Tag: android

14 Best Android Phones (2024): Unlocked, Cheap, Foldable

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We test a ton of Android phones. We like the ones below, but you’ll be better off with one of the options above. If you haven’t yet done so, check out our Best Cheap Phones guide for more.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE for $600: I used this phone for several weeks and found it was more than enough to meet my needs. The cameras are surprisingly decent—you even get a usable 3X optical zoom, though its results are not as excellent as the ones from the Galaxy S23. The performance gave me zero issues, and the battery often lasted me a little more than a day with average use. The 6.4-inch screen is a pretty nice size that’s not too big and not too small, and you still get perks like wireless charging and a 120-Hz screen refresh rate. It has dipped as low as $400 during Black Friday, so I highly recommend you wait for a sale.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Series ($700+): It seems like last year’s Galaxy S23 range (9/10, WIRED Recommends) may be disappearing faster than usual, as stock is low across a variety of retailers. If you can find them, the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23, the 6.6-inch S23+, and the massive 6.8-inch S23 Ultra are full of high-end features, from the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset that keeps even the most demanding games running beautifully to the fluid and bright 120-Hz AMOLED displays. Battery life has improved across the board, with the S23 comfortably lasting more than a day and the S23 Ultra hitting nearly two full days with average use. The triple camera systems are the highlight, delivering remarkable results whether it’s day or night. The S23 Ultra has the special 10X optical zoom camera, which is no longer available on the latest S24 Ultra, and I miss it. It was nice being able to capture sharp photos of objects far away. It’s the only phone in the trio with the embedded S Pen stylus if you like to doodle. Try to avoid the MSRP since they’re a year old; sometimes, these prices match the latest models, which is a bad deal.

OnePlus Open for $1,700: The OnePlus Open (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is the first folding smartphone from OnePlus, and it’s surprisingly good. OnePlus has some clever software trickery to make multitasking on this booklike foldable simple and effective. The camera system delivers good results, the screens get plenty bright, and the battery life is excellent. I just wish the water resistance was better and that it had wireless charging.

Google Pixel 6A for $349: Google’s continuing to sell the 2022 Pixel 6A (8/10, WIRED Recommends) at a marked-down price. It’s still excellent value and a worthy purchase. It’s powered by Google’s first-gen Tensor chip, which means you’re getting some of the best performance for the money, and it supports all the same great (and helpful) software smarts as the flagship Pixel 6 series. It’s got an OLED screen, a decent camera system, and lengthy software support. There’s no wireless charging and it has a 60-Hz screen.

Xiaomi Poco X6 for £319 and X6 Pro for £369: Not in the US? You should take a look at the Poxo X6 or Poco X6 Pro (7/10, WIRED Recommends). These are speedy phones considering the low prices, with great displays, and decent battery life, plus the X6 even has a headphone jack! It’s a shame there’s a lot of bloatware, limited water resistance, and the cameras are lackluster.

Google Pixel 7 Pro for $600: The 2022 Pixel 7 Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a good buy if you can find it at this price (or lower). You get a 6.7-inch screen with a 120-Hz refresh rate. There’s Face Unlock, but this isn’t secure like the version on the Pixel 8, so you’ll have to rely on the fingerprint sensor to access sensitive apps. Cameras are a big part of Pixels, and the Pixel 7 Pro remains one of the best with an upgraded ultrawide with autofocus, enabling a Macro Focus mode for close-ups. Its telephoto camera has an excellent 5X optical zoom too.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 for $1,499: The Fold5 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) remains an excellent big-screen folding smartphone. The cameras can take some great photos, the displays can get shockingly bright, and Samsung promises lengthy software support. But the introduction of the Pixel Fold has shown me how much more I prefer the wider front screen. The Fold5’s external screen feels too narrow, and some apps feel squished (though it’s a little easier to grasp when closed). It’s frequently available for $1,499 so try not to pay more.

Samsung Galaxy A54 for $453: Samsung also has a great A-series mid-range phone, the Galaxy A54 5G (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s a nice alternative to the Pixel 7A or OnePlus 12R. The 6.4-inch AMOLED screen can ratchet up the brightness like crazy, so you never have to squint, and the screen reacts more smoothly thanks to the 120-Hz refresh rate. It matches the Pixel on security updates but it offers an extra year of OS upgrades for a total of four. The reason why it’s not above? Performance is good, but things can get a little stuttery when you try to juggle many apps at once; the Pixel 7A and OnePlus 12R easily beat it in speed. The A54’s battery can last more than a day at least, and the camera system holds its own. There’s no headphone jack on the phone, no wireless charging, nor is there a charging brick in the box, but you do get a microSD slot if you want to expand the 128 GB of included storage.

Sony Xperia 1 V for $1,398: Sony’s latest flagship phone (7/10, WIRED Review) is super expensive. But it’s one of the few smartphones with a 4K OLED screen, and it’s rare to see a high-end phone with a headphone jack. There are a lot of toys for camera nerds, whether you want to capture a photo with manual settings or use Sony’s Cinema Pro app to capture cinematic footage. You can even use the phone as an external monitor for your camera. It’s a shame Sony has a short software update policy, and its camera system is still too clunky.

Motorola Edge+ 2023 for $600: A Motorola smartphone with contactless payment support, 5G, wireless charging, plus a promise of three OS upgrades and four years of security updates? Say it ain’t so! The Motorola Edge+ finally matches its peers on several counts and exceeds them in some ways. It has a bright 165-Hz OLED screen, it’s lightweight, and its 5,100-mAh battery easily lasts two days. The downside? The cameras are not as good as the cheaper Pixel 7A. Read our Best Motorola Phones guide for more picks.

OnePlus Nord N30 5G for $300: This OnePlus phone (6/10, WIRED Review) doesn’t break the mold, and you should pay up for a Pixel 6A or any of the phones above if you can. But if your budget is tight and this phone goes on sale, it does the job. Performance is good, and there’s two-day battery life.

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February 5, 2024
21 Key Samsung Phone Settings You Should Always Change (2024): Tips and Tricks

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There are a few more handy settings that aren’t enabled by default that you can enjoy by tapping on Advanced settings in the notifications hub. The first is to turn on Show all notifications. Instead of a measly three notification icons on the top left of the screen in the status bar, you’ll see all the notifications you’ve yet to acknowledge. You should also turn on Notification history—handy for the times you accidentally swipe a notification away before you read its contents. I also like using the snooze function to remind myself about notifications later in the day, and you can tap the Show snooze button to turn this on. (You’ll see a little bell icon on the bottom right corner of your notifications; press that to snooze them.)

Keep the Always-On Display … Always On

The Always-on Display is there to let you quickly see the time or any pending notifications when you glance at your phone, but by default this feature is set to Tap to show, meaning you need to tap the screen to see the Always-on Display. Bizarre. To fix this, go to Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Always-on Display and choose Always under When to show. This does drain some battery life, but it’s marginal. Make sure you toggle off Show Lock screen wallpaper as this will drain battery life faster. Head back to the lock screen and AOD settings page to further customize the look of the clock on the lock screen and add some widgets.

Wake the Phone When You Lift It

You can wake your Samsung Galaxy phone when you lift it instead of requiring a tap on the screen. You can also double-tap the home or lock screen to wake the display and double-tap it again to turn it off. What about if you read a web page and the screen times out and turns off? There’s a fix for that too. Go to Settings > Advanced features > Motions and gestures and toggle on Lift to wake, Double tap to turn on screen, and Double tap to turn off screen. Also, head to Settings > Display > Screen timeout and toggle on Keep screen on while viewing. Now the screen won’t turn off as long as you’re staring at it head-on.

Disable the Samsung Wallet Swipe Up

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

If you turn on gesture navigation, you’ll immediately realize how annoying it is that Samsung Wallet, by default, comes to life when you swipe from the bottom edge of the screen. Sure, it’s a fast way to access your credit cards, but it’s so easy to accidentally trigger when you just want to see your recent apps. If you use Samsung Wallet, you can turn this off by heading to the Menu tab in the app and tapping the gear icon, and then Quick access. Tap Swipe up gesture and toggle off Lock screen, Home screen, and Screen off. Don’t use Samsung Wallet at all? Just press and hold the icon in the app drawer and tap Uninstall.

Get Rid of Folders in the App Drawer

Seeing folders in the app drawer annoys me. When I’m quickly searching for an app and I don’t find it in the list, it’s usually because it’s in a folder. One of the first things I do when I set up a new Samsung phone is sort the app drawer alphabetically. To do this, swipe up from the home screen to access the app drawer and tap on the triple-dot icon at the top right. Tap Sort and choose Alphabetical order. If you like folders in your app drawer, just press and hold an app and drag it on top of another to create one. But if you don’t want them, press and hold any folders you find in the app drawer and tap Delete folder.

Turn off the Edge Panel

See that translucent pane on the right edge of your screen? Have you accidentally opened it when you meant to swipe back and go to a previous page or app? Me too. This is called Edge Panel, and it’s a tucked-away panel that lets you get immediate access to a set of apps (of your choice). It’s like a persistent dock.

This can be immensely useful, so I encourage you to play around with it first. Pull it open and tap the pencil icon at the bottom to customize it and choose the apps you want. You can also go to Settings > Display > Edge panels > Panels to add different kinds, like a weather panel, a reminders panel, or a clipboard panel. Tap Handle in the Edge Panels settings page to tweak the position of the panel and change the transparency, size, etcetera, which might make it harder to accidentally trigger. If you just want to turn Edge Panel off, head to Settings > Display and toggle off Edge panels.

Reorder Your Quick Settings Tiles

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

The Quick-Settings tiles when you pull down the notification drawer are helpful, whether you want to quickly turn on the flashlight or use Do Not Disturb mode. The layout can be a little strange when you first set up a Samsung phone, but don’t worry, you can reorder it. Swipe down from the home screen twice until you see a pencil icon. Tap this, then Edit either the Top pane when you first pull down the drawer or Full when you pull down the whole thing with two swipes. You can press and hold any of the tiles to move them around, even remove ones you don’t use (and find hidden ones you might). Press Done. There’s also a handy setting called Quick settings instant access where you can enable the right corner of the screen to instantly open the full drawer instead of just the top pane.

Turn on the Color Palette

Want to match your phone’s system theme with your wallpaper? Press and hold anywhere on the home screen until you see the home screen settings menu, then tap on Wallpaper and style. Tap Color palette and toggle it on. You can choose from a set of colors it pulls from your wallpaper, or a set of basic colors. Toggle on Apply palette to app icons for a more cohesive look, though this works only if an app supports the feature (most first-party apps do).

Expand Your Grids

Want to add more space to your home screen? You can tweak the grid layout to add more rows and columns so you can fit more on the screen. Press and hold anywhere on the home screen to see the Home Screen settings menu. Tap Settings > Home screen grid and play around with the different grid sizes to see what works. I prefer the 5×5 layout. You can do the same for the app drawer and even your folders by going to the App screen grid and Folders grid, and I prefer 5×5 and 4×4 for those, respectively.

Turn on Battery Protection

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

If you intend to hold on to your smartphone for several years (as you should), then you’ll want to protect the battery at all costs. Try to keep your phone between 50 and 80 percent charged, as depleting it completely or keeping it topped up all the time can decrease the battery’s efficiency over time. Samsung has a feature that can help with this—head to Settings > Battery and toggle on Battery protection. You can choose between Basic, Adaptive, or Maximum. For the latter, it will limit the maximum charge to 80 percent, thereby extending the life of your phone. This does mean permanently losing 20 percent per day, but try it out for a few days to see how severely it affects your use. The Adaptive option puts your phone on the Maximum setting when you’re sleeping and charging, and switches to Basic when you wake up, getting you closer to 100 percent. You can find tips on how to save smartphone battery life here.

Turn on Dolby Atmos Sound

Samsung brags about how its phones support Dolby Atmos for richer-sounding audio, but this feature is off by default. To turn it on, head to Settings > Sounds and vibration > Sound quality and effects. Toggle on Dolby Atmos and Dolby Atmos for gaming. I usually set the former on Auto, and there’s a slightly noticeable difference in audio quality with it turned on—music sounds a little louder and more robust. You’ll find other sound settings you can play around with here like the Equalizer and Adapt Sound features to tweak the audio for your ears.

Enable Samsung’s New Galaxy AI

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

Only available on newer Samsung devices, Galaxy AI is the catch-all name for a few new smart features powered by Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence model. You can look at all of them at Settings > Advanced features > Advanced intelligence. There’s Live Translate, which in the Phone app lets you talk to someone else in another language and translate what they say. In Samsung Keyboard, you can turn on Style and grammar to get some AI help in the tone of your sentences or with punctuation. We’ve got the full list of new software tricks here, but feel free to run through all of them and see how they work.

Get Rid of Bloatware

Years ago, Samsung didn’t let you uninstall a lot of bloatware—apps that were redundant or that you never wanted to use. Nowadays, you can uninstall most of these apps. Just tap and hold the app in the app drawer or home screen and press Uninstall. If you can’t uninstall them, you can at the very least Disable them so they disappear from view. This now works with Samsung’s Calendar app, which was previously difficult to get rid of.

If you can’t uninstall or disable an app, your next best option is to hide it. Open the app drawer, tap the triple-dot icon at the top right, tap Settings, and scroll down to Hide apps on Home and Apps screens. Tap on the app you want to hide, and that’s it!

Enable Link to Windows

Got a Windows PC? You can connect your Samsung phone to make and take calls from your machine, see texts and photos, and even use your phone apps in Windows. On Windows, open the Microsoft Store app and search and install Phone Link. On your Samsung device, head to Settings > Connected devices > Link to Windows. Follow the prompts on the screens to pair the two devices via the QR code.

Switch Your Keyboard

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

If you’re often frustrated with Samsung’s default keyboard, you’re not alone. I much prefer Gboard, Google’s keyboard app. The good news is that it’s easy to swap keyboards! Once you download the keyboard you want, whether it’s Gboard or some other third-party app, head to Settings > General management > Keyboard list and default and tap on Default keyboard. You might need to toggle on your new keyboard in this menu first. Head back to General management and tap on Gboard settings to customize it to your liking.

Turn on Extend Unlock

Android has long had a feature that keeps your phone unlocked when you’re connected to another device with Bluetooth (like a car or smartwatch), or if you’re in a specific location, like your home. Don’t turn this on if you feel uncomfortable having your phone unlocked in these scenarios, but if you find it convenient, you can head to Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Extend Unlock to play around with it. I usually prefer turning on Trusted devices and choosing my smartwatch or car so I don’t need to fuss with a passcode or fingerprint when I’m driving (not that I’m actively using my phone while driving). But I prefer using Extend Unlock’s Trusted places function to essentially disable the lock screen passcode when I’m home.

Add Emergency Contacts and Emergency Sharing

It’s smart to put your emergency contacts on your smartphone. To add people, you can go to Settings > Safety and emergency > Emergency contacts and add friends and family from your contacts list. Head back to the previous menu and make sure Emergency SOS is toggled on. This lets you press the power key five times to start a 10-second countdown that will dial emergency services. Toggle on Send SOS to emergency contacts to keep them in the loop, and this will take you to Emergency sharing settings. You have the option of allowing the phone to send pictures from the front and rear cameras as well as an audio recording when it sends your location to your emergency contacts. It’ll also add a warning if your Galaxy phone is nearly out of battery.

Create AI-generated Wallpaper

Samsung via Julian Chokkattu

Some newer Samsung devices can create AI-generated wallpapers. If you’re struggling to find a good wallpaper, give it a try. Tap and hold the home screen until you see the home screen settings menu, then tap Wallpaper and style. Tap Change wallpapers and scroll down to Creative. Tap Generative and now you can choose one of the genres to get started. From there, tap on the words to change the subject, then press Generate. Swipe through the AI-made wallpapers to find one you like, and apply it to the lock screen or home screen!

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February 1, 2024
Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+, S24 Ultra Review: Excellent Hardware, Smarter Software

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Samsung swapped the 10X optical zoom for a 5X optical zoom on the S24 Ultra, and I don’t like the change. Sure, the sharpness is relatively close when you use the 10X digital zoom on the S24 Ultra, but things are still a bit fuzzier. Colors, contrast, and white balance were all a bit off, compared to the same results from the S23 Ultra. It was super unique to have such a high zoom level, especially when you still have 3X optical zoom. Too bad. Thankfully, the 5X is still a nice option to have, and its results are usually sharper than that of 5X zoom on the Google Pixel 8 Pro. As usual, Samsung tends to pump up the colors a bit.

I prefer the quality of the Pixel 8 Pro’s ultrawide over the ultrawide on the S24 series; it has sharper details and colors are more natural with better white balance. The 3X zoom seems to be sharper on the S24 series over its predecessors by a hair, and these are still some of the best selfie cameras on a smartphone.

Video performance, as usual, is excellent, but my favorite new feature is Instant Slow-Mo. In the Gallery app, just press and hold any video to instantly turn part of it into slow motion. As someone who routinely forgets that slow-mo is a feature on the camera, this lets you apply it with any clip as it generates new frames in between real frames to make the footage appear smooth. The quality is not going to be nearly as good if you had actually shot in slow-mo, but it’s good enough for social videos for when you inevitably forget to film in that mode.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Generative Edit is another smart software feature available for your photos. Like Google’s Magic Editor, you can resize subjects, move them around the frame, and the AI will fill in the rest. I don’t have a massive Psyduck plushie, just a small one, but I resized it to look almost like a realistic large one. Did I fool you?

In a nutshell, the Galaxy S24 series marries the best hardware in Android with Google’s smarts. However, I find Google’s Pixel phones to have more helpful day-to-day software features, so there’s still some work to do for Samsung to catch up. If you still prefer the exceptional Samsung hardware though, you’ll still have to deal with the price. The S24 ($800) and S24+ ($1,000) are priced well, but I’m just not seeing the justification for the $100 price jump of the Ultra at $1,300. Try to catch them on sale.

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January 31, 2024
Apple and Google Just Patched Their First Zero-Day Flaws of the Year

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Later in January, Google released Chrome 121 to the stable channel, fixing 17 security issues, three of which are rated as having a high impact. These include CVE-2024-0807, a use-after-free flaw in WebAudio, and CVE-2024-0812, an inappropriate implementation vulnerability in accessibility. The final high-impact vulnerability is CVE-2024-0808, an integer underflow in WebUI.

Obviously, these updates are important, so check and apply them as soon as you can.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday squashes nearly 50 bugs in its popular software, including 12 remote code execution (RCE) flaws.

No security holes included in this month’s set of updates are known to have been used in attacks, but notable flaws include CVE-2024-20677, a bug in Microsoft Office that could allow attackers to create malicious documents with embedded FBX 3D model files to execute code.

To mitigate this vulnerability, the ability to insert FBX files has been disabled in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook for Windows and Mac. Versions of Office that had this feature enabled will no longer have access to it, Microsoft said.

Meanwhile, CVE-2024-20674 is a Windows Kerberos security feature bypass vulnerability rated as critical with a CVSS score of 8.8. In one scenario for this vulnerability, the attacker could convince a victim to connect to an attacker-controlled malicious application, Microsoft said. “Upon connecting, the malicious server could compromise the protocol,” the software giant added.

Mozilla Firefox

Hot on the heels of its market-dominant competitor Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox has patched 15 security flaws in its latest update. Five of the bugs are rated as having a high severity, including CVE-2024-0741, an out-of-bounds write issue in Angle that could allow an attacker to corrupt memory, leading to an exploitable crash.

An unchecked return value in TLS handshake code tracked as CVE-2024-0743 could also cause an exploitable crash.

CVE-2024-0755 covers memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 122, Firefox ESR 115.7, and Thunderbird 115.7. “Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code,” Mozilla said.

Cisco

Enterprise software giant Cisco has patched a vulnerability in multiple Cisco Unified Communications and Contact Center Solutions products that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device.

Tracked as CVE-2024-20253 and with a whopping CVSS score of 9.9, Cisco said an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a crafted message to a listening port of an affected device.

“A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with the privileges of the web services user,” Cisco said. “With access to the underlying operating system, the attacker could also establish root access on the affected device,” it warned.

SAP

SAP has issued 10 new security fixes as part of its January Security Patch Day, which includes several issues with a CVSS score of 9.1. CVE-2023-49583 is an escalation-of-privilege issue in applications developed through SAP Business Application Studio, SAP Web IDE Full-Stack, and SAP Web IDE for SAP HANA.

Meanwhile, CVE-2023-50422 and CVE-2023-49583 are escalation-of-privilege issues in SAP Edge Integration Cell.

Another notable flaw is CVE-2024-21737, a code injection vulnerability in SAP Application Interface Framework, which has a CVSS score of 8.4. “A vulnerable function module of the application allows an attacker to traverse through various layers and execute OS commands directly,” security firm Onapsis said. “Successful exploits can cause considerable impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the application.”

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January 31, 2024