The best dehumidifier
By Kevin Purdy
This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.
After 40 hours of research and weeks of real-world testing in century-old stone basements, we think the Frigidaire FFAD7033R1 is the best dehumidifier for most people. It’s effective at drying air, it maintains an optimal level of humidity, and it’s easier to operate than any other model we tested.
Who needs a dehumidifier
Dehumidifiers are most useful to anyone who cannot make permanent improvements to a problematically damp space in a house (generally a basement) that’s exposed to the elements outside of the envelope of the HVAC system. In your indoor living spaces, the home’s heat and air conditioning should keep the humidity down, but less extreme weather in fall and spring can be challenging. At those times, you can use a dehumidifier in a central closet (with a louvered, shuttered door) to lower a home’s overall humidity, but doing so could substantially raise your energy bills.
How we picked and tested
Clockwise from top left: Keystone KSTAD50B, Honeywell DH70W, GE ADEL50LR, Frigidaire FFAD7033R1. Photo: Kevin Purdy
For this guide, we focused on condenser dehumidifiers. These models work much like air conditioners, using a compressor and coolant to chill metal fins, and a fan to draw humid air over those fins. Compared with desiccant-based or thermoelectric dehumidifiers, condensers remove more humidity and are better suited to the climate of a typical home.
We looked for models that maintain a humidity level around 50 percent and had a capacity of 50 or 70 pints. Capacity, for a dehumidifier, describes how much moisture it can pull out of the air each day under optimal conditions. We generally recommend the larger model for most spaces. We also looked for dehumidifiers with a continuous-drain option, which is simply a connection for a garden hose to allow collected water to bypass the reservoir and go straight down a preexisting drain.
To find the best dehumidifiers, we started by combing through editorial reviews from publications like Consumer Reports (subscription required) and Good Housekeeping, as well as customer reviews from Amazon and other store sites. We ultimately called in four dehumidifiers to test, and ran each of them for at least a week. We measured how noisy they were at different settings. We also noted any differentiating features, such as the ease of emptying the reservoir or keeping a gravity-draining hose running, the controls and interface, the reservoir size, the energy usage, the presence of easily understood alerts for a full reservoir or a dirty filter, the appearance, and the warranty.
To learn more about our test procedures, please see our full guide to dehumidifiers.
Our pick: Frigidaire FFAD7033R1
Photo: Kevin Purdy
The Frigidaire FFAD7033R1 is the best all-around package we found in a home dehumidifier. It brought a basement measuring 850 square feet from 70 percent humidity down to 45 percent humidity after one overnight session on its medium fan setting; on its low setting, it steadily held the air between 50 and 55 percent humidity. Experts consider this range to be ideal for indoor humidity—more on why in our full guide to dehumidifiers—but all our picks share that ability.
The thing that set the Frigidaire apart was its interface, which was the easiest to understand and use among all the dehumidifiers we tried. It shows only the controls and settings we think most people care about, with no extra fluff. The Frigidaire was the quietest machine we tested, too, with the most manageable reservoir, and it was easy to move around thanks to its sturdy handle, cord holders, and wheels. It’s also easier to find in stock, with more reliable customer support, than models from some of the lesser-known brands.
The continuous-drain hose on our Frigidaire test unit was a bit sensitive: Unless we aimed it downhill all the way to the floor drain (as in, not laying it flat on the floor at any point), the unit would default back to filling its reservoir and then shut off when the container got full. The problem was easy enough to address by adjusting the hose, but we had no problems hose-draining the other units.
Runner-up: GE ADEL70LR
The GE ADEW70LW (formerly the GE ADEL70LR) is a close runner-up to the Frigidaire. In our tests of the ADEL70LR, we found it was just as effective at dehumidification as the Frigidaire. However, it’s a little louder than the Frigidaire at its lowest fan speed, and slightly quieter on high fan speeds but with more coil noise and vibration. The reservoir bucket has a handle, but removing it and then aligning it during reinstallation require a bit more work. You’ll find no cord holders, and it’s less apparent from a glance that the bucket is full (although you’ll probably notice that because the machine won’t be running).
The biggest knock on the GE model we tested is its interface, which in our experience had a seemingly weaker LED number display. We also thought the blue lettering on a shiny gray background was difficult to read in low light; the white-on-black lettering of the ADEW70LW should be easier to read. One point in the GE model’s favor, however, is its continuous hose drainage, which set up easily and did not fail, even with a coiled hose running into a sink.
Although we haven’t tested the ADEW70LW ourselves yet, its efficacy, noise level, and operation all appear to be in line with those of its predecessor, the ADEL70LR.
A pump option: GE APER70LW
If you can’t continuously drain your dehumidifier via a hose, we recommend a dehumidifier with a built-in pump. In this case, the GE APER70LW (formerly the APEL70LT) is our pick. Internally, it’s identical to its no-pump sibling, the ADEL70LR, our previous runner-up pick. When we tested the APEL70LT, it was a bit louder than the ADEL70LR while the pump was operating, but the mechanism comes on only intermittently (as the reservoir fills), and pumping is far more convenient than emptying the reservoir manually. Dehumidifier makers don’t specify exactly how far such units can pump water, but reviewers report no problems getting water up to sinks or out basement windows.
This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.
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Apple employees keep walking into their new HQ’s glass walls
Apple opened its new campus last year — a stunning, glass wall-filled space meant to encourage collaboration and cooperation. But Bloomberg reports today that this achievement in design appears to have sacrificed some functionality — a growing theme in Apple products — because, apparently, Apple employees keep walking into the glass. Sources told Bloomberg that some individuals started sticking Post-It notes to the glass doors and walls in order to make them more noticeable, but they were ultimately taken down because they distracted from the space’s design.
Apple’s design choices have come under fire quite a few times in recent years. Plenty of people were vocally disappointed in the MacBook’s lack of ports while the iPhone X’s notch has attracted a bit of ridicule. People are still mad about the removal of the headphone jack, and though I think my Apple mouse looks pretty sleek on my desk, it’s a big pain that i have to switch it out when the battery gets low because it has to be flipped on its back to charge.
As for how many Apple employees have run into the building’s glass panels, that’s not really clear. But regardless, we want to point out to Apple that the FDA just approved a blood test this week that can gauge the severity of head trauma. The company may want to keep a few of those around.
Source: Bloomberg
Intel currently facing 32 class-action lawsuits for Spectre and Meltdown
Yesterday, Intel expanded its bug bounty program to catch more issues like the extensive Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws, but that was too little, too late for some chip owners. We knew three class-action lawsuits were filed in early January days after the vulnerabilities were publicized, but according to an SEC filing, the total has grown to 30 multi-party suits by customers and two securities suits. Most argue that Intel violated securities laws when it assured its products were safe to use, which the Meltdown and Spectre flaws revealed to be untrue.
The customer suits are seeking “monetary damages and equitable relief,” though they’re in such early stages that none have specified exact amounts. On top of that, the SEC filing revealed that the company faces two class-action suits from shareholders claiming Intel officials have failed to respond to alleged insider trading, likely referring to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s questionably-timed stock sale late last year.
The Meltdown and Spectre flaws were present in CPUs dating back to 1995. Per SEC filing, a Google security team informed Intel about chip vulnerabilities that would later be called Meltdown and Spectre in June 2017. News about the flaws emerged in early January, and Intel rushed out patches, some so crude that the company urged customers not to install them and wait for the next ones. Even as Intel continues to trickle out updates to its different chip lines, researchers keep finding new ways to exploit the vulnerabilities — luckily, they can be patched out, but they would likely be present in the Meltdown-and-Spectre-proof chips Intel claims it’s working on .
Via: The Verge
Source: Intel SEC filing
A machine literally shocks you into taking ‘good’ photos
Machines are getting excellent at recognizing images, and they’re even pretty good at rating them. So, why do you even need humans to take the photos in the first place? Designer and artist Peter Buczkowski took that question in a dark, amusing direction with a project called Prosthetic Photographer. He created an AI device that can recognize a well-composed scene and then force the photographer to press the shutter via a mild electrical shock to their hand.
Engadget chatted with Buczkowski to find out what inspired a project that’s macabre, but speaks to excessive Instagramming, AI and other controverisal areas of tech. First off, it’s a real, fully functional device that can attach to any mirrorless or DSLR camera. Its AI was trained on the much-used CUHKPQ data set, which contains 17,000 internet photos rated by humans. The box has a built-in camera that can detect when you’ve composed a scene to its standards, then fire a jolt of electricity into your hand, forcing your trigger finger to move and take the photo.
“My initial idea was to use electric shocks.” said Buczkowski. “I really liked the idea that the human becomes the interface in this scenario, because it’s possible to control muscles and nerves with these SENS [subcutaneous electric nerve stimulation] units.”
Rules of thirds? Check. Contrasty? Check? Boring? Check. (Peter Buczkowski)
With this system, it’s the AI that finds Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment,” not the humans — we meat puppets merely transport the AI and camera to photogenic spots. So why do you even need the human, then? “My starting point was to create a new type of computer and action camera device, and the human was always part of that,” said Buczkowski. “But in this case, we’re switching it around, because the device is using the human.”
So with the machine as taste-maker, what are the results? “Mediocre,” is the word that Buczowski heard most often. “People have said that the photos are not creative, that they look like pictures of a database, that algorithms don’t make great art,” he said.
Humans can achieve equal levels of tedium on their own, though. Other projects (like this video) address the idea that the we pursue popularity on social media by just copying everyone else. “This is how we condition ourselves on Instagram; we see pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge that get a lot of likes, so we post a picture for the one-millionth time of the same thing,” Buczowski noted.
At the same time, machines do develop their own “aesthetic,” just as artists do, and pass that on to the human users through the shock training. “I really like that my specific trained algorithms create its own aesthetic, and it depends on what data set and what neural network you use,” he said. “Something similar is possible with this device, you can train people to establish a certain aesthetic.”
Interestingly, when Buczkowski created Prosthetic Photographer, he wasn’t thinking about the instant gratification of social networks. Rather, he was just pursuing new ways that machines can train humans or interact with them, while questioning our place in that process. “It has so many applications, I see it maybe as an Instagram filter, it goes through your whole library and the pictures that are likeable,” he said. “It can be maybe a training device, or a conditioning device, for beginning photographers.”
And while we teach machines how we see the world, maybe the device is a great way to flip the equation. “I saw it when I was running around taking pictures with this device, that, yeah it kind of conditioned me,” he said. “I’m seeing the world how the device sees it.”
Source: Peter Buczkowski
WWDC 2018 Dates Possibly June 4-8 at San Jose Convention Center
Apple has yet to announce dates for the 2018 edition of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, but there’s evidence to suggest the event may take place between Monday, June 4 and Friday, June 8 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, the same venue where WWDC 2017 was hosted.
First, we’ve heard from a reliable source who says WWDC will in fact return to the McEnery Convention Center for the second consecutive year, after having been hosted at the Moscone Center in San Francisco between 2003 and 2016.
Next, we’ve discovered that the McEnery Convention Center is already booked with other events during the second, third, and fourth weeks of this June, leaving the first full week of the month as the only available window for WWDC 2018, barring the rare possibility that Apple shares the space with other events simultaneously.
– June 4-8: WWDC 2018 (?)
– June 11-14: O’Reilly Velocity Conference
– June 17-21: DataWorks Summit and Hadoop Summit
– June 26-28: Sensors Expo & Conference
WWDC has been a June affair since the 2000s, and it generally falls within the first half of the month, so June 4-9 is a very real possibility. We haven’t confirmed the dates with Apple, however, so it might be a good idea to wait for the company to officially announce WWDC 2018 details before booking accommodations.
Apple revealed the dates for WWDC 2017 with a press release exactly one year ago today, which was a lot earlier than usual, likely because of the change in venue. Last year excluded, the announcement has generally been in April.
WWDC is where Apple unveils the latest versions of its software platforms, which should include iOS 12, macOS 10.14, and new versions of tvOS and watchOS this year. The opening keynote has sometimes included other big hardware and services announcements, such as iCloud in 2011, the first MacBook Pro with a Retina display in 2012, the current Mac Pro in 2013, and new iPad Pros in 2017.
WWDC 2017 hosted around 5,000 developers and 1,000 engineers. Given the San Jose Convention Center’s closer proximity to Apple’s headquarters in nearby Cupertino, more Apple engineers are able to attend since they don’t need to take an entire day or week off of work to commute to San Francisco.
Tickets will likely cost around $1,599 and be distributed randomly through a lottery. Those interested in attending should make sure they are enrolled in the Apple Developer Program prior to Apple’s official WWDC 2018 announcement to ensure eligibility, as this has been a requirement in years past.
Apple simply doesn’t have enough room for everyone to attend WWDC, but it will likely provide a live stream of the opening keynote and share videos of developer sessions on its WWDC website, and through the WWDC app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. MacRumors will also provide coverage of the event.
In addition to WWDC, a variety of other developer events should take place throughout the same week in San Jose, such as AltConf and Layers.
Tag: WWDC 2018
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HTC U11 Plus review: what the Pixel 2 XL could’ve been
What does it take to make a good phone great? The Android landscape is littered with the corpses of good phones nobody bought, and HTC has made more than its fair share of them. The HTC U11 Plus, originally destined to be the Google Pixel 2 XL, is a giant leap forward for the company. But is it truly great, or just another good HTC phone? Let’s find out; this is the HTC U11 Plus review.
About this review: I’ve been using the European version of the HTC U11 Plus for two weeks in Berlin, Germany on the Blau network, running software version 1.24.401.2 with the December 1 security patch. All images from the U11 Plus in the gallery below were taken on auto mode with auto HDR enabled. They have been resized for the web but are otherwise unedited.
Buy it from Amazon
Design
Having just come from using the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, the HTC U11 Plus feels like a kindred spirit. Picked up in a dark room, about the only way you’d tell them apart is the U11 Plus’s slightly taller profile, and thicker and heavier feel in hand.
The U11 Plus is the most contemporary-looking phone HTC has made in years.
That’s not to say the U11 Plus has a larger battery than the Mate 10 Pro; it’s actually slightly smaller. It doesn’t have a larger display either; both measure six inches on the diagonal with an 18:9 aspect ratio. This situation is kind of emblematic for HTC: even when it crafts a beautiful phone, someone else manages to do it slightly better.
Comparisons aside, the HTC U11 Plus feels very much like a 2017 phone. It’s big, hefty, very well machined, and glorious to look at. It finally adds smaller bezels to the HTC design language of the U11, even if it doesn’t go quite as far as some of its competitors. Regardless, this is the most contemporary-looking phone HTC has made in years.
The U11 Plus omits the headphone jack but maintains HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition stereo speakers.
The U11 Plus omits the headphone jack but maintains HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition stereo speakers. It includes an IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating and offers microSD expansion if you’re not using the second nano-SIM card slot.
A USB 3.1 Type-C port on the bottom can be used for faster charging and data transfer, as well as with the bundled USB Type-C headphones in the box which we’ll return to a little later. Flipping it over, the highly reflective backing of the ceramic black U11 Plus is a beautiful testament to how disgusting our hands are. The fingerprint scanner is now centered beneath the single camera lens on the back due to the move to smaller bezels up front. As expected, it’s fast and reliable.
Unfortunately, the U11 Plus slides around on a table mercilessly, so you’ll need to keep an eye on it if you don’t want to find it on the floor all the time. This happened so often during my time with it that I began corralling it on the table with my wallet, a book, keys, or any other immovable objects at hand. The same shimmying effect happens whether you place it face up or face down, so be warned. Needless to say, it’s also a bit on the slippery side.
Unless you’re into microbial culture farming, you’ll find yourself cleaning the U11 Plus a lot. The ceramic black version I reviewed got just as gross as practically every other glass-backed phone I’ve used lately. Grabbing a case for it might be wise, especially if the slipperiness, fingerprintiness, or fragility of the whole glass sandwich thing has you nervous. HTC has kindly included a clear plastic case in the box so it’s a no-brainer.
The U11 Plus doesn’t quite match the screen-to-body ratio of other modern smartphone designs, but for HTC it’s a nice step forward.
Fortunately, the metal frame of the phone has a little added texture to it, at least marginally improving grip. The power button also offers a ridged texture, making it easier to identify through feel alone. The buttons are very well fitted and sturdy to press. HTC has always made very well-built phones, and the U11 Plus is no exception.
An HTC phone that finally minimizes bezel size is pretty exciting. The U11 Plus doesn’t quite match the screen-to-body ratio of other modern smartphone designs, but for HTC it’s a nice step forward. Looking at the HTC U11 Plus on a retail shelf very much puts it in the same league as the V30s, Note 8s, Pixel 2 XLs or Mate 10 Pros of this world. So far so good.
Display
Unlike Samsung and LG’s offerings, the HTC U11 Plus doesn’t have rounded display corners, though it has adopted the tall and narrow 18:9 aspect ratio increasingly becoming the new high-end standard. It features a 6-inch QHD+ SuperLCD6 panel with 2,880 x 1,440 resolution. Gorilla Glass 5 covers both sides of the phone so it’s just as slippery on the front as on the back, if you happen to place your phone face-down like some kind of barbarian.
While the specs sheet I was originally given by HTC says SuperLCD5 and AIDA64 on the unit I’m using backs that up, HTC now adamantly refers to it as SuperLCD6, both on its website and in an email to me. Last minute branding changes notwithstanding, what matters is not what HTC calls it, but just how good it is.
Unfortunately, the U11 Plus panel doesn’t get anywhere near bright enough to be fully legible in bright sunlight.
Unfortunately, the panel didn’t get anywhere near bright enough to be fully legible in bright sunlight. It’s one of the most unbearably dim displays I’ve seen in years. You’ll manage just fine inside, but if you live anywhere where the sun comes out, you’re going to have issues. There’s some anecdotal evidence that not all displays are this dim, so you might be luckier than I was.
Viewing angles are nice and stable, although you naturally lose luminosity as you go off-center. Many hoped the HDR10 update would bump the maximum brightness up to provide the dynamic range HDR content needs, but it didn’t affect display brightness at all. HDR content still isn’t showing in YouTube or Netflix either, so I can only assume there are still licensing deals to be worked on there. Needless to say, don’t buy this phone for HDR10 content or for outdoor visibility right now.
Editor’s Pick
Should you buy a phone for HDR?
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is the latest buzzword in the smartphone displays arms race, promising enhanced colors, superior contrast, and an overall better viewing experience than Standard Dynamic Range equivalents. An increasing number of video …
The display was a little too cool out of the box for my taste, but HTC provides a color profile picker in the display settings so you can switch between the default DCI-P3 color space or sRGB. No matter which color profile you pick, there’s a slider for making things warmer or cooler to suit your personal preferences. This is the kind of feature all companies should provide out of the box.
There’s an always-on display that HTC calls Smart Display, which luckily doesn’t suck battery like you might expect on an LCD screen. There’s night mode and a whole host of screen-off gesture controls including old favorites like double tap to wake and sleep, swipe up to unlock (or go straight to your PIN or pattern screen), and a double swipe camera shortcut. Three-finger gestures can also be enabled for apps that support them.
The QHD+ resolution of the HTC display is plenty sharp enough at 537 ppi. Colors pop nicely and blacks get plenty black enough for me despite the U11 Plus not sporting an OLED display. The main issue is just display brightness. HTC tells me max brightness could be boosted via a software update down the road, but stopped short saying one is actually coming. In most circumstances the U11 Plus display is great, but there’s a very big “but” there you need to be willing to accept.
Camera
Like most other areas of the HTC U11 Plus, the camera provides excellent (if decidedly “no frills”) performance. Straight up: the HTC U11 Plus camera is excellent. It’s not quite at Pixel level but it’s not all that far off. It can’t crush noise in low light quite like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and it doesn’t handle as wide a spectrum of photographic situations as well as the Pixel 2, but it’s still really, really good.
The HTC U11 Plus camera provides excellent, if decidedly no frills, performance.
There is no dual camera, no post-focusing, no portrait mode or other depth effects, and no motion photos or AR effects. The HTC U11 Plus camera just nails the basics. If you need those other photographic enhancements to be satisfied, HTC isn’t going in for any of it. The company’s been burned in the past, having offered dual cameras, post-focusing, and more in the past to no avail.
If you’re just looking for a basic camera app — one that looks and feels like it could have been released a few years ago — you’ll be perfectly happy with the U11 Plus. The camera app lags a little in low light environments, likely due to HDR Boost, but the results speak for themselves. You’ll quickly adapt to the slight delay when you see what the feature can do with dynamic range and shadows in high contrast environments. Shutter speed generally is nice and quick though.
OIS on the main 12.2 MP “UltraPixel 3” sensor — the Sony IMX362 Exmor RS — means low light photos come out remarkably well. Steady hands are not a prerequisite for clear shots. The main camera’s f/1.7 aperture produces nice and realistic bokeh, unmarred by the unconvincing and unreliable software blur most phone makers are going in for these days. The U11 Plus uses dual pixel PDAF, so locking onto targets is nice and fast.
A full manual mode is available for those that want more control and there’s support for RAW and 32-second-long exposures. But the U11 Plus handles most situations perfectly well in auto mode. There’s an exposure compensation slider with AE/AF lock for when you need it and HDR is an on-screen toggle, so you can have it on, off, or on auto.
The U11 Plus captures video with Hi-Res and 3D spatial audio recording via the four on-board microphones. You can shoot 4K video at 30 fps, 1080p at 30 or 60 fps, and Full HD slow-motion video at 120 fps.
There’s no less than three different methods to quickly launch the camera.
You can launch the camera in a variety of different ways too: by assigning the camera as the Edge Sense squeeze shortcut, double-pressing the power button, or swiping down twice on the display when it’s off, although this last one needs to be enabled in the settings first.
No matter where you are in the UI — whether the phone is on or off, or even if you’re wearing gloves — you can get a photo with the U11 Plus. A wrist-twist gesture in the camera app will also switch between main and front-facing cameras.
The 8 MP front-facing camera has an f/2.0 aperture but no OIS, so you’ll need slightly steadier hands for crispy selfies or low light portraits. It has a pretty basic “makeup” mode and generally produces softer results than the primary camera. It’s capable of shooting 1080p video if you’re down with Snapchat or Instagram Stories, but there are many other more capable front-facing cameras on the market.
Looking at the image gallery below, you can instantly see how well the HTC U11 Plus handles colors. From bright artificial colors to the sky, the U11 Plus knocks it out of the park. In bright light it produces photos as good as any high end camera and even in dark environments it performs better than most.
In night-time shots and dimly lit interiors noise can creep in, especially around the edges, and highlights are slightly blown out in some darker shots. In tricky high contrast shots, including several where I was shooting into the early morning or setting sun, the HTC U11 Plus performs incredibly well. It consistently pulled a ton of dynamic range out of challenging scenes even if the resulting images tended to be a little lifeless. Because the shots are so detailed though, chucking them into an app like Snapseed will get them looking punchier in no time.
The U11 Plus, like the Pixel 2 before it, is a real testament to what can be done with a single lens.
Color reproduction is generally very good, except in very poorly lit environments. I did, however, experience a few occasions where the U11 Plus would produce a weird cast to a scene. This can be seen in the graffiti image where it kept turning the green background blue. Detail is generally very rich even in difficult lighting conditions and the f/1.7 aperture lens creates gorgeous, natural-looking bokeh. The U11 Plus, like the Pixel 2 before it, is a real testament to what can be done with a single lens.
Software
6 GB of RAM, HTC Sense UI, Android Oreo… the U11 Plus is lightning quick.
Unlike marketing, software has always been one of HTC’s strengths. For as long as I can remember, HTC phones have been the only ones besides Nexus devices widely lauded for their speedy software experience. The U11 Plus is no different.
With 6 GB of RAM, this phone was always going to be fast. But when all that RAM is handling Sense UI, it’s lightning quick. The HTC U11 Plus runs Android Oreo out of the box, although the unit I’m reviewing is still stuck on December’s security patch, despite February’s now being available. Naturally, all the Oreo features you’d expect are on board too.
The software experience is stock-like, much like versions of HTC Sense you may already be familiar with. For that reason I won’t harp on for long about the UI, and just mention a few standout features.
A couple of intuitive home screen gestures make life easier for both small handed folks and those uncomfortable with the kinds of hand gymnastics required to use a big phone one handed. Swipe up anywhere on the home screen to open the app drawer and swipe down from anywhere to pull down the notifications shade. The phrase “pull down” here should probably be replaced by “materialize” though, as there’s no animation I can see — the shade just appears. It can also be summoned by a dedicated notifications button you can add to the navigation bar.
Besides customizing the main nav bar, a whole secondary navigation bar exists to the right of the standard back-home-recents buttons. You can add any of the additional buttons to the main nav bar, or leave them in the second one, up to a total of five.
HTC has added gesture controls, a new Edge Launcher and a customizable second navigation bar.
A new pie-wheel shortcut menu called the Edge Launcher makes accessing your favorite apps, contacts and quick settings even easier. It’s kind of a circular version of Samsung’s Edge panels, in a form people might actually use. There’s space for 11 shortcuts per “panel” with two enabled by default, but you can have as many as five panels for a total of 55 shortcuts. The Edge Launcher also displays a calendar at the top of the screen, and the wheel’s position can be moved to better suit your thumb positioning.
The Edge Launcher can also be set as your Edge Sense shortcut, rather than the camera or voice assistant, and can be accessed directly from a screen-off state (speaking of voice assistants, you’ve got the choice between HTC Sense Companion, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa). You can also use Edge Sense to create custom in-app shortcuts, and while it works OK, it’s far too fiddly to set up. Using it feels like a brain training exercise. I really like the intuitiveness of Edge Sense, especially for taking photos or launching Assistant.
Blinkfeed exists on the left-hand side of the home screen, in place of the Google feed, but it can be removed. Blinkfeed provides shortcuts to a curated list of content from the various services you add to it, like news sites, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, or even your calendar. It’s still just as take-it-or-leave-it as it was the last time I tried to give it a shot, but it’s there if you like it.
It’s slightly annoying that the only way to get back to the home screen from Blinkfeed is by pressing the home button at the very top of the app. That means if you’re scrolling down the feed and tap home, it’ll just take you back to the top of Blinkfeed… where you’ll have to tap home again to get to the home screen. What’s worse is that the return-to-top feature is really slow, like a scroll in reverse, and double tapping the home button doesn’t expedite the process.
Sense UI is the Android skin for people who hate Android skins.
Besides Blinkfeed, Sense Home provides themes and advertising opportunities for HTC’s partners. Fortunately it can be disabled if you don’t want those notifications popping up. The Quick Settings area and the settings menu are both familiarly laid out and clean. Overall, Sense UI is the Android skin for people who hate Android skins.
Specs
| Display | 6.0-inch Super LCD6 2,880 x 1,440 resolution (QHD+) 536 ppi, HDR10, 18:9 aspect ratio Corning Gorilla Glass 5 |
| Processor | Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 128 GB UFS 2.1 |
| MicroSD | Yes, up to 2 TB |
| Cameras | Main camera: 12.2 MP UltraPixel 3 BSI sensor with f/1.7 aperture OIS, EIS Slow-motion video (1080p at 120fps) 4K video recording Front camera: 8 MP |
| Battery | 3,930 mAh Non-removable Power saving mode Extreme power saving mode Quick Charge 3 USB PD |
| Sensors | Edge Sensor Ambient light sensor Proximity sensor Motion G-sensor Compass sensor Gyro sensor Magnetic sensor Fingerprint sensor Sensor Hub for activity tracking |
| Connectivity | USB Type-C (3.1) Bluetooth 5.0 Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz) NFC HTC Connect Streaming media from the phone to compatible AirPlay, Chromecast, DLNA, and Miracast devices GPS + AGPS, GLONASS |
| Network | 2G/2.5G GSM/GPRS/EDGE – 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G UMTS 4G LTE |
| SIM | Dual Nano-SIM |
| Sound | HTC USonic with Active Noise Cancellation HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition 3D audio recording with 4 microphones Hi-Res audio certified USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter with integrated DAC Supports aptX HD, LDAC 24-bit codecs |
| IP rating | IP68 |
| Software | Android 8.0 Oreo with HTC Sense HTC Edge Sense HTC Sense Companion Google Assistant Amazon Alexa |
| Dimensions and weight | 158.5 x 74.9 x 8.5 mm 188 g |
Performance
Minimizing animations and throwing extra RAM at an already bare-bones UI makes the U11 Plus feel really fast, but what about benchmark apps? What story do they tell about the U11 Plus in relation to other flagship devices? (Note: We don’t put much stock in benchmark apps for indicating real-world performance, but we all like us some comparable numbers)
The HTC U11 Plus is powered by the 10 nm 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 835 (MSM8998) with four high performance cores clocked at 2.45 GHz, four energy efficient cores clocked at 1.9 GHz, and the Adreno 540 GPU.
The version I’m reviewing is the 128 GB variant with 6 GB of RAM, the only one coming to Europe, although there’s also a 64 GB/4 GB version in other markets. That memory is UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X respectively. There’s also microSD expansion via the second nano SIM card slot.
I haven’t seen a UI as fluid as this since unboxing the Pixel 2.
In benchmarks apps, the HTC U11 Plus performs very compellingly. In a battery of tests I ran against the LG V30 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Pixel 2, the U11 Plus consistently ranked well, coming in second in more than half of the tests and even winning a couple.
Real-world performance is equally impressive, with no issues in gaming tests for problems like overheating or dropped frames. Under heavy strain the U11 Plus even cools down significantly faster than a similarly built device like the Mate 10 Pro. Launching apps and games is always fast and general UI navigation is smooth and responsive. I haven’t seen a UI as fluid as this since unboxing the Pixel 2.
Audio
Audio is another area where HTC has typically out-performed its rivals. While HTC used to dominate the game with stereo front-facing speakers, times have changed. The company moved to BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition on the HTC 10, where the stereo front-facing speakers were replaced by a bottom-firing main speaker in tandem with the earpiece speaker.
Personally, I don’t like Hi-Fi Edition as much as good ol’ BoomSound, but HTC continues to provide superior audio quality. The company tells me the speakers on the U11 Plus are 30 percent louder than the U11, and I don’t doubt them. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the phone’s speakers are the best around; I’ve heard very good things about the Razer Phone speakers, although I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing them for myself. The HTC U11 Plus’ speakers are far better than most, providing a more palatable music experience than many cheap Bluetooth speakers. Not bad for smartphone audio.
The HTC U11 Plus’ speakers are far better than most, providing a more palatable music experience than many cheap Bluetooth speakers.
The sound from the bottom-firing woofer is naturally bassier and fuller, while the earpiece speaker serves as a tweeter. The woofer also sounds significantly louder even though HTC assured me the U11 Plus’ speaker design is “primarily front channeled.”
In combination they’re very good, and really loud, but the bottom-firing speaker is all too easy to cover with your palm or finger while gaming, throwing that balancing act out of whack, and varying the audio quality and volume. For all the benefits Hi-Fi Edition might provide, the inconsistency alone makes me pine for the BoomSound of old.
In-call sound quality is great, whether on cellular networks or VoIP/VoLTE. The impressive speaker volume is also nice to have up your sleeve in noisy environments. On that note, the U11 Plus supports a multitude of 2G, 3G, and 4G networks, with 2CA, 3CA , and 4CA carrier aggregation and 4×4 MIMO (it works on some AT&T and T-Mobile bands in the U.S.). There’s also support for Cat. 16 LTE, so you shouldn’t have any trouble streaming music or video.
Editor’s Pick
How Oreo is better than Nougat: Audio
Android 8.0 Oreo brings with it a host of new features, improvements, and overhauls to the core Android feature set. Personally, I thought that the introduction of more Bluetooth audio options was one of the more interesting …
Android Oreo provides support for longer-range or higher-throughput wireless connections courtesy of Bluetooth 5. Oreo also supports Bluetooth codecs like Qualcomm’s AptX HD and Sony’s LDAC for 24-bit audio.
The lack of a 3.5 mm headphone jack will be a dealbreaker for some, but HTC has thrown in a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm adapter with a built-in DAC for your regular, cabled cans.
There’s also a pair of USB Type-C USonic Active Noise Cancelling earbuds in the box for good measure. The U11 Plus settings let you insert the buds and map your ear canal to tune the earbuds to your specific hearing profile. BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition also applies to the headphone experience, with Hi-Res Audio certification, and BoomSound has two audio profiles: music and theater.
Battery
The 3,930 mAh battery in the HTC U11 Plus is 30 percent larger than what’s in the U11.
The 3,930 mAh battery in the HTC U11 Plus is 30 percent larger than what’s in the U11. It supports Google’s USB Power Delivery standard and Quick Charge 3 via the included charging brick. There is unfortunately no wireless charging on the U11 Plus despite that glass back.
Using the 5V 2.5A/9V 1.7A/12V 1.25A HTC charger, you can get from zero to 100 percent capacity in less than two hours, and I typically hit seven or more hours of screen-on time with screen brightness set to 50 percent (except for when the default Battery Saver kicked in at 15 percent). Battery Saver consistently helped drag out at least another two hours from a battery that had already powered along for around five hours of screen-on time.
If you keep the screen set at 100 percent brightness or turn off Battery Saver that number will drop to a couple of hours less. How a possible future update that changes max brightness will affect battery life is anyone’s guess. Even with regularly maxing out screen brightness when outdoors, the U11 Plus will still get you through a solid day and a half of mixed usage, which is perfectly acceptable.
Gallery
Pricing and final thoughts
At 699 pounds or 799 euros, the HTC U11 Plus isn’t cheap, but it’s also nowhere near as expensive as the 939 euro-Pixel 2 XL or 899 euro-Galaxy S8 Plus, both of which have half as much storage and less RAM. There’s no denying those phones justify their hefty price tags in manifold ways, but the question is: does the HTC U11 Plus justify its price tag? To that question, the answer is a definitive yes.
The HTC U11 Plus has a fresh design, even if it’s not as advanced as some competitors. It offers a mostly great screen, even if it’s not as bright as others. It packs a very good camera, even if it falls slightly short of the best of the best.
The U11 Plus also offers a near-unparalleled software experience (outside the Pixel line). It also offers among the best smartphone audio on any phone anywhere. It packs more than enough power, storage, and battery life to keep even the most demanding user happy. The HTC U11 Plus is, in short, a breath of fresh air for HTC fans who have felt a little let down in recent years.
The HTC U11 Plus is, in short, a breath of fresh air for HTC fans. If you can buy one, that is.
If you like HTC phones, the U11 Plus is the phone for you. If you’re open to any and all devices then you’ve got a tough choice to make. Can you live without a headphone jack? Do you want a secondary camera? Can you even buy this phone in your market? For the money, the U11 Plus is an excellent buy, and I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.
But HTC’s lack of plans to release this phone in the U.S. demonstrates that even when it manages to produce a phone that goes from good to great, HTC is still HTC. There is amazing competition on all sides of the U11 Plus, from the $549 OnePlus 5T to the equivalently-priced Mate 10 Pro and the Pixel 2 at a couple hundred dollars more.
Has HTC brought enough to challenge any or all of those alternatives? Absolutely. Will it matter? Not if you can’t buy it.
Buy it from Amazon
Keen to stay with her belongings, a woman climbed into an X-ray machine
Pear TV
Security personnel operating X-ray machines at airports and other transport hubs have a hugely responsible job and need high levels of concentration as they carefully analyze the contents of each item passing through.
And while most will see nothing particularly outstanding during a typical shift, there will be times when an object causes the operator to sit up and take notice. An object like … well … a human.
This is what appeared to happen at Dongguan Railway Station in southern China last weekend. As bags and other items passed through the X-ray machine, the operator suddenly noticed the unmistakeable shape of a person on the monitor, the BBC reported.
The woman at the center of the incident had first placed her suitcase on the conveyor belt before walking through the scanner carrying her handbag. Security insisted she put her handbag on the conveyor belt, too, but apparently, keen to keep hold of it, she hopped onto the belt and disappeared into the machine. Clutching her bag.
Looking like something out of a sci-fi movie, the woman can be seen in the X-ray image as she trundles along on the conveyor belt.
China’s state-run People’s Daily news outlet obtained a security video taken at the machine. It appears to show the moment a security officer told the woman put her handbag on the belt, and then cuts to footage of her emerging from the machine. The security officer can be seen laughing as she comes out.
The odd incident occurred during the Lunar New Year travel rush last weekend.
It’s not clear if she was carrying something special inside her handbag, or if she was simply curious about what the inside of an X-ray machine looks like, though admittedly this seems unlikely. There’s also a chance that she mistook the instructions of the security officer, though again, it’s hard to tell.
Some reports have suggested she may have had a large amount of cash inside the bag and so didn’t want to be separated from it even for a brief moment. Many Chinese who work far from their home cities are known to take some of their earnings back with them on holiday visits.
Now, you yourself surely don’t need telling, but since the story went viral, staff at Dongguan train station have reportedly been advising passengers that it’s really not a good idea to take a ride on an X-ray machine as the radiation it emits is unlikely to do you any good.
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How to activate the floating dock on the Honor 7X
Put your navigation buttons wherever you please.
The Honor 7X is a great budget phone with a lot going for it. Its cameras are surprisingly good, performance is speedy, and its display is excellent for the money. But at 5.93 inches, that display is large and sometimes difficult to manage. Like other large phones, reaching the top of the display requires shifting the Honor 7X around in your hand a bit, which in turn can make it hard to reach the navigation keys at the bottom.
Luckily, one of the perks of the phone’s EMUI software is the option for a floating dock that holds your navigation buttons. Being able to place these controls anywhere can make the Honor 7X significantly easier to use, and it only takes a few steps to enable.
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How to activate the floating dock
The floating dock is just as easy to enable as it is to use — a few taps through the Settings will have you up and running in no time.
Open the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap Smart assistance.
Tap Floating dock.
Tap the switch to enable the floating dock.
That’s it! You can long press the floating dock icon to move it anywhere on the screen — it’ll attach to the closest edge of the display. Tapping it presents you with five options; back, home, recent apps, locking the display, and the Clean Up feature from EMUI’s Phone Manager app. While the navigation bar holds most of the same functions, the floating dock can be easier to reach at times, depending on how you’re holding the phone.
5 tips and tricks for getting the most out of EMUI
Do you use the floating dock? Are you considering enabling it? Sound off in the comments below!
If you’re in the U.S., will you continue to buy Huawei phones?
Stick it to the man.
Earlier this week, heads of the FBI, NSA, and CIA in the United States announced that they do not condone any U.S. citizen purchasing a phone made by Huawei. The United States has expressed a disinterest in Huawei many times in the past, and we saw this have a serious impact on the company as pressure from the U.S. government thwarted plans for Huawei’s Mate 10 Pro to launch on AT&T and Verizon Wireless later this year.
Huawei Mate 10 Pro
The head of the FBI claims that there’s concern allowing a company like Huawei to “gain positions of power inside our telecommunications network” due to the U.S. and China not sharing the same values.
This backlash against Huawei has caused a stir with many consumers, and commenting on this matter, this is what some of our forum users had to say.
worldspy99
02-14-2018 05:24 PM“
Yeah, this really put a damper on things. I don’t know if I want to try out the Mate 10 Pro and/or the 7X anymore.
Reply
JZ VR
02-15-2018 12:53 AM“
Getting the P20/P11 when it comes out, the US has presented zero solid evidence so far and lengthy investigations on Huawei+ZTE a few years ago turned up nothing. Funny how these brands could be trusted in Canada, Europe, and Japan but not the US? All these bans/sanctions/words of caution without presenting anything speak very poorly for the US.
Reply
Laura Knotek
02-14-2018 05:46 PM“
I had been cautious and avoided Huawei and ZTE in the past due to my own personal concerns. I’m glad I never got those brands.
Reply
dov1978
02-15-2018 07:35 AM“
It’s only a problem for the USA apparently. The rest of our governments and carriers are more than happy to let us buy and use Huawei phones. I’ll be switching from the Note 8 to the Mate 10 Pro any day now and don’t intend to take any notice of the scare stories. Loved my P10 and I’m sure I’ll be even happier with the Mate
Reply
With that said, we’d now like to pass a question on to you — Will you continue to buy Huawei phones despite all the backlash from the U.S. government?
Join the conversation in the forums!
Huawei Mate 10
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro review
- Huawei Mate 10 series specs
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro U.S. review: Close to greatness
- Join the discussion in the forums
- More on 2016’s Mate 9
Samsung Galaxy S8 review, 10 months later: The go-to flagship holds up well
10 months of use have treated the GS8 well … mostly.
It’s been 10 months since we published our full review of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. In that time, several other great phones have launched into the world, and we’ve compared the Galaxy S8 to all of them. As I write this, we’re less than two weeks away from the Galaxy S9 being unveiled — and yet, the Galaxy S8 is still in the conversation. Samsung’s brand is so strong that average people are looking at buying the Galaxy S8 from carrier stores even today — and Samsung hasn’t exactly placed big discounts on this phone to reflect its age.
But for those who read Android Central, we know the Galaxy S8 is relatively old news. So as we get ready to see what’s next, it’s time to look back on several months of using a Galaxy S8 — to see what’s held up in light of new phones and extra time using it, but also what frustrations have stuck around and formed over time using the GS8.
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The good
Samsung Galaxy S8 What I still love
As is so often the case with modern high-end phones, there’s far more that I like than have complaints about. The Galaxy S8’s fundamentals still hold up phenomenally well as it approaches its first birthday. It starts with the size and hardware, which is refreshing in a world where phones are still, with a few exceptions, very large. The standard Galaxy S8 is easily manageable in one hand even though it has a super-tall 18.5:9 aspect ratio display. It’s impressively thin and light, and never feels like a chore to hold and manipulate. I haven’t even had issues with the curved sides on the screen, which I think is a result of the phone being small enough that I’m rarely reaching to tap anything.
The Galaxy S8 is refreshingly small, light and easy to handle. And the hardware is beautiful.
Concerns about its fragility aside (I’ll get to those later), this is still a gorgeous phone design. The smooth curves and perfect integration of the metal and glass are still fantastic, even though it has come to be a bit more pedestrian as you see these out in the wild every single day. Particularly in this black color I’ve been using, this is just a classy looking device with excellent proportions and no big distractions.
After taking a break from the Galaxy S8 to use various other phones, one thing I appreciated upon my return to Samsung’s flagship is that it gets all of the basics right in the hardware. 64GB of internal storage has been plenty, and I’ve tossed a microSD card in there as a backup storage option when I need it. It was a cheer-worthy moment to have a 3.5mm headphone jack again. Using wireless charging around the house — and especially at night next to the bed — was entirely natural to come back to.
Samsung’s displays still haven’t been outdone. Even this ‘old’ panel looks great.
And then there’s the display itself. Yes it’s been outclassed by Samsung’s own Galaxy Note 8 in terms of brightness and colors, but the Galaxy S8 is still damn good nearly a year on. It’s bright enough to handle direct sunlight, but also gets dim enough to not be harsh on your eyes late at night when you’re trying to relax. Colors are punchy, and there are no issues with off-axis viewing as you shift the phone around. Samsung’s displays have been good for so long I think we forget just how far ahead the company is with OLED — but using other phones throughout 2017 showed how even an “old” Samsung phone is still offering one of the best mobile displays out there.
The last part of the positive column is the camera experience. Right off the bat I can say the Pixel 2 has clearly jumped the Galaxy S8 in overall camera quality — from stills to HDR to panoramas to video recording. But that doesn’t mean the Galaxy S8 is bad — it’s still a great camera capable of some really good shots. I still enjoy the punchy colors it produces, and HDR still gets the job done. Samsung’s camera app is easy to use, and I love little tweaks like using the shutter button as a zoom slider and holding the video recording button for a preview before capturing.
The Galaxy S8 just doesn’t match the Pixel 2 in every aspect, like when it comes to sharpness on edges and color balance in very difficult scenes. Late-night photos just aren’t as good on the Galaxy S8 either. But these differences honestly only reveal themselves when doing side-by-side tests with the Pixel 2. Right out of the camera on their own, I like what the Galaxy S8 can do and am rarely disappointed.
Now, the ball is back in Samsung’s court to improve with the Galaxy S9. If the company doesn’t up its game like Pixel 2 and other challengers like the Huawei Mate 10 Pro have, it will fall even further behind.
The … bad
Samsung Galaxy S8 What I don’t like
If you read my editorials here on Android Central or follow me on Twitter, you could probably see this coming from a mile away: my least favorite part of using the Galaxy S8 is the software and performance.
Why can’t the Galaxy S8 just stay quick like the other phones on my desk?
Roughly three months into using my Galaxy S8 it became unbearably slow and only a factory reset would fix it. Curiously (not really), I had the exact same issue three months into my Galaxy Note 8 use. The second time around my GS8 has lasted longer before the performance faded, thankfully, but I still have hiccups and issues that I just don’t expect out of a high-end phone. I’m not to the point of wanting to go through a factory reset, but it’s still frustrating — why can’t the phone just stay quick like the others on my desk?
Along the same lines, coming back to the Galaxy S8 after some time with the Pixel 2 has reminded me how poor battery life is on the GS8 (the GS8+, by most accounts, is good with longevity). Doing nothing particularly intense, with less than 3 hours of “screen on” time, my average day will get me down into 15% battery territory before I’m even thinking about turning in for the night. Throw in any type of music streaming, hotspotting or Android Auto use throughout the day, and I’ll most likely need a charger after dinner. A year on, this is the weakest point of the whole “performance” experience for me.
People can get used to anything, but the software still feels needlessly complex in many areas.
Outside of any performance concerns, I still feel like I have to fight the software far too often. People can get used to anything, and over 10 months (and years of using Samsung phones) I know my way around. But there are many tweaks, settings, pop-ups, quirks and hidden features to get acquainted with on this phone. Sure that means that more people will find that one thing they want, but it comes at the cost of every Galaxy S8 owner carrying the baggage of extra features that they don’t want.
Add in the duplicate apps that can’t be uninstalled, and it’s just a small layer of frustration between me and the apps and services that I want to use. Having to update some apps through Google Play and others through Galaxy Apps, or having weird photo quirks when using Google Photos as your gallery app of choice, is just grating.
Also, Bixby. I have turned off Bixby Home and disabled the Bixby button. I don’t foresee coming back to using it. Part of that is just not wanting to talk to my phone at all — I rarely use Google Assistant either — but most of it is that every time I tried to use Bixby it wasn’t as useful as Assistant. Then there’s the issue of constantly pushing the Bixby button on accident and activating it when I didn’t want to. It’s just bad, okay?
Let’s wrap it up with a couple hardware things to note. The glass on the back of my Galaxy S8 has been pretty consistently marred by regular use. The entire bottom edge of the glass where it meets the metal is extremely scuffed, and the top edge isn’t much better. There are a few deep marks higher up that you can easily feel. I’ve never dropped this phone or treated it roughly, and a vast majority of these scratches have formed just in the first couple months of use — because after that point, I’ve gone to a super-thin case to protect it. The glass sure is beautiful and it lets Samsung keep this phone light and also include wireless charging, but it sure doesn’t age gracefully without a case.
Also, you may have heard I’m not a fan of Samsung’s fingerprint sensor placement. It’s not good, and it’s still tough to consistently reach. Samsung agrees, and seems to have remedied this by moving the sensor below the camera(s) on the Galaxy S9. Woohoo!
Retrospective review
Samsung Galaxy S8 10 months later
With Samsung’s position as the “go-to flagship” for anyone who isn’t buying an iPhone, the Galaxy S8 had the goal to be more things to more people than any other phone out there. Samsung filled it with high-end specs, tons of features and lots of software to try and appeal to a wide swath of potential customers. And for the most part, those pieces all held together after 10 months of use.
Samsung did well, and the Galaxy S9 has a strong foundation to build on here.
Looking through the lens of an early-2018 phone buyer, the Galaxy S8’s hardware is still really good. It’s beautiful and easy to handle, the specs are more than capable for modern-day tasks, the screen is still great, all of the hardware features are appealing, and the camera is good even though it has been surpassed since it launched.
The battery life hasn’t held up over time in light of what phones like the Pixel 2 can do with even less capacity. The glass on the back scratches with prolonged use, just as you’d expect. The fingerprint sensor never got any easier to use. The software isn’t the best and can slow down over time, which is perhaps the least forgivable downside of the Galaxy S8. But those are relatively small marks on what has been a solid phone for me and tens of millions of other people over the past 10 months. Samsung did well, and the Galaxy S9 has a strong foundation to build on here.
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Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
- Galaxy S8 and S8+ review!
- Galaxy S8 and S8+ specs
- Everything you need to know about the Galaxy S8’s cameras
- Get to know Samsung Bixby
- Join our Galaxy S8 forums
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