard.

You can also easily transfer things between PC and phone, according to LG:

With VPInput on the phone and the accompanying program installed on the PC, text copied from a Word document on the PC can be pasted directly into your smartphone and a screen shot from your smartphone can easily be displayed on your PC monitor. What’s more, the function keys on the PC keyboard can be setup as shortcuts to launch your favorite smartphone features or apps.

LG VPInput is now available on the Google Play Store for those with compatible phones.

Microsoft reveals Windows 10 Anniversary Update release date by mistake

Someone at Microsoft appears to have hit publish a little too soon.

The company just announced that the first major update to Windows 10 will become available 2 August. Microsoft published a blog post early Tuesday to reveal the news, with the headline “Microsoft announces Windows 10 Anniversary Update available Aug. 2”, but the full post was pulled down just moments later, leading many eagle-eye fans to believe the post must’ve been published by accident.

You can see a web archive version of the original blog post from here. It’s unclear if Microsoft published the wrong information or simply hit the publish button early, but we can expect the Redmond-based company to make an official announcement sooner rather than later. We’re also assuming the information in the now-deleted post’s headline is correct: Windows 10’s Anniversary Update will arrive this August.

Microsoft (Web archive)

Microsoft first announced its Windows 10 Anniversary Update in March during the annual Build developer conference. At the time, Microsoft only said the update would arrive “this summer”. The software is set to bring new features that focus on Windows Ink and improving stylus-use. It’ll also bring extensions for Edge and upgrades for Hello and Cortona, among other things. You can read all about the update from here. 

The Anniversary Update should arrive around the 1-year anniversary of Window 10’s release (which launched 29 July 2015). It’ll be free to everyone with a device running Windows 10. If you’re updating from an older version of Windows, you’ll have to pay $119 for a full install.