How to personalize your Android phone with themes, launchers, and more!

Every Android user has a theme on their phone. They just don’t know it yet.

Even if you don’t know what icon packs or launchers are, if your phone has a home screen on it, it’s got a theme. Android users don’t have to live in their app drawers; they can choose how their phone looks and functions. They can use widgets to interact with apps without opening them. They can use custom icons to theme or obscure the apps on their phone from prying eyes. They can even use gestures and contextual data to help their phone adapt to where they are and what they’re doing.

So, what are Android themes and how can you get started with one?

• What’s in a theme?
• Launchers and how to use them
• Wallpapers: the most basic and pivotal personalization
• Widgets: the forgotten home screen element
• Icon packs: make your apps stand out or blend in
• Sounds: can you hear the smartphones ring?

What’s in a theme?

There are many types of themes within Android, but the kinds we’re going to refer to throughout this article are home screen themes or launcher themes. A theme is the visual styling of your home screen, achieved through the choice and use of launchers, wallpapers, widgets, icon packs, sounds, and other elements.

When many users think of themes, they imagine complex elements and high-maintenance setups. For most of us, though, a theme does not mean changing the way your phone is set up, only how that setup looks.

Even if you’re not interested in making your home screen look pretty, there are some other uses for launcher themes and customization that you may be interested in:

• Hiding apps: Most launchers have the option of hiding an app from the app drawer, but for apps that you want easily accessible but away from prying eyes, many launchers also allow you to rename apps and give them icons less likely to draw the eye. Or make them invisible altogether.
• Transferring themes and setups: Your mother just got a new phone, but she wants everything where it was on her old one. Well, with theme backups, you can make all her Android devices look like her old one.
• Efficiency: The less time you spend fumbling around your app drawer looking for the app you need, the quicker you can get back to doing something with your life besides staring at your phone. Some launchers will re-order your apps based on how frequently you use them, and through the use of your launcher’s folders, you can cut down on the clutter, both in your app drawer and on your home screen.
• Choice: Don’t like the way your app drawer is alphabetized? Don’t like only having a 5×5 grid on your home screen and not being able to resize your widgets? A third-party launcher can let you choose just about everything about your launcher experience.

Launchers and how to use them

All phones come with a launcher, which is the interface through which users interact with their phone’s apps and customize their home screens. Samsung phones come with the “Samsung Experience” launcher, HTC phones come with Sense Home, LG simply calls its launcher the Home launcher, and Pixel phones use the Pixel Launcher, and so on.

Both Samsung Themes and Sense allow custom system themes, with theme galleries for users to select from, themes that reach the notification shade and system apps like Settings and the dialer. Even if you’re looking into getting a third-party launcher, if your phone has these themes, you might want to browse through them.

If you’re ready to jump into the wonderful world of third-party launchers, there’s a lot out there to choose from, but here are three launchers that should help you get your feet wet.

• Nova Launcher is one of the most popular launchers on the market. While being highly customizable, it’s still a launcher that is easy for most beginners to ease into. Nova is also has a free version for you to cut your teeth on before you invest in Nova Prime.
• Evie Launcher is a cunningly simple launcher with quick reaction time and blissful freedom in its features. Capitalizing on recent launcher trends in gestures and layouts, Evie feels cutting edge without feeling like a beta product, giving users a clean and stable launcher that’s quick as a whip.
• Smart Launcher 5 is a launcher that aims to be as smart as it is beautiful, combining some elegant theming prowess with a smartly-sorted categorical app drawer. This launcher is quick to setup, quick to customize, and it’s worth a look if you don’t want to take much time to get your launcher set the way you want it.

If you’re looking for more launchers to try, see our favorite launchers!

Wallpapers: the most basic and pivotal personalization

No matter what launcher you use, you need something to put up behind your widgets and apps. Wallpapers come from all corners of the internet and beyond. If you’re not using a picture of your kids or your dog or that lovely little cabin up in Denver that you’re going to own as soon as you win the lottery, you may want to consider replacing the wallpaper that came on your phone with pictures from one of these sources:

• Muzei: If you’re looking for beautiful wallpapers that will rotate out on a regular basis, Muzei and its many, many extensions are here for you. Muzei is a live wallpaper, meaning it’s a program rather than a single static image. Muzei will pull pictures from one or more gallery sources and set a new one as your wallpaper every few hours, even every few minutes if you want.
• Android Central’s Wallpaper Weekly roundups: We’ve gathered wallpapers for a wide variety of styles and topics for your wallpaper pleasure. From holiday wallpapers to puppies and dragons and landscapes of all kinds, we’ve got at least one wallpaper here you’re bound to love.
• Zedge: Zedge is kind of like the Walmart of wallpapers, ringtones, and other theme elements. Zedge hosts tens of thousands of wallpapers for you to download and apply, from dozens of categories.
• DeviantArt: If you’re looking for some more artistic fare for your wall? Go to the venue tens of millions of artists use to share their art with the world. DeviantArt has it all, from nouveau tableaus to digital renderings to classic paintings.
• Icon Packs: If you intend to use an icon pack, many packs come with wallpapers to compliment the icons they’ve worked so hard on.

Read more: How to find the best wallpapers for Android

Widgets: the forgotten home screen element

Widgets are miniature apps that run on your homescreen. There are several types of widgets, from toggle widgets to control your Hue Lights to forecast widgets for your local weather to playback widgets to control your music. Most of your apps probably came with some sort of widget, and there are third party widgets you can download if you don’t like those.

Widgets can serve as shortcuts into apps, or better yet into specific functions of an app. The Google Keep widget lets me access my most recent notes or start a new one without keeping the icon in my dock. The Netflix widget can take me to the next episode of my current shows. My weather widget can take me to current conditions or one of my forecasts, depending on what I click.

Read more: the best widgets for theming

Make your apps pop — or blend in — with icon packs

Much as we wish it weren’t so, not all icons are created equal. Google has guidelines for app icons, but Samsung and LG do, too, and each developer may have their own ideas about how their icon should or shouldn’t fit with those guidelines. As a result, our app drawers often look like a melting pot of icon styles, even as Adaptive icons try to bring some semblance of order to the chaos. Well, never fear! Icon packs are here to make our apps look uniform again… at least in the launcher.

Now, most launchers that come preloaded on your phone do not allow you to use icon packs from the Google Play Store. Even the themes on HTC and Samsung phones don’t allow you to apply icon packs from the Play Store, only from their proprietary stores. So, if you’re interested in theming your icons without doing it one at a time, you’ll need to seek out a third-party launcher with custom icon support, which most third-party launchers do.

As mentioned before, custom icons can help make your app drawer look uniform, but it can also help apps fly under the radar, as it were. Using a false icon or a blank icon can help turn curiosities into an innocuous calculator or word processor. We’re not here to judge; we’re just here to help.

Check out some of our favorite icon packs

Sounds: can you hear the smartphones ring?

There’s a Broadway adage that goes “Nobody leaves the theater humming the scenery”. No matter how beautiful your theme may be, the portion of your theme that those around you will notice most isn’t something they’ll see on your screen. It’s what they’ll hear from your phone every time you get a call, text, or notification. And while you can get sounds for your theme nearly anywhere, here are a few resources for finding sounds that suit your themes, your personality, and your environment.

• Zedge: Zedge has nearly every ringtone you can imagine and some more that you can’t. They even have that ungodly Samsung Whistle that my mother must have. You can set the sounds directly in the app instead of having to download them and copy them into the proper system folder.
• Reddit: Even if you’re not much of redditor, Reddit is a wonderful place to look for ringtones and other theme elements. There are threads in r/Android every few months, if not every few weeks, where users will swap ringtones and ringtone ideas, and ringtone/wallpaper threads pop up in fandom reddits all the time.
• Audacity: Okay, this isn’t actually an Android app, it’s a desktop program. I’ve made plenty of themes in my day, and I have to say that my best themes’ sounds usually come from me sampling something from a YouTube video or a track in my music library. So if you’re not finding what you want elsewhere, clip it yourself!

And remember: sounds can be magical, nostalgic, or downright annoying. A co-worker had an Eric Cartman notification tone for two months. Every time he got a text, I wanted to throw his phone through the wall.

Be memorable, not maddening.

For adding sounds to your Android device, check out our guide to custom ringtones!

This is only the beginning

Once you get used to your new launcher and some new widgets, we’ll be ready to dive into gesture controls, Kustom widgets, Tasker shortcuts, and much, much more… the world of Android customization is out there, just waiting to be explored. But for now, show us your screen and what you’re using on it! Have a launcher you’ll use forever? Which widget never leaves your home screen? Swear by your icon pack? Share them in the comments! And stay tuned for more Android theming goodness!

Updated April 2018: New year, new themes, new links, and we’ve undertaken some spring cleaning for your reading pleasure.

Android Auto’s wireless mode is now available for Pixel and Nexus phones

More devices should support the feature soon.

Back at Google I/O 2017, Google announced that Android Auto was gaining a new wireless mode that allowed your phone to essentially connect to a Wi-Fi network your car/head unit put out so you could get the Android Auto experience without having to mess with any cables. Pioneer, Kenwood, and JVC announced a few units at CES 2018 that supported this feature, but up until now, it still wasn’t live.

Thankfully, Google’s finally ready to shine the spotlight on Android Auto’s wireless side. As noted by Android Police, a member of the Android Auto team recently announced that this functionality is now available for Pixel and Nexus devices.

You’ll need a Pixel/Pixel XL, Pixel 2/Pixel 2 XL, Nexus 5X, or Nexus 6P and an Android Auto receiver that supports the wireless function in order for it to work, and you’ll have to physically connect your phone to your car at least once to get things synced up for the first time.

In regards to other phones, Google says it’s “actively working with phone manufacturers on adding software compatibility and hope to share more updates soon.”

If you’ve been holding off on Android Auto, will the new wireless mode entice you to finally make the jump?

See at Amazon

Yamaha’s 7.2-channel Bluetooth 4K receiver is down to $320

Time to set up your home theater.

The Yamaha RX-V583BL 7.2-Channel 4K MusicCast AV Receiver is down to $319.99 on Amazon. It sells for around $500, and when it does go on sale it never drops below $430. This is a one-day only deal because it’s part of Amazon’s Gold Box.

This is a 7.2-channel surround sound receiver with Dolby Atmos and DTS: x. It uses MusicCast to connect a multi-room speaker system together with coverage for up to nine additional rooms. The ports include four HDMI inputs, one HDMI output with 4K Ultra HD support, HDR, and HDCP 2.2. It includes wireless support through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay, and more. This receiver has 4 stars from What Hi-Fi?.

Other Yamaha receivers are on sale as well. If you need more HDMI ports and some added functionality, the Yamaha RX-V683 is on sale right now as well.

See on Amazon

Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact review: The new standard for small

Tiny. Mighty.

I love being surprised by tech. After doing this job for nearly 10 years, that’s getting harder and harder to achieve, so when it happens I savor and nourish that feeling.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact surprised me. I’ve admittedly always been a fan of the diminutive form factor and pleased that Sony, a company whose smartphone has struggled over the past few generations, has maintained its cadence along with larger Xperia kin. This time around, the Compact doesn’t match the larger XZ2 in build quality or features, but it excels tremendously in the core competencies of what to expect with a modern Android phone, and stands apart by offering a relatively capacious screen in a body so, so one hand-friendly.

But first, the specifications

The Xperia XZ2 Compact is smaller and more plasticky than its larger counterpart, but internally they’re pretty similar.

There are three significant differences between the larger and smaller of this Xperia generation: the XZ2 is glass and metal whereas the Compact is metal and plastic; that plastic means the Compact lacks the XZ2’s wireless charging; and the smaller chassis of the Compact means there’s no space for the so-called Dynamic Vibration System.

There are other minor differences, like the smaller battery (obviously) and slower cellular connectivity, but by and large, this is the same phone shrunk down to pint-sized proportions. And it’s glorious.

All the small things

When I review a phone like this, which is just like another phone but marketed at a specific niche, I have to ask myself: were it not for this one differentiating feature, would it be a good phone? Thankfully, with the Xperia XZ2 Compact, the answer is decidedly yes. While the frosted plastic back of the phone looks a little downmarket, the Compact feels every bit a flagship. Dense and perfectly weighted throughout, it’s a joy to hold and even nicer to use, especially if you are, like me, someone who prefers swiping across a virtual keyboard.

The Compact feels every bit a flagship, even though the back is made of plastic.

The Xperia XZ2 Compact is the first of the series to cross the 5-inch mark, and that’s done without aggravating the dimensions. While the phone isn’t completely free of bezel, the now-18:9 LCD display is surrounded by the slimmest found to date on a phone bearing Sony’s name (the logo of which is unfortunately emblazoned on the front of the phone — bad Sony!) and while it works on larger phones to make them easier to grip, it works doubly well here.

The phone is both narrow and comparatively tall, but not too tall for the average thumb to easily reach the top. After using the 5-inch Pixel 2 and the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 (which are basically the same physical height), using the Compact is like a dream.

There’s also a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, a hallmark of Sony’s new Ambient Flow design that unabashedly thickens the phone with a rear bulge that pushes the Z-axis to 12.1mm. To be honest, it’s a fair compromise given the extraordinary battery life to be gleaned from the 2870mAh cell, and that fingerprint sensor — this year it actually works in the U.S.

What’s missing is a headphone jack, but Sony sort of makes up for it by offering stereo speakers that sound really good, especially from a phone of this size. That refrain will keep coming up, too: it’s hard to believe Sony fit so much hardware into a device this small.

The right stuff

The Xperia XZ2 Compact shares the same basic hardware as both its larger counterpart and the rest of 2018’s flagships: a Snapdragon 845, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of base storage. Its 5-inch display is an IPS LCD panel, and while it’s not bad, it’s not great, either.

The issue is neither sharpness — the 2160×1080 resolution makes it quite dense, actually — nor viewing angles or color reproduction but refresh rate: the screen ghosts. That means when scrolling quickly through a web page or Twitter feed, you can see a wisp of the previous image fading into the background. It’s not always perceptible, but coming from the high-quality OLED panel of the Galaxy S9, it’s clear this is not a comparatively high-quality display.

Like almost every other Sony flagship over the last few years, this one is rated IP68 water resistant and dustproof; like high-end phones from many other companies, it lacks a headphone jack. At $649, this is certainly the cheapest way to buy a Snapdragon 845-powered phone at the moment, and there are no major compromises to speak of, which I appreciate.

It would have been nice to see a headphone jack in a phone that purports to be a music lover’s dream phone — from LDAC to ClearAudio+ to DSEE HX, there are more than enough hyperbolic acronyms to go around —but at least Sony’s selling this awkward and amusing charging-headphone jack dongle.

Picture this

Every year, Sony says its phone cameras are among the best in the business, and every year they’re… not. This time around, Sony is using the same 19MP MotionEye sensor as the Xperia XZ1 series, along with the same ƒ/2.0 G Lens that we’ve seen in its phones for years, but the photos look great — a lot better than last year’s models.

The camera’s not perfect, but you’re going to be happy with these photos.

Why is that? Because Sony decided to work with Qualcomm to optimize the camera for the Snapdragon’s Spectra image signal processor (ISP). Increasingly, phone makers are utilizing computational photography algorithms — essentially math — to output better photos in all types of challenging lighting conditions.

The gist is that in most situations, the Compact works great and produces wonderfully detailed photos that stand up to any flagship on the market. There is some softness in the corners, but the subject in focus, even in dim conditions is usually in focus with plenty of detail.

The main improvement over previous Xperias that I’ve seen in my time with the Compact is that, perhaps thanks to the upgraded ISP, low-light photos aren’t smeared by overzealous smoothing as a way to cut down on grain. Photos taken in dim conditions ramp up the light sensitivity to compensate for lack of stabilization, but better processing makes the grain barely noticeable.

Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact (left) | Samsung Galaxy S9 (right)

Of course, without optical stabilization or a wider lens, the Xperia XZ2 Compact can’t quite compete with the Galaxy S9 and Huawei P20 for overall low-light fidelity, but given its physical constraints, I’m quite happy with the results. In fact, a few of the low-light photos from the Compact look as good or better than the Galaxy S9 equivalent. The Compact isn’t great at tap metering — the effect of tapping the screen to adjust the exposure level of a scene — but it is not phased by most other situations.

If you’re a videographer, however, you’re probably going to want to think about whether the Compact is for you; it can shoot 4K HDR video, which is great, but the electronic stabilization pales in comparison to the aforementioned competition, and the finicky 960FPS super slow motion doesn’t quite make up for it.

That’s because even though the phone supports 1080p slow motion video (the S9 can only do 720p), the capturing process is entirely manual, which requires quick reflexes and a lot of luck.

Battery for day(s)

It’s quite remarkable that Sony was able to fix a 2870mAh battery cell in a phone this, well, compact, but it’s there and it lasts awhile. In fact, I couldn’t once get the phone to die before the end of the day, which is quite a feat. (The Galaxy S9, for a comparative data point, barely gets me through the afternoon.)

Sony’s always managed to eke as much battery life from its phones as possible, but given the Compact’s size, its longevity is a remarkable achievement.

Simply great

The Xperia XZ2 Compact arrives with Android 8.0 Oreo, and it looks and feels both familiar and outdated. Sony hasn’t given its software an overhaul for a couple of years, though it’s done a fairly sticking with Google’s Material Design guidelines for its launcher and apps. There’s very little about the software that’s opinionated, and that suits me just fine — I tend to install Nova Launcher and move on with my life.

This is Sony’s best small phone ever, and one of its best releases to date.

Admittedly, it’s disappointing not to have a swipe-for-notifications gesture on the fingerprint sensor, and there’s no face unlock option — both of which are becoming increasingly common — but those are minor omissions in an otherwise excellent experience. Similarly, many will scoff at the phone’s lack of a headphone jack, but Bluetooth (and USB-C) audio sounds so good, I find it difficult to care. There’s an adapter in the box, too.

The Good

• Incredible form factor
• Improved design over previous Xperias
• Good build quality
• Quality photos in almost all conditions
• Fingerprint sensor! In the U.S.!

The Bad

• I missed the glass back of its Xperia XZ2 sibling
• Lacks optical stabilization, which affects video more than stills
• No carrier partners, or Verizon/Sprint compatibility
• Screen quality lags behind the similarly-priced competition

At $649, the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact isn’t cheap — it’s the same price as the Pixel 2 and $50 more than the Honor View 10 — but it’s the best small phone you can buy. It’s not necessarily a better phone than, say, the Pixel 2, since the camera doesn’t quite match up and it won’t be updated as quickly, but it stands up quite well.

On the other hand, it’s not available at any U.S. carriers, so you can only buy it unlocked from Best Buy right now, with Amazon jumping on board in a month or so. It also doesn’t work with Verizon or Sprint, so it’s T-Mobile and AT&T and their various partners. (In Canada, the Xperia XZ2 Compact will be sold exclusively through Quebec-based Videotron starting on April 18.) Not a dealbreaker, but something to consider. It’s also unclear whether you’ll get things like VoLTE or VoWifi (though I’d expect not).

If you can stomach those compromises, I can heartily recommend this fantastic pint-sized phone.

See at Best Buy

HBO renews ‘Silicon Valley’ for a sixth season

HBO announced this week that it’s renewing Silicon Valley for a sixth season. Season five, which premiered last month, is the first without TJ Miller, who tweeted his support of the Erlich Bachman-free season earlier this year, saying, “See – told you the show would be better without me on it.” Miller was recently arrested and charged with calling in a fake bomb threat.

We just keep coming back for more. #Season6 #SiliconValleyHBO pic.twitter.com/nn7unqfN9F

— Silicon Valley (@SiliconHBO) April 12, 2018

HBO also renewed the Bill Hader-led comedy series Barry, the first season of which premiered in March. “While Barry has delighted audiences with its deft interplay of comedy and drama, Silicon Valley remains as brilliantly and frighteningly prescient as ever,” Amy Gravitt, executive VP of HBO programming, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled that these two smart, funny shows are returning for another season.”

Via: The Verge

Source: HBO

Facebook users aren’t changing their privacy settings, despite uproar

Since the Cambridge Analytica fallout, there have been demands for change, hearings and even a #DeleteFacebook campaign. But it turns out all of that hasn’t really translated into any meaningful shift in Facebook users’ behavior. The Wall Street Journal reports that over the past few weeks, Facebook users, for the most part, haven’t changed their privacy settings despite the uproar against Facebook. “We have not seen wild changes in behavior with people saying I’m not going to share any data with Facebook anymore,” Carolyn Everson, Facebook VP of global marketing solutions, said to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council this week.

She also said that the company wasn’t anticipating any major revenue effects or changes to its business model. And in regards to ad sales, Everson said the company didn’t foresee stricter privacy laws coming into play that might lead users to opt out of targeted ads and cause a drop in that revenue stream.

Congressional leaders are already working on legislation aimed at boosting consumer privacy protection. Earlier this week two senators introduced the CONSENT Act, which would give the FTC the ability to enforce privacy regulations geared towards online platforms, and following the Mark Zuckerberg hearings, two other senators announced plans to introduce their own set of privacy protection rules. And regulation was brought up quite a bit throughout Zuckerberg’s testimony before the Senate and House committees. During the hearings, the CEO agreed to work with Congress on legislation that would regulate platforms like Facebook.

Via: Wall Street Journal

Gmail’s redesign may use ‘Confidential Mode’ for added security

We’ve been covering the rumors and leaks surrounding the new Gmail redesign that’s coming in the next few weeks, and now The Verge has a new tip. Google is introducing a Confidential Mode, which will allow Gmail senders to prevent recipients from forwarding, copying, downloading or printing certain emails.

Gmail is also adding more features that will appeal to business users. You can set a a passcode to open emails, generated by SMS, and set an expiration date on emails. These are, of course, in addition to the features that have already been leaked, such as snooze, smart replies and the different views of Gmail.

These are certainly interesting new security features. It’s unclear how they will work as of right now. As The Verge notes, Gmail’s restrictions on copying, downloading or printing will probably not prevent someone from taking a screenshot of an email (and certainly won’t stop them from taking a photo), and it’s unclear how any of this will apply to those who use IMAP and POP3 to access Gmail. It will be interesting to see

Source: The Verge

Mercedes eSprinter’s range is meant for deliveries, not road trips

Mercedes’ eSprinter van is designed as a purely commercial vehicle. Need more proof? Once it goes on sale, it’ll have a pair of battery options, but neither will get you further than 93 miles, according to Electrek. While that sounds nightmarish if you’re hoping to take a long jaunt on the highway, delivery vehicles typically spend their time in the city making short trips. Top speed can also be limited to 50 MPH to eke out extra range, otherwise it’s capped at 75 MPH. The van’s 84 kilowatt electric motor produces 300 Newton meters (221.3 lb.-ft) of torque.

Pricing isn’t available, but Mercedes says to expect it to cost more than the $50,000 base price of the gasoline-powered version. The extra cost, according to Mercedes, will be offset by lower operational expenses and tax savings. However, there’s no word on whether or not you’ll be able to get one via a Mercedes-Benz Collection subscription.

Source: Electrek

The best $1,000 projector

By Chris Heinonen

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 spending 130 hours testing four new home theater projectors (in addition to the nine we previously tested), we think the BenQ HT2050 is the best projector for under $1,000. Its best-in-class contrast ratio, bright output, and impressive color accuracy help it compete against projectors costing twice as much.

Who this is for

A projector in this price range won’t look as good as a TV screen during daytime viewing, and it won’t have the 4K and HDR support of the latest batch of TVs in this price range. But if screen size is your top priority and you don’t have a dedicated home theater room, the projectors in this guide are for you.

How we picked and tested

The two most important attributes of a projector are contrast ratio and brightness. Contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest part of the image and the darkest. A high contrast ratio means dark blacks and bright whites. No projector in this price range has a great contrast ratio, but some are certainly better than others.

The brightness, or light output, determines not only how bright the image is (obviously) but also how large an image you can create (image brightness decreases with image size), and thus dictates what type of screen you can use. Brighter projectors also perform better in rooms with lots of ambient light.

After brightness and contrast, color accuracy comes next in importance, followed by (more distantly) resolution and color temperature. In this price range, a 1080p projector with accurate colors on a neutral white screen is the best for most home video uses. You should also look for features that make setup easier, such as a zoom lens with a throw ratio around 1 or lens shift, which makes installation and alignment easier. To read more about how these specs and features can affect a projector’s performance, please see our full guide to $1,000 projectors.

To test projectors, we measured their light output, contrast ratio, color and color temperature accuracy, and more using $10,000 worth of professional-grade test equipment. Because numbers don’t reveal the whole picture, we also placed each projector side-by-side and displayed the same content on identical screens. This made it easy to see differences in color and brightness in a real-world scenario that better simulates how people actually use projectors.

Our pick: BenQ HT2050

Photo: Chris Heinonen

The BenQ HT2050 offers accurate colors, creating an image that’s more realistic and lifelike than that of other models at the same price. It produces a bright picture with great motion detail and a great contrast ratio that’s about double that of similarly priced competitors. Overall, the image is as good as (if not better than) what you can get from many projectors costing hundreds more.

The HT2050’s light output is plenty enough to illuminate a typical home theater screen. It uses an RGB color wheel, which is slightly less bright than the more common Brilliant Color wheel from Texas Instruments, but results in more accurate colors. You can enable Brilliant Color in the Advanced menu if you need extra brightness and are willing to deal with less accurate colors, but the HT2050 is more than bright enough without this feature.

The BenQ HT2050 has two HDMI ports, component inputs, composite inputs, and a standard USB Type-A port capable of powering a streaming stick. Combined with the HT2050’s built-in speaker, this projector gives you the ability to have impromptu outdoor family movie nights using a single extension cord.

Runner-up: Epson Home Cinema 2100

Photo: Chris Heinonen

The Epson Home Cinema 2100 offers slightly lower contrast ratios than our pick, but it’s a brighter model, and thus a better choice if you can’t make your room completely dark. Like our top pick, it has an integrated speaker and a USB port, making it suitable for outdoor movie nights. Although it can’t produce the dark blacks of the BenQ, the Epson’s overall image quality is quite close.

The Epson 2100 uses three LCD panels—which need to be perfectly aligned in order to create a perfectly sharp picture—so it isn’t as sharp as the BenQ, which uses a single DLP panel. Each of the three LCD panels is responsible for one color (red, green, and blue), but due to their small size (about 0.6 inch across), even the smallest fraction of misalignment can produce barely perceptible color fringing on a giant screen. This issue is one inherent to the three-panel design that’s impossible to avoid, but it doesn’t produce the rainbow effect seen in DLP projectors.

A short-throw projector for small spaces: BenQ HT2150ST

Photo: Chris Heinonen

If you don’t have the space for a standard projector, or if you want something you can easily set up and not leave out all the time, you might want a short-throw projector, which needs less space between the lens and the screen. The BenQ HT2150ST can produce a 100-inch image while sitting less than 5 feet away from your wall or screen, which lets it fit into more confined spaces. Our main pick, the BenQ HT2050, has to sit between 100 and 130 inches from your screen to produce a 100-inch image.

This flexibility comes with a trade-off: the image is less clear and the colors are not as vivid, but it still produces a good picture. Unlike our top pick, the 2150ST uses the TI Brilliant Color wheel instead of an RGB wheel. This makes the image brighter, but results in subdued and less accurate colors. That said, the brighter whites can be beneficial if you’re watching in a room without much light control.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg owes lawmakers answers to these questions

By JP Mangalindan and Aarthi Swaminathan

For Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, this week was a trial by fire.

Over the course of two days (April 10-11), senators on the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, as well as representatives from the US House Energy and Commerce Committees, grilled Facebook’s 33-year-old CEO on a number of matters, including the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and its position on government regulation regarding user privacy.

And while Zuckerberg’s testimony was widely viewed as a successful defense of the company he started in 2004 — Facebook’s stock was up 4.5% at market close the first day of hearings — there were many questions Zuckerberg left unanswered. Here’s a breakdown of the questions he could not address.

Things not addressed during the Senate hearing:

• Zuckerberg promised Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) he would get back to him with “all the examples of apps” Facebook has banned as a result of an audit covering “tens of thousands of apps.” “If we find that they’re doing anything improper, we’ll ban them from Facebook, and we will tell everyone affected.”
• Zuckerberg told Grassley he does not have the “exact figure” of how many times Facebook required an audit to “ensure the deletion of improperly transferred data,” but added he would have his team follow-up with him.
• Zuckerberg told Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) his team will get back to her about the “tens of thousands of fake accounts” and whether they could be “specifically” attributed back to Russian intelligence.
• Zuckerberg told Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.) he would get back to her on whether any Facebook employees worked with Cambridge Analytica.
• Zuckerberg told Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) he would get back to him about whether Facebook tracks user activity once a user logs off Facebook. Zuckerberg also promises to circle back with methodology about how it discloses to users this type of tracking.
• Zuckerberg told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) he will have his team circle back with him about some proposed regulations. “We can have this discussion across the different categories where I think that this discussion needs to happen.”
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) asked whether the 87 million users affected by Cambridge Analytica were concentrated in certain states. Zuckerberg said his team will circle back with her office about further details.
• Klobuchar also asked whether Zuckerberg would support a rule requiring Facebook to notify users of a breach within 72 hours? “Senator, that makes sense to me, and I think we should have our team follow up with yours to discuss the details around that more,” Zuckerberg replied.
• Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) asked whether Facebook tracks offline data — data that’s tracking that’s not necessarily linked to Facebook but linked to one — some device they went to Facebook on. Zuckerberg said he’s not sure of the answer to that question, he wants to get it right and he wants his team to follow up afterwards.
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked whether Zuckerberg is aware of any ad or page taken down from Planned Parenthood. “Senator, I’m not,” Zuckerberg said.

• Cruz asked whether Zuckerberg is aware of any ad or page taken down from moveon.org? “I’m not specifically aware of those…,” Zuckerberg says.
• Cruz asked whether Zuckerberg is aware of any ad or page taken down from any Democratic candidate running for office? “I’m not specifically aware,” Zuckerberg concedes. “I mean, I’m not sure.”
• Cruz asked whether any of the 15,000-20,000 people engaged in content review have ever financially supported a Republican candidate for office. “Senator, I do not know that,” said Zuckerberg.
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) asked whether researcher Aleksandr Kogan has a Facebook account still. “Senator, I believe the answer is ‘no,’ but I can follow up with you afterwards.”
• Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) asked whether Zuckerberg would support a privacy bill of rights for kids where opt-in is standard? “Senator, I look forward to having my team follow up to have my team flesh out the details of it.”
• Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked whether Facebook plans on cooperating with President Trump’s extreme vetting initiative to target people for deportation or other ICE enforcement? “Senator, I don’t know that we’ve had specific conversations around that,” said Zuckerberg (He later said Facebook would not proactively do that).
• Hirono asked Zuckerberg whether ICE can even do what they’re talking about? “Senator, I’m not familiar enough with what they’re doing to offer an informed opinion on that.”
• Sen. Dean Heller (D-Nevada) asked how many Nevada residents were among the 87 million people who received notifications that were affected by the Cambridge Analytica breach. “Senator, I don’t have this broken out by state right now, but I can have my team follow up with you to get you more information.”
• Heller asked how long Facebook keeps users’ data after they’ve deleted their profile for good. “I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head,” Zuckerberg replied.” I know we try to delete it as quickly as is reasonable. We have a lot of complex systems, and it takes a while to work through all that. But I think we try to move as quickly as possible, and I can follow up and have my team follow up.”
• Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook is developing a set of principles that will guide development of its artificial intelligence systems. “Yes, Senator, and I can make sure that our team follows up and gets you information on that.”
• Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) asked whether Zuckerberg whether anyone in Facebook leadership had a conversation not to inform Facebook users affected by Cambridge Analytica breach. “I’m not sure whether there was a conversation about that,” Zuckerberg commented.” But I can tell you the thought process of the company, which was that in 2015, when we heard about this, we banned the developer and we demanded that they delete all of the data and stop using it, and same with Cambridge Analytica.” Harris asked whether Zuckerberg knew when the decision was made not to inform Cambridge Analytica users. “I don’t,” Zuckerberg said.

• Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) asked Zuckerberg to identify which other firms also received the same user data Cambridge Analytica received from Kogan. “Yes, there’s one called Eunoia, and there may have been a couple of others as well. And I can follow up with [your team]…,” said Zuckerberg.
• Baldwin asked for additional information on how Facebook can be “confident” that it has excluded non-U.S. entities from using targeted ads similar to the Russian-bought ads from the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Replied Zuckerberg: “We’ll follow up on that.”
• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked Zuckerberg whether he has any idea how many of Facebook’s 2.13 billion monthly users actually read the company’s terms of service, privacy policy and statement or rights and responsibilities. “Senator, I do not,” Zuckerberg said.
• Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) asked how long deleted user data may persist in backup copies. “Senator, I don’t know, sitting here, what our current systems are on that,” Zuckerberg said. “But the intent is to get all the content out of the system as quickly as possible.”
• Gardner follows-up and asked whether user data can sit in “backup copies.” “Senator, I think that is probably right. I’m not sitting here today having full knowledge of the state of the systems around wiping all of the data out of backups. So I can follow up with you on that afterwards.”
• Gardner asked another follow-up: “Has there ever been a failure of that [wiping backup data]?” Replied Zuckerberg: “I don’t know, but if we tell people that we’re going to delete their data, then we need to do that.”

Things not addressed during the US House hearing:

• Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) asked about fake pages, but ran out of time.
• Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) asked whether Facebook will make the commitment to change all the user default settings to minimize the collection and use of users’ data. Zuckerberg said the issue is complex, and requires more than a one-word answer. Pallonne said he will follow up on this question.
• Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) asked about a former state representative who was running for state senate, who had posted a “rather positive announcement” which had been rejected because it didn’t follow Facebook’s advertising policies (based on the response). Upton also asked why that happened, when there was no threat involved. Zuckerberg said: “Congressman, I’m not sure either. I’m not familiar with that specific case. It’s quite possible that we made a mistake, and we’ll follow up afterward to — on that.”
• Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) asked if Zuckerberg was willing to change Facebook’s business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy. Zuckerberg said he was not sure what that means and Eshoo said she would follow up.
• Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) asked about when Facebook users in the United States will get the same rights as those covered by Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that users will have the right to object to the processing of their personal data for marketing purposes, which include custom micro-target audiences for advertising, and how that will be implemented. Zuckerberg replied that he wasn’t sure of how they were going to implement that yet and would follow up.
• Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) asked about Facebook’s data mining and how it goes on for security purposes. So my question would be, is that data that is mined for security purposes also used to sell as part of the business model? Zuckerberg replied that Facebook collects “different data for those,” and would follow up.
• Scalise also asked how people who made the mistake of censoring Diamond and Silk will be held accountable. Zuckerberg said the situation had developed while he was not there, so he would follow up on that.
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) asked apart from Eunoia Technologies, how many companies were there in total that Kogan sold data to, and what were their names, as well as the magnitude. Zuckerberg said he would follow up with that information, after they complete the audits.
• Schakowsky also asked how Facebook tried to get those firms to delete user data and its derivatives, and whether they were deleted. Zuckerberg replied that they needed to complete the investigation and audit before he could confirm that.
• Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington) asked what Facebook was doing to ensure that its users were being treated fairly and objectively by content reviewers — bringing up Federal Communications Commission’s Ajit Pai’s allegations that edge providers routinely block or discriminate against content they don’t like. Zuckerberg replied that he would be happy to follow up and go into more detail on that.
• Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D, NC) asked how Facebook and the tech industry will be increasing African-American inclusion at all levels within, and whether he will convene a meeting of CEOs to ‘quickly develop a strategy to increase racial diversity in the technology industry.’ Zuckerberg replied that it was a good idea and they should follow up on it.
• Butterfield also asked if Facebook planned to add an African American to their leadership team in the foreseeable future, and whether they will continue to work with the Congressional Black Caucus to increase diversity within the company. He also asked for the numbers on retention of employees, disaggregated by race, starting this year. Zuckerberg said they will try to include a lot of important information in the diversity updates, and that he will discuss this with his team after he gets back.
• Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) asked Facebook to review the BROWSER legislation and for his support for that legislation. Zuckerberg said he would review and get back to him.
• Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) asked if Facebook notified the Trump and Clinton campaigns of Russian attempts to hack in to those campaigns and requests a response in writing to that question.
• Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) asked if there were any other information that Facebook has obtained about him and whether Facebook collected it or obtained it from a third party that would not be included in the download. Zuckerberg replied that all his information would be included in your “download your information.” Rep. Mcnerney said he would follow up afterwards.

• Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) asked if Facebook would work with the committee to put in place privacy regulation that prioritizes consumer’s right to privacy in the U.S., just as the European Union has done. Zuckerberg replied that he would make sure they work with them to flesh this out.
• Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) asked if Facebook was giving Russian intelligence service agencies access to global data that was not in Russia. Zuckerberg replied that he had no specific knowledge of any data that Facebook has ever given to Russia. He added that they would work with law enforcement in different countries and get back to what that might mean with Russia specifically. Zuckerberg ended saying that he had no knowledge of any time that they had given them information.
• Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-New Mexico) asked about a recent Facebook search feature that allows malicious actors to scrape data on virtually all of Facebook’s 2 billion users. He highlighted that in 2013, Brandon Copley, the CEO of Giftnix, demonstrated that this feature could easily be used to gather information at scale. Zuckerberg replied that he was not specifically familiar with that case, and the feature, which was implemented a couple weeks prior was a search feature that allowed people to look up some information that people had publicly shared on their profiles.
• Lujan also asked how many data points Facebook had on each Facebook user on average. Zuckerberg said he would have his team get back to him afterwards. Lujan asked whether Facebook had disclosed to the committee or to anyone all the information Facebook has uncovered about Russian interference on the platform. Zuckerberg said he was working with the right authorities on that.
• Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Virgina) asked about Facebook’s plans with rural broadband. Zuckerberg said he would follow up on this.
• Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Florida) asked when Facebook will build the tools to identify harmful content like opioid ads. Zuckerberg said that it would be a longer term thing to build that solution, and in the meantime, content reviewers would take them down if flagged. Bilirakis pushed him on a timeline for this, but the Congressman’s allotted time for questioning ran out.
• Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) asked if she could get a timeline of how Facebook planned to review ads and big pages. Zuckerberg replied that they would be in place for these elections.
• Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) asked what happened to the content reviewer that took down the Franciscan University ad and did not put it back up until the media started getting involved. Zuckerberg replied that he was not specifically aware of that case, but would get back to him on it.
• Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa) asked when will changes promised this time be proven to be completed, and how that would happen. Zuckerberg replied that after their investigation, if they find anyone that misused their data, they would tell people.
• Rep. Billy Long (R-Missouri) asked about why Diamond and Silk’s content was flagged as unsafe. Zuckerberg replied that nothing was unsafe about it but he wasn’t sure of the specifics of the situation.
• Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) asked if Zuckerberg thought Facebook and other technology platforms should be ideologically neutral. Zuckerberg replied that they should be a platform for all ideas. Flores asked what data will be used, how it will be processed, where and how it will be stored, what algorithms will be applied to it, who will have access to it, if it will be sold and to whom it might be sold. He ran out of time.
• Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) asked about GDPR and what Zuckerberg thought the Europeans got right, and what they got wrong. Zuckerberg replied that GDPR in general was going to be a very positive step for the internet, and it codifies a lot of the things in there, things that Facebook had done for a long time, such as privacy controls that they have offered around the world for years. As for what they got wrong, Zuckerberg said he would follow up on that.
• Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) asked if Facebook was aware of the national security concerns that would come from allowing those who harm the U.S. to access information such as the geographical location of members of the U.S.’s Armed Services, and whether they were looking at it. Zuckerberg replied that he was not specifically aware of the threat, but in general, there were a number of “national security and election integrity-type issues” that they focus on. He added that with more input from the intelligence community, Facebook could more effectively do that work.
• Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) asked how many Facebook ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons there are on non-Facebook web pages. Zuckerberg said he would get back to her. Dingell also asked “how many chunks of Facebook pixel code are there on a non-Facebook webpage.” Zuckerberg replied that he would follow up.
• Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia) asked if Zuckerberg was going to meet the Federal Drug Administration Commissioner next week at the Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, alongside other CEOs of internet companies, to discuss this problem. Zuckerberg replied he will make sure someone is there.

Yahoo Finance will be following up with each lawmaker to find out if and when Facebook provides answers. Check back here regularly for updates.

Source: Yahoo Finance