Moto G6 vs Nokia 7 Plus vs Honor 7X camera shootout

The best camera we can own is the one that performs superbly when we need it most. Often, this can be in a situation that demands speed, and not one that’s all about composition, art, and attention to detail. We want the best results possible, in the easiest way imaginable, without having to mess around. After all, a smartphone is supposed to be user friendly and convenient, so why can’t the same be asked of the camera?

Motorola wanted to demonstrate how fast and effective the new Moto G6’s camera is, so it invited us along to — where else — a race track in the U.K. to prove it. Except we didn’t turn up with just our racing booties and a Moto G6. We brought the Nokia 7 Plus and the Honor 7X along for the ride. All three of these phones cost half that of even the cheapest flagship phone, and represent great value for money, but how do the cameras perform in a situation that demands speed? Let’s take a look.

Camera tech

How do the cameras compare on paper? The $250 Moto G6 has an f/1.8 aperture, dual-lens rear camera with 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. The video camera shoots at 1080p, and there are various special modes including Spot Color, a Cutout mode, and Portrait Mode, plus an 8-megapixel selfie camera. It’s worth noting the Moto G6 and the Moto G6 Plus share the same camera specifications, so the results here should be comparable.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The 300 British pound/$390 Nokia 7 Plus has a 12 megapixel, f/1.75 aperture main lens and a second 13-megapixel, f/2.6 aperture lens. Both have Zeiss optics, and the camera has a portrait-style mode called Live Bokeh, as well as the cool Bothie mode that takes a photo with the front and rear camera simultaneously. The selfie camera packs 16 megapixels, and the video mode is enhanced with Nokia’s Ozo triple microphone array. This phone is sadly not available in the U.S. yet.

Finally, the Honor 7X is the oldest phone here, having been released late last year, but it’s still a great device with a strong camera, especially for just $200. The rear camera has two lenses — a 16 megapixel, f/2.2 aperture sensor, and a 2-megapixel, f/2.9 aperture sensor — and although the specs can’t quite match the other two here, the app has plenty of features including portrait and bokeh modes.

Speed test

Speed is of the essence on an “experience day,” like the one we attended. There isn’t much time for taking photos, so you just want to get on with it when the time comes. However, if the picture ends up being rubbish, it’ll be time wasted and moments missed. The camera app is an important part of this process.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

The Moto G6’s camera app is very simple, and it really is the fastest here. There are three buttons for the stills, video, and options menu above the shutter release. In the menu you tap the option you want, then hit the stills camera button to return to normal. It doesn’t always make sense though, as the Manual mode is not under the options menu, but in a separate button along the top of the display. We love the helpful shortcut that lets you shake the phone to quickly open the camera app from the lock screen, which secured its win.

The Nokia 7 Plus’ app is also simple, with a few options hidden under the menu button in the top left of the screen. The Nokia has a 2x lossless zoom feature, which the Moto G6 and 7X don’t have. The Honor 7X has the most complex and feature rich camera app. Slide the screen left or right to show all the options, and there’s quick access to portrait and aperture modes along the top of the screen.

The Nokia 7 Plus was more stable, but slower to open than the Moto G6. Finally, due to its complexity, the Honor 7X needs you to be familiar with how to use the camera ahead of time to get the best from it, but once you are, it’s a powerful companion.

Winner: Moto G6

Renault Clio Cup Racers

Bedford Autodrome is the home of Palmer Sport, and we were there to drive the company’s Renault Clio Cup Racer, and an F3000 single-seat racing car. The brightly colored Clio’s were up first, and we took two pictures of the cars, one as a two-shot and another of the grid with the garages in the background.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

Six very different photos are produced. The Moto G6 is the only phone that automatically activated HDR, and it really shows in both images. In the shot of the two cars, you can see more detail in the wheel arches and the front valance, and while the sky isn’t so richly blue as the Nokia’s photo, it’s a beautiful picture. The Honor 7X washes out the yellow cars too much, and you can’t see much in the shadow of the garages in the second picture either.

In the Moto G6’s HDR-enhanced photo you can clearly see into the back of the garage and make out stacks of tires. This is at the expense of some realism in the track surface’s color, and a blue sky that’s too light. We don’t like the almost purple sky in either of the Honor 7X’s photos.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

The Nokia 7 Plus produces the photos with the best balance. The sky and the track surface look like they did on the day, and there’s enough detail in the garages to show what’s there. Best of all, the colorful livery on the cars is well separated, and the yellow pops in the image.

Winner: Nokia 7 Plus

Race car mirror

This is a bokeh mode test, and again the results are really different, emphasizing how important reliability is in many situations where we use our phones as cameras. The Nokia 7 Plus still has some problems with its Live Bokeh mode. Here, it actually focused on the car’s seats and not the mirror, despite giving us a “Depth Success” message at the time. It’s a perfect example of the camera not giving us the picture we wanted, in a situation that we’re unable to replicate, and it’s a shame because the photo is excellent otherwise.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

With the Nokia out of the running, it’s down to the Moto G6 and the Honor 7X. The Motorola phone really focuses in on the mirror, blurring out the background almost entirely, including the mirror’s actual support. The Honor 7X does it much better. You can still read the Palmer Sport logo on the side of the car, and there are details on top of the mirror itself almost missing from the Moto G6’s picture.

Winner: Honor 7X

Blue race car

Another two photos of the same subject, from different angles. The cockpit is shot facing the bright sunlight outside the window, while the entire car is taken with the sun behind us.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

Let’s begin with the Nokia. Once more, it fails to capture the photo we expected. The background is more in focus, along with the tire sidewalls, than the instrument cluster at the center of the image. In all these photos, we tapped the same section for focus and exposure, and it’s a surprise to see it like this.

The Moto G6 and the Honor 7X both managed to focus on the car’s interior, but both struggled with the challenging light. The roll bar in the Honor 7X’s photo is jet black, but almost grey in the G6’s, while the interior in the photo is considerably clearer and more detailed. Similarly, the tire sidewalls are also detailed, but the area by the door in the top right is overexposed and washed out. Neither picture is great, so this one is a tie.

How about the photo of the car itself, can it break the tie?

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

The Nokia 7 Plus still has problems knowing where to focus, and there is some blur in the photo around the edges. The Moto G6 handles the color and contrast in a similar way to the Nokia 7 Plus, and produces a sharper more pleasing photo. The Honor 7X actually takes the sharpest photo out of the three, and we prefer the shade of blue in its photo too. This gives it the win here.

Winner: Honor 7X

F3000 garage

This is a much closer race (sorry), and it’s the Honor 7X that loses out first due to the reds becoming more pink that they were in reality. The Nokia and the Moto G6 are very close, and it’s almost impossible to pick between them.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

However, the deeper you look into the Nokia’s photo the sharper the details are. Despite this, the Moto G6’s photo is still one we’d be very happy with, as it captured the regimented line-up of the cars in a visually-interesting way. Forced to pick a winner, we’d go for the Nokia.

Winner: Nokia 7 Plus

Portrait Mode

Who wouldn’t want a celebratory selfie after a day of being a racing driver? Using portrait mode all three cope in different ways with the bright background and the challenge of isolating the helmet and the face. The Honor 7X very effectively blurs the background around the helmet, and keeps the color and brightness balance just right for the subject’s face. The background is slightly overexposed, but the racing car in the background is still visible, giving the scene further context.

• 1.
  Moto G6
• 2.
  Nokia 7 Plus
• 3.
  Honor 7X

The environment is even more clear in the Moto G6’s photo, and the color balance is beautiful. Just look at the red car and the blue sky against the black race suit. It’s a shame the portrait effect took away the edge of the visor; but we think this may be because the subject’s angle is different to the Honor 7X’s photo.

The Nokia 7 Plus is somewhere in-between. The background is overexposed, but the racing car is red and obvious in the photo, while the portrait mode isolates the helmet well. However, because the background is overexposed, detail is lost around the left-hand side of the helmet. The race suit is also quite grey. It’s probably slightly more realistic, but the Moto G6’s photo, even with the less effective edge blur, is the one we’d want to share.

Winner: Moto G6

Video performance

We also shot some quick panning videos showing the cars going round the track with each device, and also shot our main video above on the Moto G6.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The Nokia easily beat the Honor 7X and the Moto G6 here, with a smoother, steadier, and more detailed video. However, it was the audio that really surprised. The Nokia 7 Plus has three microphones with special tuning, and the performance was superb, giving the scene real emotion. It was far more representative of the car’s sound.

Winner: Nokia 7 Plus

Conclusion

The Nokia 7 Plus won three categories, while the Moto G6 and the Honor 7X took two. While this technically gives the Nokia 7 Plus the overall win, the photo categories it lost were failures, which is much worse than producing a less impressive shot. We noted problems with the bokeh mode in our review, and no software update has arrived to cure this between then and now, and this test shows how photos can be ruined by such issues. It’s impossible to recommend a phone that may let you down when you need it most.

The surprise here is the Honor 7X, which not only took two categories, but also came very close to winning in two others. It’s the cheapest and oldest phone here, so to outperform these two at all shows how accomplished Honor is at producing great cameras. The Moto G6 also took some excellent photos, and we enjoyed using features like Spot Color to produce some fun images that would be more time consuming to make with the other devices. What’s more, it was definitely the fastest to take each photo thanks to that gesture shortcut.

Here’s our complicated conclusion. The most expensive phone is the best for photos and video, except when it’s not at which time it’s the absolute worst, and the cheapest phone is the best all-rounder. In the middle is the Moto G6, a phone that you won’t be unhappy with at all. Plus, Motorola really did prove it has the fastest camera app here, with its shake-to-wake feature. All that said, it’s very hard to argue against the Honor 7X when it costs so little.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Moto G6 vs Nokia 7 Plus vs Honor 7X Camera Shootout
• Battle of the budget phones: Moto G6 vs. Nokia 6.1 camera shootout
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T vs. OnePlus 5 vs OnePlus 3T camera shootout
• OnePlus 6 vs. OnePlus 5T vs. OnePlus 5: Is it worth it to upgrade?
• Moto Z3 Play vs. Moto Z2 Play vs. Moto Z Play: Should you upgrade?

Here’s how Google’s Digital Wellbeing feature looks and works in Android 9.0 Pie

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Feel like you’re spending too much time on your smartphone? Tech addiction is a real problem. A recent survey, developed by Motorola and an expert from Harvard University, found more than half of Generation Z respondents described their phone as a best friend, and 35 percent of respondents agreed they spend too much on their smartphone.

Google and Apple have noticed. Both companies have developed tools in the latest versions of their respective mobile operating systems to help people control time spent on smartphones. We’ve compared the differences between Digital Wellbeing in Android 9.0 Pie and Screen Time in iOS 12, but we’re only now getting our first real look at Google’s initiative. Android 9.0 Pie may have rolled out, but Digital Wellbeing is still in beta, and you will need to sign up to test it before it rolls out later this year. The beta is only available for Pixel and Pixel 2 series smartphones. Let’s take a closer look.

Set up

After signing up for the beta through our Pixel 2 XL, we received an email inviting us to download the beta version of the Digital Wellbeing app. This may download as a traditional app, but you won’t be able to find it through the Google Play Store on another smartphone. Once downloaded, it’s also not an app available in the App Drawer. Instead, head to the Settings app and scroll to the bottom. There’s a new Digital Wellbeing category sandwiched between Accessibility and above Google. Tap it, and the following two splash pages will appear, and you will need to give Digital Wellbeing access to Do Not Disturb.

Digital Wellbeing

In the hub of Digital Wellbeing, a circle lies at the top, and the number in the middle shows for how long the screen has been turned on. The circle’s line is made up of a variety of colors, with each one highlighting an app you spent the most time using (it shows five apps, and the rest fall in the Other category). Tap on the name or color of each app to dive into more detailed information. For example, tapping Twitter shows we spent 9 minutes in the app this week — this can also be broken down daily and hourly, and you can cycle through weeks. Tap on the little down arrow at the top right corner, and you can change the graph to show Notifications received, and Times opened. For us, it said we received 11 Twitter notifications this week, and that we opened the app twice.

You can set App Timers here, which we’ll get to soon, and control the app’s notifications as well.

Head back to the main screen, and there are two other numbers below the circle — the amount of times the phone has been unlocked in a day, and the total amount of notifications received. You can’t really act on these specific numbers, but their presence hopefully may help people visualize exactly how many times we reach for our phone in a given day.

The two main “ways to disconnect” are listed below the circle: Dashboard and Wind Down. Before we dive into these, at the very bottom are two links to jump into Android’s notification management menu and the Do Not Disturb menu, both of which we’ve already explored. Android 9.0 makes it easy as pie to turn off notifications from apps (you can even control which notifications from apps come through), and the revamped Do Not Disturb system is dead simple to use. Just turn it on and all visual and sound interruptions disappear (but it’s also customizable).

Dashboard: Setting App Limits

Tap the number in the middle of the circle or Dashboard on the main Digital Wellbeing menu to access your smartphone usage data. You can see different information here, such as how many notifications you’ve received and screen time, as well as a list of apps you spent the most time using. Next to these apps are labels that say No timer. If you feel like you’re using an app for far too long, tap No timer and a pop up menu with a few options will appear: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or custom timer. Set a limit you feel is appropriate, and once you hit your allotted time limit, you’ll see the following:

The app will minimize, and a popup appears saying you’ve hit your allotted screen time. Take a look at the app on your home screen or App Drawer, and it will be gray-scale, indicating it’s not available. Tap it, and a message will pop up saying as much. If you tap Learn more, you’re taken to the Dashboard where you can turn off the App Limit for the app. It feels a little too easy to turn off App Limits, and we found the same to be true with Apple’s iOS 12 Screen Time limits.

Wind Down

Our favorite Digital Wellbeing feature is Wind Down, which is when several actions are triggered at bedtime. Tap Wind Down from the main screen and you can set up a time for it to start and end. During this time period, your entire phone will go gray-scale, and Do Not Disturb mode will turn on, blocking all visual and sound interruptions (tap the toggle buttons to turn either of these off). The phone will also trigger the blue-light filtering night mode if it isn’t on already.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Without seeing any notifications, and with color stripped away from your smartphone’s screen, the idea is that you will want to put down your phone at bedtime and go to sleep. We haven’t found an easy way to turn off Wind Down mode quickly. You can toggle Do Not Disturb and night mode from the notification drawer, but if you want to bring color back you will need to wait for the mode to end, or head to Settings > Digital Wellbeing > Wind Down > and tap the toggle next to Wind Down at the top.

Conclusion

We’re happy to see Google providing data such as how many times we’ve unlocked the phone, exactly what apps we’ve spent time on, and how much. It has helped us realize exactly which apps we should limit, though the App Limits are a little too easy to override. We do think the gray-scale home screen is incredibly useful, as it really does make us want to put the phone down.

As we’ve mentioned before, these screen management features in Android and iOS ultimately require the user to do a bit of work. If you seriously want to change the amount of time on your smartphone, think of Digital Wellbeing as a helpful guide lighting the way — though you’ll still need to follow the path yourself.

Digital Wellbeing will roll out later this year to all devices running Android 9.0 Pie. If you have a Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, or Pixel 2 XL, you can sign up for the beta here.

Editors’ Recommendations

• A cure for phone fatigue? Apple’s Screen Time vs. Google’s Digital Wellbeing
• Got Android 9.0 Pie? Here’s why you should turn off auto screen rotation
• Here’s how to download and install Android 9.0 Pie
• How to use Android 9.0 Pie’s gesture navigation, and how to turn it off
• Android 9.0 Pie: Everything you need to know

The EU’s pushing for standardized phone chargers again

Plans for a further push towards a common mobile phone charger are being examined in Europe. The EU commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, highlighted a lack of progress in the area, despite repeated attempts to reduce charger waste. According to a Reuters report, Vesteger told a lawmaker in Europe, who enquired about the ongoing situation, that the Commission found the currently voluntary system was making, “unsatisfactory progress,” and that a new study would soon be launched to examine alternative options.

Called an impact assessment study, this will help the Commission decide if it should introduce new rules, and how they would operate. While there is no guarantee the study will result in any mandatory changes, the EU Commission has been trying to influence the way device manufacturers produce and bundle chargers with products since 2009. The environmental impact of these chargers is considerable, with the EU stating each year chargers make up 51,000 tons of electronic waste in the the region.

Mobile device manufacturers signed on to produce a common charger for all smart devices sold in Europe at this time, which was based around the Micro USB connector, ready to end the use of proprietary cables and connectors. The original agreement was then re-signed in 2013 and 2014, and again in 2018 when USB Type-C was added. Apple, Samsung, LG, Sony, Google, Motorola, and Lenovo are all signatories. However, the scheme is voluntary, and not all the companies that signed in 2009, resigned again in later years.

While it’s rare not to buy a modern smartphone that doesn’t use a USB Type-C or Micro USB charger, there has been an increase in the use of proprietary fast charging systems. These often require the bundled charging brick and cable to operate — OnePlus’s Dash Charge, and Huawei’s SuperCharge, for example — and only charge slowly when a non-compatible charger is used. Apple uses its own Lightning connector on the iPhone, but sells an adaptors to alter the configuration of a Micro USB cable to comply.

A start date for the study has not been announced yet, and no information on the alternative options the EU will investigate has been revealed.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best portable chargers of 2018
• The best wireless phone chargers for your iPhone or Android
• The best iPhone car chargers
• The best iPhone X battery cases
• For the 2019 Dodge Charger, V8 muscle is the fountain of youth

How to cancel MoviePass on Android

MoviePass is great until it isn’t. If you’re fed up with the service and just want out, here’s how to cancel your membership.

Without a doubt, one of the most controversial companies of the year is MoviePass. The offer of $9.95/month to see one movie per day started out as something that was seemingly too good to be true, but as time’s gone on, that offer’s become less and less magical.

Thanks to things like no repeat viewings, being limited to 3 movies per month, and showtimes that completely disappear from the app for no reason at all, you might have had enough with MoviePass and just want out. The company does allow you to cancel your membership at any time, and if you need help doing that, we’re here to walk you through what that process looks like.

Open MoviePass and tab on the Account tab.
Tap Account Details at the very top.
Tap Plan & Billing Info.

Tap the red Cancel text near the top-right.

Tap Reason for cancellation and select one of the items in the drop-down menu.
Tap Cancel Subscription at the bottom.

On the pop-up, tap Cancel Membership once again to confirm your decision.

Once you cancel your membership, you won’t be able to reactivate your account or start a new subscription for 9 months. In other words, make sure you’re absolutely certain you want to give MoviePass the peace sign before moving forward.

Also, your account will remain active until your next billing date. As such, no matter if you’re signed up for a monthly or annual plan, you’ll be able to keep on using MoviePass like normal until your renewal date.

MoviePass: Everything you need to know

Upgrade your home theatre setup with the £57 Soundcore Infini Mini soundbar

Better sound quality without breaking the bank.

For today only, you can grab the Soundcore Infini Mini Soundbar at Amazon UK for just £56.99. The product’s price has remained at £75.99 since it was released so today’s promotion marks its lowest price to date.

The 21-inch Infini Mini from Soundcore — sub-brand of Anker — can connect to devices through Bluetooth or directly to a TV via optical or 3.5mm cable. It offers two different sound profiles for movies or music and its compact size allows it you to place it directly under a TV, slot it into your TV stand or wall mount it.

This deal ends today, so if you want to upgrade your home theatre setup with this affordable soundbar then act fast before it’s gone. By purchasing the soundbar, you also qualify for 25% off the Soundcore Motion B portable Bluetooth speaker and 15% off Anker’s PowerPort wireless Qi charger.

For more UK deals coverage, be sure to keep an eye on Thrifter UK, sign up for the UK newsletter and follow the team on Twitter.

See at Amazon UK

Logitech Announces Apple-Designed ‘POWERED’ Wireless Charging Stand for iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X

Logitech has announced a new wireless charger for iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X that aims to make it easier to use your smartphone while charging it at the same time.

Designed “in collaboration with Apple”, Logitech’s POWERED Wireless Charging Stand can be placed on a desk or bedside table, and can hold your iPhone in an upright position – ideal for unlocking Face ID and reading notifications without removing the device from the U-shaped cradle.

Two additional features distinguish the POWERED from most other charging stands on the market: First, your device doesn’t have to be in exact alignment with the stand to complete the charging circuit, so you can “drop your iPhone on the cradle and go”, according to Logitech.

Second, the POWERED also supports landscape orientation, so you can watch video on your smartphone’s screen while it’s charging. The stand also charges iPhones wearing a protective case up to 3mm thick.

Logitech says the POWERED delivers up to 7.5W charging for iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X only, and up to 5W charging for all other Qi-enabled devices. The stand will be available this month in an “off-white” color for $69.99 at Logitech.com and Apple’s online store. Stay tuned for a review of the POWERED here on MacRumors.

Today’s announcement shouldn’t affect Apple’s plans to launch its multi-device AirPower charging mat before or in September.

Related Roundups: iPhone 8, iPhone XTags: Logitech, AirPowerBuyer’s Guide: iPhone 8 (Don’t Buy), iPhone X (Caution)
Discuss this article in our forums

Consumer Reports Says Apple Pay Cash is the Best P2P Mobile Payments Service

Apple Pay Cash is the highest-rated mobile peer-to-peer payments service on the market, according to a review by Consumer Reports.

In the first comparison of its kind, the Consumer Reports publication looked at the relative pros and cons of Apple Pay Cash, Zella, Square Cash, Venmo and Facebook Messenger P2P payments. Google Pay’s new money-sending feature wasn’t included in the group test, however.

The five services were rated worse or better in terms of payment authentication, data security, data privacy, customer support, and broad access (use not limited to those with a bank account or particular mobile device).

All five services were rated good enough to use, but Apple Pay Cash came out the winner with a higher overall score, mainly because of its stronger privacy and security measures.

Apple Pay was the only service that got top marks from CR for data privacy, because its policies state that it limits the information it collects and shares on users and their transactions. It doesn’t store credit card or debit card numbers, and it states in the terms and conditions that it doesn’t sell users’ personal information to third parties, CR found.

The requirement of later-generation Apple hardware and software was classed as the only major drawback of Apple Pay Cash, as per the “broad access” category described above.

Venmo, Facebook Messenger, and Square Cash all rated above average in most categories barring privacy. Zelle was downrated for poor clarity in its data policies, and failed to offer a way to confirm payments in its mobile app, although the company said the feature would be included by late October.

After a brief delay, Apple Pay Cash arrived on iOS devices in December 2017, although it’s currently only available to users in the United States.

Related Roundup: Apple PayTags: Consumer Reports, Apple Pay Cash
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Signals Smart Home Mesh Networking Interest by Joining ‘The Thread Group’

Apple has become a member of The Thread Group, an organization that supports companies interested in innovating networking solutions for consumer smart home devices using the Thread mesh standard (via 9to5Mac).

Apple has been added to the list of official members on the group’s website, although what that means in practical terms is unclear. According to literature available online, the group’s mission is “to focus on education, marketing, promotion of the Thread Networking Protocol, and ensuring a great experience through rigorous, meaningful product certification”.

Thread Group is a not-for-profit organization responsible for the market education around the Thread networking protocol and certification of Thread products. Thread is an IP-based wireless networking protocol providing the best way to connect products in the home. With Thread, product developers and consumers can easily and securely connect more than 250 devices into a low-power, wireless mesh network.

Thread is just one among several mesh standards that smart home products can be certified to support. Zigbee and Z-Wave are two such examples of rival standards competing in the connected home market, while Bluetooth was also recently updated to support mesh networking, or creating large-scale networks across devices without relying on a central hub or router.

In recent years, Wi-Fi mesh systems have become a popular solution for in-home wireless networks, with options from companies like Linksys, Orbi, Eero, and Google.

The technology is also looking to expand, with the Wi-Fi Alliance in May announcing a new certification program called “EasyMesh”, which aims to allow users to build mesh networks in their homes across different brands.

Apple joined the Qi Wireless Charging Consortium ahead of its adoption of inductive charging in last year’s iPhone lineup, so Apple’s Thread Group membership is sure to ignite speculation that the Thread standard could be coming to HomeKit products or even a future version of HomeKit.

Tags: HomeKit, mesh routers
Discuss this article in our forums

Vivo NEX review: A bold showcase for the future

The Vivo NEX is one of the most innovative phones of 2018.

The Indian handset market is one of the most competitive in the world, with no shortage of options at all price points. Vivo has managed to rise up the ranks in the country over the last four years through a combination of aggressive marketing and an impressive distribution network. The company has targeted the budget and mid-range segments, but it is now setting its sights on the premium category with its latest flagship, the NEX.

Vivo garnered a lot of global attention back at MWC with the X21, which was the first phone in the world to offer an in-display fingerprint sensor. The X21 was proof that Vivo could deliver innovation at a large scale, and the NEX furthers that belief.

The NEX also features an in-display fingerprint sensor, but its main attraction is a retractable front camera module that’s hidden away in the top portion of the chassis when not in use. To accommodate the bezel-less panel, Vivo had to come up with innovative solutions for the array of sensors that usually accompany the front camera module. The ambient light sensor lives underneath the display, and you get Vivo’s SoundCasting tech instead of the usual earpiece, which turns the entire screen into a speaker.

Vivo NEX

Price: ₹44,990 ($650)

Bottom line: The Vivo NEX is one of the most exciting phones of 2018. The retractable camera works reliably, the large bezel-less screen is ideal for gaming, and the two-day battery life lets you use the phone without worry of running out of charge. Software issues aside, the NEX is a fantastic phone if you’re in the market for something different.

Pros:

• Retractable camera
• Razor-thin bezels
• Exquisite design
• Two-day battery life

Cons:

• Availability limited to Asia
• Software resembles iOS
• No water resistance
• Long-term durability

See at Amazon India

Vivo NEX Hardware

It’s safe to say that the Vivo NEX is one of the most innovative phones of 2018. Vivo solved the problem of the notch by hiding the front camera behind a motorized slider, and it did so without having to get rid of the headphone jack.

The NEX has a 91.24% screen-to-body ratio, and the lack of any cutouts for sensors does create a more immersive experience. There is a subtle chin at the bottom, but it doesn’t detract from the bezel-less effect that Vivo is going for. The power and volume buttons are located on the right, and there’s a dedicated button on the right to invoke the Google Assistant. There’s a 3.5mm jack up top, and the phone charges over USB-C.

The NEX’s raison d’être is the 8MP camera module that elevates from the body whenever you enable the front camera. The camera takes just under a second to pop up, and while the slider itself doesn’t make any sound, you can set up custom sound effects to add to the occasion. The slider is one of the coolest features you’ll find on a phone today, and more importantly, it works without any issues day in, day out.

The only unknown with the slider is long-term durability. I activated the slider over a hundred times, and it worked just as reliably every single time, but it remains to be seen how it fares after a few months’ worth of pocket lint has accumulated around the module.

Although most of the attention goes towards the retractable camera, the NEX has a glass back with a geometric pattern that makes it stand out. The colors alternate based on the light reflecting off its surface, and the overall effect is quite evocative.

The NEX took a few tumbles and weathered them without any damage, but it didn’t do so when the front camera was engaged. Vivo mentioned that the motor could withstand a weight of 50 kilos, and while it’s clear that the manufacturer thought of such an eventuality and designed around it, there’s no telling if it will hold up in real-world usage.

And because the NEX has a retractable camera module, it is neither dust nor water resistant. The module also limits case options for the phone — Vivo includes one in the box that doesn’t cover the top portion of the device.

Vivo placed a lot of bold bets on the NEX, and they paid off handsomely.

The Vivo NEX is one of the largest phones around, and at 199g it’s also one of the heaviest. It’s 4g heavier than the Galaxy Note 8, but because Vivo was able to trim down the bezels considerably, it is 0.5mm shorter than the Note 8 while offering a screen that’s 0.3 inches larger.

Coming to the display, the 6.59-inch Super AMOLED screen is one of the largest on a phone today, and the all-screen front makes the NEX one of the best gaming devices in the market. Viewing multimedia content on the 19.3:9 ratio isn’t as exciting as most videos are still letterboxed to 16:9, but games make full use of that screen real estate. Playing PUBG in particular is delightful — the screen provides a large canvas, and the underlying hardware is the best currently available.

Screen	6.59-inch FHD+ (2316×1080) Super AMOLED
Chipset	Snapdragon 845
RAM	8GB
Storage	128GB
Software	Android 8.1 Oreo
Rear Camera 1	12MP, ƒ/1.8
Rear Camera 2	5MP, ƒ/2.4
Front Camera	8MP, ƒ/2.0
Battery	4000mAh
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, BT5.0, dual VoLTE
Security	In-display fingerprint
Colors	Black, Red
Dimensions	162 x 77 x 8mm
Weight	199g
Price	₹44,990 ($650)

The only issue with the display is that it isn’t conducive to one-handed usage. The screen itself is gorgeous, with vibrant colors and the ambient light sensor does a great job managing the brightness according to your environment. I had no issues reading the contents of the screen under harsh sunlight.

Then there’s the in-display fingerprint sensor. Vivo says the third-generation sensor is faster to authenticate and results in fewer errors, and that’s in line with what I’ve noticed in the two weeks I used the NEX. The sensor takes just under a second to authenticate, and while it’s not as fast as traditional fingerprint readers, there is the wow factor associated with using a module embedded underneath the screen.

The single speaker at the bottom produces a lot of sound, and while it isn’t as good as a stereo configuration, it is loud and detailed. Vivo’s SoundCasting tech is astonishingly good for calls, and I had zero issues on this front. And when you do need to plug in, the NEX has a 3.5mm jack, and there’s a built-in DAC that delivers impressive audio output.

As for the hardware itself, the NEX features the 10nm 2.8GHz Snapdragon 845, and you get 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as standard. There’s no MicroSD card slot, but you’re not going to need it as 128GB of internal memory is more than enough for most users. The robust hardware combined with Vivo’s optimizations make the NEX one of the fastest phones in the market today.

Battery life on the NEX is nothing short of phenomenal. That’s in part due to the 4000mAh battery, but mostly because of Funtouch OS’ aggressive memory management. In day-to-day usage, you’ll easily get two days’ out of a full charge, and there are battery modes to choose from in the settings that let you eke out even more battery life. Vivo’s own fast charging tech delivers a 22W charge, allowing the phone to hit a 50% charge in just over 20 minutes.

Vivo NEX Software

The Vivo NEX went up for sale in China first, and because Google services are banned in the country, it didn’t come with the Play Store out of the box. However, with the phone officially on sale in India, my unit does have the Play Store and Google’s suite of services bundled.

While the lack of Play Services isn’t an issue that affects the Indian unit, it has its own set of problems. Vivo’s Funtouch OS is heavily skinned, and the interface as a whole resembles iOS more than any other Android device. There’s a reason for this: when Vivo started out, it offered phones that looked a lot like the iPhone, and to sell the overall experience, it even designed its software to be an iOS clone.

You’re buying this phone for the hardware; not the software.

Things have changed dramatically on the hardware front over the last four years, but it’s clear that Vivo still has a long way to go when it comes to the software side of things. The multitasking pane, for instance, is near-identical to what you’d find on iOS, and there’s even a Control Center that you can pull up with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Vivo even calls it the Control Center, and it houses the toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mobile data, and others. With the toggles located at the bottom, the notification pane itself is bare, and only shows incoming notifications.

While it was a major annoyance on the X21, the position of the toggles sort of makes sense on the Vivo NEX. The humongous 6.59-inch display doesn’t really allow you to reach all the way to the top to get to the notification pane, but the toggles are easier to access as they’re located at the bottom. You get the option to choose what toggles show up in the Control Center, lock apps so they don’t get cleared from the cache, and adjust brightness and volume. Like the rest of the interface, the notification pane also has a similar iOS-inspired layout, but you do get the option to snooze notifications. Vivo thankfully offers inline relies as well as actionable notifications.

I regularly missed notifications from Newton Mail, Slack, Twitter, and Allo, and it was only when I opened a particular app that the notifications flooded in. For a phone to not get push notifications right — particularly one that costs $650 — is inexcusable in 2018, and Vivo needs to get its act together on the software front. For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time I faced issues with notifications. Most Xiaomi phones I used last year also had a similar issue, but to its credit Xiaomi addressed the problem with MIUI 9.

Most of the cosmetic issues can be mitigated by switching to a launcher like Nova, but Vivo needs to address the more serious bugs in Funtouch OS for it to be a viable option outside of China.

Vivo NEX Camera

The NEX has dual 12MP + 5MP cameras at the back, with the primary sensor offering 1.4um pixels and 4-axis OIS. The secondary sensor is for adding depth information to shots, and it creates a background blur effect.

The camera app itself is quick to load and there’s no noticeable shutter delay when taking photos. The interface is easy to use, and there’s even Google Lens integration, which provides additional information for real-world objects and locations.

The NEX produces impressive photos in daylight conditions, and the phone manages to do a decent job in artificial or low-light scenarios as well. The image quality isn’t at the same level as the Pixel 2 or the Galaxy S9, but it is on par with other devices in its price bracket. Vivo’s post-processing tends to favor oversaturated colors, and although they look great when shared on social media platforms, they’re not indicative of true-to-life colors.

OIS makes videos come out jitter-free, and the rear camera can shoot in 4K. And as cool as the front 8MP camera is to use, the results aren’t anywhere as good as what you’d get on the Pixel 2. The NEX would’ve fared a lot better had Vivo used a better-quality sensor for the front shooter.

Should you buy it? Yes

The Vivo NEX is a bold showcase for the future. With the rest of the field adopting the notch as a way to minimize bezels, Vivo went with an innovative solution that hides the front camera entirely.

The main issue with the Vivo NEX is availability: the phone is going up for sale primarily in Asian markets, and while you can import it from China, that particular version doesn’t include Google services out of the box, making it a non-starter for the U.S. or UK markets.

But if you’re living in India or other Asian markets where the NEX is currently on sale, then there’s plenty to like in the phone. The NEX is the best representation yet of an all-screen display, and the ultra-thin bezels up front create an immersive effect that you don’t really get with most other phones, aside from the Find X. Gaming in particular is a delight on the NEX thanks to the beefy hardware, the large 6.59-inch display, and the huge 4000mAh battery.

The NEX isn’t without its downsides — there’s no water resistance, and you’ll have to spend an afternoon setting up the software to your preferences. But overall, you’re getting a lot of interesting tech that isn’t available on any other phone today.

In India, the NEX is going up against the OnePlus 6. The 8GB/128GB verison of the OnePlus 6 costs ₹39,999 ($580) in the country, and while OxygenOS delivers a much better software experience, the NEX has much more exciting hardware.

4
out of 5

Vivo has aggressively marketed its wares in Asian markets over the last four years, building an impressive distribution network that allowed the company to rise up the ranks in the handset segment. With the NEX, it is signifying its intent to carve out a larger presence for itself in these markets.

The NEX is one of the most innovative phones of 2018. The software situation isn’t ideal, but if you’re in the market for a bezel-less phone with top-notch hardware, the NEX is one of the best devices available right now.

See at Amazon India

Android 9 Pie review: Closing the gap

The Android 9 Pie release is the proof in the proverbial pudding that Android as an operating system has hit its stride. Lacking neither underlying features or surface polish, Android 9 Pie is the most complete, comprehensive and consistent version of Android yet. It delivers on many of the promises of Android versions past, bringing us a new navigation system and app overview, better notification handling and resource management, and more embedded AI than you can poke a stick at. And yet, for all that, it can’t help but feel a little out of sync with its roots, perhaps trending a little too far in Apple’s direction. This is the Android 9 Pie review.

For Google, there are three main themes to Pie: intelligence, simplicity and digital wellbeing. The third won’t be available until the fall, but it is accessible to Pixel owners now through a public beta (more on this at the very end). The intelligence in Android Pie largely boils down to AI-based automation, learning from your usage habits to adjust everything from battery usage to display brightness. Simplicity is embodied in what you see and how you use it. Let’s start there.

Get Android Pie on your eligible device right now

A note on this Android 9 Pie review: The software experience I’m referring to below is based on the Android Pie version found on the Google Pixel 2. Android 9 on other devices may vary slightly although most of the underlying changes will be device agnostic. The bulk of this review was written based on the final Android P developer preview, with additional notes added after the official Android 9 update. I’ve been using Android P uninterrupted on the Pixel 2 since the initial alpha release on March 7, 2018.

Android 9 Pie review: Visual changes

The first thing you’ll notice about Android 9 is that its design language, known as Material Design, has received a visual refresh. The primary changes relate to rounded corners, colored icons, and lots more white space. It’s also flatter than ever, with even fewer drop shadows than before.

Android 9 navigation

Android 9 Pie introduces a new single-button gesture navigation system. It can be toggled on and off in the Display settings under Gestures > Swipe up on home button. These are the Android Pie gesture controls:

• Tap for home
• Long press for Google Assistant
• Swipe right and release for most recent app
• Swipe right and hold to scroll through recent apps
• Swipe up to show recent apps menu and suggested apps
• Swipe further up to open app drawer (or swipe up again from app overview)

Note: Android 9 gesture navigation is not going to remain limited to Pixel and Android One devices. Google has said that the Pixel 3 will use it by default and it will be made available to any manufacturers that want it.

These gestures are available in any screen, so you can swipe up any time to access the app drawer without going back to the home screen. A back arrow will appear to the left of the navigation button when necessary. I’m not entirely sure why swiping left to go back wasn’t implemented, as the back arrow’s presence seems slightly inconsistent with the otherwise very minimalistic navigation solution.

I’m not sure what the learning curve will be like for less technically-inclined users given the lack of visual cues, but I assume that’s why traditional on-screen buttons are still a thing. There are first-day popups to guide you but nothing persistent and obvious like Android’s traditional nav buttons.

Depending on where you are in the interface, other temporary buttons occasionally appear beside the navigation button. These include the keyboard picker and a smart rotation button. Smart rotation means that even if you have your auto-rotation toggle off, the Android OS will recognize apps in which you might want to override that setting (like YouTube for example), saving you a trip to the Quick Settings when you want to watch a video in full screen.

Related Articles

Android 9.0 Pie update tracker: What we know so far

Google launches Digital Wellbeing beta for Pixel owners on Android 9.0 Pie

On-screen gesture navigation is nothing new, with the iPhone X and several Android devices using it already. Some Android manufacturers had previously toyed with gesture navigation based around a capacitive fingerprint scanner, but that solution had several problems including quick app switching and accessing split-screen mode. In Android Pie, you just need to tap the app icon in the overview screen and choose split-screen from the menu (app pinning will also appear here if you enable it in Settings > Security & location > Advanced > Screen pinning). Fun fact: Huawei already introduced a single on-screen navigation button with last year’s Mate 10 Pro, although it was not as comprehensive as Google’s Pixel Pie solution. It should be noted for fans of capacitive buttons that the gesture nav button takes up the same amount of space as the old on-screen buttons.

Android Pie’s gesture navigation system is surprisingly natural once you know what does what, but it does take a little getting used to.

Using the Pie navigation system is surprisingly natural once you know what does what. It does take a little getting used to if you haven’t used gesture nav in the past, but once you do it just feels “right” (at least to me). My only qualm during this Android 9 Pie review was that to launch the app drawer you need to swipe past the halfway point of your screen. This isn’t so bad on my Pixel 2, but I can imagine it being a little clumsy on larger-screened devices. If anyone at Google is reading this, an option somewhere in the settings that allows you to move the tipping point for launching the app drawer down a bit would be a great addition.

App overview

There are now two versions of the app overview screen (if you have gesture nav enabled): one with the Google search bar and AI-suggested apps at the bottom and another with full-screen app preview cards. The first is passive, simply presenting a horizontal row of preview cards you can swipe your way through. To remove an app, simply swipe it upwards. To enter an app, either swipe it down or tap on its card. Swipe all the way to the right and you’ll see a Clear All option. Tap the app’s icon at the top of the preview card and you’ll get additional options for App Info, app pinning and Split-Screen.

If you have gesture navigation enabled, there are now two versions of the app overview screen, each with its own benefits.

The second app overview screen is much cooler. Activated by swiping (and holding) the navigation button to the far right, it launches an active scroll through your most recent apps. Simply keep your finger on the navigation button to keep scrolling and release to launch whichever app is currently on screen. You can reverse direction by moving the nav button to the left and the speed with which the cards scroll by matches the speed of your finger’s movement along the scrubber bar.

Rather than swiping and holding, if you swipe and release the navigation button to the right you’ll instantly load the most recently used app. This makes switching between your two most recent apps even more convenient than double tapping the old recent apps button. It works on the home screen as well as in an app, but the result is the same.

The larger app preview screens make it easier to see where you were at and you can even copy and paste text right from the preview cards. Depending on what you’re highlighting, Pie will also suggest an app (Maps for an address, Chrome for a URL, Contacts or Messages for a phone number, and so on). Some have actions attached to the app suggestion, like calling a number you’ve just highlighted and so on. For general text, your options are copy, search and share, and for images, it’s just share.

You can even copy and paste text right from the preview cards via a new feature called Overview Selection.

Overview selection can be turned off in your home screen settings under Suggestions. In this same menu, you can also disable the AI-suggested apps that appear in the app overview and at the top of your app drawer if you’re not a fan. I must say that, more so than any other “AI” or habit-based suggestions I’ve ever encountered on other phones, Google gets it right a lot more frequently than most.

I personally love the new recent apps screens. Some may feel having two is redundant, but I like having the option of an active and a passive scroll. The first lets me steadily scroll through my recent apps when I’m looking for an app I know I used fairly recently. The second lets me quickly flick all the way back to the last app in memory or scroll at my own pace.

Quick Settings

The Quick Settings area represents perhaps the most obvious visual change to the OS, even if the changes are pretty minimal. The monochrome and some would say dull Oreo toggles are now placed in colored circles. Depending on your wallpaper (Pie adapts automatically, but you can choose manually), you’ll either get a white or very dark gray ground with blue circles to denote active toggles and greyed out ones for those that are off.

Like Oreo, in the minimal Quick Settings pane at the top of the notification shade you’ll simply get six toggles. It’s mildly annoying that you can’t quickly access the settings menu from this view anymore, but you’ll learn to live with it. As always, tapping the toggles here flips them on or off, and holding down on one takes you to the relevant area in settings.

Android Pie adds a few splashes of color back into the OS, but most of it is only skin deep.

In the expanded Quick Settings view you’ll get nine toggles on screen, with a second page to the right if you need it. While the overall layout is the same as Oreo (barring the colored circles), it’s worth noting that Google has removed two things in Android 9 Pie. There are no longer any drop down carats for settings like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and the mini-menus they used to take you to are now gone. The only option in Pie is to long-press the toggle to go to the full section in settings. It may feel less convenient to some folks – having to leave the Quick Settings area just to switch Wi-Fi networks for example – but it does make the whole area feel less cluttered.

Which brings me to one of the most inconsistent parts of this new version of Android.

On the home screen, you’ll find the Wi-Fi, cellular network and battery icons at the right of the status bar. Swipe the notifications shade down and things rejig a little. The battery icon changes shape and shifts to the left to make way for a battery-remaining percentage (which shows up whether you have the percentage enabled permanently via the Battery settings menu or not). The Wi-Fi and cellular icons move into the right-hand corner of the Quick Settings mini-view and the date appears to the left under the time, which makes sense. But swipe down into the full Quick Settings view and things reshuffle again. The date and Wi-Fi and mobile data icons vanish and instead, you find your Wi-Fi network named under the toggle while your carrier info appears at the very bottom of the card next to the moved-again cellular icon. On the lock screen, your carrier info appears in the top left corner.

This all just feels sloppy and unnecessary. For example, why show the Wi-Fi icon in the notification shade when the toggle already shows the same information? Why change the mobile data icon so it no longer shows cellular strength? Why move the cellular network icon three times rather than just leave it in the status bar? Do that and Google could have simply displayed your carrier info right underneath as it did with the date underneath the time. As boring as it may have been, Oreo’s consistent handling of these issues was far better, making the changes in Pie stick out as bad design.

Thankfully, the time, which now appears on the left of the status bar, never moves. Expect to instinctually look in the wrong place for a while after you get the Android 9 update.

Easter egg

Sorry folks, nothing new to see here (for now). Going to Settings > System > About phone > Android version and tapping the Android version number repeatedly in the card that pops up will still take you to the psychedelic peppermint P screen rather than a new Easter Egg. Perhaps in Android 9.1…

Settings

For once, the settings menu largely avoids what I typically refer to as Google DOCTRIN (Department of Change That Really Isn’t Necessary) and just gets a splash of color rather than a complete reshuffle. In keeping with other changes, the search bar at the very top of the Settings is now in a pill shape.

The colored icons in Android Pie’s settings menu is only skin deep though. As soon as you enter a sub-menu things generally revert back to the familiar black text on white ground with blue highlights (at least on the Pixel 2).

Android Pie doesn’t quite get a system-wide dark mode, but it does have a dark theme for Quick Settings and the app drawer.

Dark theme (sort of)

The Android team has long wanted to add a dark theme to the OS which is why we continually see it in various forms in developer previews. Unfortunately, every year it seems to fail Google’s internal testing for battery life and performance and so it is removed in the final version. Not so this year. While it’s not exactly a system-wide dark mode (the settings menu being the obvious exception), you can now choose whether you want a dark or light theme in your Display settings under Device theme. If you prefer the adaptive theme based on your wallpaper, you can also leave it as is.

Other visual changes

With Material Design’s new even-more-rounded corners, you’ll see a lot more of them in Pie and in Google’s apps in the months to come. Notification cards are no longer full-width as they are in Oreo, but are much more noticeably cards, complete with rounded corners. This is true both on the lock screen and in the notification shade.

There are new transition animations throughout Android 9 and new heads up notification animations as well. If you like animations you’ll enjoy them, but my standard advice is to enable developer options and turn Window animation scale and Transition animation scale to off. It won’t really make your phone any faster, but removing animations does make it feel snappier.

There’s now a battery percentage indicator at the bottom of the screen in Ambient Display, meaning you don’t have to waste battery by waking your phone to find out how much battery life you have remaining. You also get the weather displayed on Pie’s Ambient Display and centered notifications.

As you couldn’t possibly have missed unless you have been living under an internet-free rock these last few months, there’s new Android 9 Pie emoji. Fun fact: the Clock app icon actually shows the current time rather than being a static icon.

Android 9 Pie review: Functional changes

Volume

In Oreo, Google moved the power menu over near the physical power button. In Pie, it does the same to volume, putting it next to the volume button (except if you’ve got home screen rotation enabled, in which case it just appears on the right-hand side of the screen). By default, the volume buttons now adjust media volume rather than ringer volume.

There are two parts to the new look. The vertical slider is your media volume. It can be toggled on or off by tapping the musical note below it or adjusted by sliding or tapping the bar. It’ll switch to Bluetooth volume when you have wireless headphones connected and when you’re in a call the volume rocker changes in-call audio.

Pie moves the volume slider over near the volume buttons and adds shortcuts for vibrate, mute and sound.

The little box at the top is your ring volume. Tapping it cycles through on, vibrate only and off. You can also press volume up and power at the same time to instantly switch to vibrate only. If you hit your Sound settings you can change the button shortcut to mute (or disable it entirely). If you want to change the actual volume level rather than just toggle it, you’ll have to go to your sound settings via the cog icon at the very bottom. You can also adjust alarm and in-call volume here. The toggle for the optional charging sound when you plug your phone in is also found here.

Text selection magnifier

As in iOS, when you drag the text selection brackets left or right you’ll get a magnifier popup to better show you where you’re at in the text. I kind of wish it was a little less sensitive, as getting the right stopping point still doesn’t feel ideal. The popup is also not much of a magnification, essentially just getting the text out from under your finger rather than making it significantly larger. It’s a nice start but I think it could use further refinement. On a related note, if you, like me, were a big fan of the ability to add custom navigation bar buttons like move-one-space left or right, it’s still possible in Pie using an app called Custom Navigation Bar.

The power menu adds a screenshot button at long last and a new feature called Lockdown, which does what it sounds like.

Power menu

The power menu now has a screenshot option (the old power and volume down method still works though). It’s also worth noting there’s a new Lockdown option you can add to the power menu which will hide all notifications, block Smart Lock and disable the fingerprint scanner. You can find the toggle in your lock screen settings, but once enabled it’ll appear in the main UI as well. Side note: if your screen dims on its way to timeout, you can now bring it back to life simply by touching the fingerprint scanner.

Better security

For security reasons, idle apps in Pie can no longer access your camera, sensors or mic. If a background app does make a request you’ll see a notification alerting you to the fact. If it’s something you don’t approve of, you can deny access from the notification. MAC addresses are now randomized too, meaning it won’t be quite so easy to track your device across public access Wi-Fi.

Better screenshots

Sometimes the simplest changes make the most impact. In Android 9 Pie you can now edit a screenshot via the notifications shade, meaning if all you want to do is crop, circle something or highlight a section, you can now do so without requiring a third-party editing app.

Adaptive brightness

Android Pie introduces Adaptive Brightness, which shouldn’t be confused with the old adaptive brightness because now it’s got AI. Once enabled, Adaptive Brightness will automatically adjust to the ambiance of your situation as it always has, but it will also learn how you modify brightness in those conditions. So if you always tend to drop your screen brightness a bit further when you turn off the lights, Pie will soon learn that behavior and do it for you.

AI takes center stage in both battery and brightness, learning how you use your device and adapting to your preferences.

Adaptive battery

AI also enters the battery arena, prioritizing battery power for the apps and services you use most. Apps and services you use infrequently will have their resources limited to extend your phone’s battery life. It should be noted that this may result in delayed notifications from those apps, so be warned.

App Actions

Following on with this year’s impulse to AI all the things, Android 9 uses AI to pre-empt what it thinks you’re likely to do in an app – depending on the time of day, where you are, what you’re doing and what you ate for breakfast – and highlight it in the app drawer just underneath the AI-curated app suggestions. For me, I’m primarily recommended to message the Android Authority team in Slack or my wife in WhatsApp, two things I basically do every second I’m awake. So far so good, robots.

App Actions suggest the things Google’s AI thinks you’ll want to do – and it’s not bad.

App Actions are actually pretty cool: if you call your kids every day after school it’ll prompt the call at the right time; when you connect a pair of headphones it’ll switch to actions within your music player app of choice; get in the car and it’ll suggest navigation via Maps, and so on. App Actions also play into smart text selection, so if you highlight a band’s name, you’ll see listening options for your music apps as well as the usual options like copy and share.

If you don’t like the idea of AI learning all about your habits, you can disable Actions in the Home screen settings menu under Suggestions > Actions. If you do choose to use them, Actions can be dragged and dropped onto the home screen and will also appear in Google Assistant.

App Slices

App Slices aren’t ready for prime time yet, meaning they’ll likely debut on the Pixel 3. Slices are basically snippets of app UIs that developers can hand over to Google to have surfaced in places like search. The classic example is if you type Lyft into search, Pie will surface information and shortcuts from within the app like hailing a driver for a particular destination or showing how far away the nearest car is.

Search is only the first stage of Slices’ life, with Google Assistant integration coming eventually too. Like rich snippets on the web, Google is essentially prioritizing the user experience here at the cost of time-on-site or time-in-app. For example, if a cinema app allows Slices access to live screening times there might not be any need to launch the app at all. While some developers might want to avoid Slices for this reason, there’s no denying the feature will play an increasingly large part in Pie and future OS versions.

Anyone that took the time to learn Do Not Disturb’s three-part system will feel restricted by Pie’s default setup.

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb mode has been modified in Android 9. The fairly complicated three-part system (total silence, alarms only and priority mode) has been condensed into a single Do Not Disturb mode in Pie. It is customizable though, so you can add exceptions, adjust notification handling, remove visual disturbances when the screen is off and so on. For a mainstream user it’ll be easier and more coherent, but for anyone that took the time to get to know the old three-part system it will no doubt seem restrictive.

Notifications

Notifications have received some slight changes in Android 9. There’s a new Manage notifications shortcut at the bottom of the cards in the notification shade, and if you constantly swipe away a particular type of notification Pie will ask if you want to stop showing them. If you tend to get a little swipe happy and forget what notification you blindly dismissed, or suffer from spammy notifications you want to block, Pie has your back. You can now see a user-facing list of recent notification activity at the bottom of your Notifications settings. If it’s something annoying you can flip the toggle right there to disable them in future.

Thanks to the accursed notch, you’ll only see four notification icons in the status bar before the list is truncated with a dot to indicate more unseen icons. As much as I suffer from notification anxiety, I still preferred being able to see which apps my notifications are from without having to commit to engaging with them by swiping down the shade. Accommodating a non-existent notch on the home screen in landscape mode is also ridonculous. Android should be smart enough to know if the device on which it is being used has a notch, or whether the screen has been rotated.

Persistent Android System and System UI notifications can now be disabled in their respective notification channels. Before you take the nuclear option and disable all of these just take a moment to think why you’re being shown them in the first place. They may be annoying when they clog up your notification shade but they are kind of important.

Other functional changes

Bottom nav is coming, including both bottom navigation in your favorite Google apps or bottom app bar menus. The rise of the notch and larger phones overall have meant that in-app navigation bars and app bar menus have migrated south, closer to your thumbs. It’ll take a while, but sooner or later most essential items in apps are going to be sitting just above the navigation button.

Battery Saver mode no longer turns your phone that horrendous shade of orange, simply providing a notification that the mode is enabled and a discrete + symbol inside the battery icon in the status bar. If Battery Saver is turned on and you only partially charge your phone, it will remain on if the battery percentage when you unplug your phone is still below the Battery Saver threshold you set in your battery settings. Side note: If you forget to turn your hotspot off, Android Pie will automatically disable it after a while if no devices are connected.

The text selection menu has been improved in Pie, taking web search and translate out of the overflow menu and onto the main menu. When App Actions appear in the menu, you’ll still have to deal with the overflow menu, but at least it won’t be every time you want to know what a Flügelspiegel is.

Android Pie’s Location settings have also been streamlined, but, like the simplification of Do Not Disturb mode, not necessarily in ways that you’ll like. Case in point: there is no longer a setting for battery saving mode in the location settings. Your options are now quite limited, either allow everything, disable location entirely or turn off Improve location accuracy, which means instead of using cellular, Wi-Fi and sensors you’ll only be using GPS, which will drain your battery very quickly. Opting in to any of these will grant Google permission to periodically collect your location data.

Digital Wellbeing

Google, like Apple, is making a big deal right now about helping you manage your screen time. While Google wants and needs you on your phone as much as possible to keep those ad dollars rolling in, introducing something that helps you wean yourself off it is admirable. Skeptics might assume it’s a decision made to avoid looking bad when Apple does it, but whatevs. According to its research, Google claims 70 percent of respondents admitted they’d like help using their phones less.

Unfortunately, Digital Wellbeing is not currently available in Pie, likely being held over for the Pixel 3 launch later this year. Current Pixel owners can, however, access a beta version of it by signing up with your Google Play account here and waiting for the invitation email. Once activated, it’ll appear in your settings menu.

The Digital Wellbeing Dashboard shows you how many notifications you’ve received, how often you’ve unlocked your device and how much time you’ve spent in various apps.

The primary functions of Digital Wellbeing are a Dashboard which gives you an overview of your device usage: how many notifications you’ve received, how often you’ve unlocked your device and how much time you’ve spent in various apps.

Following that, App Timer lets you set time limits for particularly addictive apps, with the app icon being grayed out once your time is up. If you know you have an unhealthy addiction to Instagram, Android Pie can help keep your impulses in check, assuming you opt in of course. As with most things, the first step to recovery is admitting you need help.

A new mode called Wind Down will slowly limit your device’s activity according to a schedule you set. So as you get closer bedtime it’ll turn on night mode, limit interruptions via Do Not Disturb and eventually fade the screen to grayscale to remind you it’s time to hit the hay.

While these additions are certainly positive, it’ll be interesting to see how many folks actually volunteer to limit their phone usage and how many stick with it over time. I can absolutely see a lot of us turning things off in irritation when we’re in the midst of a 2am YouTube binge and our screen suddenly turns monochrome.

Wrap up

Android Pie continues the push first made abundantly clear in Oreo: Google has taken Android mainstream. Where Oreo put a clean table cloth on the Android foundation we all know and love, Pie is starting to clear away some of the clutter. In a few places, Pie even starts down the slippery slope of removing choice in favor of a single “simple” solution. Whether it’s handing the reins to AI or simply accepting the settings Google thinks is best, Pie feels the least “Androidy” of all recent releases.

For the majority of mainstream users – the next billion Google is obviously courting – a less complex Android will likely be seen as a good thing. Android has a reputation for being the tech savvy person’s OS, something that scares off a lot of the smartphone buying public. First Oreo and now Pie have been designed to rehabilitate that reputation. Pie makes the Pixel line every bit as approachable as the iPhone, even if Google’s primary focus is propagating its software and services rather than shipping hardware. But to those that have long loved Android’s exhaustive customization and freedom, Android 9 might feel a little hollow, at least in the form Google has released it. For those feeling a little disillusioned, other Android manufacturers will become an increasingly important factor in giving Android Pie enough spice to give it the flavor they crave.

Android is becoming more user-friendly, more intelligent, more clean and simple, and increasingly melting into the background.

Philosophical qualms aside, there is a lot of great stuff going on in Android 9 Pie, and I have to say I feel slightly guilty for enjoying it as much as I do while starting to realize what’s being lost along the way. As Android becomes more user-friendly, more intelligent, more clean and simple, it’ll increasingly melt into the background and become something that “just works.”

AI and machine learning will continue to make more and more decisions for us, but even if they’re totally accurate and appropriate, it’ll be hard to shake the feeling that something central to Android’s history has fallen by the wayside. As Android 9 Pie closes the gap and brings us one step closer to a seamless, polished, intuitive and fully automatic future, just know that if that thought fills you with equal parts excitement and longing for the good old days, you’re not alone.

Let us know when you expect to get Android Pie in the comments and what you think of what you’ve seen so far.