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

Everyone likes Apple apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest iOS app deals available from 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. 

911 Help SMS

Know where you are during an emergency before calling 911. The App will inform you of alternative 911 numbers in other countries.

Available on:

iOS

System Activity Monitor

Take a deep dive into your iPhone/iPad to see whats going on inside. System Activity Monitor App, is an iOS activity monitor that provides a unique Dashboard view for for all of iOS devices. It is the best activity monitor of its kind for iOS devices.

Available on:

iOS

Tahrir

Tahrir is the ultimate tool to write on images. You can use built-in fonts, backgrounds, and colors, or use your own.

Available on:

iOS

Magnifier Flash

Just pick up your iPhone to transform it instantly into a magnifying glass with flashlight that comes in full screen with light and no wasted screen space.

Available on:

iOS

GeoMEMO

GeoMEMO allows you to write memos on a map, against your current location or favorite place. Memos can contain addresses, telephone numbers, photos, URLs, and more, and they can also be classified into any category of your choice.

Available on:

iOS

My Own Clock

Customize the way you tell time with this extremely personalized app. You can use any image from your Camera Roll as the background for your clock, and choose from eight fonts and several colors and textures.

Available on:

iOS

iPhone X: The Android Central review

The iPhone X isn’t an Android phone, but it’s a very good phone that Android users should understand.

It’s a well-known refrain: Apple releases a new product and half the world claims it’s the best thing ever, while others claim that it’s the equivalent of refried beans.

Apple calls iPhone X the future of the smartphone, but after using it for a week — and coming from months of Android use — I can comfortably say that it’s merely another really good iPhone. In fact, it is the best iPhone to date, and I’ve had a tremendous time with it, but it doesn’t drastically change my opinion of the iPhone as a product, nor of iOS as an ecosystem.

That’s not to say Google and its hardware partners can’t stand to learn a few things from the iPhone X.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Face ID

Face ID is awesome. I disabled my fingerprint sensor on the Note 8 to see whether Samsung’s iris scanner (which approaches the same security level as Face ID) could compete, and it just couldn’t. And while Samsung’s Face Recognition feature is indeed faster than iris scanning, it’s also much less secure.

Here are the major differences: Face ID combines the best of iris scanning and face recognition. It creates a three-dimensional map of the face, so it has more planes of data to work with than just the iris, and uses infrared to match the data stored in its secure enclave against the person standing in front of it.

Face ID is so good and so consistent, you don’t even need Touch ID. Until Android manufacturers can get there, they should stick to fingerprints.

With the Galaxy S8 or Note 8, you must choose one or the other; iris scanning, which is far more finicky and requires the phone to be close to the face to work (although it works great in the dark); or face recognition, which is faster and more forgiving, but uses the front-facing camera, which makes it fail more often in the dark.

I was admittedly skeptical of Apple’s decision to remove the fingerprint sensor from the iPhone X — other than aesthetics (and perhaps cost), what reason did it have for not putting a Touch ID sensor on the phone’s back? — but the adjustment has been relatively seamless.

Face ID works faster and more consistently than the Note 8’s iris scanning.

The reliability has been close to perfect for me; whether indoors or in bright sun, the screen turns on as I take it out of my pocket, or I tap it once to turn on the display, lift it slightly towards me, and it unlocks. I’ve gotten into the habit of turning on the screen and swiping in one motion, and only a handful of times it hasn’t caught up with me. Face ID also has the added benefit of working when I’m wearing gloves which, as I’ve recently discovered in a spate of cold Canadian days, is very helpful. Neither of Samsung’s facial biometric solutions works reliably enough outside for my liking.

Moreover, Face ID APIs use the same biometrics hooks as Touch ID, so apps like 1Password, which I open dozens of times a day, just work out of the box. Android doesn’t have that luxury; Google added cross-platform fingerprint APIs in Marshmallow, but there’s no equivalent for iris or face recognition, so unless I use the fingerprint sensor on the S8 or Note 8, I have to manually enter my not-fit-for-human-consumption password every time.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make the S8 and Note 8’s combination of biometrics work for me over the past months. Neither iris scanning nor face recognition is consistent enough for me to use by themselves (and remember, you can only use one at a time), and the fingerprint sensor is very poorly placed.

Face ID is about the same speed as Samsung’s face recognition, but it’s far more reliable.

Smart Lock does help, especially if you’re connected to a wearable or in a trusted environment like a home or workplace, but for security reasons, it only works in four-hour stints. The dissonance is just enough to put me off; you have to be so close to the screen and so deliberate that every time it fails I just want to disable it completely.

On the other hand, though, I dislike having to swipe up to unlock the phone every time; Face ID should let me bypass the lock screen altogether as Samsung’s pressure-sensitive home button facilitates. Just tap the screen, authenticate, and let me in.

The upside is this: Apple nailed biometrics on the iPhone X, and Android manufacturers are going to have to think about whether they can and should try to compete, or just stick to the tried-and-tested rear or side fingerprint sensor, which is working well for them so far.

The size, weight, and materials

Apple calls the Gorilla Glass substrate covering the front and back of the iPhone X “the most durable glass ever made in a smartphone,” but it’s still glass, and it still scratches. I haven’t dropped my unit yet, but judging from some tests it’s not unbreakable, either.

That said, I really do like the overall design of the phone. It’s slightly shorter and wider than the Galaxy S8, which also advertises a 5.8-inch bezel-less OLED display, but the stainless steel frame (shiny and chrome on my silver unit) looks expensive and feels distinctive. Given the $1000+ price, though, I’m not about to use this thing without a case, so I won’t be seeing much of that chrome, for better or worse.

The iPhone X is also substantial — kind of like the Essential Phone in that regard. It’s 174 grams, some 19g heavier than the Galaxy S8, and nearly identical to the much-larger S8+. Apple knows how to build a solid phone — it’s been doing so for years — but the industrial design here doesn’t feel worlds ahead of, say, Samsung or HTC. It’s a luxury product that looks and costs the part, but doesn’t feel considerably more so than the similarly-priced (and unapologetically aluminum) Galaxy Note 8.

What is does offer is a “Plus” set of features in a standard-sized body. I’d love to see Samsung offer a dual camera on its smaller Galaxy S9 flagship next year, because that size — the iPhone X, Galaxy S8, Essential Phone — hits the sweet spot for media consumption and one-handed use.

The screen and the notch

OLED is a big point of discussion right now, but the reality is that there’s nothing particularly special about the iPhone’s Samsung-made OLED screen. Like the latest displays on flagship Samsung phones, it’s both incredibly sharp and vibrant, with near-perfect calibration, while also butting up against the limitations of modern OLED technology. Even Samsung hasn’t figured out how to make an OLED display with an RGB stripe, so the iPhone X’s sub-pixel array forms the same diamond shape as its Samsung rivals.

Blue shift is a thing, though not nearly to the same extent as the Pixel 2 XL, and even though the iPhone X’s 2436 x 1125 pixel display is some 57 ppi denser than the iPhone 8 Plus’s, you’re still dealing with all the inherent properties, good or bad, of OLED. I like the screen and think it’s probably among the best out there right now, but it’s also Apple playing catch-up in a big way.

The notch, on the other hand, is interesting. A lot of early reviewers said that it “disappeared” into the experience of using the phone, but there I have to disagree. I see the notch, and am occasionally distracted by it, but here’s what I’ve found: when an optimized Phone X app understands how to work within the confines of the notch, it’s great. Google Photos, for instance, works beautifully by using the notch area as an accent; everything important — tabs, search bars, dialog boxes — are all below it.

There are still far too many apps that either haven’t been optimized properly, and are therefore pillar-boxed, or haven’t had enough time to really embrace the UX changes the iPhone X necessitates. Instagram, for instance, asks you to swipe up from the bottom to open a link in Stories — I’ve given up trying that move because it takes me home every time.

Even with its quirks, the notch is relatively innocuous in portrait mode. Switch to landscape, though, and nearly every situation looks odd. Safari doesn’t wrap the design around the notch, which makes sense, while some games and video apps just ignore it altogether, so a portion of the content just isn’t there.

It’s inevitable that Apple will try to shrink the notch area until it disappears altogether, but until then we’re stuck with a landscape experience that is truly problematic.

The gestures

The iPhone X’s gestures are fine. I still think swiping down from the right side of the screen to access Control Center is a mistake, but given the way iOS is programmed, I don’t see much of an alternative.

Android users will actually prefer the new system-wide gestures that return to the home screen with a swipe up from the bottom or switch quickly between apps with a horizontal flick of the thumb. There’s still a learning curve, but it’s neither insurmountable nor unintuitive; it took me a day or so to get used to.

In fact, the ability to quickly swipe between open apps is my favorite part of the new UX, since that’s something I’ve been utilizing to great effect since Android 7.0 Nougat implemented the ability to tap twice on the multitasking button to switch between the last two active apps.

I’ve often wondered if Android will ever move away from a dedicated navigation bar and, if so, how it would work. Companies like Huawei and Motorola are moving in that direction with virtual or physical gesture areas that negate the need for static keys, but I’ve yet to find a solution that’s reliable enough to switch to full-time. If and when Google decides to address this, I’m sure the solution will feel more natural for the platform.

The haptics

Haptics don’t get a tremendous amount of attention, but they should: Apple’s Taptic Engine is awesome, and should be fiercely emulated by every Android manufacturer. LG did a good job with the V30 — its haptics are precise, subtle and extremely satisfying.

I don’t love the way iPhone X conveys notifications, but if left on a desk, incoming pings don’t vibrate my coffee mug off the table; instead, it’s more directional and therefore more effective. Given that Android uses haptics for so much of its OS-wide interaction, I’d love to see a company like Samsung spend more time on this.

The cameras

I’m pleased that Apple managed to fit a second stabilization module inside the iPhone X’s secondary camera, because telephoto shots benefit from the additional gyro data, but it’s clear to me, despite what DxOMark says about the phone’s still photo fidelity, that it can’t compete with the Pixel 2 for sheer delightful output.

iPhone X (left) | Pixel 2 (right)

What the iPhone X offers, as most iPhones have since 2010’s iPhone 4, is consistency. Every photo taken with the iPhone X is usable — realistically grainy in low light, or properly exposed in bright, harsh sun — if not spectacular.

I also think it’s interesting, and kind of hilarious, that Apple got beaten by Google in the race to the selfie portrait; even with all of the miraculous Kinect-like tech inside the notch, portrait selfies don’t look any better — and in some cases are notably worse — than those transmuted by Google’s tiny little front-facing camera and machine learning algorithms.

As I found with the Note 8’s secondary telephoto lens, I appreciate its presence, but rarely use it. That it’s stabilized, with a slightly wider ƒ/2.4 aperture, should help with the occasional video I shoot — the fact that the iPhone X can deliver 4K video at 60fps is one of the few standout features of the A11 Bionic chip, which is close to twice as fast as Qualcomm’s flagship platform these days — but I haven’t noticed an appreciable boost in quality over the iPhone 8 Plus.

In low light, the Pixel 2 is better, but not by much — Google is doing a better job with post-processing, since the above photo, taken in almost total darkness and lit only by the street lights and my wife’s phone screen, is ISO4800 on the Pixel 2 but not as grainy as the iPhone’s ISO2000.

I want to like the new Portrait Lighting modes that avail themselves of both the front and rear cameras. I almost always prefer the “Natural Light”, or default, version of a photo, but I have also come across a few examples that really impress me.

As for Animoji — well, I’m having fun with them.

Battery life

I find Apple’s descriptions of iPhone battery life to be confusing at best and frustrating at worst. On its specs page for the iPhone X, Apple claims that it “lasts up to 2 hours longer than iPhone 7,” which is not helpful to me at all considering the iPhone 7 runs completely different silicon and, when it was released, was priced more than $300 less.

I’m getting all-day battery life, but an iPhone 8 Plus this isn’t.

Instead, I want to be able to judge the iPhone X compared to the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and the only useful metric Apple gives me is something called “Internet use,” which is neither specific nor helpful.

Instead, I’ve learned that despite claiming “up to 12 hours” of internet use on both the iPhone 8 and X, and 13 hours on the iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone X falls somewhere in the middle of those legacy designs. I usually get to sleep with 10-15% battery left, which is what I’d have remaining from a Galaxy S8, and slightly less than from the Pixel 2. In other words, larger Android flagships still wipe the floor with the iPhone X for longevity, but I’ve yet to find an Android phone other than, say, the Huawei Mate 9, that can compete with the iPhone 8 Plus.

iOS and the ecosystem

I spend a lot of time these days going between phones — between phones running “stock” Android and others running stock Android, and others still running versions of Android you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy (but fewer of those every year, thankfully), and iOS.

iOS still feels like a static mess in some ways, full of stolid, uncaring icons, red badges shouting at me to clear them, and a home screen completely unwilling to work with my aesthetic sensibilities.

But it’s also, like, so fast. Android could only dream of maintaining the touch responsiveness and consistent frames per second that iOS so effortlessly achieves. You may think your Galaxy or Pixel is buttery smooth, but compare it to the flawless movement of the iPhone X home gesture and you’ll be quickly humbled.

Those apps, too, are still better. I want to believe, now that we’re in 2017 and not 2012, that developers care as deeply about feature parity on Android, but they don’t: the best indie apps still don’t come to Android (although one can argue, and I’d agree in some cases, that the indie app scene is extremely vibrant on Android — just in a way that doesn’t make them much money); games arrive months late, if at all; and beloved products, especially camera-based networks like Instagram and Snapchat, lack specific features or optimizations that drive me crazy.

It’s 2017 and you still can’t count on Android apps to be of the same quality as their iOS counterparts.

My banking app, for instance, brought Touch ID (and, thanks to transferrable APIs, Face ID) support to its iOS app two years ago; the Android version forces me to enter my password like a chump every time. My favorite writing app, Bear, has no intention of building an Android version, and my formerly favorite meal-planning app, Grocery King, hasn’t updated its Android app in over two years.

Of course, given that I spent the vast majority of my year with Android, I have come up with viable cross-platform alternatives — Google Docs is pretty good, and Mealime is great, too — but it still feels like Android apps play second fiddle to their iOS counterparts.

Apple deserves a lot of credit here, too. Android creation is known to be more cumbersome, both in app development due to Java, and in maintenance thanks to the sheer number of devices in use, but Apple has built an extraordinary ecosystem of dedicated developers that want to try to eke out a living on iOS. Apple’s curation services are pretty great, too, especially with iOS 11: I always feel like there are great new apps to check out in the App store, but with Google Play I never know what the algorithm is going to feed me.

But Android is still better in these ways…

After spending any length of time with iOS, a few things really stand out to me: notifications are still much better on Android; the typing experience is more enjoyable on Android; using Android is much more flexible; and the variety of Android hardware is breathtaking.

Notifications are among the most critical details in any operating system today, and Android nailed it years ago and only continues to get better with every iteration. Google’s lead in this regard is so absolute it might as well as insurmountable. In contrast, I loathe dealing with notifications on the iPhone.

Android and iOS are now very similar, but Google’s platform has a couple of important advantages.

Typing, too, is considerably more enjoyable on most Android phones, mainly due to Gboard, which (ironically) started out as a third-party iOS app and brought its best features to its own mobile OS. Gboard’s autocorrect is smart and reliable and its performance is near-perfect even on older hardware. And like Android itself, you can modify it to look and act the way you want. Apple added a bunch of that stuff to QuickType in iOS 10 and 11, but I always prefer to peck out long-form emails on my Pixel than my iPhone X.

I also love spending time with new Android phones, from the no-nonsense metal chassis of the $229 Moto G5 Plus to the mesmerizing light shifts of the Solar Red HTC U11. Android’s openness has facilitated a revolution of smartphone construction and deconstruction, and Google’s OS continues to allow practically anybody, at any price point, to get on the internet.

Should you buy an iPhone X?

Apple deserves a lot of credit not just for pushing the envelope of smartphone hardware innovation — look at iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone X to see just how elegantly the whole interior is laid out — but for creating an ecosystem where, once you’re in, you don’t want to leave.

And while I know it’s gauche to want us all to live in harmony, in my ideal world I’d have every devoted Android user try the iPhone X for a few days, and every devout iPhone addict use, say, a Galaxy Note 8 or Pixel 2 for the same amount of time. There are lessons to be learned from exploring the differences between the two and, in the end, realizing that they’re not so different.

Android devotees probably have little interest in buying an iPhone X, especially one that costs $1000. That’s fair: this is a very expensive phone. But if you’re aghast at the presence of this review on Android Central, you’re exactly the person who should try it, both to see what you hate and what you like.

See at Apple

Things to know when switching from iOS to Android

Making the switch from one operating system to another isn’t easy, and these are some things our forum users recommend knowing when going from iOS to Android.

The debate between Android and iOS has been going on for years, and despite both operating systems being quite similar to one another at this point in time, that debate won’t go anywhere anytime soon.

One of our forum users recently created a thread letting others in the community know that they were thinking about making the switch from iOS to Android with a few questions they had regarding the change –

mach1man
11-11-2017 08:43 AM

“

Ok so I’m looking at jumping ship from Apple to Samsung. I have the iPhone X and I’m not impressed with it at all. I haven’t been with an Android phone since the note 5, so coming back is gonna be a little hard. I have a few questions for those that have made the jump.

1. How did you deal with switch back to sms instead of imessage, Most of my friends and family have iPhones.

2. How well do…

Reply

As you’d expect with a question of this nature in the Android Central Forums, a lot of our members were quick to respond to help mach1man out. Here’s what some of you had to say.

cwbcpa
11-11-2017 09:02 AM

“

I have had every Note since the Note 2 and loved them all. I had used the iPhone 7 Plus for the last year since the Note 7 debacle and picked up the 8 Plus a month or so ago. Most of my family (100% of immediate family), friends and clients use iPhones. Being on the same OS with them has been seamless. While android has apps that do the same thing as iMessage or FaceTime, good luck getting iOS…

Reply

mhunter6378
11-11-2017 09:04 AM

“

You’ll be the green bubble guy, lol. Text messages are just text messages. The difference comes in mms, where iMessage is capable of sending high res images and videos and standard mms is not, they’re reduced in quality. There are many ways to deal with this though. The more frequent issue is group messaging, if your in group messages as an iPhone user and then switch, the iPhone users will need…

Reply

Morty2264
11-11-2017 11:26 AM

“

Hello! As I have never switched from iOS to Android (I’ve never had an iPhone!), I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

Regular SMS is still pretty fluid (of course, it depends upon which messaging app you’re using – some experiences are better than others), though admittedly, nothing is as good as iMessage – that’s a really amazing messaging app.

There are a bunch of third party…

Reply

There are a lot of solid answers already, but we’d still like to hear from you – What are your tips for switching from iOS to Android?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Qualcomm officially rejects Broadcom’s deal to buy the chip-maker

That was close.

At the beginning of the month, a report popped up indicating that Broadcom (the largest manufacturer of Wi-Fi chips for mobile devices) was going to propose Qualcomm with a deal to buy the company for a total of $100 billion. The possibility of such a deal made us rather nervous, so we’re relieved to hear that Qualcomm’s Board of Directors has officially rejected the offer.

Qualcomm issued a press released on November 13 saying that its board made a unanimous decision to pass on the deal that Broadcom has proposed, with Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Qualcomm Incorporated, Paul Jacobs, stating –

It is the Board’s unanimous belief that Broadcom’s proposal significantly undervalues Qualcomm relative to the Company’s leadership position in mobile technology and our future growth prospects.

Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm’s CEO, also chimed in to say that the company is currently in the best position possible for leading the semiconductor industry in regards to mobile, Internet-of-things, and more. Mollenkopf continued with –

We are confident in our ability to create significant additional value for our stockholders as we continue our growth in these attractive segments and lead the transition to 5G.

With this potentially devastating deal put to rest, Qualcomm can now continue its neverending battle with Apple.

Why Broadcom’s $130 billion Qualcomm deal would be bad for mobile innovation

Razer Phone review: Don’t go outside

Razer’s first Android phone is a striking piece of hardware with excellent performance, undone by a dim display and a calamitous camera.

The quick take

The Razer Phone is supposed to be a device for enthusiasts, but for it to make sense at the $699 price point, you need to be the kind of enthusiast who doesn’t care about water resistance, a good camera, or display daylight visibility.

The Good

• Sharp, bold design
• Exceptional performance
• 120Hz display brings game-changing smoothness
• Multi-day battery life

The Bad

• Mediocre daylight visibility
• Dumpster fire camera
• No water resistance
• Ships on Nougat

Razer Phone Full Review

For most of us, the term “gaming phone” probably conjures up memories of things like the Nokia N-Gage and Sony Xperia Play. For all the hype and hope that preceded those gadgets, they were spectacular commercial flops, mainly because they prioritized gimmicky gaming features above merely being a good phone.

Now, PC gaming brand Razer is hoping to succeed where Sony, Nokia and others have failed. Its new phone, built with talent acquired from Nextbit last year, aims to be gamer-centric, but not to a fault. The idea was to build a phone not just for playing games, but one with hardware and features that gamers want in a phone, whether they’re gaming or not.

And while the premise is promising, the Razer Phone as an overall package is far from the home run many will have been hoping for. For all that’s right with this phone, in its current state it’s hard to recommend to anyone besides hardcore fans of the brand.

About this review

We’re reviewing the Razer Phone after ten days with the device, which was provided by Razer for review. During our testing, we used it on the Three network in the UK, and briefly on Yoigo while roaming in Madrid, Spain. The phone was running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, with the September 5, 2017 Android security patch.

Razer Phone Video Review

Black slab

Razer Phone Hardware

You could call the Razer Phone’s hardware a throwback to the proportions of “phablet” devices of years past, or a deliberate antithesis to current flagship trends. It goes against the grain of super-thin, super-tall, bezelless phones we’re seeing from just about everyone else this year. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the giant stereo speakers on the front which, of course, are ludicrously loud and a fairly bold design feature.

The Razer Phone deliberately goes against the grain of flagship phone designs, and I’m fine with that.

The blocky aesthetic of the Nextbit Robin has been transformed into a sheer aluminum unibody, making for a chassis that’s simple, angular and which shares plenty of DNA with Razer’s gaming laptops. It’s a serious piece of hardware, but it’s nowhere near the visual aneurysm we usually witness when tech companies try to pander to gamers. (Looking at you, Acer Predator tablet.)

The Razer Phone is big, and it’s heavy, and one-handing it is more than a little awkward. But there’s no mistaking it for any other device on the planet. The trademark Razer logo around the back is, on the face of it, a giant exercise in branding. However, it’s pulled off in a way that’s not gaudy.

Like the Robin, the Razer Phone uses a recessed power button on the side, with a built-in fingerprint scanner. I’ve heard others complain about this, but I’ve had no problems using it with either my right thumb or left middle finger. Once you get used to it, muscle memory quickly kicks in.

The sheer size of the Razer Phone, and its brushed aluminum chassis, makes it somewhat slippery, but the extremely angular shape goes some way to compensating for this. It is worth zeroing in on the coating of the metal for a second, though: The soft-touch finish feels great, but in my experience has been incredibly scratch-prone — and it’s scratched more visibly than many glass phones I’ve used after just a week or so, which is not great.

The design certainly isn’t for everyone, but that’s absolutely fine in a niche product like this. Personally, I appreciate the aesthetics of it, and how different it is.

Being a smartphone for gamers, naturally, the Razer Phone includes the most powerful hardware available in any Android phone at launch time. The top-end Snapdragon 835 chip from Qualcomm, 8GB of RAM, 64GB of storage plus microSD expansion, and a huge 4,000mAh battery — the largest we’ve yet seen in an Android phone, matching the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and BlackBerry Motion.

This phone’s internals are every bit as beastly as its tank-like exterior would suggest.

That’s high-end stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary. What makes the Razer Phone unique is its display. The 5.7-inch Quad HD LCD can run at up to 120Hz, pushing more frames than any other Android phone, which means smoother gaming and a more fluid experience in general. Ideally, you’d get double the 60 frames per second at which most Android phones max out. The default refresh rate is 90Hz, but you can crank it all the way up to 120 for maximum smoothness — presumably at a small battery cost. (I briefly ran the phone in 120Hz mode, and didn’t notice any huge difference in longevity. YMMV.)

More: Razer Phone specs

Superficially, this looks like a decent panel, with pleasing colors and decent viewing angles. Use it indoors to play a game or watch a movie, and you’ll have a great time. But between a highly reflective screen and what seems like lower than average brightness from the backlight, daylight visibility is just flat-out disappointing for a phone this expensive — a couple of years out of step with the competition in this area. It’s not quite LG G5 or HTC One M9 bad, but it’s far from ideal in bright, outdoor conditions.

The display pulls off higher refresh rates, but with noticeably inferior daylight visibility.

I don’t need to explain why sub-par daylight visibility is a bad in what’s supposed to be both a premium smartphone and a portable gaming device. I think most of us would prefer to play games at 60fps if it meant not having to squint at the display.

For what it’s worth, though, the extra smoothness that this higher refresh rate offers actually is kind of revolutionary, and I’m sure it’s something we’ll see in more phones in the coming year. This isn’t one of those placebo effects — you can in fact see the difference even bumping up to 90Hz.

Most Android apps will just look and perform more smoothly on Razer Phone’s super-responsive panel. However, there is a big hurdle to be overcome, ironically, in terms of game support. The titles preloaded on the phone by Razer, like Titanfall Assault and Gear Club, work really well at up to 120fps, but there are still big gaps elsewhere, and when you step down to 60 or even 30 in games like Need for Speed: No Limits, it’s really noticeable. Razer is working to grow support among Android games, but 120Hz support isn’t anywhere near universal just yet.

Razer certainly has the clout to see that developers do update titles to fully support its screen, but that’s not going to happen overnight.

Another bump in the road is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack. As I mentioned, the built-in speakers excellent — loud, bassy and clear — almost too loud, at times, for things like notification sounds. (There’s also an obnoxious lock/unlock ding that you’ll quickly want to disable.) But for wired audio, you’ll need to keep hold of Razer’s proprietary, THX-certified dongle, which, like all dongles, is easy to lose in a bag or a pocket, and annoying to carry separately. (It’s basically bad is what I’m saying.)

The hardware of the Razer Phone gives us a taste of the flickers of brilliance that make this device exciting, and the compromises that might ultimately undo it. It’s a powerful, good-looking, truly unique phone, but also a device with some unique hardware weaknesses.

Stuff for nerds

Razer Phone Software

Android absolutely flies on the Razer Phone — in part thanks to the top-notch internals, Razer’s performance tuning, and the 120Hz display. It’s running Android 7.1.1, and it’s disappointing to not see 8.0 out of the box — Razer tells us it wouldn’t have been possible to ship Android Oreo while also optimizing the OS for this new display. The Oreo update is slated for Q1 2018, so Razer Phone buyers could be waiting a while.

The basic look and feel is that of stock Android, plus a whole bunch of green accents, in keeping with Razer’s colorful laptop branding. There’s theming support, with a comprehensively stocked Theme store to choose icons and wallpapers from, if that’s your thing. And speaking of customization, the stock launcher for this phone is none other than Nova Launcher — specifically, a special version of Nova Launcher Prime created for Razer, with Google Feed support as standard. Nova is fast, a joy to use and extensively customizable. In general, it feels like a great fit for this phone.

More: Nova Launcher: Everything you need to know

Razer’s software customization is pretty light, besides the splash of green paint. The Game Booster app is one important addition though, which lets you prioritize battery life or performance, or disable notifications if you don’t emails and instant messages getting in the way of your fun.

Besides these few tweaks, there’s not a whole lot to say about Razer’s user-facing software additions. Most of the work done to optimize the OS for the phone’s fancy 120Hz display is invisible, and thanks to the company’s light touch, you’re mostly just looking at an extremely responsive version of stock Nougat.

That’s only going to get better once Oreo lands in the Razer Phone next year.

Juice in the tank

Razer Phone Battery Life

This shouldn’t come as any surprise given the enormous 4,000mAh battery lurking within, but the Razer Phone is, in my experience, good for at least a day and a half of use per charge. Sure, if you’re gaming constantly you’ll be able to knock that down to under a day. In either case, you’re looking at really reliable battery life from this phone whatever you’re doing, even with that fast 120Hz screen.

Surprise! A 4,000mAh cell buys you great battery life.

Screen-on times, for me, routinely exceeded the six-hour mark. That’s a little less than the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, but still a commendable performance.

For fast refills, the Razer Phone is the first (and currently only) device to use the latest Qualcomm QuickCharge 4+ standard. In casual side-by-side tests, I’ve found that QuickCharge 4+ isn’t quite as speedy as OnePlus’s Dash Charge, but at the same time, you’re also filling a much larger battery. Regardless, Razer should be praised for riding the cutting edge here.

Finally, in a neat bit of design symmetry, the USB C-to-C charging cable that comes with the phone (and the headphone dongle, actually) features the exact same style of braiding used on Razer’s laptop chargers. Small design touches like this add polish to the overall package.

They’re bad

Razer Phone Cameras

There’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just say it: The Razer Phone’s cameras, in their current form, are a hot mess. They’re embarrassingly poor for a $700 phone, and while there are almost certainly improvements that can be made in software, right now photography on the Razer Phone is a bad experience.

The Razer Phone’s camera, in its current form, is a hot mess — embarrassingly bad for a $700 phone.

There are dual 12MP sensors around the back, behind a regular f/1.75 lens and a f/2.6 telephoto lens, respectively. There’s no optical stabilization, but that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker. What certainly is a deal-breaker though is image quality. Photos are consistently dark, flat and lifeless, quickly becoming noisy in low-light conditions compared to the competition. In ideally lit conditions, the Razer Phone will produce the same good-looking shots as any basic smartphone, but that’s about it. I’d call it a “mid-range” camera experience, but to be honest, even that is being generous.

This is not OK in a $700 phone.

Razer’s camera app is a joke — buggy and bereft of features

What’s more, the camera app itself is a joke. There are no shooting modes at all — literally none — besides an HDR toggle, and also no way to quickly zoom into a telephoto view — you need to pinch to zoom, which is awkward on a phone of this size. And you’re just SOL completely if you want to take panoramas or manually adjust things like ISO and shutter speed. It’s also buggy, slow, constantly fails to focus, and just not what should be shipping on a phone… well, on any phone, frankly, in 2017.

All these criticisms apply to video too, where despite 4K shooting being supported, the Razer Phone’s autofocus issues make for a haphazard video experience.

And that really sums up the camera for me: This is about the worst photographic performance I’ve seen in a $700 phone. (Though admittedly, I haven’t used the Essential Phone, which was also panned for launching with an underperforming camera.) In any case, it’s disappointing that such a massive area of the modern smartphone experience has been overlooked like this.

The Bottom Line

Should you buy the Razer Phone? Wait and see

At present, the Razer Phone is a very mixed bag. The camera, obviously, is a big miss, and for me, the biggest reason not to buy this phone. It’ll probably get better with time, but it’s shipping this month, and right now the camera is nowhere near ready.

It’s also weird to see an enthusiast-focused phone missing important enthusiast features, like a headphone jack and an up-to-date OS.

That’s aside from table-stakes things like water resistance and a screen that looks great outdoors as well as indoors. These are things that just about every other $700 phone worth buying does that the Razer Phone does not.

The Razer Phone is a good idea with flawed execution.

The Razer Phone, overall, is a great, high-performance portable gaming-slash-entertainment gadget. But it does that at the cost of being a great all-around phone, which right now it is not. The main reason for that is the camera, but it’s also not helped by these other feature omissions. Mainstream-focused competitors like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro lack Razer’s fancy speakers and display, but are far more balanced overall, with great performance, long battery life, a more up-to-date OS, a phenomenal camera and water resistance.

That said, I don’t think the Razer Phone has fallen into the same trap as the N-Gage or the Xperia Play. Those two examples of failed gaming phones were doomed from the outset. With the Razer Phone, the idea isn’t fundamentally flawed, but the feature set is incomplete, and the execution — particularly the camera — isn’t quite there yet. There’s the core of a great product here, if Razer keeps working at it — which I sincerely hope it will.

Until then, the Razer Phone is a quirky little device with probably quite a limited audience. Unless you absolutely must experience Android games on a 120Hz display, I’d recommend you wait and see what the first few rounds of software updates do for the phone’s camera before parting with your cash.

See at Razer

Apps using Accessibility Services could be removed from the Play Store

Apps like LastPass and Tasker could be in danger because of this.

If you’ve ever used apps like LastPass, Tasker, Clipboard Actions, or Universal Copy, you’ve likely benefitted from Android’s Accessibility Services. Accessibility Services were initially created as a way for app developers to create special tools and features to make their applications or games easier to use for those with disabilities, but certain titles have been tapping into Accessibility Services to allow for features that all users can take advantage of.

Unfortunately, according to emails that Google is sending out to numerous developers whose apps use Accessibility Services, some changes will need to be made soon.

In emails that these developers are receiving, Google states that applications using Accessibility Services should only make use of the system if they’re directly benefiting those that have disabilities. Developers are told that they need to explain how using the service benefits these users, and if they don’t meet requirements Google has created, their apps stand to be removed from the Play Store.

Within the email under the subtitle of “Action required”, Google states –

If you aren’t already doing so, you must explain to users how your app is using the ‘android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE’ to help users with disabilities use Android devices and apps. Apps that fail to meet this requirement within 30 days may be removed from Google Play. Alternatively, you can remove any requests for accessibility services within your app. You can also choose to unpublish your app.

Along with this, Google continues by saying that “serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts.”

As someone that uses LastPass’s App Fill feature on a daily basis, this is worrisome news. Users on Reddit have expressed plenty of concern over this move, and while this concern is justified, Joao Dias (the developer of AutoTools) told Android Police that Google’s statement on this is too vague to be taken literally at the moment.

Google has yet to respond to the complaints following this news, but we’ll be sure to let you know if/when they do.

Things to know when switching from iOS to Android

Grab a 2nd-gen Fossil Q smartwatch in various colors for $123

Strap some style on your wrist at a crazy price!

Fossil’s 2nd-gen Q smartwatches are now available at Amazon for as little as $123.19, which is a huge discount. These normally sell for between $255 and $275 and have never dropped below $175 in the past. These Android Wear-powered smartwatches can deliver your notifications to your wrist, track your steps, and much more with ease. If you’ve been considering trying out a smartwatch, but couldn’t swallow the price tags, you won’t want to miss out on these deals.

The options available at this price include:

• White Silicone Fossil Q – $123.20
• Two-Tone Stainless Steel Fossil Q – $123.19
• Dark Brown Leather Fossil Q – $123.20
• Stainless Steel Fossil Q – $130.20

Target also has some of these available, and you may be able to pick them up today if you need that instant gratification.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – This is a huge discount, and by far the lowest price we’ve seen on these watches. It’s a great way to get started in the Android Wear space without a huge investment, and they look great as well!
• Things to know before you buy! – There are a few different options at this price, and if you don’t see one with a band you want, you can always buy a band that you like and replace the existing one with it.

Best apps for Samsung Phonecast right now

If you want to use phone apps that aren’t built for VR, Samsung Phonecast allows you to take advantage of that virtual screen real-estate.

One of the drawbacks of the Gear VR is that not all apps are built to be immersive. But that doesn’t mean you can’t watch your favorite videos on a gigantic virtual screen. Samsung Phonecast VR places you in a picnic with a view of a 200 inch screen that can play videos from popular services such as YouTube, Sling TV, and more.

The viewing experience is very similar to using the Netflix app on the Gear VR and is a great way to feel like you’re in a cinema while you’re in a much smaller space. Here are some of the best apps to use with Samsung Phonecast right now.

Read more at VRHeads!

PlayStation 4 Pro vs. Xbox One X: Which should you buy?

Welcome to 4K gaming, Sony and Microsoft.

Gamers have been politely discussing the merits of owning an Xbox verses owning a PlayStation for a long, long time. Some years, the scales tip one way, some years the scales tip the other way. The truth is there’s never been a “winner” in this particular conversation for very long, but if you have no loyalty toward one or the other it’s not uncommon to pick based on which is more popular or more capable at the time.

This year, the conversation lands squarely on the shoulders of the latest console heavyweights. Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro and Microsoft’s Xbox One X aren’t so much a new generation of console as they are more capable versions of the existing generation. These are the versions built to be a little more future-proof, and help set the stage for new gaming experiences.

Here’s how the two compare with one another.

See PlayStation 4 Pro at Amazon

See Xbox One X at Amazon

Way less interesting on the outside

There’s no nice way to put this, both the Xbox One X and the PlayStation 4 Pro look kind of bland.

Microsoft successfully shrunk the massive bland box that was the original Xbox One, and the result is a slightly less boring thing that will easily be mistaken for a generic DVR when it is not powered on. Sony took the slanted box look of the PlayStation 4 and made it bigger to hold more hardware, but it’s still just a slanted box with curved edges.

The PS4 Pro design has a little more character than the Xbox One X, but not enough to really matter. When you fire up both consoles you get either the iconic blue pulse of the PlayStation 4 or the glowing white pulse of the Xbox and that winds up being enough to make these things feel a little more alive. What’s more interesting is how similarly wide these machines are. The Xbox One X is just slightly wider than the PlayStation 4 Pro, but it makes up for it by being appreciably smaller going the other way. The slanted design of the PlayStation 4 series has always made the console feel longer than it needed to, but this design decision feels particularly exaggerated with the larger Pro model and the Xbox One X looks positively dainty by comparison.

I guess it’s not what’s on the outside that counts though. Here’s a quick look at how the specs compare.

Dimensions	11.8in x 9.4in x 2.4in	11.61in x 12.87in x 2.17in
CPU	8-core AMD custom Scorpio Engine Liquid-cooled vapor chamber	AMD Jaguar 8-core (x86-64)
GPU	40 custom AMD GCN cores (6 TFLOP)12GB DDR5326GB/s memory bandidth	36 AMD GCN cores (4.2 TFLOP)8GB DDR5218GB/s memory bandwidth
Storage	1TB	1TB
Optical out	Yes	Yes
AV out	HDMI 2.0	HDMI 2.0
Power consumption	245w max	310w max
4K Streaming	Yes	Yes
USB	USB 3.0 (x3)	USB 3.0 (x3)
VR support	No	Yes (PSVR Enhanced)

A few other interesting things to note:

• Sony includes a headset in the box so you can use voice commands and chat right away. Microsoft does not.
• Xbox One X still fully supports TV passthrough=, complete with HDMI-in and IR out. PS4 Pro has none of these features.
• Both Xbox One and PS4 Pro have internal power supplies, so no more ugly bricks!

Way more interesting on the inside

Microsoft managed to make the smallest Xbox it has ever made, and at the same time made it noticeably more powerful than the larger PlayStation 4 Pro — at least on paper. As impressive as the gap between the six-teraflop performance cap on the Xbox One X is compared to the mere 4.5 teraflops on the PlayStation 4 Pro, there are a few things you need to know about how that translates to real-world performance in games.

By the time these consoles have fully matured it’s possible there will be obvious visual differences between an Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro version of the same game.

The original versions of a lot of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games were barely capable of “full HD” 1080p gaming at 30fps. The target for a lot of Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro games is 4K gaming at 30fps, but that’s not the limit. There are a bunch of games on both PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X capable of 4K gaming at 60fps with HDR enabled. Currently, all of these 4K games are being labeled as “enhanced” because they support these more advanced gaming modes, but still play on regular Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

Here’s where things get interesting. Over time, developers are going to be able to do more with the Xbox One X. We’re already starting to see some enhanced games for the Xbox One X that look a little better than their PS4 Pro counterparts. Right now the differences are subtle, and only really apparent when the games are subjected to thorough analysis. By the time these consoles have fully matured and developers have started to really push the limits of the hardware, it’s possible there will be a clear visual difference between an Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro version of the same game.

One really important caveat to all of this performance talk is that it only matters when you’re playing on a 4K television. In fact, in some cases, it only matters if you’re playing on a 4K HDR television. That’s far from everyone, and if you’re playing on a 1080p television there’s a limit to how much of these improvements you’re actually going to see. The performance on either console will still be well above what you saw on the original Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but the potential performance gap we’re discussing here won’t be something you’ll experience until you make the jump to a 4K television.

Four HDR TVs under $700

Virtual Reality Gaming

This section was originally going to be a lot more interesting than it ended up being in real life. Sony’s PlayStation VR headset works best with the PlayStation 4 Pro, and so far in the VR world this headset has been remarkably successful with well over a million headsets sold in the first year of its existence. PlayStation VR games continue to roll out at a healthy pace, and have started to include big name developers like Bethesda and Capcom. It is the most popular VR platform by a fairly healthy margin, and continues to grow quickly.

Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality headsets are new to the Windows world, but will not be coming to the Xbox One X. Despite the Xbox team’s insistence that the console is capable of delivering the full Windows Mixed Reality experience, Microsoft has made it clear the Xbox won’t see a Mixed Reality headset until there can be a wireless option. Microsoft doesn’t want users to trip over wires in the living room, or have extra hardware going in between the Xbox and the television like you have with the PlayStation VR.

Bottom line? If you’re an Xbox fan eagerly awaiting VR, don’t expect it to happen anytime soon.

Which should you buy?

There’s a lot to consider when buying a game console, but for most folks, it comes down to a couple of things:

• What are my friends playing on right now?
• Where are the best games?
• How much does it cost?

While that first one is up to you to answer, the other two are really easy this go around. If you want the best single player games, you probably want a PlayStation 4 Pro. Not only are there more really good single-player games on the PlayStation right now, but with the addition of a PlayStation VR, there’s an entire category of fun local games that are not coming to the Xbox anytime soon. If you care about these kinds of games, the PlayStation 4 Pro is absolutely the console you want to go with. Xbox is more focused on multiplayer gaming right now, and that is also a good thing.

See at Amazon

As for the price tag, that $399 PlayStation 4 Pro price isn’t really that much smaller than the $499 Xbox One X price. It’s cheaper, sure, but there’s an argument to be made for this Xbox being $100 better than its PlayStation counterpart if you own a high-end 4K television. If you care about having the best graphics, the Xbox One X is going to be the best thing for you to buy long-term. Even if you don’t have a 4K television right now, a lot of you probably will make the upgrade before the next big update to the Xbox hardware.

See at Amazon

Why are we talking about game consoles on Android Central? Let us explain.

PlayStation 4

• PS4 vs. PS4 Slim vs. PS4 Pro: Which should you buy?
• PlayStation VR Review
• Playing PS4 games through your phone is awesome

Amazon

After half a season, ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is worth paying for

Star Trek: Discovery launched in September to anticipation and questions, but more than that there was grumbling. After all, the show wasn’t easily accessible in the United States. In Canada, it aired on the Space channel, and in the rest of the world, it was available on Netflix. But in the US, you needed CBS All Access, a standalone subscription service, to watch the show. Predictably, there was outrage. For months leading up to the show, people (myself included) railed against CBS’s decision to sequester it in this way. But now, half a season in, one thing is crystal clear: The model might be frustrating, but the show is good enough to justify it. It’s time to accept that this is the reality of the situation and enjoy Star Trek: Discovery for what it is.

The bottom line is that Star Trek: Discovery is going to stay on CBS All Access for the foreseeable future. There were hopes that CBS would cave and put episodes on Netflix for the second season or move the show to broadcast. It’s safe to say that won’t happen. The show is a success right where it is; the network knows that Star Trek: Discovery isn’t for everyone. “Not everyone’s going to subscribe to every premium network,” according to Marc DeBevoise, the president and COO of CBS Interactive, in an interview with Engadget.

The service was originally designed for cord cutters who still wanted access to CBS and its vast library, but the vision has grown from there. All Access is being positioned as a fully premium service, rather than an add-on to broadcast. DeBevoise told Engadget, “We are looking to be the premium version of the number one broadcast network. So how do we thread the needle of delivering for a lot of people but also enabling ourselves to be viewed as the premium service? I mean, people would pay for some of those other premium networks out there.” In other words, how is this different than cord cutters who subscribe to HBO Now to watch Game of Thrones? The challenge here is launching a new streaming service, rather than relying on an existing one.

Discovery is a show that was created, developed, scripted and produced exclusively for this streaming network. And that’s evident in the way it tells its story. “It’s a more involved form of character-based storytelling,” said DeBevoise. “You can go much deeper in the characters. You can go much farther with each smaller storyline and really peel back the layers that are there.” Being able to produce the entire season at once, as streaming services do, allows for a different kind of story, which has become increasingly clear as the show progresses.

On Sunday, CBS aired the midseason finale of Star Trek: Discovery; the show will return on January 7th. Over the course of these first nine episodes, viewers have been treated to complex and intriguing characters, fresh reinventions of sci-fi tropes and a moral ambiguity that hasn’t been front and center in previous incarnations of the show. As a life-long Star Trek fan, I’m enamored and engaged with the franchise in a way I haven’t been in years.

That’s not to say the show is for everyone. There are clearly plenty of people who have valid issues with it, from continuity quibbles to the appearance of the Klingons. It’s not perfect, and I don’t think any type of media should be held to that standard. But it’s delivered incredible character development and relationships, and in an era when I’m constantly driven to distraction by the overwhelming amount of entertainment at my fingertips, it has me in a chair at 8:30 PM ET every Sunday. That’s not an easy feat, and frankly, no other show on television right now does that for me. And I’m clearly not the only person who feels that way.

In late October, CBS All Access announced that the show would be coming back for a second season, which was a surprise after only six episodes. It’s clear the service has faith in the show, but also that it’s meeting the goals that All Access has set out: The service is already halfway to its goal of four million subscribers by 2020. DeBevoise said, in unqualified terms, “[Star Trek: Discovery] is absolutely a success.”

It’s time to stop blaming Star Trek: Discovery for the way its content is being served. It’s certainly frustrating to see subscription-based services fragmenting, but the trend is going to continue, at least in the medium term. It’s time to stop derailing every conversation about the show, whether on Twitter, Facebook or comments sections, with complaints about CBS All Access. That’s not an endorsement of the model; it’s simply an acceptance of the fact that this is the reality we live in, and sometimes we aren’t going to get our content the way we want it.