Table of contents for 93 in Android Advisor

Price: £599 from fave.co/3kah6eu Anew dawn has arrived for Google’s own-brand Pixel phones and with the 2021 models receiving a design and hardware overhaul, they aim to be the firm’s most exciting flagships to date. The regular Pixel 6 on test here is on sale now and starts at a more than reasonable £599, arriving with new cameras, Android 12 and Google’s own Tensor processor. There’s a lot of good stuff that’s gone into this phone, but the design is more divisive than any other Pixel and may well result in many fans going elsewhere. DESIGN Gone, it seems, are the days of the standard Pixel being one of the most compact and easy-to-handle phones on the market. There’s no two ways about it, the Pixel 6 is chunky and this is…

Android 12 may seem like old news to those of us in the land of Pixels at this point, but hold the phone: Google’s latest software has some pretty phenomenal features that are lurking beneath the surface and all too easy to overlook. We explored a dozen such treasures the other day, but there’s even more juicy goodness where that came from. So here now are seven more spectacular hidden gems you’ll absolutely want to dig up in Android 12 on your Pixel phone – regardless of whether you’re packing the new Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro or one of the older Pixel models. 1. FAST LINK-GRABBING Android’s Overview area – the card-driven app-switching interface you see when you swipe up from the bottom of your screen and…

Price: £450 from fave.co/3CTG8px It’s all change for Honor at the moment. Once part of Huawei, the brand was spun off into its own company last year to escape the worst impact of a restrictive US trade ban. It’s taken a while, but the Honor 50 is the first phone the company has released globally since striking out on its own. That means that the Honor 50 is the first Honor phone in some time to ship with full support for Google Mobile Services – but it’s also one of the first Honor phones to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset and to run on software developed at least partly without Huawei’s support. The good news is that Honor has hit the ground running with a phone that fits right in with…

Price: £849 from fave.co/31oPQ5k After the initial hype surrounding Google’s answer to the iPhone – with the debut of the original Pixel, back in 2016 – subsequent releases, although competent, have failed to capture the attention of mainstream smartphone buyers and remain reserved for the tech-savvy Android fans already aware of the Pixel line’s particular strengths and standout selling points. This year, however, Google is hoping to shake things up, with the latest and greatest entry in the Pixel lineage – the Pixel 6 Pro – sporting a feature set specifically engineered to position it as a direct competitor to the Pro Maxes and Ultras that occupy the top end of the smartphone market, all the while maintaining an approach that’s distinctly ‘Google’. The ‘Pro’ suffix may already be commonplace in…

Price: £1,599 from fave.co/3CTZY40 It may not have been the first but Samsung has managed to position itself as the category-defining brand when it comes to foldables; with its latest Galaxy Z Fold3 likely to serve as the standard that similarly-styled rivals will be measured against. The Z Fold3 aims to meet expectations on three fronts: as a worthwhile refinement of the phone-to-tablet foldables that the company has produced so far, as a platform on which Samsung can test and implement its latest and greatest technologies, and as a representation of foldable innovation in general; serving as an indicator of how far the technology (and the associated costs) have matured, all in a relatively short time. DESIGN There was a brief moment where Samsung’s foldable future nearly didn’t make it out of…

Google’s Android 12 software is packed with interesting treasures – but unless you’re using one of Google’s own Pixel phones, it’s still a ways off from landing in your hands. The tortoise-like pace of most Android updates is another subject for another day. Here, I want to explore some creative solutions for bringing a small but significant smidgeon of Android 12’s goodness onto any device this minute. This minute, you say? Why, yes, Mr. Giggles! With a touch of creativity, you can experience a handful of select Android-12-inspired treats on any Android device, with any Android version – and with very little effort – right now. All you need is the right app and a few minutes of set-up, and some scrumptious Android 12 flavours will be ready and waiting…

To Pixel 6 or to Pixel 6 Pro? That is the question. By now, you’ve no doubt heard plenty about Google’s latest and greatest Pixels. So rather than repeat what you’ve already seen in several dozen other places, I thought we’d focus on a purely practical, real-world comparison for anyone torn between the two Pixel 6 models. I’ve been carrying around both the regular Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro and living with them for nearly two weeks now, and I’ve collected some pretty telling observations that might be a bit different from the more spec-oriented comparisons you’ve pored over elsewhere. First and foremost, I’d say this: lots of traditional tech reviews tend to focus on measurement minutia and place the greatest emphasis on numerically driven, objective variables. It’s…

Price: £899 from fave.co/3GW2tW0 Sony increasingly makes its phones for a small – but vocal – niche, and the Xperia 5 III is no different. For those who are drawn to the unusual aspect ratio, complex camera features, and powerful display this is an excellent package – arguably even more appealing than the flagship Xperia 1 III – but like that phone it comes with serious drawbacks too. The camera in particular is only powerful if you know how to use it well, and makes for a fairly poor point-and-shoot option at the price. The oddities mean this is a phone best suited for those willing to work at the camera or anyone who needs a small, but flagship, Android phone and is willing to pay for it. If that…