OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5: Should you upgrade?

Is it time to continue with the one-year upgrade cycle?

OnePlus has a rapid release cycle for its phones, iterating roughly every six months to get the latest specs and features in your hands if you’re willing to pay the price. But if you’re locked in on a once-yearly refresh, then you’ve likely held onto your OnePlus 5 — and now, just shy of a year on, the OnePlus 6 is here to entice you once again.

Holding off from getting a OnePlus 5T, the OnePlus 6 is your opportunity to move to a new form factor with a larger display and rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, plus refreshed specs and new configuration options. But considering that the OnePlus 5 is still a fine phone today and there’s so much shared in the new phone, is it worth the upgrade? We’re here to help you make that decision.

See at OnePlus

What’s the same

OnePlus has been fantastically consistent with the features and experience it offers in its phones from generation to generation. A year on from the OnePlus 5, not a whole lot has changed at the core of the OnePlus 6. You’ll find the same complement of buttons in the usual places, the great Alert Slider, and a normal set of ports on the bottom including a headphone jack. The USB-C port supports Dash Charge at the same charging rate as before, and the battery inside is even the same 3300mAh capacity. You’ll find the same base 6GB of RAM with an option for 8GB, and the same base 64GB of storage with optional 128GB — but the OnePlus 6 has a new 256GB tier as well.

The experience of using these phones doesn’t differ much, particularly in the software and performance.

The OnePlus consistency carries over particularly well in the software, where OxygenOS has very few differences on the new phone that weren’t already brought to the OnePlus 5 in an update or at least in beta release for a future public launch. Aside from a few little changes, OnePlus has been very good about keeping OxygenOS similar between its phones, so you don’t have to feel like you’re missing out on any new features by not getting the newer phone. The OnePlus 5 also easily has another round of major software updates in its future, so you don’t have to be worried about being stranded on Android Oreo.

Along the same lines, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who could identify where the OnePlus 5 is slower than the OnePlus 6 in anything but synthetic benchmarks. Yes, the new Snapdragon 845 is more powerful, but a year on the Snapdragon 835 is still a great platform and when paired with 6 or 8GB of RAM it makes the OnePlus 5 fly. There are marginal improvements to be found, particularly in power consumption by the processor itself, but this small bump to the new generation of processor isn’t enough in itself to justify a move considering how well the OnePlus 5 still performs today.

What’s different

Even though the core of these phones doesn’t differ much, there are several improvements that come from another year of development, design and technological advancements. The biggest differentiation is the design — moving from metal to glass transforms the look and feel of the phone, and I’d say the OnePlus 6 is more modern in both respects. There’s a bit more style and flair at play here, particularly compared to the OnePlus 5’s very generic build.

There’s a full generation jump in hardware quality and design, plus a promising new camera.

The new design also incorporates a considerable change to the screen, with a 6.3-inch screen in a much taller 19:9 aspect ratio. Paired with smaller bezels, you’re getting more screen in a package that’s only marginally larger. Yes there’s a notch at the top of the display, but on the OnePlus 5 you had big bezels on both ends and dead space on the sides of the front-facing fingerprint sensor — this is a positive move. On that note, the fingerprint sensor’s on the back of the OnePlus 6, but is just as easy to use every day.

The only other change to note is in the camera, and it’s worth talking about. Specs-wise things look the same sticking with 16MP resolution and f/1.7 aperture, but this is a new larger sensor that’s also supported by OIS — both critical additions for every type of photography, but particularly low light. The secondary camera is no longer “telephoto,” and instead just has the same focal length and aperture as the primary camera. So you lose out on the zoom, but if you’ve used the OnePlus 5 for any length of time you know that secondary camera’s small pixels, high aperture and lack of OIS makes it unusable in anything but fantastic lighting anyway.

OnePlus 6 specs

The far more important thing here is the improvement to the main camera experience while keeping the dual-camera Portrait Mode shooting option. We don’t yet have a complete feel for the OnePlus 6’s camera capabilities, but all of the spec improvements point to a step up in overall quality — getting more light into a sensor is a recipe for better photos. The camera interface itself hasn’t changed, but that wasn’t a shortcoming of the OnePlus 5, the hardware and processing were.

Should you upgrade?

In some ways, OnePlus is its own worst enemy when it comes to getting its customers to upgrade to a next-generation phone. It fills its phones with great specs and clean software from the start, so even a year on they don’t feel old or sluggish. If you’re using a OnePlus 5 today you know it still performs well and is capable of doing just about anything you need it to do.

The OnePlus 6 does a few key things better, and critically doesn’t do anything worse than the OnePlus 5.

So, then, we have to focus on a few of the finer points where OnePlus could influence an upgrade. Most of that comes down to the design and display. Compared to the OnePlus 6 the OnePlus 5 looks old and generic, and that shiny new glass certainly feels more modern across the board. Pair that up with the new extra-tall display and tiny bezels, and you get a really handsome phone that also makes better use of its size to deliver more usable screen. The camera has also inarguably improved, making important spec improvements of pixel size and optical stabilization, even if it did mean losing telephoto zoom from the second camera.

As we’ve seen for a few generations now, the biggest thing helping you upgrade to a new OnePlus phone is the high resale value of the old models. A used OnePlus 5 will sell on the open market for around $350, depending on its condition and configuration. That gets you well over halfway to a new OnePlus 6, which makes this a pretty enticing option if you have no need for your current phone once you upgrade. The OnePlus 6 isn’t a dramatic improvement in most ways over the OnePlus 5, but it is better in key areas and critically isn’t worse in any. If you can sell your old device and drop a couple hundred dollars for a new phone, this is definitely a smart move if you like what OnePlus phones offer.

See at OnePlus

OnePlus 6

• OnePlus 6 hands-on preview
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T: How much changes in six months?
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5: Should you upgrade?
• These are the official OnePlus 6 cases
• The OnePlus 6 doesn’t work on Verizon or Sprint
• Join the discussion in the forums

OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T: Should you upgrade?

The OnePlus 5T is still a fantastic phone, so should you consider making the switch to the OnePlus 6?

OnePlus has followed a six-month release cadence over the last couple of years, introducing a new device in the summer and following it up with a refreshed variant with upgraded internals around November. The OnePlus 5T, for instance, retained the same design aesthetic as the OnePlus 5 while ushering in an 18:9 panel.

With the OnePlus 6, the company is refining its design language with the addition of a glass back. This isn’t the first time OnePlus rolled out a glass design — the OnePlus X gets that distinction — but the switch away from metal gives the OnePlus 6 a more upmarket feel.

Like previous OnePlus devices, the OnePlus 6 offers the latest hardware available today, with the company rolling out a 256GB storage option for the first time. There’s also a notch up front, which OnePlus says is designed to maximize the screen real estate, and the phone is resistant to the occasional splash of water.

With the phone coming just six months after the launch of the OnePlus 5T, you won’t notice a significant difference in specs or the resulting performance. So should you still consider an upgrade? Let’s find out.

OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T: Specs

What’s the same

The OnePlus 5T wasn’t exactly short on performance, and while the OnePlus 6 comes with Qualcomm’s latest silicon, you’re not going to see a massive difference when it comes to day-to-day usage. There’s 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM on either device, but you can get a 256GB storage option with the OnePlus 6.

The OnePlus 6 continues OnePlus’ legacy of offering top-notch internals for lesser than the competition.

Thankfully, the headphone jack is intact on the OnePlus 6. You also get AptX HD on both devices, and Dash Charge is unchanged as well if you’re looking to quickly top up your phone in the middle of the day.

The OnePlus 6 comes with OxygenOS 5.1.2 atop Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. I’ll delve into the additions on the software front early next week, but if you’ve used a OnePlus device over the last 12 months, the experience should be largely familiar.

What’s different

The design of the OnePlus 5T felt iterative, but that isn’t the case on the OnePlus 6. The glass back and pronounced curves along the sides make it a much more comfortable device to hold, and the added 15g of weight and 0.45mm thickness — thanks to the Gorilla Glass-encased back — gives it a reassuring heft.

The glass back gives the OnePlus 6 a design flourish over the 5T.

The display on the OnePlus 6 is marginally larger — 6.28 inches over 6.01 inches — even though the phone isn’t as tall as the 5T, which is facilitated by the notch. The added 0.27-inch screen real estate fits in a few extra lines of text when you’re browsing.

Videos are still letterboxed to fit to a 16:9 ratio (or 18:9 in a few cases), so you don’t have to worry about the notch interfering with your ability to view multimedia content on the OnePlus 6.

On the subject of multimedia, the OnePlus 6 continues to offer a single speaker that’s located at the bottom, but it manages to beat out the 5T both in terms of clarity and loudness.

There are a few changes on the design front aside from the glass back. The Alert Slider has been moved to the right side of the phone, with the SIM card slot switched over to the left.

While the underlying hardware is largely similar between the two devices, the OnePlus 6 does offer a new imaging sensor (Sony IMX 519) with larger 1.22μm pixels and OIS. I haven’t used the OnePlus 6 long enough to make a full judgement on the camera quality or battery life just yet, so stay tuned for that early next week.

OnePlus is also touting water resistance with its latest flagship. The phone isn’t certified for an IP rating, so it’s only good for the occasional splash of water and won’t survive a dunk in the pool, but it’s better than what the OnePlus 5T managed.

Should you upgrade?

The OnePlus 5T is still a fantastic phone today, and is in fact better than the OnePlus 6 in a few areas — particularly if you’re not sold on the idea of the notch. The device did incredibly well in terms of sales, so much so that it was sold out in North America after just four months, and globally a month after.

If you already have the OnePlus 5T, it makes little sense to pick up the OnePlus 6. Considering the company’s release window, we’ll likely be seeing the OnePlus 6T in just under six months, with the phone offering wireless charging as a possible differentiator.

But if you haven’t picked up the OnePlus 5T and are looking for a phone with flagship specifications and top-notch performance, you cannot go wrong with the OnePlus 6. The notch is irksome, but you can at least hide it away, and the glass back makes the device feel more refined next to its predecessors.

The OnePlus 6 goes on sale starting May 22 in North America, and May 21 in India. The 64GB variant starts off at $529, with the 256GB option going all the way up to $629.

OnePlus 6

• OnePlus 6 hands-on preview
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T: How much changes in six months?
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5: Should you upgrade?
• These are the official OnePlus 6 cases
• The OnePlus 6 doesn’t work on Verizon or Sprint
• Join the discussion in the forums

Apple Exploring North Carolina, Northern Virginia for New Campus

For the last several months, Apple has been exploring locations for a new campus focusing on technical support, and according to new reports, sites in North Carolina and Northern Virginia are under consideration.

The Washington Post says Apple has explored opening a campus for 20,000 employees in Northern Virginia, an area Amazon is also considering for its new campus.

Image of Apple Park via drone pilot Duncan Sinfield
Apple told economic development officials in Northern Virginia that it is seeking four million square feet of space to accommodate 20,000 jobs, and officials proposed several potential sites.

The sites proposed by Northam’s staff for Apple include office buildings and development sites in Crystal City, privately owned Loudoun County land near the Center for Innovative Technology and the Scotts Run development in Tysons.

Two of those locations, Crystal City and the Loudoun land, are part of sites Northam also pitched to Amazon. Both companies plan to make a decision this year.

Separately, the Triangle Business Journal says that Apple is considering establishing its new campus in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. Research Triangle Park, a 22 million square foot research park, has become an attractive site for tech companies and is known as North Carolina’s technology hub due to its proximity to NC State, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University.

Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly met with North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and commerce secretary Tony Copeland while Cook was in town over the weekend to give the commencement speech at Duke University.

Apple in January said that it would invest $350 billion in the U.S. economy and create 20,000 jobs over the next five years, partially through the launch of a fourth major campus. At the time, Apple said that the campus would not be built in California or Texas, which is where its current campuses are located.

The company declined to provide additional details on the campus’ location, and has since been exploring its options and negotiating with various states for tax cuts and other benefits.

Apple’s upcoming campus will not be like its major corporate campuses in Northern California, One Infinite Loop and Apple Park, as it is expected to be focused on housing customer service and technical support employees.

Apple CEO Tim Cook in March said that Apple is “not doing the beauty contest thing” for its new campus, taking a dig at Amazon’s decision to announce 20 finalist cities as the potential locations for its own new campus. “That’s not Apple,” he said.

“From our point of view, we didn’t want to create this contest, because I think what comes out of that is you wind up putting people through a ton of work to select one, so that is a case where you have a winner and a lot of losers. I don’t like that,” Cook added at the time.
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 56 With Bug Fixes and Feature Improvements

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced over two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 56 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for JavaScript, WebAssembly, Web API, Security, CSS, Rendering, Media, and Web Inspector.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Tag: Safari Technology Preview
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Twitter Shares Pricing on New Account Activity APIs, Some Third-Party Apps in Jeopardy

Twitter today unveiled new details on its upcoming activity API changes, which will affect how third-party apps are able to access Twitter APIs and provide services to Twitter users who prefer to use apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot.

Third-party Twitter app developers will be required to purchase a Premium or Enterprise Account Activity API package to access a full set of activities related to a Twitter account including Tweets, @mentions, Replies, Retweets, Quote Tweets, Retweets of Quoted Tweets, Likes, Direct Messages Sent, Direct Messages Received, Follows, Blocks, Mutes, typing indicators, and read receipts.

Premium API access, which provides access to up to 250 accounts, is priced at $2,899 per month, while enterprise access is more expensive, with pricing quotes available from Twitter following an application for an enterprise account.

At least some third-party apps have said they will not be able to afford access to the new Twitter APIs, including Twitterrific.

It’s looking like it won’t be financially possible for us to afford the new account activity API from twitter.

— Sean Heber (@BigZaphod) May 16, 2018

These APIs also will not include access to streaming connections, which Twitter says are used by only 1 percent of monthly active apps.

There’s no streaming connection capability as is used by only 1% of monthly active apps. Also there’s no home timeline data. We have no plans to add that data to Account Activity API or create a new streaming service. However, home timeline data remains accessible via REST API.

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) May 16, 2018

Twitter says it will be delaying the deprecation of its current APIs for three months to give developers time to transition over to the new platform. These APIs will be deprecated on Wednesday, August 16 instead of June 19, the original date Twitter planned to end support for the APIs.

It is not yet clear what impact all of these changes will have on major third-party Twitter apps, but we should hear updated details soon. Tapbots, the creators of Tweetbot for Mac and iOS, said on Tuesday that its apps will continue to function, but a few features could be slower or removed.

Tapbots says the worse case scenario on Mac is that notifications for likes and retweets will not be displayed, and notifications for tweets, mentions, quotes, DMs, and Follows could be delayed by one to two minutes.

Tag: Twitter
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Save your tweeting eyes with Tweetbot 3’s new dark mode on MacOS

A new version of one of our favorite iPhone apps, Tweetbot, has been released for MacOS and it makes the whole experience of scrolling through tweets a lot more comfortable to do late at night. With a new dark mode, you can read tweets all evening without messing with your circadian rhythm and enjoy other new features like better timeline management and more accessible buttons for retweets and direct messages.

Although Twitter might be more keen for its millions of users to use its official applications or web address for interacting on the social platform, there are a number of popular third-party alternatives that enhance the service’s functionality. Tweetbot is one of those and in its third official guise, it’s become more functional, and comfortable to use, than ever.

Tweetbot 3 for Mac’s most obvious feature is its new dark theme, which gives the interface and backdrop a grey theme that should be much more pleasing to view when in a darkened environment. Text is converted to an easy-to-read light grey, though images and video are left alone to really pop among the darkened surroundings.

Elsewhere in the update, there is a newly expanded sidebar giving you one-click access to all your lists, direct messages, and saved searches. There are also much more powerful customization controls in Tweetbot 3, letting you filter your timeline to show only what you want to see, as well as the ability to drag and drop columns so you can change the layout to whatever suits you best.

Other features include support for a new fullscreen mode, giving you a better look at all the tweets you may be interested in, and a new multiple-account system that lets you quickly switch between different accounts you have access to.

Tweetbot 3 is a paid upgrade that’s currently priced at $10 on the app store. It has already notched up more than 50 reviews with an solidly positive overall rating. The Verge seems quite fond of it, too, though it does point out that Twitter hasn’t always been a fan of these sorts of third-party apps and has threatened in the past to shut them down. That doesn’t seem likely to happen in the near future, but be aware the potential always exists for Tweetbot and its contemporaries to cease to work at the whim of the platform provider.

What is Google Duplex?

What you need to know about Google Duplex, a new smart way for Assistant to be more like an assistant.

At Google I/O 2018 we saw a demo of Google’s latest new cool thing, Duplex. The 60-foot screen onstage showed what looks just like your Google Assistant app with a line-by-line playback of Assistant making a phone call to a hairdresser and setting up an appointment, complete with the pauses, the ummms and ahhhs, and the rest of the idiosyncrasies that accompany human speech. The person taking the appointment didn’t seem to know they were talking to a computer because it didn’t sound like a computer. Not even a little bit.

That kind of demo looks amazing (and maybe a little creepy) but what about the details? What is Duplex, exactly? How does it even work? We all have questions when we see something this different and finding answers spread across the internet is a pain. Let’s go over what we know so far about Google Duplex.

What is Google Duplex?

It’s a new tool from Google that aims to use Artificial intelligence (AI) to “accomplish real-world tasks over the phone” according to Google’s AI researchers and developers. For now, that means very specific tasks like making appointments, but the tech is being developed with an eye on expansion into other areas. Spending billions to create a cool way to make dinner reservations sounds like something Google would do but isn’t a great use of time or money.

Duplex is also more than we saw in a demo and if it ever leaves the lab will be a lot more than we see or hear on our end. There are huge banks of data and the computers to process it involved that aren’t nearly as cool as the final result. But they are essential because making a computer talk and think, in real time, like a person is hard.

Isn’t this just like speech-to-text?

Nope. Not even close. And that’s why it’s a big deal.

Duplex is designed to change the way a computer “talks” on the phone.

The goal for Duplex is to make things sound natural and for Assistant to think on the fly to find an appointment time that works. If Joe says, “Yeah, about that — I don’t have anything open until 10, is that OK?” Assistant needs to understand what Joe is saying, figure out what that means, and think if what Joe is offering will work for you. If you’re busy across town at 10 and it will take 40 minutes to drive to Joe’s Garage, Assistant needs to be able to figure that out and say 11:15 would be good.

Equally important for Google is that Duplex answers and sounds like a person. Google has said it wanted the person on the phone not to know they were talking to a computer, though eventually decided it would be best to inform them. When we talk to people, we talk faster and less formal (read: incoherent babbling from a computer’s point of view) than when we’re talking to Assistant on our phone or the computer at the DMV when we call in. Duplex needs to understand this and recreate it when replying.

Finally, and most impressive, is that Duplex has to understand context. Friday, next Friday, and Friday after next week are all terms you and I understand. Duplex needs to understand them, too. If we talked the same way we type this wouldn’t be an issue, but we umm you know don’t because it sounds just sounds so stuffy yeah it’s not like confusing though we have heard it all our lives and are used to it so no we don’t have problems you know understanding it or nothing like that.

I’ll administer first aid to my editor after typing that while you say it out loud, so you see what this means.

How does Duplex work?

From the user end, it’s as simple as telling Assistant to do something. For now, as mentioned, that something is limited to making appointments so we would say, “Hey Google make me an appointment for an oil change at Joe’s Garage for Tuesday morning,” and (after it reminded us to say please) it would call up Joe’s Garage and set things up, then add it to your calendar.

Continued Conversations use much of the same underlying technology as Duplex.

Pretty nifty. But what happens off camera is even niftier.

Duplex is using what’s called a recurrent neural network. It’s built using Google’s TensorFlow Extended technology. Google trained the network on all those anonymized voicemails and Google Voice conversations you agreed to let it listen to if you opted in with a mix of speech recognition software and the ability to consider the history of the conversation and details like the time of day and location of both parties.

Essentially, an entire network of high-powered computers is crunching data in the cloud and talking through Assistant on your phone or other product that has Assistant on board.

What about security and privacy?

It comes down to one simple thing: do you trust Google. On-device machine intelligence is a real thing, though it’s constrained and relatively new. Google has developed ML Kit to help developers do more of this sort of thing on the device itself, but it’s all a matter of computing power. It takes an incredible amount of computations to make a hair appointment this way, and there’s no way it could be done on your phone or Google Home.

You have to trust Google with your data to use its smart products and Duplex will be no different.

Google needs to tap into much of your personal data to do the special things Assistant can do right now, and Duplex doesn’t change that. What’s new here is that now there is another party involved who didn’t explicitly give Google permission to listen to their conversation.

If/when Duplex becomes an actual consumer product for anyone to use, expect it to be criticized and challenged in courts. And it should be; letting Google decide what’s best for our privacy is like the old adage of two foxes and a chicken deciding what’s for dinner.

When will I have Duplex on my phone?

Expect some big changes to Assistant later this year.

Nobody knows right now. It may never happen. Google gets excited when it can do this sort of fantastic thing and wants to share it with the world. That doesn’t mean it will be successful or ever become a real product.

For now, Duplex is being tested in a closed and supervised environment. If all goes well, an initial experimental release to consumers to make restaurant reservations, schedule hair salon appointments, and get holiday hours over the phone will be coming later this year using Assistant on phones only.

Where can I learn more?

Google is surprisingly open about the tech it is using to create Duplex. You’ll find relevant information at the following websites:

• Google AI blog (Google)
• Deepmind
• Tensorflow.org
• The Cornell University Library
• Google Research (Google)
• The Keyword (Google)
• ML Kit (Google)

Of course, we’re also following Duplex closely, and you’ll hear the latest developments right here as soon as they are available.

3 awesome things you get with your PlayStation Plus subscription

PlayStation Plus is a lot more than a subscription service. It’s an essential part of the PS4 experience.

It seems that nearly every video game console developer has some version of a premium online subscription service. Nintendo will soon be launching a premium online subscription service, Microsoft has had Xbox Live Gold for quite some time now, and of course, Sony has PlayStation Plus.

Each platform offers various services and perks for their subscribers. Have you been kicking around the idea of pulling the trigger on a PlayStation Plus subscription but you’re not entirely sure what you will be getting in exchange for your hard earned dollars? Let’s take a look at three things you will get with your PS Plus subscription.

Online play

With the exception of free to play or subscription based games, a PlayStation Plus account is required to play multiplayer games online. So that means if you are picking up a copy of Destiny 2 and you expect to jump online and start leveling up your character right away, then you had better keep in mind that a PS Plus subscription is going to end up being part of your total cost.

Unfortunately, there are some games that are almost entirely online and without a PS Plus subscription there won’t be much you can do with your game other than using it as a sixty dollar coaster. Your PlayStation Plus subscription ensures that you will be able to hop online and start killing stuff with your friends.

Deals, Deals, Deals!

I would have to imagine that there were a few years there while Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo watched as gamers sacrificed their wallets at the altar of Steam sales. After seeing the sheer volume of product moved by Steam they had no choice but to join them rather than try to beat them.

With your PlayStation Plus subscription, you will be privy to multitudes of sales and discounts. The common rabble will be stuck paying full price while you will be getting discounts that will occasionally dive as deep as 80%. If you are money conscience then you can rest easy knowing you are getting deals that you can’t always get elsewhere.

Free games!

One of the most appealing features of a PlayStation Plus account is what’s sometimes referred to as the Instant Game Collection. Every month, PS Plus subscribers will get access to two select games for absolutely free. That means that by the end of a one-year subscription you could have 24 games.

Something else that should be mentioned is that there are two free selected games on PS4, Vita, AND PS3. If you have all three consoles that’s a pretty smoking deal.

Another important thing to note is that if you cancel your PlayStation Plus account you will lose access to the games that you received for free. You only have those free games while your account is active.

Give PS Plus a try

If your interest has been piqued and you would like to give PS Plus a spin then you have an option to give it a chance for free. Sony offers a 14-day free trial which will give you the opportunity to get that beak wet without spending any money. If you decide that you love it you essentially have 3 options.

You can pay $9.99 a month, $24.99 every three months or you can drop $59.99 and you will be set for the whole year. If you don’t feel like handing your credit card info over to Sony then you can also pick up a PlayStation Plus subscription card at applicable brick and mortar retailers or you can just snag one off of Amazon.

Personally, I really dig PlayStation Plus. I have had a subscription since I first picked up my PS4 and I have been happy with it the whole time. As far as I am concerned, the free games alone make it worth the price of admission. If I have to have the subscription to play games online with my friends anyway, it’s nice to have the addition of free games and discounts.

Update May 2018: We’ve updated this article with the best PlayStation Plus has to offer.

PlayStation 4

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

Amazon

What Android phone do you plan on buying next?

So many options to choose from.

When it’s time to buy a new smartphone, it can be hard to not feel like a kid in a candy shop. The options that are available to us are better than ever before, meaning you can get a darn good handset no matter how much you plan on spending.

However, with so many brands and models to choose from, how do you know what’s really best for you?

A few of the AC forum users recently shared their input on what they’re looking at for their next smartphone purchase, and this is what they had to say.

Morty2264
05-11-2018 12:05 PM

“

I haven’t really thought too much about it – I love my Pixel 2 so much! – but probably something from Pixel, HTC, or OnePlus. Or LG.

As you can probably tell, it’s hard for me to choose between phones. 🤣

Reply

HotFix
05-12-2018 08:52 PM

“

I’m leaning towards a Samsung Galaxy S9 Active when they come out. Dual speakers and Dolby Atmos so it won’t be a step down audio wise.

Reply

Itsa_Me_Mario
05-14-2018 08:47 PM

“

For me using the pixesl, in addition to “stock Android”, the benefits of a class leading camera, only OEM giving consist updates, only oem taking security seriously, only oem not selling/sharing user data, metal body, USB-power delivery support, class leading performance, class leading software experience, excellent battery life and other features make it a winning lineup for me. But I definitely…

Reply

Rumblee1
05-14-2018 08:08 PM

“

I had a pixel phone. Other than pure Android, the pixel sucked. I went right back to my Axon7 and S7 EDGE. Now I’m on an LG V30 and loving it.

Reply

Now, we want to hand the mic over to you! What do you plan on buying for your next smartphone?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Chromebook vs. iPads: Closer than ever to being actual computers

The future of Chrome OS is to compete with the iPad, but it’s a long fight.

It should be abundantly clear by now that Android tablets are never going to catch on. Instead, it looks more and more like Google is positioning Chrome OS with Android apps to fill that space. Chromebooks have been tremendously successful in the quest to replace the traditional computer over the last couple of years, especially in school settings. At the same time, Apple’s iPads are the only reason the tablet market continues to exist today. Lots of people own iPads, and many claim these tablets are just fine as a replacement for a computer.

To get a feel for what Chrome OS and iOS offer people who want an alternative to their computer, I spent a week using nothing but a 10.5-inch iPad Pro with a keyboard cover and an Acer Chromebook R13 Convertible. While I didn’t find either of them to be a computer replacement for me, in many ways both Google and Apple are damn close.

Hardware

While Chromebooks come in a lot of different options, from a lot of different companies, including soon a keyboard-free tablet form factor, these machines are by and large an inexpensive PC. Google offers the premium Pixelbook for those eager to shell out that much money, but most of the time what you are buying is a fairly standard laptop or convertible with a unique operating system on board.

You can find decent Chromebooks for not a lot of money, whereas the cheapest iPad and keyboard costs close to $400.

This Acer model is an excellent lower-end Chromebook with a fair look at what you can expect from most Chromebooks, by which I mean it’s an OK laptop with an okay-ish experience. The body has tons of ports, so I can attach a flash drive or a printer or a microSD card if I want. The display, speakers, and camera are ok but not exceptional in any way. The keyboard is nice for a laptop keyboard, but the trackpad is pretty gross compared to just about everything. The convertible hinge makes flipping between laptop and tablet super easy, and the design is just bulky enough to convince me it will survive a drop or two without any serious damage.

Where this machine really stands out is the battery. Rated for 48Wh, this battery gets me through two full work days before it needs to be charged. And since it charges via USB-C, I can charge it with the same cable and battery and wall plug I use with my phone.

Apple’s iPad Pro comes in two sizes, and choosing between the two has everything to do with how you intend to use it. I did not need the 12-inch version, but the smaller 10.5-inch iPad Pro travels with me quite well. It’s super thin and ridiculously light, with a beautiful display and surprisingly loud speakers. The only port is the Lightning port on the bottom, and the headphone jack is at the top, but there are adapters for connecting flash drives if you need one.

USB-C charging makes all the difference.

To type on this, I need to attach the $160 Smart Keyboard or try to use the virtual keyboard. Imagine the stuff on the outside of a regular iPad cover over a set of small keys, and you’ve got some idea of how this feels. The individual keys are decently spaced apart, making typing even on the smaller keyboard surprisingly comfortable. The wedge design lets you comfortably use the iPad like a laptop on your lap, but it removes the ability to control the angle the screen sits. There are other cases which offer a little more flexibility, but they’re not nearly as lovely as this keyboard.

Battery life on the iPad Pro 10.5 is enough to get me through a work day, but not usually enough to get me through much more than that. Apple claims the 30.4Wh battery in this model will get you up to 10 hours of use, but when you’ve got more than one app running on this machine that battery drains quite a bit faster. The good news is you can charge these iPads fairly quickly with a USB-C to Lightning cable and a Rapid Charging adapter. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t include either in the box with the iPad Pro 10.5, and the included charger isn’t particularly fast.

Software

Apps rule the world these days, but there’s a lot of discussion around how much “work” you can do in an app-only ecosystem. Many of the apps Chromebooks and iPads have access to were designed with Android phones or iPhone in mind, and not built to support a workflow where you’re using the app for hours on end to get a big project done, right? These days this is less true than you might think, but there are still some usability issues with both platforms.

Chromebooks started out by giving you Chrome as the only interface, and nothing else. This works for several groups of people, since so much if done in the browser these days anyway. Recent builds of Chrome have way more features, including offline mode for people who aren’t connected to WiFi and access to a vast majority of Android apps available in the Google Play Store. This means I can use the mobile version of Adobe Lightroom, which gives me the ability to edit RAW photos and syncs everything back to my desktop. While it’s not exactly as capable of the Desktop Lightroom, it’s way better than most alternatives. Having access to a full desktop browser is something you don’t get on mobile devices, no matter what platform you use. When you add Android apps to this, you get a healthy mix of usability options.

It’s common to dismiss iPad as just big iPhones, but when you attach that Smart Keyboard and dig into apps you get quite a few features that don’t exist on the phone yet.

For example, instead of letting Slack and Trello live in browser tabs on Chrome OS, I can give them their own windows and let them run as Android apps. These windows snap in place quickly so I can switch between them with a tap or a click, and everything I see on the screen is running in the foreground. I can control how big each window is on the screen, offering up quite a bit of flexibility in setting up my experience. I can get crazy and have 10 apps open on my desktop, or keep it simple and focus on getting work done.

Unfortunately, a lot of this experience disappears when you turn the Chromebook into a tablet. When the keyboard goes away, Chrome OS turns all of the Android apps into full-screen apps, which means I now have a big clumsy 13-inch Android tablet that also has Chrome. This is not ideal, and something Google is working to fix in the next couple of Chrome OS updates. Updates, by the way, are one of best things about Chrome OS. They are constantly rolling out, install with the greatest of ease, and every Chromebook gets the update as soon as it is available.

It’s common to dismiss iPad as just big iPhones, but when you attach that Smart Keyboard and dig into apps, you get quite a few features that don’t exist on the phone yet. Apple has implemented split window support on iPads so that you can run two apps in side-by-side windows. When these apps are stuck to one another, they stay stuck even when you leave the apps to run something else. You can come back to those apps days later, and they will both be there just as you left them. In some cases, apps that are stuck side-by-side like this have file sharing features to make it easy to send things from one app to another.

You can also combine split window with picture-in-picture, which means I can have a video playing in the corner while I’m photo editing and keeping up with my co-workers in our group chat. Suddenly the app-driven experience that was once limited to a single app on the screen at a time is now running three apps simultaneously with adjustable app sizes for each. On a 10-inch screen, that’s a lot to have running all at once and easily dismisses any feelings that this experience isn’t a “real” computer while using it.

But it’s not perfect. For starters, very few apps support all of these features. The Apple apps will, of course, but deviating from that frequently causes problems. Splitting the screen with another app required a lot of trial and error, as well as having the app in my dock for convenient switching. Not every video app supports picture-in-picture either, which causes other problems. It’s not a universal experience, and that means you have to work to find the apps which support the workflow you want to create.

Summing it all up

I reject the “real work” argument against Chromebooks and iPads, but there’s a lot of improvements needed to make these experiences feel polished. If Google is planning to go all in with Chromebooks as tablets, the software needs to be a lot more flexible in that tablet mode. Before I reach for an iPad to take with me as my only computer, I need a way to know what apps are optimized for my workflow before figuring out the hard way. The irony of my conclusion isn’t lost on me; iPads make great tablets which sort of make OK computers in a pinch, where Chromebooks make great laptops which sort of make ok tablets in a pinch.

But if I were to choose between the two experiences right now, I’d go Chromebook without hesitation. Having access to a full desktop browser is a huge deal, and the things you can do in that browser on a Chromebook simply can’t be done on an iPad. Being able to create my own filenames shouldn’t be something that requires a hacky workaround, but Apple has no native solution for this seemingly obvious thing. Safari on the iPad still opens many websites in mobile view by default, and when the answer to that problem is “just use the app” there needs to be a guarantee that app isn’t also offering a mediocre experience.

Take a look at the best Chromebooks you can buy today!