Amazon Echo Dot vs. Echo Dot Kids Edition: Which Should you Buy?

You get a lot for that extra $30.

Here’s the thing about the Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition — it’s an Amazon Echo Dot. The hardware is unchanged. Yeah, it’s got a fun, colorful case around it. (Red, blue or green, since you asked.) But it’s still an Echo Dot. It’s not fuzzy or cute or in any way noticeably different on the outside.

But where things get interesting is on the inside. Or, rather, up in the cloud.

See, the big difference with the Kids Edition of the Echo Dot is that along with the $79 price tag, you get a bunch of kid-friendly extras.

That includes a year of FreeTime Unlimited. That’s Amazon’s little service that gives you access to a world of kid-friendly games, books, radio stations — and now Amazon Alexa skills. After the first year it’s $2.99 a month, so, yeah, it’s a gateway drug.

But the thing is Freetime Unlimited is actually really good for kid-friendly content. Audio books? Check. Games that you don’t have to worry about? Check. Because let’s face it — if you’re giving a kid their own Amazon Echo Dot, you’re not going to be standing next to it every time they summon Alexa.

Don’t want the kid to be able to talk to Alexa all night? (Or all day for that matter?) You’ll be able to control that through the parental dashboard.

Here’s how Amazon puts everything:

Kids will love interacting with Alexa, and Echo Dot Kids Edition features turn Alexa into a kid-friendly study buddy, DJ, comedian, storyteller, and more. The included 1-year FreeTime Unlimited subscription contains a variety of kid-focused skills, along with thousands of songs from ad-free radio stations and playlists from iHeartRadio Family, like Radio Disney, Nick Radio and Kids Hits.

FreeTime Unlimited also gives kids access to over 300 Audible books, including Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan. They’ll enjoy hundreds of hours of fun and educational content, like hearing stories from Disney characters, playing No Way That’s True from Nickelodeon, quizzing their knowledge with National Geographic, waking up to special alarms featuring characters they love, and more.

Again, none of that is bad at all. It’s not a bad use of $30.

But the question you have to ask yourself is how much that extra $30 is really worth to you, then. And that’ll directly relate to how old the kid is. And how much time you expect them to spend interacting with an Echo Dot. And how much of your own parental responsibility you want to place on Alexa instead of doing it yourself.

See at Amazon

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Xiaomi is officially expanding to the United Kingdom

The company’s phones will be on sale at Three UK this year.

Hot off the heels of its $10 billion IPO, it’s been confirmed that Xiaomi will expand its product line to the United Kingdom later this year.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S

Xiaomi’s partnering with Three UK to sell its phones in the country, and this launch in the UK marks the second European market that Xiaomi will be operating in (it began selling its phones in Spain last year).

Commenting on this announcement, Three UK Chief Digital Officer, Tom Malleschitz, said –

We have been watching Xiaomi’s success from afar and impressed with the huge range of connected devices that they currently offer. This partnership provides us with another leading brand in our smartphone range and also opens the door for innovative new connected products that we can provide to Three customers in the future.

It’s unclear which Xiaomi phones will be launching first on Three, but some of the top contenders could include the Mi Mix 2S and Mi 6X.

Malleschitz’s statement also hints that Three will eventually sell more than just smartphones from Xiaomi, and seeing as how the company creates everything from TVs to battery banks to fitness bands and air purifiers, there’s a lot of potential with this new partnership.

With the UK out of the way, how about that U.S. launch, Xiaomi?

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S vs. Samsung Galaxy S9+: Iterated to perfection

Google I/O 2018 preview: All of the big announcements you can expect

Here’s what you can expect to see at Google’s annual developer conference.

For Android and Google enthusiasts, there’s no better time of year than Google I/O. This year’s “festival” starts on May 8 and runs for three days in the sun of Northern California, and will be the stage for Google to make announcements of all sizes about its products, projects and initiatives. We’ll hear about Android, Google Assistant, Chromebooks, Google Play and just about every other big Google product or service.

But I/O isn’t all about the flashy announcements and user-facing products — you could argue that isn’t even a majority of what the conference is for. There’s also all of the developer-focused announcements, talks, workshops and office hours available to let people learn more about how to interface with Google’s technologies. This is, after all, a developer conference.

Whether you’re following along for the consumer or developer announcements, here’s what you can expect from Google I/O 2018 when it kicks off on May 8.

Android P

Google has already dropped the Android P Developer Preview to give us an early look at the next operating system release. But it isn’t until Google I/O that we start to get details on what Google’s vision for these new features and changes is. Across a variety of sessions, we’ll learn about how developers will be able to leverage the new APIs in Android P, including indoor positioning, richer notifications, improved fingerprint authentication, multi-camera support, and yes … display notches. The “What’s new in Android P” session (2 p.m. May 8) will have hundreds of people watching in person and thousands catching the stream online.

Google I/O is also our best opportunity yet to see what Google’s thinking about with the design of Android P. The best we have right now is a cobbled-together testing interface in the Dev Preview, and a couple leaked screenshots — but we’re almost guaranteed to see more up-to-date versions in use across I/O, even in areas where you wouldn’t normally be looking for it. We could also catch glimpses of this purported new “gesture” navigation interface, a better look at the color palette and more changes in store for Google’s own Pixels.

Getting a new version of the Android P Developer Preview, potentially marked as the first “Beta” release, during I/O is completely expected.

Google apps / Google Play

In the Google I/O schedule, “Android & Play” are grouped together — and that makes sense, because without Google Play and all of Google’s great apps, Android isn’t of much use to any of us. The main keynote (10:00 a.m. May 8) typically has a rundown of the big customer-facing updates to all of Google’s big apps like YouTube, Photos, Gmail, Maps and more. Given the importance of Assistant in the last year, we should see an emphasis on AI throughout these big app updates.

Unfortunately Google has this habit of announcing great new features for its flagship apps at I/O … only to release them months later, if at all. We may not actually get to see these updates in action at I/O, and have to wait for updates in the weeks and months after.

We’re unsure about the specifics, but are expecting updates to Google’s strategy around Instant Apps and Progressive Web Apps (PWA). There’s lots of overlap in capabilities here, and Google seems to be more interested in Instant Apps than PWAs — hopefully we can get more clarity on what’s happening here based on Google’s announcements. In either case, it’s all about offering you native app-like experiences without necessarily going through the process of downloading, installing and launching a full app in the traditional sense.

Android TV / Chromecast

Google announced a new Android TV interface alongside Oreo, but unfortunately the rollout has seen all sorts of issues and hasn’t actually made it to devices. That comes from a whole host of issues, but the underlying current of all of this is that Android TV just doesn’t have a feeling of strong direction. We’ll see Google’s plans starting with the “What’s new in Android TV” session (3 p.m. May 8) — and this update may even be large enough to warrant some time at the main keynote.

The Android TV interface may actually get another refresh to focus more on Google’s handful of content strengths (YouTube, Play Movies, key partner apps) and less so on the main interface and navigation — because it’s clear that developers aren’t flocking to Android TV. In short, Google may make Android TV a bit more like a Chromecast. We’ve seen leaks of a new compact HDMI dongle from Google that purportedly runs Android TV, which could be a clue as to the direction for the platform. Rumors have also swirled that Android TV could be in for a rebranding, much like Android Wear just changed to Wear OS, to reflect this move.

As for Chromecast itself, we don’t expect anything new to replace the current Chromecast Ultra — but depending on what happens with this potential Android TV dongle, there could be a shift in pricing of the current Chromecast lineup.

Google Assistant / Google Home

Google showed off about a dozen different Assistant-enabled Smart Displays at CES 2018, and four months later it’s time we heard more about their availability. The only functional units we saw back in January were from Lenovo, and those were prototypes with limited features — at I/O, we should expect to see fully-functional devices with a finished interface that shows off how Google expects users to interact with these screens.

Considering the fact that Google Home, Home Mini and Home Max are all relatively new and don’t need to have their hardware refreshed on a regular basis, don’t expect to hear anything new on those devices. I/O will be all about Smart Displays and the Assistant improvements that are applicable across the entire range.

On the backend, Google’s talking all about what it calls “Actions” — basically the way that you make your app or service available through Google Assistant across every device (i.e. calling an Uber from your Home using voice). There are a whopping 12 sessions about creating Actions for Google Assistant this year, which just shows how important Google feels it is. This isn’t something that will manifest itself in a customer-facing change right away, but will hopefully increase the usability of third-party apps and services in Google Assistant in the year to come.

Chrome / Chromebooks

After Apple took a swing at Google with its recent education-focused event, expect Google to express its dominance in education with Chromebooks. We should get updates on Google’s position in the education market, as well as a slew of updates on how Chromebooks continue to be a great choice for schools and children.

After the announcement of the first Chrome OS tablet, the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, the flood gates for these types of devices should open at I/O. We’ll learn more about changes to Chrome OS aimed at making it more friendly to tablet-like devices, including information on the state of the Android app framework on Chrome OS.

More to that point, don’t expect to see anything about tablets running Android — the emphasis will be on Chrome OS.

VR / AR

On the AR side, we’ll see an update to Google’s ARCore platform — bumping up to version 1.2. It’s expected to offer better surface handling, better correction for light and shadows, and most importantly support for even more phones. That will extend to Google’s “AR Stickers” as well, which should expand to more people soon.

We just saw Oculus unveil its standalone Oculus Go VR headset, and now it’s time for Google to show what it has going on in virtual reality. We should see a refreshed interface for Daydream, available whether you’re using your phone or a standalone headset. And on that second point, we expect Google to focus on Daydream Standalone rather than the “regular” Daydream headsets that require a phone — these Standalone units are cheaper, fully contained and address a wider market than just people who have new high-end phones.

VR is nothing without content, and Google should be showing off a lot — both from VR180 camera projects and with partnerships for educational content.

Security

I/O is the perfect time for the top security people at Google to review 2017’s security goals and what the landscape of Android and Chrome looks like.

The “What’s new in Android security” session (9:30 a.m. May 10) is one of the most popular every year, because we get to hear the nitty-gritty about what Google’s doing to keep our data safe when using Android. Typically that’ll include talk about Google Play’s security measures, what’s worked well in Android Oreo, and what the impact is expected to be from the further security enhancements in Android P. This also typically offers up a few nuggets about the security practices of Android users as a whole, such as how many are using a secure lock screen or apps and services that use encryption.

Rumors are pointing to Google announcing a new system that would certify specific devices to run certain apps, for security reasons, and make those apps unable to run if side-loaded to other devices.

Developer tools

Google’s support for the Kotlin programming language was an applause-worthy announcement at I/O 2017, and we’ll see even more on the language this year. We won’t see a bunch of announcements around Kotlin, but there are several technical sessions focused on helping developers work with this new language now that it’s been available for several months. You’ll notice a distinct lack of discussion about writing in Java — that’s because Kotlin is the new hotness.

Kotlin will be the main language talked about at I/O, but you’ll also hear about Flutter. It’s a lightweight development language designed for quickly creating and launching apps across various platforms while hooking in natively to the platform’s APIs. Flutter will also be discussed in reference to using Material Design across different platforms rather than just Android.

We’ll also hear about updates to Android Studio, as well as the Firebase console and many of Google’s other developer tools. These aren’t sexy changes, but they’re ones that will be repaid in higher-quality apps across the board.

Get ready for the show

Google I/O runs May 8-10, and gets started in earnest with the opening keynote at 10:00 a.m. PT on May 8. The Android Central team will be on the ground in Mountain View to cover it all, so be sure to follow our coverage all week long!

Never get stranded in an emergency with the $54 Anker PowerCore jump starter mini

Charge your phone. Charge your car. Charge both.

The Anker PowerCore 400A 9000mAh Jump Starter mini is down to $53.99 with code ANKERJS2 on Amazon. This jump starter normally sells for $80, and we haven’t seen a deal like this since early March. The code brings it down to one of its lowest prices ever.

The PowerCore combines an emergency jump starter with an emergency battery charger. If your car dies on you, you won’t have to worry about being stranded in the middle of nowhere. You can get up to 15 jump starts from a single charge of this device. Hopefully you won’t need to use them all. If it happens at night, the device has a built-in high-intensity LED lamp. Plus, there are two USB ports for charging your mobile devices in a pinch. It’s small enough to fit in your glove compartment, too. Anker backs it up with an 18-month warranty, and the 29 users who have reviewed it give it 4.6 stars out of 5.

See on Amazon

How to use Game Booster on the Razer Phone

Razer Phone’s Gamebooster settings give you ultimate control over your phone’s specs.

In terms of specs, the Razer Phone is one of the most powerful Android phones you can buy. With a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a massive 4,000mAh battery, Razer basically went overkill on its first smartphone in its attempt to develop an outstanding experience for mobile gaming.

But as we all know, solid hardware doesn’t mean much unless there’s adequate software to take advantage of it all. Razer seemed to follow Samsung’s lead by including Game Booster settings.

While it doesn’t include everything that makes Samsung’s Game Tools so great, such as screen recording options and quick-settings options during gameplay, it does let you significantly tweak your phone’s performance while playing games in ways that you’ve rarely been able to do on a stock Android phone.

Razer Phone specs: Top-end everything

Performance or Battery: What’s your top priority?

The main purpose of Game Booster is to get the most out of your phone — whether that means prioritizing high-end graphics and frame rates or stretching that battery life as far as it will go.

Rather than navigating through separate display and battery menus, Razer’s Game Booster The overview controls let you toggle between Power Save mode and Performance mode, with an option to turn on Do Not Disturb mode whenever you’re playing a game so you’re never distracted by notifications when you’re gaming “in the zone”.

Power Save mode focuses on conserving battery life by scaling back the CPU usage, resolution, and FPS rate so you can game for hours at 720p at 40 FPS when you’re playing casual puzzle games. Performance mode maxes out the settings for an optimal gaming experience when you’re playing a frantic that supports the Razer Phone’s best feature and want everything at 100%.

Customize on an app-by-app basis

But not every game needs Performance mode, which is why you’ll eventually slide over to Custom mode once you’ve compared the difference between Power Save and Performance.

Razer lets you add custom settings for any game on your phone. All the games downloaded to your phone should show up by default, but you can also manually add or remove any app on the list.

Tap each game on the list to go in and tweak the specific settings. There’s a more nuanced slider that goes from extreme power-saving to high performance, but you have options to completely customize the phone’s performance.

Total game changer

Game Booster solves a couple of problems mobile gamers face on a daily basis.

First, it addresses any worry about games draining your battery by letting you conserve resources when you want to kill a few hours without killing your whole battery. I could see it being perfect for gaming on your daily commute or travels.

And then it also makes sure that you can get the absolute best performance when you’re playing top-tier games and want the best experience.

It’s an awesome feature that makes the Razer Phone’s specs that much more valuable for practical purposes. Razer deserves due praise for essentially bringing PC-level performance controls for gaming to an Android device.

Seeing is believing

To get the most out of games like PUBG and Fortnite, you’re going to want your phone firing on all cylindars. When you’re trying to kill time in a waiting room you want your phone to stretch that battery life as far as possible. I think the Game Booster should almost be a core feature baked into the Android OS.

For those who own a Razer Phone, have you used these settings? For those rocking other Androids, would you appreciate this level of control of your phone’s performance? Let us know in the comments!

Samsung partners with Oath to pre-load 4 more apps on Verizon Galaxy S9 and S9+ [update]

Update May 3 2018: A previous version of this story was unclear about the fact that this deal only applies to Verizon phones, not all Galaxy S9s. This has been clarified.

The S9/S9+ on Verizon will now come with Yahoo Newsroom, Sports, Finance, and Go90.

Oath, Verizon Wireless’s digital media subsidiary, is partnering with Samsung to pre-load four of the company’s important apps onto all Galaxy S9 and S9+ phones sold on Verizon.

With this deal, Samsung’s Galaxy S9 series on Verizon will now come pre-installed with Yahoo Newsroom, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Go90 (Verizon’s video streaming service) in addition to the previous suite of Verizon apps and customizations. Along with the apps themselves, Oath content will also be presented to users via Bixby Home.

In addition to placing the content of these apps in more users’ hands, this will also allow Oath to get people where it counts: advertisements. According to Reuters:

The agreement will also allow advertisers to place ‘native ads’, or advertisement that blend in with the content where they appear, within Oath’s apps as well as Samsung’s Galaxy app.

Commenting on this, Oath CEO Tim Armstrong said, “This gets ads one step closer to being direct to consumer. You can’t be more direct than being on the mobile phone home screen and app environment.”

Although this is a big win for Oath, I can’t imagine too many consumers will be pleased to see more bloatware on their $750+ phone.

If you own a Galaxy S9/S9+ on Verizon, how do you feel about this partnership?

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
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• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
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Grab the Ecovacs Deebot M80 Pro robot vacuum cleaner for a low price of $200

Robot vacuums are getting more affordable every day.

The Ecovacs Deebot M80 Pro robot vacuum cleaner is down to $199.99 with a $30 off on-page coupon. All you have to do is make sure you check the box, and you’ll see the $30 discount when you check out. The M80 Pro dropped to around $230 in February, but it was selling as high as $320 before that. It has never gone this low directly.

We rarely see this model go on sale. The one that usually drops in price is the Deebot N79, but it’s currently around the same price as the M80 Pro. The M80 Pro has a much deeper cleaning system (five stages instead of three, for one thing) and comes with more accessories.

This vacuum cleaner can be controlled using the free app or combined with an Alexa device like the Echo, which is also on sale today, to control it with your voice. You can use this control to set cleaning modes, create schedules, receive alerts, and monitor the status. It has five different stages of cleaning including a detachable deep-clean brush roll and mop. The max power suction function can increase power by 36%. The dustbin can hold up to 500 ml and is easy to empty. The robot vacuum comes with plnety of attachments and a one-year warranty.

See on Amazon

Google Pay now available on the web via desktop and iOS

Available in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Since Google Pay started replacing Android Pay last February, we’ve seen steady expansions of the service. Google added transit passes in March, and now it’s expanding to the web on desktop and iOS.

Google Pay was previously available to use on websites via Android, but up until now, couldn’t be accessed on your computer, iPhone, or iPad. Now, however, Google says that Google Pay will work in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox “no matter your device.”

In other words, when you’re shopping on a website that supports Google Pay, you’ll now see “Buy with G Pay” and “G Pay” buttons on your Android phone, iOS device, or whatever laptop or desktop you’re using.

Cards you’ve added to the Google Pay app on your phone will automatically show up on sites that also support the platform, and when used, all your billing, payment, and shipping info will be filled out automatically.

How to set up Google Pay

Alto’s Odyssey for Android: Everything you need to know

Patience is a virtue. Alto’s Odyssey is coming to Android later this year.

As the late-great Tom Petty crooned, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Alto’s Odyssey has been out on iOS since February, and it’s AMAZING. Developed by the same group of folks responsible for the masterpiece that is Alto’s Adventure, Team Alto has taken everything we loved from the first game — the gorgeous graphics, beautiful atmosphere and butter smooth gameplay — and stepped it all up a notch while giving us a brand new story and a beautiful and diverse new environment for us to endlessly explore.

If I sound excited, it’s because Alto’s Adventure is hands-down one of the best free-to-play games ever released for Android. Period.

Seriously, if you’ve never played Alto’s Adventure go download it right now. and then come back.

Ready? OK.

What new in Alto’s Odyssey?

Alto and his pals have traded the snow-capped mountains of the original Adventure for the rolling sand dunes of a mystical desert complete with hot air balloons and other surprises to contend with.

Awesome features such as Zen Mode are included right out of the gate, and there are new tricks available and new ways to interact with the procedurally-generated areas. I mean, the developers drew specific inspiration from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (which explains the emphasis on intuitive controls) and that era in the THPS franchise is celebrated for adding subtle improvements to the gameplay that opened up a new way to link tricks and explore levels.

By all accounts, Alto’s Odyssey is the perfect sequel to an amazing game that, too, took its time coming over to Android in 2016 after becoming a smash hit on iOS in 2015.

How much will it cost?

This is the other really interesting question that we don’t have an answer for yet.

Both Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey were released as paid apps in the iTunes App Store, but when Snowman partnered with Noodlecake Studios to bring Alto’s Adventure to Android, they opted for a free-to-play model that included video ads to revive Alto and in-app purchases for premium upgrades. It was an experiment of sorts that offered a great game for free to Android users with minimal ads — and tens of millions of downloads from the Google Play Store.

Of course, the iOS and Android app markets are unique beasts, and while Team Alto has been hush on a firm release date, they also haven’t said anything about whether Alto’s Odyssey on Android will be free-to-play or require an up-front purchase.

Either way, we’re eager to hit the sandy slopes of Alto’s Odyssey just as soon as it’s available for download.

Are you excited about Alto’s Odyssey?

Let us know in the comments!

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Pocket Casts app acquired by NPR-led radio group, will continue development

App will remain in development, as will NPR’s own app.

Pocket Casts, one of the best cross-platform podcast apps and my personal favorite, has been acquired by a group of public radio-focused companies headlined by NPR. The group, comprised of NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago and This American Life, is acquiring Pocket Casts in pursuit of synergy — after all, this group comprises some of the most popular podcasts available today, with hits such as This American Life, Serial, Radiolab and Planet Money.

The entire Pocket Casts team is joining the new group, and they are adamant that Pocket Casts will continue to operate and be improved. “Together we have the passion, scale and laser focus needed to achieve some truly great things,” reads their blog post on the acquisition. “Nothing about the app is changing. Going forward our aim is to make it better, like we always have, year in, year out.” The app will retain its paid model, and the pricing isn’t going to change. This pretty much sums things up:

Going forward things are going to be different. We’ll be moving faster, we’ll be more ambitious in the things we do and we’ll have some amazing insights from the top podcast producers in the world to help guide our future steps. I mean if you’re not excited by that, then you’re just not hooked up right.

The Pocket Casts app will remain focused on podcasts of all kinds, from every sort of creator around the world, and not simply turn into an app for these public radio shows from the acquiring group. NPR’s existing app, NPR One, will also continue to be maintained. Former iHeartRadio General Manager, Owen Grover, has been named CEO of Pocket Casts.

The stated goal of the acquisition is to make podcasting better for everyone, both creators and listeners, through collaboration — not about selling the app and walking away. Pocket Casts has already garnered huge mind share and is synonymous with podcast listening for so many people — we can only hope that it grows and improves with the backing of this larger group.