How has your Project Fi experience been?

If you don’t use a lot of mobile data, Fi is still the way to go.

It’s hard to believe that 2018 will mark Project Fi’s three year anniversary, but then again, I suppose time flies when you’re saving heaps of cash each month on your monthly phone bill.

Project Fi was an interesting concept when it first launched with the Nexus 6 in 2015, but now that you can use phones like the Pixel 2 and Moto X4 with the service, it’s a much more serious contender in the MVNO space than it ever was before.

Some of our forum users recently got into a discussion about their own experiences using Project Fi, and this is what they had to say.

TraderGary
01-14-2018 11:30 PM

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I’ve had my Pixel 2 XL 128 since launch and we went with Google Fi at the same time. My wife, who couldn’t care less about phones, is using my old Nexus 6 on Fi and is quite pleased with it.

I’ve found Google Fi support to be superb and available 24/7. You shouldn’t find any problems with support.

We came from Sprint where our monthly cost for the two of us averaged about $125. Our Google…

Reply

billchat
01-15-2018 05:46 AM

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Signed up to Project Fi a couple of months ago – no regrets. I use little, or no, cellular data, home on wifi most of the time. Verizon bill had been $52, this month’s Fi bill id $26.45.

I see no difference in the phone call quality. As far as Customer service, no issues for me.

Reply

raqball
01-15-2018 05:13 PM

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I’ve been using Fi for a few years now and it’s great! No complaints from me whatsoever! I am a light data user (I’m almost always on WiFi) and my bill is generally about $24-$27 a month..

I’ve been using the Pixel 2 (non XL) on Fi for about 3 or 4 months now and am happy with the performance.

Reply

paradroid
01-15-2018 05:58 PM

“

I am on Fi for 3 months now and my bill has been about $25 per month. It would have been lower but at a small drink fest at a buddies house I played one of my Pandora channels on his bluetooth speak for about 3 hours.. Did not think about asking for his wifi password and used almost a gig of data that day.

I have not used Fi on any road trips yet.t. I was up north Michigan on T-Mobile…

Reply

Now we’d like to hear from you – If you’re a Project Fi customer, how’s your experience with it been?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Google Project Fi

• What is Project Fi?
• Get the latest Project Fi news
• Google Pixel 2 review
• Moto X4 review
• Discuss Project Fi in our forums
• Sign up for Project Fi!

Amazon Echo Spot now up for preorder in the UK

Amazon’s little round screen is expanding to the UK from late January.

If you ever wanted a little more screen with your Amazon Echo but the Echo Show is too big, then the Echo Spot might be just what you’re looking for. The little round Echo contains the best of Alexa, added video features and is small enough to go anywhere in your home.

And very soon it’ll be available to UK buyers, too.

Priced at £119.99 it’s substantially cheaper than the Echo Show and you can get it in white or black. It’s only on preorder right now, with shipping set to commence for January 24. If you’re looking for more than one, add two to your Amazon basket for £199.98, saving £40.

More: Amazon Echo Spot review

See at Amazon

Everything you need to know about The Inpatient VR

You’ll need to uncover the mystery, and survive long enough to remember why you’re here.

The Inpatient is the newest game from developer SuperMassive Games, and is a prequel to the breakout hit on PlayStation 4 called Until Dawn. You’re transported sixty years into the past to the Blackwood Sanatorium where something has gone rather awry. If you’ve played Until Dawn, then the name should sound pretty familiar and you may have an idea of whats coming.

You play as an Amnesiac patient in the Sanatorium, and while the doctor keeps telling you that you’re there for your own good, that may not be the case. You’ll need to uncover the mystery on the grounds, and discover your past if you want to survive everything this game has to offer. With every choice you make you’ll see consequences and changes to the story, so you’ll need to be on your toes.

See The Inpatient at Playstation

Blackwood Sanatorium

While there haven’t been tons of details about what you’re being thrown into with Inpatient, fans of Until Dawn will recognize both the time period and the location. That’s because this is set up as the prequel of that game, and when we say things go wrong at Blackwood, we mean they really go wrong.

The game is set during the 1950s in a Sanatorium up on the side of the mountain. While you’re going to start out with very few details, it’s clear that you are a patient. Through the game you’ll need to uncover your past and why you were sent to the Sanatorium, as well as figure out what the heck is going on within elsewhere.

The Until Dawn Franchise

Until Dawn was a game version of the horror movie everyone has seen, where a group of friends go out into the woods and have to survive the night when things inevitably go awry. During the course of that game, you run through what is left of Blackwood Sanatorium and see rumors of a terrible tragedy that took place way back in the 1950s.

The Inpatient takes place in that same Sanatorium during the period when things go very, very, wrong at the Sanatorium. This is definitely a horror game, and the original made me jump more than I usually admit. However if the gameplay is anything like it’s predecessor it will require plenty of quick time actions, rather than making you constantly run jump or dodge.

Since this is a VR game, this is pretty awesome for folks who enjoy the horror genre but deal with nausea or motion sickness when they play in VR.

Your choices change everything

If you aren’t already acquainted with Supermassive Games through their choose your own adventure style games Until Dawn and Hidden Agenda then you’ve been seriously been missing out. These games are all story heavy and the choices you make during gameplay directly affect what happens next in the game.

A bad choice can mean you’ll skip part of a chapter, or run into some serious trouble. We know that The Inpatient is going to be using the same sort of system, and looks somewhat familiar to Until Dawn itself. You’ll end up interacting with doctors, patients, and nurses, and the decisions that you make will directly change the gameplay.

This also means that there is a decent chance of being able to replay the game without getting the same outcome. It also means that things may not always end the same way, but we won’t know that for sure until it releases.

Arriving soon

So with all of this, you’ve probably got one very important question. When is The Inpatient releasing?

While it was originally slated for release back in November of 2017, we’ll finally be able to jump into it on January 23, 2018. That’s right, just a few short days away. Since it’s a PlayStation VR game your best bet is going to be downloading it from the source so you can dive right in.

See The Inpatient at Playstation

Best document scanning apps for Android

Scan and save all the important documents in your life without hassle.

As our technology becomes more and more integrated with the world around us, it becomes easy to forget that many important documents are still printed out on paper. Being able to easily scan and save your lease, receipts, or other important paperwork can ensure that you never lose a document again. Of course, there are tons of apps out there, so we’ve done the hard work for you and narrowed that list down to just a few suggestions.

These are our picks for the best document scanning apps on Android.

• Adobe Scan
• Office Lens
• Genius Scan
• CamScanner

Adobe Scan

If you are already familiar with Adobe, then seeing this app on our list should make your eyes light up. While you can sign in like usual with Google or Facebook, you can also use your Adobe ID and it supports exporting documents to your Adobe account. The app is free and full of features that make it easy to scan your documents even if they aren’t in the best shape ever.

Adobe Scan will automatically detect a document once you have the app open, and you can scan and save several documents in a batch to be edited and saved together. As far as features go you have access to a drag and drop cropping tool that lets you adjust what is saved, edit the color of the document, reorder documents in a batch and even reorient documents so they all face the same way.

Download: Adobe Scan(Free)

Office Lens

If you use Windows, then having an app that talks easily to OneDrive always makes things easier, and Office Lens is Microsoft’s offering of a document scanning app. It’s built to easily snap a photo of what you need and then save directly to OneNote or OneDrive.

Office Lens is really made to just snap a photo and quickly crop it, and it isn’t really overflowing with options. It does scale photos taken from weird angles, and it has a few different modes depending on what you’re scanning. This is a great option for anyone who is using Microsoft ecosystem to keep track of everything and is very simple and easy to use due to it’s simplicity.

Download: Office Lens(Free)

Genius Scan

If having a clean and intuitive UI that gives you access to a few features without going overboard is what you’re after, then it’s Genius Scan that you should take a look at. The one flaw with Genius Scan is that to get access to the full sharing capabilities, you’ll need to pony up $4.95 for a premium subscription.

If being able to fine tune everything about your scanned documents is the way you want to go, Genius Scan is an excellent option. You can separate documents into folders, name each document or folder, and even tag documents. This means you can have taxes from multiple years in different folders that can still be found by searching through your tagging system.

Download: Genius Scan(Free)

CamScanner

CamScanner delivers a gorgeous and intuitive UI and some serious features for fine tuning each scanned document that you save. To get access to everything it offers, you will need to look into a subscription, but most users will be able to easily get by with the free version.

When you scan a document, you can reorient and crop the image as you’d expect, but it’s the editing features that make CamScanner shine. You’ve got five or six versions of the scanned document to choose from, including modes that lighten up the paper that was scanned to make it easier to read. You can also personally adjust the balance if you’re trying to get everything to look perfect. Once you’ve saved documents, you can tag them, store them in folders, and share them with friends. You’re also able to mark scanned documents and attach notes, which makes this a great app for students studying on the go!

Download: CamScanner(Free)

Do you use a document scanner or do you like to keep paper documents around?

Let us know in the comments below!

Moto E5 appears in render with rear fingerprint sensor

Our first look at the Moto E5 shows a lot of similarities to the E4, but that’s not a bad thing.

Of all the phones Motorola released in 2017, one that stood out the most was the Moto E4. The E4 might have been the least powerful of the bunch, but for its retail price of $129, it performed way above what we usually expect to see from something so cheap.

The very first render of its successor – the Moto E5 – just surfaced, and while it looks like more of the same, there are a couple tweaks to the design worth taking note of. For starters, the fingerprint sensor has been moved from the front to the back below the camera sensor. This means that Motorola is finally using its Moto dimple for something useful, and while that’s something I’ve been wishing Motorola would do since the Moto X (2014), it is slightly disappointing to see that nothing new was done with the front of the phone.

We’re finally getting a Moto dimple that doubles as a fingerprint sensor.

Where the fingerprint sensor used to be has been replaced by large Motorola branding, and the bottom bezel doesn’t appear to be any smaller as a result of the change. I get this isn’t a flagship phone, but I can’t help but feel it’s a poor use of space.

The other design tweak I’m seeing are slightly rounded corners on the display. This is something that was popularized by devices like the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 last year, but unlike those phones, the Moto E5 will probably retain the more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio.

The date of April 3 on the clock widget in the render suggests that this is when Motorola could announce the Moto E5, so we’ll be keeping an eye on this to see if that comes to fruition.

Moto E4 review: Keeping it simple

Face Unlock now available for OnePlus 3/3T with OxygenOS beta

Part of Open Beta 30 for the OnePlus 3 and Open Beta 21 for the 3T.

Right before 2017 was officially over, OnePlus announced that Face Unlock would be making its way to the OnePlus 5 with a future software update. The company also teased that the OnePlus 3/3T would see similar treatment in the near future, and now with the latest OxygenOS Open Beta for these two phones, that day has come.

Open Beta 30 for the OnePlus 3 and Open Beta 21 for the 3T have arrived, and the biggest addition with this update is Face Unlock. Just like on the OnePlus 5 and 5T, you’ll now be able to use the 3 and 3T to unlock your phone by simply looking at it. Since Face Unlock doesn’t require any special hardware sensors like Face ID on the iPhone X, it should work just as good on the 3 and 3T as it does on the 5T.

In addition to this, the built-in launcher is also getting some new tweaks. Folders will automatically be named when similar apps are added to them, the clock icon is dynamic and moves to show the actual time, and you can now view new categories when you use the search function in the app drawer.

Also new is Airtel VoLTE support in India, the OnePlus Switch app for moving information from one phone to another, and other general bug fixes and optimizations. You’ll get the new software as an OTA update if you’re already enrolled in the beta, but if not, you’ll need to manually flash the file to your phone.

Some OnePlus customers have reported fraudulent credit card activity

OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 3

• OnePlus 3T review: Rekindling a love story
• OnePlus 3T vs. OnePlus 3: What’s the difference?
• OnePlus 3T specs
• Latest OnePlus 3 news
• Discuss OnePlus 3T and 3 in the forums

This discounted 3-pack of USB-C adapters brings new life to your old cables

Don’t ditch your old cables completely.

The transition from micro-USB to USB-C has been a pretty positive one for most, but that means that a lot of our old cables are no longer useful to charge our gadgets. Odds are you have tons of old cables laying around that you don’t want to get rid of, and luckily you don’t have to.

Right now you can pick up Aukey’s micro-USB to USB-C adapters for just $5.99 at Amazon when you check out using the coupon code AUKEYA23. This is a 3-pack of adapters so you can keep one at home, one at your office, and one in your pocket for those times you may need it at a friends house.

• Charge and Sync: USB-C (male) to Micro-USB (female) adapter allows you to charge and sync USB-C devices with a micro-USB cable. 480Mbps USB 2.0 data transfer speeds
• Safe Charging: Safe, configured charging output ensured by high-standard components, including a high-power 56 kilo ohm resistor
• Wide Compatibility: Reversible USB-C connector that plugs in either way up. Compatible with Macbook Pro, Chromebook Pixel, ASUS Chromebook, Nexus 6P/5X, and other USB-C smartphones, tablets, and laptops
• Easy Use: No driver is required to use this adapter. Just plug & play

Aukey backs the adapters with a two-year warranty.

See at Amazon

Mod-1 Headophones Review: Bring the bass

Simplicity sold me on my new favorite headphones and made me realize what I had been missing.

It’s easy to be distracted by features on headphones right now. Google Assistant, instant pairing, and “dynamic” noise cancellation are fun things to play with, but each of these features sees the price slowly creep up while leaving behind the fundamentals of a good pair of headphones. In my search for what should be considered table stakes for any good $100+ pair of headphones, I came across Modular and its first set of wireless headphones. Dubbed Mod-1, I found them good enough to bring with me everywhere for the last couple of months.

About this review

I have been testing an early production Mod-1 in the Gunmetal color for two months. These headphones were provided by Modular, and have been tested on five phones, two tablets, and multiple computers during my evaluation.

Bent to my will

Mod-1 Headphones Design

As wireless headphones go, Mod-1 does very little to stand out in the crowd. They look like a dozen other headphones, with ports on the underside of the left cup and a simple button-based navigation system on the right. I quickly found a pair of extension rods on either side of the headband to fit the cups to my ears, with matte and glossy plastic surrounding everything. Extending the rods revealed a rigid metal piece connecting the cups to the headband, and Modular confirmed that metal band extends all the way across the headband. In fact, that metal band is a feature — you are directly encouraged to bend that band to the shape that is most comfortable to your head. One of several things to make this headset “modular” in its design. I found the headset comfortable enough out of the box, but with a few tweaks, the headphone cups hugged my head well.

Connecting the headphones may not be instant, but the NFC pairing on the side of the headphones works well. The positioning of the NFC tag is a bit awkward if you have a large device with its NFC emitter in the center, but for most phones, it’s easy to make the connection. Once you have that connection, it works just like any other Bluetooth headset.

The cups for this headset are plenty plushy and feel nice. I prefer a pleather material to foam because it’s easier to clean, and the padding around my ears made the headphones comfortable enough to wear for hours. The circular cup isn’t quite big enough to really be “over-the-ear” size for my ears, but unlike most on-ear headphones there’s no unbalanced pressure to make a part of my ears hurt over time. Best of all, the headphone cups are removable, and Modular plans to make them easy to replace with other options if you so choose.

Mod-1 stands out by being headphones I can comfortably use everywhere.

While I find myself using these headphones wireless more often than I do wired due to the dearth of headphone jacks in my mobile accessories, I appreciate the headphone jack and the Micro-USB port resting on the same side of the headphones. It means I’m not tangled up in cables, and because my laptop has its headphone jack on the left side it’s a convenience for me. What did catch me by surprise was being able to use the Micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack at the same time, meaning I could charge my headphones for wireless use later while still using them at my desk. This doesn’t work with a surprising number of headphones, and it’s nice to see Modular offering me the option here. I find myself using this feature more than I’d like to admit, thanks to forgetting to charge the headphones at night.

In spite of their fairly generic appearance, Mod-1 stands out by being headphones I can comfortably use everywhere. The design allows the headphones to collapse well for travel. I was able to literally bend the headphones into the perfect fit for me, and the cups are not only easy to clean after a workout but designed to be replaced when I inevitably wear out the material covering the cups. I’m not saying a nice electric blue or royal purple would make them more comfortable, but it sure would add a little flash to an otherwise solid design.

These cost how much?

Mod-1 Headphones Sound

Some quick background on me — before I started using these headphones I was splitting my time between the portability-challenged Sennheiser HD 598 Cs and the amazingly portable but fairly limited Trekz Titanium bone conduction headphones. I haven’t touched either in at least a month, and it’s due entirely to how well the Mod-1 headphones have done in replacing the pair for my daily needs. The only caveat there is because it’s been so cold here this past month I haven’t been running outside much. I’m happy with Mod-1 at the gym, but for outdoor activities, I’d still prefer to hear the cars around me.

Mod-1 delivers a warm sound with lots of bass. In fact, maybe a touch too much.

Mod-1 delivers a warm sound with lots of bass. In fact, maybe a little too much. I tweaked my equalizer on my phone a little to tone it down a bit and found myself very happy with the results. These sound like nice $100 wired headphones, which is difficult to pull off over Bluetooth even with things like aptX HD and Bluetooth 5.0, neither of which is available on these headphones. The 40mm driver in these headphones is just plain good, especially if you enjoy more than a little bass.

The rest of the sound profile for these headphones isn’t warm enough to be muddy at high volumes, but the highs aren’t quite as sharp as they are on my Sennheisers and people in spoken word podcasts come through sounding a little deeper-toned than I’m used to hearing elsewhere. I really enjoy the sound, but if accuracy is what you dig, these probably aren’t for you.

A “whole day” of sound

Mod-1 Headphones Experience

Starting my day at around 5am, I’m usually wearing headphones for about 9.5 hours of my day. On a busy travel day, I might put headphones on as soon as I get out of the shower and not take them off until I’m climbing into bed that night. I did quite a bit of travel with these headphones during my testing and found myself repeatedly reaching for them the next day. I like how easy it is to travel with these headphones, how easily I can wear them for a full day, and how nice they sound. These are the basics, and it’s surprising how many feature-packed headphones sacrifice these things for the latest buzzword.

These are great, simple wireless headphones, which for some reason has become difficult to find.

That having been said, there are a few things I’d like to see these headphones do a little better. The battery in full wireless mode gets me just shy of eight hours on my Pixel 2 XL, and almost a full hour less on my Galaxy S8 and iPhone X. That’s not quite “all day” like the marketing promised, but it is very close and considering you can actually charge while using the headphones in wired mode I can overlook that on most days. The same goes for the “noise isolation” promised on the packaging. There’s no tech here like you find with noise cancellation, just clever engineering in the way the headphone cups hug your ears to provide some external dampening. Not a deal-breaker, but a solid suggestion for the next effort.

My only real criticism of these headphones is the microphone. Saying these headphones have a mediocre microphone would be putting it nicely. I rarely had calls go well through the headset because I either sounded distant or garbled because the microphone is placed in an awkward spot away from my mouth and just plain isn’t very good.

There’s little else about these headphones I would change. I like having physical buttons to press instead of a touch interface, I’m glad they don’t light up or flash status lights all over the place, and I enjoy not needing to learn a voice or beep interface to access features. These are great, simple wireless headphones, which for some reason has become difficult to find.

Get in on this, now.

Should you buy it? Absolutely

While a lot of the big names are making $150 gadgets that also play music, Modular made headphones that nail the basics and sound like it deserves its price tag. These aren’t for audiophiles or people who want every feature ever crammed into a set of headphones. These are for everyone else, especially if you like to fill your ears with bass.

Best of all, Mod-1 has launched these headphones as part of an Indiegogo campaign with Early Bird offerings where you can pick them up for $50. These headphones are great at the normal $150 price tag, but for $50 if you’re looking for new headphones you’d be silly to not give these some serious thought.

See at Indiegogo

Honor 8 won’t be updated to Android Oreo

Honor is blaming “hardware and software limitations” for Oreo’s no-show.

The Honor 8 was a truly fantastic mid-range handset when it launched in August of 2016, and following the update to Android Nougat in February of last year, it was made even better. We were crossing our fingers for Oreo to come to the phone in the near future, but those dreams have now been crushed.

Honor’s Twitter account in India recently replied to a user asking about Oreo for the Honor 8, and this was the response:

we can understand your concern. However, we regret to inform you that Honor 8 is not compatible for Android Oreo update due to hardware and software limitations. We always work for our customers and we are really glad to have you as an Honor customer. Inconvenience is regretted.

— Honor India (@HiHonorIndia) January 15, 2018

Honor sites that “hardware and software limitations” are preventing Oreo from arriving on the Honor 8, but that doesn’t seem like a valid argument in my book. The Honor 8 is powered by a more than capable Kirin 950 processor and 4GB of RAM, so I’d be interested in getting more specifics about what sort of “limitations” the company is faced with.

It is mentioned in another tweet that the Honor 8 will continue to receive security patches “when needed”, but even so, I don’t imagine many people will be happy with this news.

Android Oreo

• Android Oreo review!
• Everything new in Android Oreo
• How to get Android Oreo on your Pixel or Nexus
• Oreo will make you love notifications again
• Will my phone get Android Oreo?
• Join the Discussion

AT&T being urged to stop its commercial relationship with Huawei

This would prevent AT&T from working with Huawei on 5G developments.

This past week has been a rough one for Huawei. The company’s plans to launch its Mate 10 Pro flagship phone on AT&T and Verizon were scrapped during CES 2018, and shortly after this, a bill was proposed to prevent all government agencies from using Huawei’s network equipment.

According to a new report from Reuters, lawmakers in the United States are now trying to convince AT&T to cut its commercial ties with Huawei as a result of national security concerns.

This might not sound like a big deal for consumers, but this has the potential for some hefty repercussions. By eliminating its commercial relationship with Huawei, AT&T would no longer be able to work with the company on developing new 5G network technology or sell any Huawei phones on Cricket Wireless (AT&T’s more affordable MVNO).

Following this report, Lu Kang, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said:

We hope that China and the United States can work hard together to maintain the healthy and stable development of trade and business ties. This accords with the joint interests of both.

In addition to targeting Huawei, lawmakers are also pressuring AT&T to stop any potential business plans with China Mobile – a wireless service provider in China that applied (and was rejected) to do business in the United States back in 2011.

New bill aims to block U.S. government agencies from communicating over Huawei or ZTE network equipment