Android has taken on a lot of different looks in the 16+ years since its debut — some loved, some reviled. Lately, though, it’s felt like we haven’t been seeing a ton on focus on freshening up the system UI very much. But that could soon be about to change, with new Material Design standards incoming. While it could still be some time before Google is ready to push its new design live, we just managed to bring you an early preview of how this major Android UI overhaul looks like it’s taking shape.

Mind you: This is still probably a very early preview, and we don’t have a ton of confidence that much of this will be ready in time for Android 16’s formal arrival. But even if the bulk of these changes don’t roll out until sometime in the Android 17 cycle, what we’ve uncovered sure suggests a cohesive effort towards bringing Android a new visual identity. But is this new look one that you’re a fan of?

Google offers 15GB of free cloud storage, which must be shared between Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, and other Google services. Otherwise, you’ll need to splash out for cloud storage via the company’s Google One service.

We recently posted an article detailing what happens to your data if you stop paying for Google One. We also posted a poll inside the article asking readers whether they paid for Google One cloud storage. Here’s how you answered it.

Virtually all Android phones have preset zoom buttons in the camera app. For example, the Google Pixel 9 offers 0.5x, 1x, and 2x levels while the Pro models have an extra button for 5x zoom thanks to the periscope zoom camera.

These preset buttons are very convenient, but it got me wondering about people’s camera zoom habits. Just how many people only use these pre-defined buttons or always zoom freely via the slider? Or is it a mix of the two? We posted a poll article earlier this month, and here’s how you answered it.

Across the world of smartphones, the landscape is always evolving. Every day we see the arrival of new updates, apps, and firmware patches that change the mobile experience for users in myriad ways — both desired and not. And while some of those changes are quite conspicuous, others are much more difficult to characterize, and we’re left wondering if something’s truly different, or if we’re just imagining things. Right now, we find ourselves in just such that kind of situation, asking if Pixel 9 video recording quality is getting worse, or if we’re just hallucinating.

While browsing Reddit’s GooglePixel sub the other day, we spotted a post from user oowwweee that caught our our eye, complaining about worse-than-expected video quality when filming on a Pixel 9 Pro XL past 3x zoom. Even though they were a pretty new owner of the phone, they noted that they only first observed the problem after installing the latest updates.

Google took a small risk with the Pixel 9a design. In an age when the next generation of an Android phone can often look like a carbon copy of its predecessor, there’s always something refreshing about seeing a significant revamp. That said, it’s not always going to be considered a winning change, and we were curious to know if you felt it was an upgrade. We ran a few polls to find out.

In our article in which one of our polls was run, Adamya Sharma summarized the changes and put her cards on the table. While the Pixel 8a retained the flagship design with its curved edges and signature camera bar, the 9a introduces a flatter, more minimalist look — swapping curves for flat sides and eliminating the camera bump. Google says this redesign allows for a bigger battery and gives the A-series its own identity, distinct from the Pixel 9 flagships. While not against the new design of the Pixel 9a, Adamya preferred the premium look and heft that the Pixel 8a offers.

It’s been a long wait (arguably too long), but for owners of last year’s flagship Samsung Galaxy smartphones, the company’s latest big platform update, the Android 15-based One UI 7, is finally becoming available. After months and months of beta testing, Samsung got the ball rolling on One UI 7 updates one week ago, starting distribution of its new software for the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Galaxy Z Flip 6, and the Galaxy S24 series. While international markets got first dibs, only a few days later we saw Samsung flip the switch on One UI 7 updates in the US.

That means that some of you have now had at least a full weekend to play with One UI 7 on your Galaxy phone, and start to familiarize yourself with many of Samsung’s changes. Beyond the boatload of Android 15 features you phone now has, Samsung’s done a ton of work implementing its own tweaks and upgrades, and we’ve spent the past several months checking out many of them both in One UI 7 betas and on the Galaxy S25 family.

Many Android phones today offer a few preset zoom levels in the camera app, and you’ll often find 0.6x (or 0.5x), 1x, and 2x options at the very least. Some phones also offer telephoto cameras for even more robust zoom options in the viewfinder.

That got us wondering whether you stick with these preset options or if you freely zoom and stop on whatever zoom level you want. Let us know via the poll below and leave a comment if you’d like to elaborate.

Google’s A-series has long walked the line between affordability and premium feel. But with the launch of the Pixel 9a, the company seems to be charting a new course when it comes to design.

Many flagship Android phones offer Quad HD (QHD) or QHD+ displays, making for a sharper display on paper. These phones often let you switch to a lower, Full HD (FHD) or FHD+ resolution in order to save battery life.

That got us wondering whether you can actually see the difference between FHD resolutions and QHD resolutions on your phone. So let us know via our poll below and leave a comment if you’d like to explain your choice.

When you update your Android phone, what’s the first thing you do? Chances are, you head to Settings and check for updates in the software update section, right? And hey, that’s totally fine. That’s how you’re supposed to update your phone. The thing is: there’s more to it. Google Play system updates are just as important as your regular software updates, and they come with new features you might not even know about.

There are quite a few reasons to buy a Google Pixel phone over other brands. These include the camera experience, the update policy and speed of updates, the Pixel-exclusive features, and more.

Colleague Rita El-Khoury recently outlined her biggest reason to stick with Pixel phones, as she specifically praised the safety features. We included a poll in this article, asking readers why they used a Pixel phone, and here are the results.

We’re just about finished with the first quarter of the year, and we’ve already seen phones like the Galaxy S25 series, Google Pixel 9a, and more. We’re expecting more devices in the coming months, such as the Google Pixel 10 series, iPhone 17 range, and Samsung’s foldables.

In saying so, do you think that this year is more boring than usual for smartphones? You can make your opinion known by voting in the poll below and leaving a comment.

Phones running stock Android are a dying breed. Sure, phones from Google, Motorola, and a few other brands have a stock-like aesthetic, but they add plenty of features you won’t find in a pure, unfettered version of Android.

Colleague Ryan Haines recently wrote that a light Android skin isn’t the same thing as stock Android. He added that you’d have to strip out loads of Pixel-only features if you wanted a Pixel running truly pure Android. We also used the article to ask readers whether they’d use a phone with stock Android, and here are the results.

Google recently launched the Pixel 9a, and it tentatively looks like a great mid-range phone. Between the Tensor G4 processor, big battery, wireless charging support, and seven-year update policy, there’s a lot to like on paper.

What do readers think, though? We asked people across our website, Twitter account, and YouTube community whether the Pixel 9a was hot or not. Well, the results are in.

The Google Pixel 9a looks like one of the better mid-range phones of the year. It’s powered by a Tensor G4 chip which is mostly identical to the Pixel 9 series, but uses an older modem instead of the Pixel 9’s new Exynos Modem 5400.

We covered this news a few days ago and asked readers whether they cared about this change. Over 4,400 votes were tallied, and here’s what you told us.

The Google Pixel 9a brings plenty of upgrades over the Pixel 8a at an unchanged starting price of $499. That said, the 256GB model is now $50 more expensive and comes in at $599.

What’s improved, you ask? For one, the phone is powered by Google’s flagship Tensor G4 processor that also runs inside the more premium Pixel 9 series, albeit with a weaker modem. What’s probably the most impressive feature Google has achieved is that the Pixe 9a now packs a sizeable 5,100mAh battery — the biggest on any Pixel handset to date. Yes, it’s even bigger than the battery inside the Pixel 9 Pro XL!

It used to be the case that fast charging a flagship Android phone would have a notable effect on long-term battery health. I could personally attest to this with my old HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro, as several years of 40W charging resulted in a significant drop in battery life.

One way to measure the effect of fast charging on a smartphone is to check the device’s peak and average temperatures while plugged in. Colleague Rob Triggs did just this and found that the OnePlus 13, OPPO Find X8 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra all boasted cool temperatures while charging. We also posted a poll asking whether you’re still concerned about the long-term effect of fast charging a phone’s battery.

Samsung just launched the Galaxy A56 5G, and it’s looking like one of the better mid-range Android phones today. In fact, colleague Zac Kew-Denniss argued that the A56 5G offered better value for money than the standard Galaxy S25.

We also included a poll in Zac’s article asking readers whether they’d buy a Galaxy A56 5G or a Galaxy S25. The results are in, and we’ve got a clear preference.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is one of the best Android phones around, but it’s arguably the most unexciting flagship release in quite some time. That’s largely due to the device being a very incremental upgrade over last year’s phone.

Colleague Ryan Haines said he couldn’t wait to go back to the OnePlus 13 after reviewing the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Meanwhile, fellow colleague Joe Maring also felt that the OnePlus 13 was proof that Samsung was “asleep at the wheel.” So we asked readers to choose between the OnePlus 13 and Samsung’s latest phones, and here’s what you told us.

At Android Authority, we frequently compare different digital assistants to find the best options for our readers. With AI becoming deeply integrated into all aspects of Android and the onset of the “agentic era,” the digital assistant landscape is rapidly consolidating. Google’s Gemini is rising fast as the preferred AI helper Android phone manufacturers want to pre-load on their devices. However, Google isn’t the only fish in the sea.

US carriers are constantly battling for superior network performance, customer loyalty, competitive pricing, and attractive plans. The three major players — T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T — have been engaged in fierce competition for years. The landscape is dynamic, with smaller service providers emerging and larger companies absorbing them to strengthen their offerings. This ongoing evolution, driven by shifting market conditions, changing consumer price sensitivities, and advancements in customer management, keeps consumers on a constant hunt for the carrier that offers the best value, balancing cost-effectiveness with a reliable, high-quality experience.

Troubleshooting modern electronics can be something of an abject nightmare, as there are just so many tiny things that go wrong, and tracking down any given one of them can prove incredibly arduous. Let’s say Wi-Fi on your phone stops working; is that a problem with your router, your phone’s modem, a recent Android update, or maybe just a troublesome app? That sort of uncertainty can make it tricky to spot broader trends, but now a growing set of reports has us wondering if there’s something wrong with the Pixel 8 Pro.

We didn’t bring up Wi-Fi just now for no reason, and over the past couple weeks a whole bunch of Pixel 8 Pro owners have been taking to Reddit’s r/GooglePixel sub to share their frustrations and seek out help. Posts from users Indybrewersfan, Fallingice2, Barnabyjones421, and April_idk all tell similar tales of woe: Wi-Fi on their Pixel 8 Pro phones had been working fine up until quite recently, at which point Wi-Fi networks just stop appearing. It’s like the phone loses the ability to detect wireless networks. And when you can’t choose any, you can’t connect to any.

It is a running joke that Apple releases the same iPhone every year. Samsung probably felt it was missing out, so it jumped on this train with its Galaxy flagships, releasing minor iterations every year. Samsung has recently released its Galaxy S25 series flagships, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra, in particular, feels just like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which in turn was quite similar to the Galaxy S23 Ultra and the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It seems many of you agree with the sentiment, as a good majority of Galaxy S23 Ultra owners aren’t sold on the idea of the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

When comparing the Galaxy S23 Ultra vs the Galaxy S25 Ultra, we asked users if they would be upgrading.

We recently reported about a few bizarre cases of YouTube viewers seeing hour-long unskippable ads. This particular article sparked a lot of conversation on our website, with many frustrated users sharing similar stories about YouTube’s unskippable ads getting longer over time.

Samsung has just launched the Galaxy S25 series, and you’d be forgiven for looking at these phones and thinking they were the Galaxy S24 series. Or even the S23 range. The company hasn’t made significant design changes to its flagship phones in a while.

You could argue that this applies to the Galaxy A series and Galaxy Z foldable range as well. Either way, we’re curious to find out whether Samsung’s designs still excite you. Let us know by voting in our poll below.

Slim is in, or so smartphone makers would like you to believe this year. Two of the biggest phone players, Samsung and Apple, are rumored to be working on ‘Slim’ variants of their flagships, the Galaxy S25 Slim and the iPhone 17 Slim. Even beyond the ‘Slim’ moniker, we’re seeing many smartphones routinely chase thinness as an aesthetic design choice. But the elusive question remains: Do you, as a consumer, really care about your phone’s thickness?

Let’s be clear: smartphone makers have chased thinness on smartphones for decades, so it’s not a new phenomenon. The OPPO R5 from 2015 was razor-thin at just 4.85mm, making it the thinnest smartphone of modern times. As you’d expect, the thinness came at a cost, and the cost here was the battery that was just 2,000mAh on this phone that barely lasted for half a day before giving up.

The adage may go, “if you want something done right, do it yourself,” but that’s no reason to micro-manage every corner of our lives. Beyond there just being no shortage of tasks where a professional’s expertise is required, we are living in the days of the modern gig economy, and whether you need a ride across town or someone to pick up some groceries for you, apps place you just a few taps away from connecting with someone ready to help.

There’s also another option that’s becoming increasingly available to us, and instead of hiring another person to complete tasks, there are more and more things where AI is interested in helping out directly. But just how comfortable are you with handing over the reins to an algorithm?

Google has offered great camera zoom on its Pixel Pro phones for a while now, with the Pixel 7 Pro and later featuring a 48MP 5x periscope camera. You can even get great 10x zoom shots as these camera phones crop in to deliver a 12MP shot at lossless resolution.

Colleague Rita El-Khoury recently wrote an opinion piece bemoaning the lack of a 10x button in the Pixel camera app. We added a poll to that article asking readers whether they wished Google added this button, and the results speak for themselves.

Loads of great Android phones are released every year, bringing yearly improvements like more AI features, better cameras, increased performance, and brighter screens. However, these brand-new flagship devices often come with expensive price tags.

Then again, colleague Ryan Haines noted that you don’t have to purchase a brand-new phone. He recommended the Pixel 8 Pro as one of the best older flagship phones worth buying. We also added a poll in his article, asking users whether they prefer brand-new phones or older flagships. And here’s how that went.

What’s the most important step you take to customize your phone? Maybe you go with a stylish case? Do you like to keep changing things up with a fresh wallpaper? Or are you the kind of enthusiast who just renovates down to the studs and installs a fully custom ROM?

It wasn’t that long ago (at least, what’s a couple decades between friends?) when there was no higher form of phone personalization than the custom ringtone. Over the course of a few short years we went from simple blips and bloops, to polyphonic recreations that were at least recognizable as actual songs, to straight-up MP3 ringtones. And after scaling that mountain… we all sort of just moved on?

Human beings love expressing themselves, and for most of us, a big component of that is how we look. Our clothes may change day to day, and maybe hairstyle by the season, but a lot of us are keeping the same phones for longer and longer, thanks to improved support policies. Considering how many times a day we’re pulling our phones out, compounded over a timeline of years, it starts feeling all the more important to go with a phone that has a look that really suits us.

Now, you’ve got plenty of options when it comes to finding the right look for your phone. You could always wrap your phone in a skin, like the kind dbrand makes, for an instant transformation. While that’s a fine solution on its own, many of us prefer to combine that angle with protection and dress our phone up with the help of a great case.

Apple’s MagSafe standard enables a wide variety of accessories on iPhones, but you’ll likely need a case if you want to use these accessories on your Android phone.

That’s just what Android Authority contributor Dhruv Bhutani did with his Pixel 9 Pro, buying a MagSafe-compatible case for his pocket-friendly flagship device. That also got us wondering how many readers have bought MagSafe cases for their Android phones.

For as much flack as modern smartphones can get for feeling like unoriginal copies of each other, there are plenty of very attractive models out there, featuring delicate contours, smart lines, and inspiring colors. But even the prettiest phone of them all is going to struggle to stand out when you drape it in a bland, utilitarian case.

Sure, there are just as many interesting case options out there as there are stylish phones, but doesn’t it feel wrong to be covering up a finely crafted $1,000 piece of tech with a few dollars worth of plastic? Especially when we consider just how strong and resilient smartphone glass has become, might it actually make sense to throw a bit of caution to the wind and just use our phones straight as we got them from the manufacturer, no case covering them up?

Everybody who is anybody is doing year-end recaps right now. We just saw Google Photos get in on the action, and earlier this week Amazon joined the ranks of music streamers doing recaps with its inaugural Amazon Music Delivered. But the granddaddy of all of these, and arguably the gold standard against which all other find themselves compared, is Spotify Wrapped.

This year saw Wrapped take a slightly different direction than in years past, with the introduction of “Your Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast.” Featuring synthetic DJs counting down your top songs across the year, we actually had a pretty good time with Spotify’s Wrapped podcast. But even as we were enjoying the experience, cracks were already beginning to show themselves in this glossy AI exterior — like the way Spotify’s hosts struggled to naturally talk about the way some of our listening tastes remained consistent month-to-month.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite processor is expected to power a host of top Android phones in 2025, and it delivers a big performance upgrade. Our testing also reveals that the new chip brings a significant efficiency boost.

Qualcomm isn’t the only chipmaker bringing notable gains, as the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 offers a big graphical boost and major battery life improvements. But what’s more important to our readers? We asked users on our website, Twitter account, and YouTube page whether they prioritized performance or battery life, and here’s what they told us.

The first wave of Snapdragon 8 Elite phones recently launched, and Qualcomm’s new processor offers major performance gains on paper. However, colleague Rob Triggs also found that the new chipset brings significant battery life gains in practice.

When you’re looking to replace a form factor as iconic as the printed and bound book, design is everything. For almost two decades now, companies have been refining their approach to e-readers, improving not just the electronic paper that gives them their incredible battery life and comfortable-to-read screens, but also how the rest of this hardware comes together. We’ve moved from physical QWERTY keyboards and page-turn buttons to touchscreens and capacitive input, but is every move like this a step in the right direction?

Amazon just introduced a whole slate of new Kindle models, from its inaugural color-screened Kindle Colorsoft, to the stylus-equipped Kindle Scribe 2. And while that’s some very interesting hardware of its own, hearing about all these new Kindles really just got us feeling nostalgic for an old favorite: the Kindle Oasis.

Earlier this week, we broke the news that Google might merge Chrome OS and Android. This information was related to a new Google laptop in the works that will very likely have Android under the hood, not Chrome OS. Ostensibly, Google is doing this to better compete with the iPad — backed up by the fact that, later in the week, we heard Google has also seemingly canceled the Pixel Tablet 2. Regardless, dumping Chrome OS for Android would dramatically shift Google’s overall compute strategy, considering how much mindshare Chromebooks and Chrome OS already have, especially in the education space.

Since this would be a controversial move, we wanted to get your opinions on it. We ran a poll on the topic and saw an overwhelming number of responses: over 5,400 votes! This gives us a huge sample size, so we are pretty confident about how our readers feel about this topic.

Between the rise of the internet and the explosion in international travel and shipping, the world today feels smaller than ever. We enjoy unprecedent access to opinions, content, and even products from markets spanning the globe — often no more than a couple clicks away. But has this also had the effect of making us a little entitled, and feeling frustrated when we can’t get access to something that people elsewhere can? Today we’re wondering about just that in the context of — what else? — smartphones.

Walk into any local carrier store or big-box retailer in the US, and you’re sure to find a nice selection of mainstream handsets: all the big flagships, plenty of budget options, and maybe even some white-label carrier phones. But if your interests lie just slightly outside the norm, finding someone selling the phone of your dreams might quickly get a lot more difficult. And when you start looking at some of the incredible hardware exclusively available abroad, like HUAWEI’s triple-screen Mate XT, the idea of just importing your new phone can start to sound pretty appealing.

We’re inching closer to the end of the year, and it’s almost time to evaluate the best smartphones of 2024. This year brought us some impressive devices, but also left us craving more. As my colleague Hadlee Simons puts it in his recent opinion post describing his ideal smartphone, the Galaxy S24 continues to rely on an outdated camera system, while the Pixel 9 series feels underpowered. Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 14 lineup offers a software experience that has divided opinions. So, we asked our readers — Which brand came closest to building an ideal smartphone this year? It was a close competition, but we have a clear winner.

We just reported that Google plans to merge Chrome OS into Android in a bid to beat the iPad. This comes after previous confirmations from the company that Chrome OS would embrace more parts of Android.

Do you think merging Chrome OS into Android is the right move or a bad decision altogether? Let us know by taking our poll below! You can also leave a comment if you’d like to explain your opinion.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen top Android flagships come with increasingly long promises of software support. Coupled with better durability, some progress towards repairability, and a general slowdown in innovation, there’s less and less incentive these days to change your current working phone for a newer flagship. After all, if your older phone works just fine, why bother spending money on a new one that is barely different? It seems a good majority of you agree with this sentiment, according to a recent poll we conducted and the comments we received on it.

We asked you how old your current smartphone is, and for most of you, it is relatively old. We saw quite a close split amongst the poll options presented, but zooming out for the bigger picture, many of you are holding onto your phones for a tad bit longer.

When you’re a smartphone-making behemoth, there are few points of pride bigger than shipping phones that run your company’s very own chips. But far more than just demonstrating industrial accomplishments, having your own chips can offer a big impact to your firm’s economics, as well as its ability to react agilely to shifting market demands — and this isn’t even touching on how much easier it can make software development. So it’s no surprise at all to see a company like Samsung keep up with its Exynos efforts.

Samsung may have Exynos at its disposal, but the company clearly likes to keep its options open, and also makes a ton of hardware based around Qualcomm Snapdragon processors — we even get the occasional MediaTek model, like the new Galaxy Tab S10 series. And the question of which chip is going into what hardware is probably never more contentious than when we’re talking about the next Galaxy S-series flagship.

For better or worse, Google has a stranglehold over much of our tech lives. The Chrome browser is so ubiquitous that you might expect most people to use it by default, but a poll we ran on the matter paints a different picture.

We decided to ask for your opinion because our writer, Andy Walker, vented his frustration about Chrome in a recent article. Andy explained that while Chrome’s integration with Google services is convenient, he finds it frustratingly limited. It’s missing key features he values — like switching between multiple accounts on Android, using mobile extensions, and choosing custom search engines. Plus, Chrome’s content-heavy design, with trending searches and a rigid Discovery section, feels more cluttered than useful. He finds Firefox a much better fit, with customization options, add-ons, and a setup that’s easy to use one-handed. 

The Google Pixel 9 series launched back in August, and these are among the best Android phones you can buy right now. One thing these phones don’t have is free unlimited Google Photos backups, with 2020’s Pixel 5 being the last phone to offer this benefit.

I recently lamented the demise of unlimited Google Photos storage for Pixel phones and said I’d totally buy a Pixel 10 Pro if it had this perk. But what about you? Would you buy a Pixel 10 series phone if it offered unlimited photo backups? Let us know via the poll below.

The smartphone release cycle hasn’t changed much in the last few years. Android phone makers predictably launch new flagships, mid-range, and budget smartphone refreshes every year around the same time, with a few exceptions. However, not everyone upgrades their phones every year. From what we’ve noticed, people tend to keep smartphones around for at least a couple of years before buying a new one. While we’ve dug into phone usage trends and replacement cycles to see how long people keep their phones, we want to hear from you!

Cellular carriers, just like any other company out there, evolve over time. Executives come and go, priorities are reevaluated, and just because one carrier might have been the best choice for you when you got your first smartphone well over a decade ago, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily still the right carrier choice for you today.

We were just thinking about this in the context of T-Mobile, arguably the scrappiest, most exciting (if that word’s even applicable to wireless network providers) player among the big three in the US. At least, that’s the reputation it’s managed to construct in many of our minds, but is it one still deserved today, or more a remnant from better, more competitive times?

When it comes to premium music streaming, Spotify absolutely dominates the market, and even giants like Apple and Google struggle to draw subscribers away from it and over to their own services. Unlike the case with video streaming, it’s not really access to exclusive content that’s going to drive users to one service or the other, and we’re instead going to be thinking about things like features, community, and pricing.

A few weeks back, we had one feature in particular on our mind: the ability for these music streamers to put together “radio” playlists inspired by a specific song or artist. And while that’s pretty common capability in this space, we were specifically curious about your experiences across Spotify and YouTube Music.

Change is coming to the world of Android. While the operating system’s development and release cycle had been operating on a nice, predictable pattern for years, things are starting to shake up. Android 15 already did things a little differently by landing in stable only after the new Pixel 9 phones arrived, and we just reported that Google is seriously hitting the gas when it comes to Android 16, aiming to get a release out in Q2 of 2025.

That’s normally the time of year when we’d be playing with may be the second Developer Preview of the next Android release, with eye to the horizon for the formal start of betas, so thinking about having the next edition of Android ready to go so very early in the year is going to be a big change. On one hand, that just means we get to experience Google’s latest improvements to Android earlier than ever, but it could also have some not-immediately-obvious on you and how you shop for phones.

Right now, Pixel owners everywhere are running Android 15 on their phones. And just earlier today, Google shared that Android 16 is going to be upon us sooner than anyone expected. But the vast majority of Android users out there are still operating devices running Android 14 or older. That includes everyone with a Samsung phone — but does this really need to be the case?

Usually Samsung gets a public beta program running by this time in the year, at least giving particularly eager Galaxy users the chance to try out the latest features a little bit early. But with One UI 7, as Samsung’s implementing Android 15, that timetable has shifted back — and no one seems very happy about this.

The Android 15 update didn’t include a battery charging limit feature that some had expected, but it got everyone talking about the best way to maximize your battery life. With seven-year update commitments from some Android phone manufacturers, the onus is now on us to stop our batteries from degrading too far.

Android Authority writer Hadlee Simons touched on this topic in a recent article about the Android 15 update, particularly the approach of some users of only charging to 80% to prolong battery health. He also asked you a question in a poll about the battery management tricks you use. The goal was to find out if this is your preferred approach, if you have a different plan to keep your battery healthy, or if you plug your phone in and don’t give your battery a second thought. The results were revealing, and frankly, you impressed us.

Android Authority contributor Kamila Wojciechowska recently deciphered a massive leak from Google’s chip division, revealing exciting new features for the upcoming Pixel 10 and Pixel 11.

Remember just two years ago when ChatGPT burst onto the scene, and suddenly, everyone was talking about AI? Since then, the tech world has been in a full-blown AI arms race, with every major player vying for a piece of the chatbot pie.

The appeal of the best AI chatbots lies in their ability to understand and respond to natural language, making them increasingly intuitive to interact with. They can answer questions, provide information, generate creative content, and even perform tasks, streamlining our interactions with technology and even automating some mundane activities to a certain extent.

Email is just one of the many areas in which Google would like to dominate our online activity. It’s doing a pretty good job, too, with Gmail being the most popular email provider on the planet. Google pushes it to Android users by having it pre-installed with the OS, but we were curious as to how many of you actually use it on your phone. We asked you in a poll, and your answer was decisive.

The whole question arose after Android Authority editor C. Scott Brown voiced his dissatisfaction with Gmail for Android, especially compared to its iOS counterpart and other email apps. Key issues for him include the inability to mark emails as read from the notifications, the lack of a Do Not Disturb schedule option, and the inability to default to the All Inboxes view. He had other equally reasonable critiques of the app, especially for users with high email volumes and multiple accounts.

It’s only five days until the release of the new Kindle Colorsoft, which is the first color e-reader from the iconic brand. It will retail for $279 if you want to buy it, but our indications suggest that it won’t be flying off the shelves. We ran a poll of Android Authority readers asking if you’re likely to buy the Colorsoft, the results of which are below.

In fairness to Amazon, which owns the Kindle brand, we put our thumb on the scale before asking the question. Writer and Kindle fan Dhruv Bhutani wrote a well-reasoned article about why he won’t be looking to buy the Colorsoft just yet, and it was at the end of his piece that we ran the poll. He felt the device is lacking in useful new features, particularly note-taking and color-coded organization, which are available in competing e-readers like the Kobo Libra Color. The low-resolution color display (150ppi) was another concern for him, and he also criticized the removal of physical page-turn buttons, which he enjoys on the Kindle Oasis.

Android 15 is a surprisingly feature-packed update, even though it does not come off as such a significant update. Considering how incremental several past updates have been, Android 15 features a lot of good changes that enhance the overall platform experience. We asked you what your favorite features are, and here are the results!

The Google News app has been around for years, allowing you to quickly catch up on the latest happenings across various topics. The app is far from perfect, though, with colleague Andy Walker specifically pointing to issues like displaying paywalled content and showing unrelated topics/websites.

Andy listed four alternatives to Google News earlier this month, but we still wanted to know how you got your news on your smartphone. We posted a poll inside the article and here’s how you answered that question.

The big day is here: Android 15 is out. That means Pixel owners everywhere lining up to download Google’s latest updates for their phones, and everyone else counting the days until we start seeing other OEMs begin to follow suit — though maybe we shouldn’t hold our breath.

Even with many of you in for a wait, Android 15’s release gives us a lot to look forward to. This year’s build doesn’t really represent a major overhaul to the platform itself, and instead feels like a boatload of smaller changes, all arriving en masse.

Like any well-adjusted technology enthusiast, you’re probably a big fan of USB-C: reversible, elegant, ubiquitous. Its adoption has been so lauded that’s its little wonder we can’t help but turn our faces in disgust whenever we’re forced to deal with legacy micro-USB (and do not even get us started on mini). But for as much as we like about it, USB-C is a lot more than just a super-handy physical connector, and depending on the devices we’re using with it, there can be a lot of (sometimes confusing) differences about the features it supports.

That’s true not just across manufacturers, but even within the same hardware families — just look at data speeds on Apple’s iPhone 15 and 16 series, where the lower-model phones are stuck with 480Mbps over USB 2.0, while the Pro editions get USB 3.1 Gen 2×1 and blistering 10Gbps performance. That’s an order of magnitude improvement, but you wouldn’t have any real sense of the potential there by just looking at their USB-C ports alone. And this isn’t even touching on differing levels of charging support.

Last week, Samsung made a big announcement related to One UI 7, its upcoming software update that will bring its smartphones up to Android 15. Unfortunately, the announcement was not great news: One UI 7 will not be released on its usual schedule. Instead, Samsung is holding off the launch until early 2025 to coincide with the debut of the Galaxy S25 series.

As one would expect, Samsung fans did not warmly welcome this announcement. Many thought Samsung was making a big mistake, and even the ones who seemed to understand the reasoning behind the delay still weren’t happy about it.

We recently ran a poll on the Android Authority website, YouTube channel, and X (formerly Twitter) account. We wanted to know from iPhone users if they have started using RCS messaging and what they think about the change that Google hyped up so much. Turns out, iPhone users are not as into RCS as their Android buddies would have liked. There are also multiple other factors as to why not all iPhone users are on the RCS bandwagon yet.

How do you know when an idea’s a good one? If you had the resources, you could probably design a great smartphone unlike any that’s been seen before, but would it be a success? Manufacturers roll the dice just like that all the time, and while they’ve got plenty of market research and user groups to help steer their decisions, not every effort’s going to land.

A couple weeks back, we took a little stroll down that branch off memory lane where some of the silliest phones ever live, from the who-asked-for-this LG Wing to the wildly ambitious (and utterly unnecessary) Red Hydrogen One. While we’ll always fondly remember the latter for its inexplicable Fast & Furious 9 product placement, most of these phones are well on their way to being distant memories, fated to fade.

Apple recently caved to pressure from users, lawmakers, and Google to bring RCS messaging to the iPhone. This feature essentially allows users to enable modern messaging features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more when texting with Android users. While the infamous green bubble isn’t going anywhere, at least Apple is finally letting Android and iPhone users chat like it’s 2024.

Gemini has been around for over a year now (initially launching as Bard), and Google allows users to switch to the new chatbot as their default assistant on Android phones.

Have you made the switch from Google Assistant yet? That’s what we’d like to find out in our featured poll. So let us know by voting below.

Music streaming services have become a part of our everyday routine, and for years, Spotify has been the go-to app for millions around the world. But lately, I’ve been questioning its dominance, especially when it comes to one crucial aspect: the “song radio” feature.

One key differentiator that can make or break a music streaming service is how well it recommends new songs based on what you like to listen to. That’s where the song radio feature comes in. The idea is simple: you pick a song you love, and the app generates a playlist of related tracks. These can be from the same artist, the same genre, or just songs that sound similar.

The FCC is in the process of finalizing its new phone unlocking requirements, which could require US carriers to unlock all phones within 60 days of activation. Sure, it’s a very consumer-centric decision You’ll be able to switch carriers easily, removing the restriction of being tied down to the carrier from where you purchased your phone. Software updates could also become faster since they would no longer be bound by carrier approval before reaching your devices. Locked phones also sometimes feature pre-installed apps, which could be a nuisance. So, all in all, the quicker carrier unlock would benefit users, right? Well, some of you beg to differ.

Samsung’s newest FE model looks and feels more like a flagship than ever before. Now official, the Galaxy S24 FE offers a lot of phone for its upper-mid-range price tag, but is it hot or not?

The phone is a spitting image of the Galaxy S24 Plus. That’s a good thing, considering the Plus is one of the best Android phones and is nearly double the FE’s price. The cheaper model, however, still offers a 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen capable of 120Hz and 1,900 nits of peak brightness. It now also offers a 4,700mAh battery, a newer Gorilla Glass protection layer, the promise of Galaxy AI smarts, and seven years of Android updates.

The FCC’s new policy, which requires carriers to unlock all phones within 60 days of activation, has sparked a bit of a debate. While the rule has not yet been finalized, it has already been approved by the commission and is moving forward. However, major carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile are pushing back, claiming the rule could negatively impact their business models, thereby affecting current customer offerings.

Mobile payments have come a long way since they first started gaining traction. It wasn’t so long ago that we marveled at the convenience of ditching our wallets and simply using our phones to make purchases. Fast forward to today, and tap-to-pay has become so commonplace that it’s almost surprising when a store doesn’t offer contactless payment options.

The widespread adoption of mobile wallets has primarily driven this shift in payment behavior. While there are several options available, the market is dominated by three major players: Google Wallet, Apple Pay, and Samsung Wallet.

Smartphone makers have increasingly considered environmentally friendly materials and methods in modern production processes. Whether that drive comes from a truly altruistic source or is just another part of their marketing efforts is debatable. Nevertheless, one of the companies driving this movement is Google, and the Pixel 9‘s packaging is its latest and great example.

Google’s new flagship phone series (as well as its other new products) comes in 100% plastic-free packaging — something of a first for the smartphone industry. The box itself is shrouded in a colorful sleeve, giving way to a tough cardboard box. The company also talks up its use of these materials, including a molding technique that allows for the secure placement of accessories.

It’s no secret around here that we’re reasonably big fans of Circle to Search, the intuitive, powerful system for looking stuff up just by highlighting part of your screen. The last few months have seen a lot of growth for the service, as it works to both add new functionality (like we just saw with QR codes) and expand availability to more and more phones.

But sometimes we wonder if we’re operating in a bit of an echo chamber here, with that Circle to Search praise bouncing all around. Maybe it’s one thing when we’re always looking for the next cool thing we can do with it. But if you were the sort of person who never quite got the appeal of Lens, or who feels more confident crafting a text-based search than trusting the nebulous qualities of an image, even getting started with Circle to Search might be a big ask.

Now that all the music streaming apps offer pretty much the same features and song catalog, one would assume that the one thing that really keeps us hooked to one platform or the other is our carefully curated library. Recently, Apple announced a straightforward way to shift Apple Music playlists over to YouTube Music.

This obviously sounded like a huge win to us, but then we saw some Reddit threads where people were talking about how they hardly even make their own playlists. This left me wondering: Am I the only one with a never-ending list of custom playlists?

The Google Pixel Buds Pro debuted in 2022 to little fanfare. They weren’t great value for money and fell short of offering similar features that rivals boasted for years. However, in the years since their launch, the Buds Pro has steadily improved.

In a recent opinion piece, my colleague Calvin Wankhede touched on recent feature additions by Google, including Conversation Detection, Spatial Audio, and Bluetooth Super Wideband support. All three make the wireless buds worth considering, even if the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are now available.

Rich Communication Services, or RCS, is a messaging protocol now used by many across the US and the globe, but it wasn’t always the case. It took ages to gain momentum after its conception in 2007. However, despite its accelerated adoption, the protocol still isn’t quite as ubiquitous as SMS.

This is especially apparent when using the protocol to communicate with those on Apple devices. iPhones require RCS users to be tied to a supported carrier, leaving many who enjoy cheaper prepaid plans out in the cold. The fact that Apple only recently adopted RCS also put a spanner in the works.

The Google Pixel 9 phones launched earlier this month, and they all have new AI tricks for photos. These features have once again reignited the debate over the line between authentic photography and outright fakery.

These features got us wondering about where our readers draw the line between legitimate photos and fiction.

The Google Pixel 9 series packs the new Tensor G4 chipset, but “new” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Compared to the Tensor G3 that powers the Pixel 8, the updated silicon has a revised Arm core arrangement with higher clocks, a quicker GPU, and a new modem. However, compared to the big generational leaps on other manufacturers’ chipsets, the new Tensor is a minor upgrade over the Tensor G3.

For the Pixel 9 series, which starts $100 higher than the outgoing Pixel 8 line, the lack of big upgrades on the Tensor G4 will be a downer for many.

It’s fair to say the strength of the Google Pixel series does not lie in its charging speed. This is also true with the latest iteration. While the Pixel 9 line has plenty going for it, from its iPhone-like aesthetics to its broader size variety, the baseline phones are still limited to 27W through the wall. The top-billed Pixel 9 Pro XL can muster 37W on paper. While that’s nothing to sniff at, it still falls short of other great Android phones and even Samsung’s 45W flagships.

So, with this in mind, we wanted to know if Pixel fans were happy that charging isn’t a major focus and if you’re happy with the Google Pixel charging speeds. The results from our poll are in, and it’s safe to say that there are some unhappy campers.

The Google Pixel 9 series offers a suite of upgrades over the outgoing Pixel 8 line. From their refreshed design to additional RAM and upgraded cameras, there’s much to pique fans’ interest. However, if we were to identify a soft spot, the incoming Tensor G4 chipset would be it.

Although it features new Arm cores running at slightly higher clocks and a new Exynos modem, the Tensor G4 sees no TPU upgrades over its predecessor. This similarity arguably keeps the Pixel 8 series more relevant than ever, especially when it comes to new AI features.

Alongside the new Pixel 9 series, Google rolled out its redesigned Pixel Weather app, which aims to please pluviophiles and minimalists alike. Google has a penchant for creating copies of apps it already has, especially since it only recently updated the older weather app. However, Pixel Weather will eventually trickle down to older Pixel models.

Beyond the visual changes, the app also introduces Gemini-powered summaries that reduce the swathe of weather factors and figures into a sentence or two that anyone can understand. The idea is to make checking a forecast as easy as possible without combing through numbers and icons across multiple hours.

Budgeting for a smartphone is an expensive undertaking. Do you fork out and grab one of the best phones around, or do you opt for something more affordable? There’s a lot to weigh up, but something that isn’t always considered alongside new hardware is the carrier plan. Whether you’re paying off your handset monthly or leaning on those voice minutes or high-speed 5G data, every modern user and handset needs a plan.

We’re spoiled for choice of phone plans in 2024, but one thing’s certain: no one wants to spend more than they really need. With that in mind, we want to know how much you spend monthly on your personal phone plan. We’re only interested in personal plans for a single user, not those covering multiple users or families. How much do you spend per month? Be sure to let us know by voting in our poll below.