Table of contents for 86 in Android Advisor

Samsung has risen to the top of the Android device ecosystem by offering stunning hardware, but its software lags behind the competition in some key areas. If you want to enjoy the Galaxy S21’s amazing build quality with a more Google-y software experience, you just need to make a few tweaks. Here are five ways to make your S21 more like a Pixel. 1. HOME SCREEN You will interact with the home screen on your phone more than any one app, so that’s a good place to start your S21’s transformation. Samsung’s stock home screen has those distinctive icons, the sideways app drawer and a very clunky menu system. Almost any third-party launcher will offer more features and customization, but not all of them are a close match for the…

Price: £279 from fave.co/3tzXNho While Realme has carved a niche out for itself as one of the most eligible affordable smartphone makers in the world right now, nobody has ever recommended one if its devices because of their cameras first and foremost. The snappers on Realme phones aren’t inherently bad, but they’re uneventful and have lagged behind some fierce competition, particularly in the mid-range market where the company places the majority of its energy. The Realme 8 Pro is its attempt to address this shortcoming by focusing its efforts on camera quality first and foremost. At a glance, Realme has taken last year’s Realme 7 Pro but chopped-and-changed some key elements in order to accommodate the 8 Pro’s headline 108Mp primary camera, does that make this a true successor, though?…

Price: £599 from fave.co/3dz6djp The tablet market has effectively been a three-horse race for the past few years, with Apple’s iPads as the default for most people, Amazon’s Fire slates serving as the go-to affordable option that’s also great for children and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab line as the natural alternative for those who simply don’t want either of the other two. There are other players in the space, though, and Lenovo is looking to take a larger slice of the pie if its intentions with the Tab P11 Pro are anything to go by. DESIGN The Tab P11 Pro features a precisely finished aluminium unibody that’s only 5.8mm thin (excluding the camera bump). It feels sturdy, despite its svelte profile, and offers subtle sophistication with a dual-tone back finish and…

For the past few months, car manufacturers have been struggling with a chip shortage due to pandemic-related demand for consumer electronics. Now a new report suggests that shortage could hit smartphones, too. According to Reuters’ sources at Samsung and other phone makers, the chip shortage affecting the industry has reached all levels of smartphone processors, including Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 flagship that powers Samsung’s Galaxy S21 and other high-end phones. The report notes that the shortfall has mainly affected mid- and low-end phones, but smartphone makers are “facing a shortage of a range of components from Qualcomm and would cut handset shipments this year”. Qualcomm makes processors and components for nearly every phone sold today, including the 5G modem and other parts for Apple’s iPhone. It’s unclear whether the shortage…

As we saw last month, the new Galaxy S21 family has had a mostly positive reception, thanks to some notable hardware and software improvements. These phones are faster and more feature-rich compared to last year’s S20s. However, it’s not all roses in Samsung-land. The S21 series has its fair share of disappointing features you’ll have to accept. Here are the best and worst features you need to know about before buying Samsung’s latest devices. THE BEST FEATURES Photography Samsung’s top-of-the-line Galaxy S21 Ultra this year comes with a suitably high-end camera. The camera on last year’s S20 Ultra exhibited several flaws, like an inability to focus reliably. The new set-up on the S21 Ultra works better. There are also two optical zoom cameras in addition to the 108Mp primary and 12Mp ultra-wide.…

Price: £509 from fave.co/3n4Vikw Since the introduction of the Razer Phone in 2017, a wealth of smartphones specifically designed for mobile gaming have emerged. Chinese heavyweights Xiaomi (Black Shark) and Lenovo (Legion Phone) are among the leading players in this sector, and Asus has borrowed the ROG branding for its dedicated gaming handsets. All three have launched new phones in 2021, although they were beaten to the punch by Nubia. A subsidiary of Chinese giant ZTE, the company’s Red Magic brand has typically offered class-leading specs and a distinct gamer aesthetic for a relatively affordable price. Now in its seventh generation, the Red Magic 6 series has seen the introduction of a Pro model for the first time. However, the focus of this review is the regular version, which aims to…

Not all power banks are the same. As in all veins of consumer tech, there are cheap ones and pricey ones, and sometimes you’re paying simply for a name. But there’s so much more to choosing a portable charger than finding the cheapest version you can. We want the fastest charging speeds – for recharging the bank itself and for charging a connected phone – and to know at a glance that a portable charger is going to get us through the day with juice to spare, even share. But we don’t want it weighing down our pockets. We want multiple ports for charging additional gadgets, and more efficient use of power outlets to free up sockets. We don’t want to carry multiple charging cables – in fact we don’t want to…

Google collects a lot of data about you if you use the company’s services. To its credit, the company makes finding and deleting that data easy by showing most of it on a single website. Here’s how to see the bulk of what Google knows about you, and how to delete it if you want. Once you delete data from your Google Account, the company immediately starts removing it and stops using it for personalization. “We then begin a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from our storage systems,” Google explains. It may be forced to keep some information for legal requirements, which you can read about at fave.co/3eoHtK3. GOOGLE ACCOUNTS The primary starting point to see what information Google has about you is the My Account…

Price: £829 from fave.co/2RJHQHf The OnePlus 9 Pro arrives with a major focus on camera performance, an improved display, and the newest Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 888. Over the years, OnePlus has been aiming at the flagship end of the market, hoping to gain a foothold in that exclusive smartphone tier. But do these latest improvements – particularly in the camera – put OnePlus in a position to challenge Samsung’s Galaxy S21 or Apple’s iPhone 12? Let’s dive in. For this launch, there are four different phone configurations, each with its own colour and spec combination. The lowest-end OnePlus 9 model comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and costs £829. The top-end configuration (which I review here) costs £929, and features 12GB of RAM and 256GB of…

Price: £249 from fave.co/3v4WTK1 The mid-range continues to be a hotbed of smartphone innovation and fierce competition. It’s not unusual to find a 120Hz refresh rate, AMOLED display, 5G or even a 108Mp on some but combining multiple is rare. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro has three of those four at under £250. As with many Redmi handsets, the Note 10 Pro is extremely impressive when you look at what you’re getting for not much money at all. It’s at the lower end of the mid-range undercutting Google and OnePlus. However, there’s still some strong competition from the likes of Realme and even another Xiaomi brand in the form of Poco. DESIGN The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is like many other phones these days when it comes to design…

There’s been much made of the ‘fractured’ nature of Android, with many phones not getting updates to the latest version of Google’s operating system until months after its release... or not at all. This is in stark contrast to Apple’s iPhones, which often stay on the newest version of iOS several years after they were first released. So, which brands are the best for keeping their Android devices up to date? WHY DON’T ALL ANDROID PHONES GET THE LATEST VERSION OF THE OS? The first thing to consider is how many different models each manufacturer offers. Every year, Apple only adds a maximum of around four iPhones to its line-up, so the overall number of devices iOS needs to support is quite low. This isn’t the case with Android, where some…