How to use Android Pie’s Digital Wellbeing tools

Make the most out of your phone addiction.

One of the major pieces of the Android Pie — then Android P — presentation at Google I/O this past May aligned with what many other companies are trying to do: make it easier to disconnect. They’re doing this by providing usage metrics, and incentive through various “wind down” or Do Not Disturb features, that both inform the user and help them check their phone only when necessary.

On Android, these features rolled out as part of a Digital Wellbeing beta announced alongside the public Android 9 release, and there’s a lot to like here, along with some things to look forward to. Here’s how it all works.

What is Digital Wellbeing?

The idea behind Digital Wellbeing isn’t necessarily using your phone less, though it can lead to that behavior. Instead, according to EK Chung, a UX designer at Google who played a role in designing the new features, “[It’s] is all about high efficiency, and making your interaction with your device more meaningful and efficient so that you can get things done and then get back to what’s really meaningful in your life … actually simplifying how people get things done.”

In other words, if you’re spending too long on Twitter or Facebook right now, you may intellectually know this and may want to cut down but don’t know how to do it. Google is providing tools to not only make the whole OS feel more fluid and efficient but the ability to see how many minutes or hours you’re spending in an app, with an easy way of adding soft limits that make it more difficult to open it once you’ve hit them.

Digital Wellbeing: Everything you need to know

What phones support Digital Wellbeing right now?

Just the Pixel lineup running Android Pie supports Digital Wellbeing, which includes the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL. It’s unclear whether other phone makers will add their own versions, use Google’s exact version, or just leave it out altogether, but they likely have the option of all three.

How do I sign up for the Digital Wellbeing beta?

Given that the tools are optional and are not currently baked into Pie, you have to sign up for the beta with the same email as your Google Play account, and once approved, you’ll receive an email from Google walking you through the sign-up process.

How to activate Digital Wellbeing once you sign up

Once you receive the approval for Digital Wellbeing, actually setting it up is quick and easy.

On your phone, open the email and tap Access the Beta now.
Once the web page opens, tap Become a tester.
Tap Download it from Google Play.
Tap Update on the Google Play Store link.

Once installed, you’ll now be able to find the Digital Wellbeing section in your Pixel’s settings page. Let’s go through the features.

The Dashboard

To find the Digital Wellbeing section, you must open your phone’s settings page and scroll down to find it. You can do this by opening the app drawer and tapping Settings, or swiping down the notification tray twice and tapping on the little settings cog.

Once in there, you’ll see the dashboard which will show you a circular chart of all the apps you’ve used that day. Tapping on it will take you into a list of all the apps you’ve used, ranking them by “screen time” by default. You can also rank them by “notifications received” and “times opened,” which may change the order considerably. For instance, I’ve only used Slack 18 minutes today (I use it mainly on my computer), but I’ve opened it 37 times. Yikes.

Tapping on an individual app shows you the breakdown per day or hour, which is helpful, but also lets you set timers and manage notifications.

How to limit the time you can spend in an app

App timers limit the amount of time you can spend in an app. When a timer is set, Android keeps track of how long that app has been open throughout the day and gives you warnings as you approach that limit. Once the limit is set, the app icon is greyed out and the OS gives you a warning saying you can’t open it until the following day. Of course, you can undo the app timer — it’s not a prison — but it’s a good way to prevent endless scrolling in Instagram and Twitter, for instance.

From the main Digital Wellbeing page, tap Dashboard.
Next to the app you want to limit, tap the arrow next to the words “No timer” and set a limit.

• By default, the limits are 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and 1 hour, but you can set a custom timer.

Use the app until your limit.

How to change or disable an app timer

When you butt up against your own app usage limits, the icon will grey out and you’ll get a notification saying that you can’t use it anymore. Of course, you can lengthen the timer if you really want to.

Tap on the greyed-out icon.
Tap Learn more.
Change the app timer to the number you want.

Wind Down

The idea behind Wind Down is pretty interesting. It combines existing Do Not Disturb behavior with the also-existing Night Light feature and, new to Pie, a Grayscale mode that turns your screen monochrome.

All of these things — fewer notifications, a warmer screen tint, and black-and-white imagery — are meant to make it easier to “wind down” and settle before bed. Here’s how to configure it.

From the main Digital Wellbeing page, tap Wind Down.
Check Use Wind Down to enable it.
Configure the time you want Wind Down to begin and end automatically.

• I have it between 11:30 pm and 7 am.

Check Grayscale and Do Not Disturb, which will help calm you down before bed.
Tap Night Light schedule to decide whether you want to tint your screen amber before bed.

• I recommend allowing the schedule to happen automatically at sunset and sunrise.

Reducing interruptions

Using your phone less is one of the strategies around Digital Wellbeing. The other is being distracted less when you’re using it, or when you’ve put it down.

One of the major parts of this is managing notifications. The fewer notifications you receive, the less likely you are to get lost in your phone when you only meant to pick it up to check something quickly.

How to manage notifications

In Android Oreo, Google introduced the idea of notification channels, which allow developers to break down the notifications they send you into various categories. The idea was to make it easier for the user to turn off specific notifications without disabling the app’s correspondence entirely.

With Pie and Digital Wellbeing, Google has made it easier to configure these notifications using the Digital Wellbeing tools.

From the main Digital Wellbeing page, tap Manage notifications.
Next to the app you want to manage, either:

• Uncheck the button to disable notifications entirely.
• Tap on the app icon itself to check for notification channels.

Some notifications, like phone calls, can’t be disabled, but it’s worth digging into the apps that annoy you the most to see whether it’s worth disabling them either partly or entirely. You may realize you don’t need any of them at all.

How to change Do Not Disturb features

Under “Reduce interruptions,” Google has also added a handy shortcut to the Do Not Disturb section, which has been improved for Android Pie. It’s now much more granular than before, allowing you to choose between seeing, but not hearing, notifications when they come in, along with what constitutes an exception.

It’s worth looking into the rules that automatically kick in, too. For example, you can choose to have Do Not Disturb turn on while you’re driving based on the phone’s motion or the Bluetooth receiver it’s connected to.

From the main Digital Wellbeing page, tap Do Not Disturb.
Near the bottom, tap Turn on automatically.
Tap on the rule you want to manage.

• You can also create new rules based on specific calendar events, or times of the day.

What’s yet to come?

At Google I/O, the company announced a couple of additional features that aren’t yet available in the Digital Wellbeing suite. For example, soon you’ll be able to turn over your Pixel phone to automatically enable Do Not Disturb, something that will definitely be helpful during meetings and coffee dates.

Google also plans to bring its popular Smart Replies feature to Android Pie, making it much easier and faster to respond to an incoming message without picking up your phone.

What do you think of Digital Wellbeing?

This is the beginning of Google’s digital wellness initiative, something that the company, despite wanting you to use your phone as much as possible, thinks will help you strike a better work-life-play balance.

So what do you think of its early incarnation? Let us know in the comments below!

Android 9 Pie

• Android 9 Pie review: Greater than the sum of its slices
• Everything you need to know about Android 9 Pie!
• Will my phone get Android Pie?
• How to get Android 9 Pie on your Pixel right now
• Join the Discussion

Refresh your phone accessories with discounts on Anker cables, chargers and more

Keep your phone charged and protected throughout the school day.

This week only, Anker is offering various Back to School deals on smartphone accessories and tech that’ll be super helpful for those getting back in the groove of classes. You’ll need to use the code ANKERBTS during checkout to activate the deal for each item. Prices start as low as $5 on essentials like iPhone X cases, USB wall chargers, and charging cables, but you only have until August 12 before the code becomes unusable.

If you’re in need of a charging cable, this 6-foot USB-C cable falls to $9.59 with the code, while a 3-foot version becomes $7.99. Alternatively, Anker’s 3-foot Lightning Cable is down to $11.19 in grey or red with the code. There’s also a Wireless Charger that drops to only $7.99.

One dorm room essential every new student will come to wish they had is the PowerPort Power Strip which features 12 outlets along with three USB ports. Using the code discounts its price by $8 down to $28. Any incoming dorm room occupant will also need a wall charger; you can get a standard dual USB charger for $11.99 or a USB-C version for $20.79.

Lastly, the Roav dash cam could be a great addition to your car during your long rides back and forth from home. It has a unique promo code C1AUDEAL to enter during checkout, which will make it available to you for just $54.99.

Other Anker products you could use the code ANKERBTS on include:

• 4-port USB Hub for $12.79
• 2-in-1 USB-C Memory Card Reader for $10.39
• SoundCore Boost Bluetooth Speaker for $63.20

Newton Mail will shut down in September

Newton will shut down in September after failing to find a viable business model.

Newton, a popular email app for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, has announced that it will soon shut down. Founder Rohit Nadhani said that CloudMagic, the company that owns Newton, couldn’t find a viable business model that provided profitability and growth, citing stiff competition from first-party email apps. Newton will end service in September.

Writing on the Newton blog, Nadhani said:

It was a tough business decision. We explored various business models but couldn’t successfully figure out profitability & growth over the long term. It was hard; the market for premium consumer mail apps is not big enough, and it faces stiff competition from high quality free apps from Google, Microsoft, and Apple. We put up a hard and honest fight, but it was not enough to overcome the bundling & platform default advantages enjoyed by the large tech companies.

New sign-ups for Newton have been suspended immediately. Subscribers for Newton’s annual plan for $99.99 can claim a pro-rated refund, though this must be done by September 18, 2018. Newton’s app will be shut down on September 25, 2018.

CloudMagic originally launched its email app in 2013, later relaunching as Newton in 2016 as a subscription-based service. Newton could connect to apps and services like Todoist, Trello, and Evernote, the Tidy Inbox feature kept your inbox clutter-free, and the Recap could help you revisit unfinished conversations to find things you might have missed.

For those that loved Newton and the services it provided, it’s surely a sad day. I know many people across the Mobile Nations team are avid users of Newton, and will be sad to see it go.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple Music: ‘We Worry About the Humanity Being Drained Out of Music’

In an extensive profile of Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, Fast Company’s Robert Safian recently sat down to speak for a few minutes with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

The topic was, of course, Spotify and Apple Music, two of the major players in the streaming music market and fierce competitors. Cook said that he looks to music as inspiration and motivation, a philosophy that’s shared at Apple and has guided its focus on human-based music curation.

“Music inspires, it motivates. It’s also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it’s better than any medicine,” Cook said.

While he declined to mention Spotify by name, Cook told Fast Company that Apple worries about streaming music losing the human touch, alluding to Spotify’s more algorithmic approach to highlighting content.

Cook’s words embody Apple’s longstanding critique of Spotify, which is that its algorithms are eroding music’s spiritual role in our lives. Cook doesn’t mention Spotify by name but says, “We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft.”

Despite launching just three years ago, Apple Music has 50 million paid subscribers and free trial members, with the company slowly catching up to Spotify. At last count, Spotify said that it had 83 million paid subscribers around the world.

Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base, and the fact that it’s never needed to worry about profitability like Spotify has. “We’re not in it for the money,” Cook told Fast Company.

Ek, too, didn’t mention Apple Music by name, but he said he believes Spotify has something going for it that other companies don’t: a singular focus. “Music is everything we do all day, all night, and that clarity is the difference between the average and the really, really good,” he said.

Spotify’s dedication to music and music alone is what Ek believes will ultimately help the company beat Apple and expand the Spotify service in the future.

Competing with Apple was always Spotify’s plan, says Ek, even before Apple Music. Apple dominated digital music downloads via iTunes in 2008 when Spotify launched, with Ek aiming to replace the iPod with on-demand music.

Competition with Apple and working within tight margins, Ek says, has driven Spotify to be more disciplined.

Despite industry complaints and criticism from Apple, Spotify has continued to focus on free music, which is how Spotify draws in new paying subscribers. After going public earlier this year, Spotify overhauled its free listening tier, offering new features that include on-demand playlists and a data saving mode, which were previously limited to paying subscribers.

Ek believes that there’s money to be made with Spotify’s free tier, with radiolike advertising options. “Billions of people listen to radio, and most of that today isn’t monetized very efficiently,” Ek said.

Going forward, in addition to working to expand revenue via its free tier, Spotify plans to focus on artists. Ek eventually wants to get 1 million artists to make a living off of Spotify, ultimately imagining something akin to YouTube where artists and listeners can interact.

For anyone interested in the inner workings of Spotify or how Ek operates, Fast Company’s full profile of the founder is well worth checking out.

Tags: Spotify, Tim Cook, Apple Music
Discuss this article in our forums

Popular Newton Email App for iOS and Mac Shutting Down in September

Newton, a popular email service for iOS and Mac, is shutting down on September 25, the company’s founder Rohit Nadhani announced today.

Newton is a subscription-based app that costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, a business model that did not end up being successful. Nadhani says that the company explored “various business models” but wasn’t able to “successfully figure out profitability & growth over the long term.”

According to Nadhani, the market for premium consumer mail apps is “not big enough” and faces competition from high-quality free apps from Google, Microsoft, and Apple. “We put up a hard and honest fight,” wrote Nadhani. “But it was not enough to overcome the bundling and platform default advantages enjoyed by the large tech companies.”

Starting today, Newton is disabling new sign-ups and will not be renewing monthly subscriptions. Customers who paid for an annual subscription will also be refunded on a pro-rata basis, with Newton to offer instructions on claiming a refund no later than September 18.

CloudMagic, Newton’s parent company, will continue to operate and will be focusing on “new and innovative products.”
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Responds to U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: ‘The Customer is Not Our Product’

Last month, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters to Apple and Google parent company Alphabet with 16 multi-part questions about how the companies handle customer data.

Apple has since responded to the letter, reiterating the company’s belief that “privacy is a fundamental human right” and that it purposely designs its products and services to minimize its collection of customer data.

Timothy Powderly, Director of Federal Government Affairs at Apple, responded on behalf of Apple CEO Tim Cook:

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the capabilities of Apple iPhone devices. Not all technology companies operate in the same manner— in fact, the business models and data collection and use practices are often radically different from one another. Apple’s philosophy and approach to customer data differs from many other companies on these important issues.

We believe privacy is a fundamental human right and purposely design our products and services to minimize our collection of customer data. When we do collect data, we’re transparent about it and work to disassociate it from the user. We utilize on device processing to minimize data collection by Apple. The customer is not our product, and our business model does not depend on collecting vast amounts of personally identifiable information to enrich targeted profiles marketed to advertisers.

Because we strongly believe the customer should control their personal information and the way it’s used, we provide a number of easily accessible resources on our website so that they can make wise choices. Most of your questions are addressed in public-facing documents such as our privacy website, which can be found at http://www.apple.com/privacy. In addition, we recently answered similar questions from Senator Charles Grassley, and our responses are available online.

Innovation at Apple means designing a new product or service with customer privacy as a key element of design, and not an obligation. We hope that the responses below are helpful in understanding these topics and make clear Apple’s position that customers are entitled to transparency, choice, and control over their personal information. We would be pleased to brief Committee staff at your convenience.

Apple provided detailed responses to all 16 questions, and background information on location services, in its full-length letter.

Apple’s Response to U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Questions on Personal Data Collection by MacRumors on Scribd

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: privacy
Discuss this article in our forums

Pentagon restricts fitness trackers and other geolocators in high-risk areas

Security threats from wearables with geolocation features led the Pentagon to restrict the use of fitness trackers and other devices, according to The Associated Press.

Citing a Pentagon memo, the AP reported military leaders would make the call on mobile device use. When command staff determines the security threat level from wearables’ GPS use is too high, personnel will be banned from activating geolocation features or from using the devices at all.

Many fitness trackers and other mobile devices with geolocation functions can reveal current locations and routes to social media. Unrestricted use of devices with location features is a significant concern when personnel are in war zones or sensitive areas.

“These geolocation capabilities can expose personal information, locations, routines, and numbers of DOD personnel, and potentially create unintended security consequences and increased risk to the joint force and mission,” the memo said according to the AP.

The Pentagon began investigating fitness devices that reveal global user locations earlier this year. Fitness-focused social networking company Strava published The Global Heat Map using subscriber data to show where people worked out. Pentagon personnel were not pleased when it was discovered that military base locations and troop movements were inadvertently revealed.

The security threat presented by The Global Heat Map prompted predictions that use of GPS-equipped fitness devices would be restricted. The penny dropped with the recent Pentagon memo.

“It goes back to making sure that we’re not giving the enemy an unfair advantage and we’re not showcasing the exact locations of our troops worldwide,” Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Rob Manning told The AP.

In May, the military instituted new regulations for cell phone use at the Pentagon itself, according to the AP. Cell phones are not allowed in areas where sensitive topics are discussed but must be left in storage containers outside secure areas.

Rules limiting cell phones in secure locations inside the Pentagon were previously in place, but the May memo tightened and added to those restrictions. Now Pentagon personnel will need to leave their fitness trackers, smartwatches, and any other devices with geolocation functions in the storage containers.

Cell phones and fitness trackers are not banned entirely from the Pentagon and other military locations, but the new regulations underscore concerns about revealing location information.

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Canon drops 5 new printers to round out its PIXMA lineup

Canon has launched a new collection of PIXMA printers due out September 2018. These new models: TS9521C, TS9520, TS9520, TS8220, TS6220, and TR4520, range from craft-focused printers to home office all-in-ones and range in price from $100 to $250.

Up first is the three-in-one PIXMA TS9521C. this printer is designed specifically with crafters and scrapbookers in mind, a departure from Canon’s usual consumer base. It supports pages up to 12 by 12 inches (the size most commonly used for scrapbooking), includes 45 built-in patterns for adorning the paper, and features a large 4.3-inch touchscreen for navigating the menu. It comes in white and retails for $250.

Next up is the PIXMA TS9520, a more business-focused printer with Canon’s hybrid five-ink tank system. This printer is designed to work specifically with paper up to 11 by 17 inches in size — perfect for a home or small office. It also includes a built-in card reader and can both scan and copy using its built-in scanner. The TS9520 comes in black and retails for $250.

Onto the PIXMA TS8220. This three-in-one printer features a unique design and paint scheme with a sleek, mirrored finish on the bottom. Much like the TS9521C, this printer has multiple built-in patterns to print on paper up to 8.5 by 11 inches in size. It features six individual ink tanks and a precision print head that spits out a four by six print in just 17 seconds. It features the same card reader and 4.3-inch touchscreen as the TS9521C for navigating the menu. The TS8220 is available in black, white, and red for $200.

The fourth printer on the list is the PIXMA TS6220, a successor to the TS6120. This three-in-one printer opts for a five individual ink tank system that works to pump out four by six prints in just 21 seconds. It comes in both black and white and retails for $150.

Last up is the first four-in-one printer on the list, the PIXMA TR4520. A successor to the PIXMA MX492, the TR4520 can print, copy, scan, and fax documents. It features a basic four individual ink tank system, has auto-duplex printing (meaning it can print on both sides of the paper without any user intervention), and includes integrated WiFi. Like the TS6220, it can spit out a four by six print in just 21 seconds.

All five of the printer models mentioned above feature Amazon Alexa compatibility that lets you check on the status of the printer, verify the ink levels, print out coloring pages, and even add a new batch of ink to your Amazon cart. They also include easy print setup, which lets you take out your phone, scan a QR code on the bottom of the printer, and set it up out of the box without the need to install complicated software.

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Programmer trains artificial intelligence to draw faces from text descriptions

Programmer Animesh Karnewar wanted to know how characters described in books would appear in reality, so he turned to artificial intelligence to see if it could properly render these fictional people. Called T2F, the research project uses a generative adversarial network (GAN) to encode text and synthesize facial images.

Simply put, a GAN consists of two neural networks that argue with each other to produce the best results. For example, the job of network No. 1 is to fool network No. 2 into believing a rendered image is a real photograph while network No. 2 sets out to prove the alleged photo is just a rendered image. This back-and-forth process fine-tunes the rendering process until network No. 2 is eventually fooled.

Karnewar started the project using a dataset called Face2Text provided by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, which contains natural language descriptions for 400 random images.

“The descriptions are cleaned to remove reluctant and irrelevant captions provided for the people in the images,” he writes. “Some of the descriptions not only describe the facial features, but also provide some implied information from the pictures.”

While the results stemming from Karnewar’s T2F project aren’t exactly photorealistic, it’s a start. The video embedded above shows a time-lapsed view of how the GAN was trained to render illustrations from text, starting with solid blocks of color and ending with rough but identifiable pixilated renderings.

“I found that the generated samples at higher resolutions (32 x 32 and 64 x 64) has more background noise compared to the samples generated at lower resolutions,” Karnewar explains. “I perceive it due to the insufficient amount of data (only 400 images).”

The technique used to train the adversarial networks is called “Progressive Growing of GANs,” which improves quality and stability over time. As the video shows, the image generator starts from an extremely low resolution. New layers are slowly introduced into the model, increasing the details as the training progresses over time.

“The Progressive Growing of GANs is a phenomenal technique for training GANs faster and in a more stable manner,” he adds. “This can be coupled with various novel contributions from other papers.”

In a provided example, the text description illustrates a woman in her late 20s with long brown hair swiped over to one side, gentle facial features and no make-up. She’s “casual” and “relaxed.” Another description illustrates a man in his 40s with an elongated face, a prominent nose, brown eyes, a receding hairline and a short mustache. Although the end results are extremely pixelated, the final renders show great progress in how A.I. can generate faces from scratch.

Karnewar says he plans to scale out the project to integrate additional datasets such as Flicker8K and Coco captions. Eventually, T2F could be used in the law enforcement field to identify victims and/or criminals based on text descriptions, among other applications. He’s open to suggestions and contributions to the project.

To access the code and contribute, head to Karnewar’s repository on Github here.

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Best Android Phone Under $100 in 2018

• The best
• Runner-up
• Best on Verizon
• Best on Cricket Wireless
• Best on MetroPCS
• Best on Boost

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The best

Nokia 2

See at Amazon

Right on the dot at $99, the Nokia 2 is simply the best low-cost phone you can buy. It features a sleek and sturdy design with a metal frame, along with a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and a near-stock build of Android. It’s a bit lacking internally, with just 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, but the clean software keeps it running smoothly, and you can expand its storage with a microSD card.

The 5-inch 720p display is fairly impressive as well, but where you’ll really be wowed is with the 4100mAh battery, which easily manages two days of moderate usage. It also has a surprisingly decent 8MP primary camera, as well as a 5MP selfie shooter.

Bottom line: The Nokia 2 offers clean software and speedy performance for just a Benjamin.

One more thing: There’s a newer version of the device, the Nokia 2.1, but it sits just above our $100 price limit.

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Why the Nokia 2 is best

The ideal package in any price range is a well-built phone with clean and quick software, and the Nokia 2 delivers. With a beta version of Android 8.1 Oreo already available, it’s easily the most up-to-date device below $100, making it even more attractive on the software front than the Moto E5 Play.

It’s not the flashiest or showiest smartphone, with a relatively generic design, but you don’t expect pizzaz when you’re paying a Benjamin for a full-featured smartphone. The only thing it’s missing — and this is a big one — is a fingerprint sensor, meaning you’ll have to revert back to using a PIN for security.

Runner-up

Alcatel 1X

See at Amazon

The first Android Go-powered phone on the market exceeds our expectations. The Alcatel 1X doesn’t look like much, but its tall 5.3-inch display is great, and it’s got all the specs necessary to power Google’s version of Android that’s optimized for entry-level smartphones. There’s even an 8MP camera around back, a fingerprint sensor, an LTE modem and a nice 2460mAh battery.

Bottom line: At just under $100, the Alcatel 1X is a good alternative to the Nokia 2.

One more thing: The phone is only compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile and other GSM carriers in the U.S.

Best on Verizon

Motorola Moto E5 Play

See at Best Buy

The Moto E5 Play doesn’t have the 18:9 display or huge battery of the rest of Motorola’s refreshed lineup, but it still features a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of microSD-expandable storage. The phone ships with Android 8.0 Oreo, and the 2800mAh battery is one of the few removable batteries left on the market.

Bottom line: The Moto E5 Play is a great prepaid phone for Verizon customers.

One more thing: While Verizon sells the Moto E5 Play for $95, Best Buy (linked above) sells it for even cheaper — just $64.99.

Best on Cricket Wireless (AT&T)

LG X Charge

See at Cricket Wireless

If you want to get a prepaid phone from one of the big four carriers, your choices are limited, but AT&T’s Cricket sub-brand has a great selection, including the LG X Charge for $79.99 (at least for new lines). It’s got a big 5.5-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, Android 7.0 Nougat, and a massive 4500mAh battery.

Bottom line: The LG X Charge’s huge battery will outlast any other phone in Cricket’s lineup.

One more thing: If you’re upgrading from an existing Cricket device, the X Charge will actually cost $129.99.

Best on MetroPCS (T-Mobile)

LG K20 Plus

See at MetroPCS

Sitting right at the edge of our budget, the K20 Plus is the best phone on MetroPCS’s roster for under $100. With it, you get a 1.4 GHz Snapdragon 425, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. The 5.3-inch 720p display barely draws any power from the 2700mAh cell inside, and the 13MP camera isn’t half bad either.

Bottom line: The Moto E4 offers decent specs and speedy performance at an affordable price.

One more thing: The K20 Plus is running the dated Android 7.0 Nougat.

Best on Boost Mobile (Sprint)

Moto E5 Play

See at Boost

The Moto E5 Play is just as good on Boost as it is on Verizon. It’s one of the few phones under $100 that still runs a current version of Android — specifically Android 8.0 Oreo — and while its specs aren’t anything mind-blowing, it’s plenty good enough to keep the phone running smoothly. Its software is delightfully close to stock Android, with a few added goodies from Motorola.

Bottom line: The Moto E5 Play is your best bet for clean, modern software for cheap.

One more thing: If battery life is your top priority, the ZTE Max XL with its 3990mAh battery is a better option.

Conclusion

The Nokia 2 is the best overall device, largely thanks to its clean software and high-end build quality, but customer discounts could land you a better deal depending on your carrier.

The best

Nokia 2

See at Amazon

Right on the dot at $99, the Nokia 2 is simply the best low-cost phone you can buy. It features a sleek and sturdy design with a metal frame, along with a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and a near-stock build of Android. It’s a bit lacking internally, with just 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, but the clean software keeps it running smoothly, and you can expand its storage with a microSD card.

The 5-inch 720p display is fairly impressive as well, but where you’ll really be wowed is with the 4100mAh battery, which easily manages two days of moderate usage. It also has a surprisingly decent 8MP primary camera, as well as a 5MP selfie shooter.

Bottom line: The Nokia 2 offers clean software and speedy performance for just a Benjamin.

One more thing: There’s a newer version of the device, the Nokia 2.1, but it sits just above our $100 price limit.

Updated August 2018: The Moto E5 Play has become our top pick on Verizon and Boost.