Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

Gymster Pro

This app not only teaches you how to lift weights, but also comes with healthy recipes. There are two workout modes (randomized and manual) that only suggest exercises based on equipment you have available at your gym.

Available on:

iOS

TopScanner

This app turns your iPhone or iPad into full-featured PDF document scanner. For example, you can scan your receipts and save as PDF file to trace your expenses.

Available on:

iOS

PostBot 3

The Bot that tells you when to post to Instagram and what tags to use. Best hours of the day determined with intelligence, specifically for your audience.

Available on:

iOS

Dramatic Black & White

Using Dramatic Black & White you can make your own black and white photographs, ones where light and contrast, grit and form come together to tell a story.

Available on:

iOS

FancyDays

FancyDays helps you manage those days that matter to you and count down to them. You will never forget those important days.

Available on:

iOS

Stream

Stream was created to give you a seamless listening, managing, and syncing cloud music experience. It allows you to create a personal streaming service with cloud storage like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Yandex.Disk to save space on your device and have access to all of your music.

Available on:

iOS

HTC U11 vs. HTC U Ultra: Which HTC phone reigns supreme?

When HTC said it would nix affordable phones in favor of several high-end handsets, it wasn’t kidding. Case in point? The HTC U11, a new flagship on the heels of this year’s U Ultra.

The HTC U11 and U Ultra don’t share much in common. The U11 omits the U Ultra’s secondary display, for one, and the new phone has a much more powerful processor. But they’re certainly cut from the same cloth, or liquid glass, as the case may be. Both boast HTC’s UltraPixel camera tech and BoomSound speakers, ship with the same amount of memory (4GB), and come preloaded with with HTC’s AI-powered Sense Companion assistant.

Still, there’s enough of a difference between the HTC U11 and U Ultra to crown a winner. To put an end to the debate, we pitted the two phones against each other in a specifications battle to the finish.

Specs and performance

HTC U11

HTC U Ultra

Size
 153.9 × 75.9 × 7.9 mm (6.05 × 2.99 × 0.31 in)
162.4 × 79.8 × 8.0 mm (6.39 × 3.14 × 0.31 in)
Weight
 5.96 ounces (169 grams)
6 ounces (170 grams)
Screen
 5.5-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED
5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED

2.05-inch secondary display

Resolution
 2,560 × 1,440 pixels
2,560 × 1,440 pixels

160 × 1,040

OS
Android 7.1 Nougat
Android 7.1 Nougat
Storage
 64/128GB
32/64GB
SD Card Slot
Yes
Yes
NFC support
Yes
Yes
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
RAM
4/6GB
4GB
Connectivity
Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, GSM
Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, GSM
Camera
 Front 16MP, Rear 12MP with OIS
Front 16MP, Rear 12MP with OIS
Video
 2,160p 4K HDR
2,160p 4K UHD
Bluetooth
Yes, version 4.2
Yes, version 4.2
Fingerprint sensor
Yes
Yes
Other sensors
Edge Sensor, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, proximity sensor, iris scanner
Barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, proximity sensor
Water Resistant
Yes, IP67
Yes, IP67
Battery
3,000mAh
3,000mAh
Charger
USB Type-C
Micro Type-C
Quick Charging
Yes
Yes
Wireless Charging
No
No
Marketplace
Google Play Store
Google Play Store
Color offerings
Blue, black, silver
Black, blue, white, pink.
Availability
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile

DT Review
Hands-on
4 out of 5 stars

The differences between the U11 and U Ultra start under the hood. Both phones share the same RAM (4GB, up to 6GB) and base storage (64GB, up to 128GB) in common. But the U11 packs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, one of the newest in Qualcomm’s arsenal. The U Ultra, on the other hand, ships with Qualcomm’s aging Snapdragon 821 — the processor in the Google Pixel and OnePlus 3T.

On a surface level, the two processors aren’t all that different. They have the same number of cores — four faster, high-powered cores that kick in for intensive tasks and four power-efficient cores that handle background apps — and architecture. But the Snapdragon 835 — the processor that also powers Samsung’s Galaxy S8 — is built on a 10-nanometer process, which means it crams 30 percent more parts into the same physical space as the Snapdragon 821.

In most apps and real-world scenarios, the Snapdragon 835 appears to best the Snapdragon 821 handily. Anandtech recorded it achieving a score of 3,844 in 3D Mark’s Slingshot Extreme test compared to the Snapdragon 821’s 2,106, and other benchmarks show a performance advantage as high as 40 percent. The U11 is likely to crush day-to-day tasks like a champ, in other words.

To sum up, there’s no question when it comes to overall processing power. We’re expecting the U11 to breeze through apps, games, and other tasks. That’s not to say the U Ultra’s a slouch — the U11 just does things faster.  

Winner: HTC U11

Design

At first glance, the U Ultra and U11 don’t look all that different from each other. That’s because they both sport HTC’s bright “liquid surface,” a glass back specially machined to shine and shimmer in the light.

The liquid metal surface isn’t the only design similarity between the two. There’s a lot of unused space near the U11 and U Ultra’s top and bottom, and sizable edges between the screen and edges. The U11 inherits the Ultra’s oval-shaped fingerprint sensor, physical power button, and volume rockers.

Otherwise, though, the U11 shares little in common with its months-old cousin. The rear camera is almost flush with the rear cover as opposed to protruding on the U Ultra, and the dual-LED flash has been moved to the opposite side of the sensor — from the left to the right. The U11’s edges also curve more gradually than the U Ultra’s, and have fewer seams — especially near the U Ultra’s charging port. It evokes the iPhone — right down to the position of the plastic bits that cover the U Ultra’s antennae.

Both the U Ultra and U11 pack four microphones that record high-quality sound from a distance. Neither have a headphone jack; instead, the U Ultra and U11 ship with HTC’s proprietary USB-C USonic headphones, which pack two microphones — one that sits on the outside of your ear canal and one that sits on the inside — to generate a detailed profile of your ear’s anatomy.

But unlike the headphones that shipped with the U Ultra, the U11’s have built-in noise-cancelling. HTC says they work in tandem with the U11’s BoomSound app to drown out the ambient noise around you.

We’re still not convinced that eliminating the 3.5mm audio jack is a great design move. But U11’s overall design improvements and noise-canceling headphones are enough to earn it the win here.

Winner: HTC U11

Display

In our review of the U Ultra, its display — or displays, more accurately —  colored us unimpressed.

The 5.7-inch Quad HD Super LCD 5 screen was dimmer than Apple’s iPhone 6S, even at full brightness. Colors seemed relatively accurate, but not from any angle — tilting the HTC U Ultra a little to the side resulted in washed-out blues and reds.

We haven’t had a chance to put the U11’s screen to the test, but we’re not expecting miracles. The U11 packs a slightly smaller 5.5-inch LCD screen with the same Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution as the U Ultra. Assuming HTC hasn’t made any brightness-boosting or color-correcting software tweaks, we wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a difference.

We’re calling this one a draw. The U11’s slightly smaller screen doesn’t appear to offer a marked technological advantage over the U Ultra, and we’re expecting it to perform about — if not exactly — the same.

Winner: Tie

Battery life and charging

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The U Ultra and U11 share the same 3,000mAh battery capacity. And based on our experiences with the U Ultra, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

In our testing, we got about a day and a half out of the U Ultra. With brightness set to automatic and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular data enabled, we slogged through an eight-hour workday’s worth of emails, social media updates, Slack messages, and app updates without about 40 percent power to spare.

HTC estimates the U11’s battery life at 24.5 hours on 3G/4G, and up to 14 days on standby. That’s on par with the U Ultra, which HTC’s pegs at 26 hours on 3G/4G and 13 days on 3G/4G. The Snapdragon 835’s power efficiency could give the a boost in real-world usage, of course. And there’s a chance that HTC’s optimizations — and U11’s lack of secondary display — will make a meaningful difference day-to-day. But as of now, we’re not anticipating a drastic difference.

The U11 and U Ultra both support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 standard, which delivers roughly 1 hour of battery power for every 1 minute of charge.

Given the negligible difference in battery life between the U11 and U Ultra, we’re calling a tie this round.

Winner: Tie

Enjoy lifetime access to the Disconnect Premium privacy suite for just $49

In today’s age of mass surveillance, online privacy has become a major concern. Increasing numbers of people are turning to security and encryption software, which were once solely within the purview of tech experts and government agencies. Award-winning software like Disconnect has now made it easy for average users to protect themselves from cybercriminals, nosy ISPs, and annoying advertising trackers.

The internet is full of threats to your privacy, with a myriad of hidden trackers designed to collect your personal information. Many of these exist for purposes such as targeted advertisements, which, while annoying, are relatively harmless. Others pose a more serious danger, using these security holes as an avenue for hacking and theft.

Disconnect totally blocks these tracking requests, keeping your personal info and browsing habits free from prying eyes. Disconnect Premium takes security to another level: Along with completely blocking trackers, a Premium subscription gives you a full-featured virtual private network.

This VPN totally encrypts your internet connection and routs it through a secure network of private servers. Along with blocking trackers, Disconnect Premium locks down your devices so that nobody – not even your internet service provider – can see the data being transmitted on your local network. Tunneling your connection through foreign servers also makes it appear as if you are accessing websites from a different country, further enhancing your privacy and allowing you to bypass regional access restrictions.

Disconnect has made a huge splash in recent years as one of the top providers of online privacy and anti-tracking software. The company has earned numerous accolades as well, including the 2015 Innovation Award for Privacy and Security from SXSW.

A Premium subscription to Disconnect normally costs $50 per year, but you can enjoy lifetime access for just $49 from the DT Shop. You can use Disconnect Premium on up to three of your devices simultaneously, and the app is compatible with iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows operating systems. If you aren’t sure you need a lifetime membership, you can also get a discounted one-year subscription for $19, or three years for just $29.

DT Shop

Telegram lets you make and accept payments without ever leaving the app

Why it matters to you

Need to order takeout, call for a car, or refill your subway pass from your phone? Apps like this one are making it easier.

While no one has developed a way to make money by talking to bots, there seems to be an increasing number of platforms that will allow you to spend your hard-earned cash. The latest to join the fray is messaging app Telegram, whose new update allows users to make and accept payments via Telegram Bots. Telegram made its announcement in new blog posts directed both to bot developers and the general public, introducing yet another way to ensure that you never leave the messaging app.

“If you have Telegram 4.0 (or newer) installed, you can order goods or services from bots that offer them,” Telegram wrote in one announcement. “These bots may now add a Pay button to their messages. When you tap Pay, you’ll be asked to fill in your credit card and shipping information and confirm the payment. Then you get what you paid for.”

At launch, Telegram Bots already supports Apple Pay, which promises an entirely frictionless transaction process. You can, however, opt to input your credit card information, and if you have 2-Step Verification turned on in your account (as you should), you can save that card for future purchases.

You can already test out the new payment feature by making use of the @TelegramDonate bot.

“Telegram is an open platform, so bot developers can implement the necessary APIs and accept payments from users starting right now, without lengthy approval dramas,” the app notes. “If you’re a bot developer, check out the docs immediately.”

At present, most of the payments processed on the platform are handled by Stripe, but Telegram notes that its new bot feature serves as a “platform for payment providers all over the world.” Indeed, once bot developers get to work, they can choose from among the entire smorgasbord of payment providers, and Telegram says that within the next few days, payments will be made available to developers in over 190 other countries with various processors like RazorPay, FlutterWave, and PaymentWall.

Be warned though, Telegram stresses that it’s only the messenger when it comes to your payments. “It is impossible for Telegram to handle complaints or cashbacks — any disputed payments are the responsibility of the bot developers, payment providers, and banks that participated in the exchange,” the blog post reads. But by the same token, Telegram says that the app neither stores nor is able to access any sensitive data. And it doesn’t take a commission from payments, or profit from transactions either.

So hold onto your wallet. Telegram is making it easier than ever for you to spend its contents.

Mice with 3D-printed ovaries give birth to healthy offspring

Why it matters to you

3D-printed ovaries could give fertility back to female cancer survivors.

Mice with 3D-printed ovaries have birthed healthy mouse pups. After being implanted with the bioprosthetic ovaries, the previously infertile mothers saw an increase in hormone levels and began to ovulate before successfully conceiving and birthing young.

The ovaries were 3D-printed through an innovative technique developed by researchers at Northwestern University, who created a scaffold to hold immature eggs. Though the current technique was designed for mice, the research team’s ultimate goal is to scale it up for humans.

“The main motivation is to develop a tissue-engineered replacement for women with impaired ovaries,” Alexandra Rutz, co-lead author of the study, told Digital Trends. “Most of these women who have impaired ovaries are young cancer survivors. It’s amazing how far cancer treatment has come, but this means the population of survivors who might have side effects to cancer therapy is increasing. One of those devastating consequences can be infertility.”

For “ink,” the scientists used a unique gelatin, which was biocompatible, strong enough to hold up through surgery, and porous enough to integrate with the mouse’s body tissue.

In humans, the researchers plan to take samples of a patient’s ovarian cells and preserve them before she goes into treatment. Once in remission, the cells would be seeded into the 3D-printed scaffold, which would then be implanted into the patient.

“In an ideal future, hospitals will have labs for manufacturing these types of bioprostheses,” Rutz said. “This would include equipment and personnel for handling and preserving each patient’s own cells along with a 3D printer that can be used to print implants of custom shapes, sizes, and materials.”

The scientists’ next steps will be difficult as they’ll have to scale the scaffolds up significantly to accommodate larger animals. They will also be researching ways to optimize the implants for life-long performance.

A paper detailing the research was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Apple is opposing a law that would let iPhone buyers repair their own phones

Why it matters to you

Apple may prevent you from performing your own iPhone repair if it succeeds in blocking this legislation.

Legislation that would give phone buyers and third-party repairers the legal right to purchase spare parts is under fire from iPhone maker Apple, which claims the so-called “right to repair” would put consumers at risk. Back in February, the company’s lawyers opposed a Nebraska bill that would allow consumers to repair their own phones, and are now lobbying alongside Verizon against a similar bill in New York.

The news comes from Motherboard, which lists a variety of companies, from phone insurance firm Asurion, to Toyota and even construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, that have spent money in an effort to crush the bill before it reaches a vote in New York’s Senate and Assembly. Unlike most states, New York legislature requires lobbyists to disclose their activities in the public record.

Since the beginning of 2017, these companies have spent upwards of $366,000 to maintain pressure on state lawmakers — and New York and Nebraska are hardly the only places where this is happening. Minnesota, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Wyoming, Illinois, and Tennessee are also considering the passage of “right to repair” bills, thanks in large part to aggressive lobbying on behalf of the repair industry.

Repair.org, a trade organization of independent shops which argue they’ve been harmed by monopolizing manufacturers, hopes that getting a single state to pass a right-to-repair bill will pressure manufacturers to cede the legal point.

It cites the car industry as precedent: “In 2012, a Massachusetts law guaranteeing the right to repair automobiles became de facto national legislation after car manufacturers decided to comply with the law nationwide rather than continue to fight burgeoning legislation in other states.”

But Repair.org’s efforts have so far proven unsuccessful. Apple and computing behemoth IBM played a role in shutting down a similar bill in New York. Last year, industry lobbyists told lawmakers in Minnesota that broken glass could cut the fingers of consumers who try to repair their screens. Tractor manufacturer John Deere opposed the Kansas effort in a vehement letter to legislators, arguing that such bills could result in “unintended alterations” and damage “consumers’ significant investment in equipment.”

Another prominent talking point for the opposition concerns the danger of lithium batteries.

That said, there appears to be a growing appetite for right-to-repair legislation nationwide. In January, the American Farm Bureau Federation, an influential political organization representing farmers, officially endorsed the legislation.

Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, dismissed manufacturers’ criticism of the proposed bills. “They should want to give people as much information about how to deal with a hazardous thing as they can,” Gordon-Byrne said. “If they’re concerned about exploding batteries, put warning labels on them and tell consumers how to replace them safely.”

Article originally published by Kyle Wiggers on o2-15-2017. Article updated on 05-19-2017 by Adam Ismail: Added reports of lobbyists opposing a similar bill in New York. 

For as little as $3.29 a month you can use NordVPN to secure your browser’s connection

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with a VPN deal you won’t want to pass up!

Have you ever stopped to think about how much of your day you spend connecting to networks that aren’t your own? Whether you’re working at a Starbucks, trying to finish something up at the airport before your flight, or sitting in the public library, odds are you’re connected to a network that isn’t the most secure without even thinking about it. Daily we do things like accessing our bank account, pay bills, send personal emails, and much more, all while not knowing if someone is tracking these moves and getting ready to steal your information.

Sounds a bit scary, huh? Well, personal information is something that should be kept personal, and luckily there are some easy ways to protect yourself. Odds are, by now you’ve heard of Virtual Proxy Networks, or VPNs, but you may be wondering why you would want to invest in one, right? Some of them can be a bit expensive, and others are unusually cheap, leaving you wondering which to end up with. NordVPN is one of the many great services out there, and right now you can save big on its plans.

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If you could protect yourself, and the information on your computer, from unprotected networks for just $4 a month, would you be interested? You should be! NordVPN offers double data encryption, which encrypts your data twice (and is the only company offering it), fast speeds, a strict no logs policy, automatic kill switch in case your VPN session drops off, and much more. The company has server locations in 57 different countries and covers every continent except for Antartica (because penguins don’t browse the web!).

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The Best Smartphone Camera, as judged by YOU!

So who makes the best smartphone camera? Here’s what you picked.

We’ve long run camera comparisons on our own, but it’s hard to remove our own biases — and frankly, it’s just our opinion. With some new high-profile phones on the market, we thought it was again time to pit these cameras against each other and see who came out on top. So we showed you 20 sets of photos taken by four unspecified phones, stripping out all identifying data and presented in a randomized-on-load order, and asked you to pick the best. We did this so you’d judge the photos on their quality alone.

With a wide range of photos, it’s time to determine the best.

According to your total of nearly 53,000 votes, the best smartphone camera belongs to the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Some of the competition was incredibly close, though. Just half a percent separated the Galaxy S8 from the second-place Google Pixel, and the LG G6 was only a few percent behind them. It’s close enough that with a different set of photos we may well have ended up with a different winning trio. The fourth phone, the Apple iPhone 7, was a distant fourth (though, admittedly, the oldest of the bunch).

Why these phones?

We had one criteria for picking phones: the newest and best modern smartphone cameras you can buy. We picked what we expected would be the top four, informed by our use of some phones over the past several months that have held up well (Pixel, iPhone 7) and the new blockbuster releases (Galaxy S8, LG G6).

The iPhone and Google Pixel were obvious choices. The Pixel has been crowned the champ in many comparisons, and there’s no denying that it’s a really great camera. And while the iPhone 7 fared poorly in our last comparison just after its release, it is still the single best-selling phone on the planet; it’d be silly not to include it.

Both the LG G6 and the Samsung Galaxy S8 hit shelves quite recently, both making a splash with their launches and spiffy new hardware. Interestingly, Samsung has included basically the same camera on the S8 as they did on the Galaxy S7 — but considering that was the hands-down winner last time around we can’t blame them. LG, on the other hand, scrapped everything about the LG G5 and started fresh the the G6.

We should note that the LG G6 and the iPhone 7 both sport secondary cameras — the G6 a 135° wide-angle and the iPhone 7 Plus a 2x optical zoomed lens, but neither were included for the comparison voting, though we’ll occasionally discuss them through this analysis. It’s also noting that the G6’s main camera takes slightly narrower photos than the rest (it’s 35mm lens compared to the 27-29mm on most smartphones), so all of its photos will look slightly more zoomed in even though they were all taken in the same spot.

How we shot

I carried these four phones over the course of a few days to various settings at varying times to put these all to the test. Every photo was shot in full Auto mode with settings that would match what you would get out-of-the-box from the manufacturer — right down to leaving automatic exposure and auto HDR enabled. The only changes we made to the image files was stripping identifying data and shrinking the size of the full panorama files before uploading.

Technically, every one of these phones is capable of shooting in RAW with manual controls (the iPhone and Pixel both require third-party apps). We fully embrace that advanced pro-level photography and editing, but also acknowledge that’s not how “normal” people take photos. Heck, we don’t even typically take photos like that. There are billions of smartphones out there and the vast majority of people don’t bother with manual controls, DNG files, or learning what aperture and exposure and shutter speed are about. And that’s okay, because Samsung and Apple and LG and Google have bent over backwards to give them all a great Auto experience.

(Let’s be honest, if you really care about messing with ISO and white balance and everything else, then you already know what you want out of a camera, and it’s not the tiny fixed lens and minuscule sensor you get with a phone. What you want is a real camera with real controls and a big sensor and lenses.)

Specs Showdown

One last thing before we start looking at the photos: let’s talk specs.

Megapixels	12MP	12.3MP	13MP	12MP
Resolution	4032×3024	4048×3036	4160×3120	4032×3024
Sensor Size	1/3″	1/2.3″	1/3″	1/2.6″
Pixel Size	1.22μm	1.4μm	1.12μm	1.4μm
Aperture	ƒ/1.8	ƒ/2.4	ƒ/1.8	ƒ/1.7

Alright, that’s a lot of numbers. But what do they mean?

Megapixels is the total number of light-sensing pixels you’ll find on the camera’s sensor plate, arranged in a grid. The “mega” part means one million, so a “12 megapixel” sensor will have 12 million individual pixels on it. More pixels mean more detail for your photos, and every one of these will produce photos that are bigger than all but the most expensive monitors. More megapixels does mean, however, that you can crop in on a photo and still have plenty of detail, or print at large sizes without starting to see individual pixels.

Resolution is the dimensions of the pixel grid on the sensor: width and height. Multiply the two and you’ll get the pixel count, and thus the megapixels. All of these cameras conform to a standard 4:3 aspect ratio.

Sensor size is the literal physical size of the sensor. A bigger sensor means that the manufacturer can either put on bigger pixels to collect more light for a brighter photo, or more pixels for a more detailed photo. Sensor size is measured as a fraction — the larger the number, the larger the sensor (remember, in fractions a smaller denominator results in a bigger number), measuring the diagonal across the plate (just like we measure screen sizes). Of these four phones, the Pixel has the largest sensor, but it’s only a tenth of an inch bigger than the smallest in the iPhone or G6.

Pixel size is the physical measurement of an individual pixel on a sensor. A bigger pixel can collect more light, which is most useful in dark environments where light is at a premium. We are still talking about microscopically tiny pixels here — 12 million on a plate the size of your pinky nail — thus the measurement of micrometers (μm). Even the biggest pixels — the 1.4 μm you’ll find on the Galaxy S8 and Google Pixel, are just 1/70th the thickness of a human hair. In other words: itty bitty.

Aperture is the width of the hole that light passes through — the bigger the opening, the more light that can get to the sensor, and the better an image the camera can produce. Aperture size is written as a fraction, e.g. ƒ/2.0 (the “ƒ” stands for “1”); the smaller the number in the fraction, the wider the opening. Aperture is a relative measure — two lenses with differing lengths and the same aperture would not have the same size opening — but for smartphones the cameras are all roughly the same size. Because it’s a measure of the diameter of a circle, a seemingly small difference, like from ƒ/2.4 to ƒ/1.8, will double the area of he opening and thus the amount of light.

Take it again!

While we’re going to go over the results here, we know you might want to see for yourself what you like — after all, it was a blind test. We’ve made a copy of the survey from before; it’s still blind to start, but once you select your favorite photo it’ll tell you which phone you picked.

See which photos you picked as the best

The Photos

Alright, so the Galaxy S8 came out on top with the Pixel and G6 close behind. Let’s see how everything shook out.

Outdoors

When it comes to bright, outdoor shots, the Galaxy S8 and LG G6 are hard to beat. There’s always enough light to work with even for the poorest of modern cameras, so brightly-lit shots are all about how the phone processes the photos, and to your eyes Samsung and LG have the most pleasing processing. It’s a preview of what you’ll see throughout this comparison: photos that look great, but aren’t necessarily true to life.

Take the first photo, shot in Cincinnati’s Washington Park. The trees, lush with vegetation, look great on all four phones. But LG, Google, and Samsung have dramatically kicked up the saturation in a way that Apple does not — LG also dialed up the brightness and contrast, bringing hyperrealism to the scene.

This trade-off between accuracy and pleasing plays out again and again in the outdoor comparisons. In the shots of the Roebling Suspension Bridge, the Android phones play up the blue of the bridge and the sky and even manage to make the mud-brown of the Ohio River look more appealing.

In the daytime panorama, the Galaxy S8 took top marks thanks to its exceedingly bright and colorful output, even with noticeable errors and artifacts from the pan-style capture (note the jaggedness of the windows on the US Bank building and the undulating horizon). The dense patterns and lines of the towers proved difficult for the iPhone as well, and the LG G6 utterly failed to maintain a straight horizon. The Google Pixel, coming in at second in the pano contest, produce both the straightest and most-balanced panorama thanks to its shot-by-shot capture method, but it was ultimately felled by the brightness of the Galaxy S8’s.

The Pixel wasn’t handicapped by its smaller aperture or electronic stabilization.

When the sun went down the Pixel actually performed the best. This might seem surprising, thanks to Google’s choice of using electronic image stabilization instead of an optically-stabilized sensor, but the results speak for themselves. The Pixel’s nighttime images were colorful, clear, and balanced, though it did struggle mightily with the blinding lights of the ballpark. The Pixel wasn’t even handicapped by its much-smaller aperture, frequently outperforming the iPhone 7.

When it comes to the nighttime panoramas, the pan-style fell flat on its face. The Pixel’s shot-by-shot panorama system produced a straight, bright, and balanced image that accurately reflected the environment. The Galaxy S8 and LG G6 took color-balance initially from the yellow-lit bridge pier on the left, resulting in the ballpark turning out unnaturally blue. And while the iPhone 7’s continuous color sampling gave true-to-life colors, the image itself was dim in comparison. While the iPhone might be more accurate in daylight, the same dimness and low-saturation does not reflect the human eye at night.

LG G6 wide angle

Apple iPhone 7 Plus telephoto

It’s worth taking into consideration the secondary cameras at play here. Above you’ll find a selection of photos from the LG G6’s wide angle camera and from the iPhone 7 Plus’s telephoto lens. Unlike previous models, you’ll find the same sensor under the secondary camera as under the standard one, meaning the results should be generally the same with regards to color and balance. It’s more about what you can do with framing.

In the city, the G6’s wide angle lets you capture more of the world around you in a single shot that’s close to the human field of view. There’s some serious distortion around the corners, but with practice you can take some very dramatic shots in both wide-open and close quarters. Panoramas with the wide angle lens are extra tall, though LG’s tendency to induce waviness from uneven panning can be exacerbated by the wide angle. It’s worth noting that the wide angle in the G6 is not stabilized, so dark shots can be difficult.

The iPhone 7’s telephoto lens is like the exact opposite of the G6 — zooming in by a factor of 2 compared to the standard lens. The result is the ability to take photos with the equivalent of a 56mm lens (what pro photographers would term a “portrait” lens), cropped in without a loss of detail you’d get with digital zoom. The result is the ability to take crisper zoomed-in photos, as well as utilize some more artistic framing or get a shorter if more detailed panorama. The telephoto lens is not optically stabilized and has a much narrower ƒ/2,8 aperture, and as a result the iPhone 7 falls back to the primary (and stabilized) sensor for zoomed-in nighttime shots. As you’d expect, they’re blurry and blotchy.

Indoors

Heading indoors, the results were more widely mixed. In high contrast environments, the LG G6 came out on top, with the Galaxy S8 and Google Pixel not far behind. The iPhone 7 clocked a dismal 8% pick rate on this comparison — auto HDR fired on all the Android phones, but not for the iPhone (Apple is stingy when it comes to triggering HDR, even if though results are nearly always better and the iPhone also saves a non-HDR copy).

And, of course, one of the things we capture the most often indoors is food. The lighting inside The Eagle in Over The Rhine was admittedly a temperature balancing challenge: on the left there was clean white indirect sunlight and above and to the right was warm overhead lighting. Actually, that’s not really a challenge — indirect sunlight is basically the best lighting a photographer can ask for, and yet the Android phones all overcompensated for the yellowish interior lights and turned the sandwich almost blue. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my fried chicken not blue.

Turn down the lights and you end up with the same story playing out inside as outside: the Pixel’s electronic stabilization isn’t a problem, the G6 and S8 perform admirably and provide good, sharp images, and the iPhone 7 is notably muted and makes even quarter-inch-thick bacon look unappetizing. Sad.

LG G6 wide angle

Apple iPhone 7 Plus telephoto

While use of the secondary cameras on the LG G6 and iPhone 7 Plus is pretty straightforward when you’re capturing the environment, things change when you have a specific subject. In this case, it’s lunch.

The G6 wide angle camera presents you with essentially two options: from the same distance that you’d take a typical food photo, you’ll get a lot more of the environment around you, capturing the atmosphere in a way that even stepping back with a normal camera cannot. The other option is to push in close, simulating having your face right up in that sandwich, though you risk dealing with fisheye effects at this distance and have to cope with the fixed focus of the wide angle lens.

Flipping to the iPhone 7, your options are reversed. From the typical distance you get a crop in for detail of the meal, while if you pull back you can get a shot that limits the amount of background in the shot for a more professional framing. When it comes to food, though, you need to take into account that the iPhone switches back to the primary stabilized sensor if it’s too dark, so you might just end up with a blurry blown-up photo instead.

Portrait

Let’s take some pictures of people. Historically, portrait photography has been one of Apple’s strongest suits, but by these results Google, Samsung, and LG have all seriously picked up their games. Thankfully, the over-saturation that’s present in many of the non-people shots is dialed back when there are faces involved. Interestingly, it looks like the multi-shot processing happening on the Galaxy S8 seems to be taking out some of the detail in skin (beauty enhancing modes were all left fully off), but with the bright background of Times Square the S8 still produced a clear and crisp photo of Mr. Daniel Bader. The Pixel’s portrait of Daniel was equally good, but the background was blown out in comparison. And while the iPhone managed the background better than any of the others, it did so at the expense of the brightness of his face. And the G6? He’s purple now. This was far-and-away the strongest showing for the Galaxy S8, with 71% picking it as the best photo.

The LG G6 produced a remarkable portrait photo, illuminating the subjects clearly while preserving detail and color in the entire environment.

But step away from the bustle of New York City and the tables turn. With the Cincinnati skyline as a backdrop, the LG G6 produced a remarkable photograph, illuminating the subjects clearly while preserving detail and color in the entire environment. The Pixel’s photo was significantly brighter, but so much so that it demolished the sky in a blur of white. While the Galaxy S8’s photo was clear, the subjects turned out rather dark, and the iPhone 7 even more so with a noticeable and unnatural dip in saturation across the board.

Heading outside to take some people photos? If you’ve read this far, then the results won’t be surprising: the Pixel comes out on top again. That electronic stabilization really is something. On the processing side, the Pixel managed to produce a nice even tone across Daniel’s face that matched the yellow streetlights, while the G6 and Galaxy S8 struggled with other light sources. The iPhone 7 didn’t fall as short as it has in other dark comparisons, but the lack of detail was noticeable.

LG G6 wide angle

Taking portraits with the wide-angle camera on the LG G6 is a great way to capture the environment around the subject without having to step far back. It also lets you keep the same angle and depth you’d get on the subject from a more “standard” distance. The difference is stark compared to similarly framed photos taken with a standard camera — the wide angle anchors the subject in the frame, while stepping back for the same framing makes them more part of the environment.

Apple iPhone 7 Plus telephoto

As mentioned above, the telephoto lens on the iPhone 7 Plus can lend itself to more “professional-feeling” framing. You get less background and more detail on the subjects, and while that’s good and all, the iPhone has a trick up its sleeve. It’s call “Portrait Mode”, and it uses the two cameras in tandem with some on-device machine learning to determine the subject and the depth of the photo and apply an enhanced blurring effect to the background (“bokeh”, as it’s known in photography circles). The results can be hit-or-miss — the iPhone struggled with blurring the busy Times Square background around Daniel’s head, but the couple in front of the stadium turned out mostly great — but when it works it gives an extra bit of “pro” feeling to your photos.

Selfies

Looking for a comparison the iPhone still wins, hands-down? Here it is. 44% of voters picked the iPhone 7 as the best selfie photo, even against the newly-enhanced auto-focusing camera of the Galaxy S8. How’d the iPhone win here? True to life colors, brightness, and balance coupled with fine detail (hello pores!). The Pixel came in second, with many of the same attributes as the iPhone, but with a clear drop in brightness. The Galaxy S8 and LG G6 picked up that brightness, however, producing photos with blown-out skies and pale skin tones.

Looking for a comparison the iPhone still wins, hands-down? Selfies.

The LG G6 fared poorly here thanks to LG’s decision to include a single wide-angle front-facing camera. Unlike the rear view, which can switch between the two lenses depending on your zoom level, the front camera’s “standard” angle that closely matches a standard front-facing camera only does that with software zoom and enhancements. The result is a blurry and disappointing mess. The wider-angle is better, but only marginally so, still plagued with color balance and blurriness:

Color, Contrast, and Motion

Samsung’s penchant for oversaturation pays off in spades when the point of the photo is colors. The colorful pastels are dialed up to 11 by the Galaxy S8’s processing, and the full-sensor phase detection autofocus produced a crisp capture of the tops of the sticks while the wide ƒ/1.7 had the added benefit of blurring even the not-that-distant bottom of the tubes. Shockingly, the iPhone 7 actually produced the most-saturated and highest contrast image of the bunch — so much so that it looked overprocessed and lost detail.

Samsung’s penchant for oversaturation pays off in spades when the point of the photo is colors.

While the LG G6, Galaxy S8, and Pixel all handled the strong glare off the car’s hood with ease (thank you, auto HDR), saturation in the environment and the reflected sky declined in that same order. One could argue that the G6 may have taken it too far, but then again it is was judged by a wide margin to be a favorite over the others. The iPhone continued the trend of decreasing saturation, spitting out a photo that almost looks as if it was run through an Instagram filter (note the no-longer-red Honda in the background). Additionally, the iPhone handled the contrast poorest, managing to both blow out the hood highlight and lose detail in the shadows.

Capturing motion in broad daylight was handled with ease by all four phones — they’ve got wide apertures (Pixel excluded) and large sensors that allow for quick shutter speeds that freeze the action. These photos of the fountain in Washington Park are crisp in a way that the human eye cannot see, a moment frozen in time. The Galaxy S8’s win can be attributed to the cleanness of the image — each individual water droplet is clear and crisp. The G6 features the same crispness, but the water droplets are afflicted with some unfortunate artifacting thanks to the triggered HDR. The iPhone appeared have a slightly slower shutter than the G6 and Galaxy S8.

Macro

If you want to get up close, the Galaxy S8 is hard to beat. The ƒ/1.7 lens — the widest in this comparison — can take much of the credit here, allowing for a very shallow depth of field (the plane that is in focus) and more-blurred foregrounds and backgrounds than the others can offer. The iPhone 7 was again hindered by Apple’s reluctance to trigger HDR more frequently, producing a photo that tried to balance the sunlit petals with the dark interior and fell short for both.

The Pixel’s photo of the flower’s interior, despite being quite similar to the Galaxy S8 and LG G6, fell to a distant last place (10%). Perhaps it was close enough but not quite, while the iPhone’s was different enough with its blown-out contrast to take third.

Apple iPhone 7 Plus telephoto

The iPhone 7 Plus’s telephoto lens poses the same options for macro as it does for any single-subject photography: you can get even closer, or you can pull out for a different look. Both are effective uses, though if you really want to get macro the telephoto lens does let you get twice as close as the standard camera, bringing out even more detail. Pulled back, it can’t duplicate the same level of background blur as the main camera, thanks to the much narrower ƒ/2.8 aperture compared to the ƒ/1.8 on the main camera.

We’re not pulling out any LG G6 wide angle photos here, as the fixed focus point is too far out to be useful for macro photography.

Overall Tally

While the Galaxy S7 won with a wide margin last year, the results were much tighter this time around. While the Samsung Galaxy S8 took first place with 29.75% of the overall vote, the Google Pixel was incredibly close behind at 29.20%. And the LG G6 wasn’t that much further behind at 26.5%. These top three results are close enough that we’re almost tempted to crown all three as winners, but there can only be one king and the Galaxy S8 is it.

In a dramatic change from the last blind test we ran, the iPhone 7 fell to 14.5%, only passing third place in the two categories it won — food (thanks to better color accuracy) and the front-facing camera. Apple has a lot of work cut out for it in meeting the mark set by the LGs, Samsungs, and Googles of the world. There’s certainly a strong argument to be made that the iPhone produces a more “true to real life” photo, but these results show that “real life” isn’t what people want.

The iPhone 7 Plus and LG G6 can also make compelling cases with their secondary cameras. They’re wildly different from each other and could be enough to put either one over the top for your use case, especially with how closely the LG G6 trailed the Galaxy S8 in the primary camera comparison.

There’s a simple reason for why the Galaxy S8’s hyper saturation won: it’s objectively prettier to our base animal brains.

Samsung continues to give the people exactly what they want.

We’re drawn to colors, from the food that we eat to what we look for in a mate, bright and bold colors are better than dull and gray. Samsung, LG, and Google clearly recognize this and have tweaked their image processing to give us photos that are more appealing. Taken on their own, the iPhone’s photos are acceptable, if often dark, but as soon as you compare them side-by-side with the competition the difference is clear.

In truth, you won’t go wrong with any of these phones. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but all will take great photos from your bright and vivid life that you’ll love and share with friends and family. After all, the best camera is still the one you have on you.

Grab the world’s smallest camera drone for only $25!

Drones keep getting faster and smaller, but that usually means they’re stripped of extra features, like cameras. The small size usually also means you’re paying more for the drone. What if you could have a small drone with a camera attached for under $30?

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This quadcopter’s four blades allow it to zip around in any direction, and the LEDs allow for night flights — no getting lost in the grass. The camera mounted on the drone can take video and still photos, and it takes less than 30 minutes to fully charge the battery.

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If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on a drone, why not grab one with a mounted camera and included storage? This drone is small enough that you won’t have to register it with the FAA. Ready to start flying? Grab this deal today; it won’t last forever.

Samsung’s Two Piece case is actually kind of perfect

I’m not sure I’d call this a case, but I love it and want one for every phone.

A common thread alongside the unveil of the Galaxy S8 was a critical side-eye at the Two Piece case that would be sold for both sizes of the phone. Samsung didn’t spend a lot of time explaining how this case worked, only that it had a top and a bottom that didn’t connect and several color options that didn’t match would be made available after the phone was released.

While everyone else was laughing, I bought one to see how it actually worked. To be perfectly honest, what Samsung did here is brilliant and I’m eager to see other companies follow suit.

I don’t think this really qualifies as a case, but it’s a nice-looking bumper.

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you know I don’t use cases. I can’t ever stand them for long, something about $40 of plastic and silicone making the phone bulkier and generally not feeling as nice as the actual phone bothers me. It’s not that I don’t care about the phone, but I place value in the whole experience being enjoyable. Yes, I occasionally regret this choice a little when the phone looks beat to hell a year later. It’s an conscious choice on my part, but if I could find a way to keep the phone slightly more safe through day to day use without compromising the design I will always consider it. Which is how I got here in the first place.

This “case” is really two pieces of silicone with a pad of that adhesive stuff you usually see called magic anti-slip material underneath. Each piece adheres to the top and bottom, and once in place neither piece moves unless you really try hard to remove them. I don’t think this really qualifies as a case, but it’s a nice-looking bumper for each of the four corners. At a minimum, it’s enough material that I know I can set the phone down on its back without it sliding around anywhere or scratching the back and lens area.

Technicalities aside, this case offered me some immediate benefits. The grooves in the top half make it much easier to find the fingerprint sensor with my finger. I almost never put my finger on the camera anymore, which actually makes me want to use fingerprint unlock now. The bottom half provides just enough grip that I am comfortable using the phone with one hand in landscape, which means I can more quickly pull the phone from my pocket and take a photo. The edges of this phone made this particular maneuver pretty awkward for me up to this point, but now I’m able to really use the S8 the way I’ve wanted to from the start.

The biggest benefit for me is how easy you can remove Two Piece from the phone. There are no plastic notches to fumble with, and no worry that I’m going to damage the case by applying pressure in the wrong place. Apply a little force under one of the flat edges, and the adhesive releases. This means I can quickly jump in and out my Gear VR, where most other cases for this phone make this process tedious and time consuming.

For my needs, Samsung’s Two Piece case is nearly perfect.

As much as I have enjoyed this bumper case thing so far, it has one glaring flaw. The adhesive pads are not flush with the edges of the silicone, which means the small gap in between your phone and the case quickly fills with whatever small junk is floating around in your pocket or bag. It’s a trivial thing to remove the bumper and clean the back of the phone occasionally, but it’s important to remember the back of this phone is glass. This means sand particles rubbing against the case over time will score the glass, eventually making it more fragile and prone to deeper scratches and breaks. It’s also super gross to look at when you do eventually take the case off.

For my needs, Samsung’s Two Piece case is nearly perfect. It gives me grip, a little peace of mind when using the phone, and I still get to enjoy the actual phone Samsung spent so much time and energy designing. It also helps that the asking price, $20 on Samsung’s website, is pretty reasonable. Right now the only color for me is black, the pastel options Samsung has available aren’t my thing. I’d like to see Samsung release a nice deep blue or green, but I’m very happy with what I have right now.

See at Samsung