Table of contents for 59 in Android Advisor

As we look back at CES 2019, two things are certain: we won’t be able to afford one of LG’s jaw-dropping roll-up OLED TVs and Android is poised for another big year. While we might not have had a look at Samsung’s folding phone yet (though we did get our hands on Royale’s FlexPai, see page 24), there were plenty of low-key announcements in Las Vegas that could have a big impact on the rest of the year. From Google Assistant to Android TV, here are eight CES announcements that might have slipped under your radar. 1. Google Assistant Google didn’t bring its heavily rumoured Pixel 3 Lite to CES, but it did introduce a bunch of new Google Assistant tricks. Along with a new Interpreter Mode on Google Homes…

Price: £1,209 inc VAT Release date: Available now from fave.co/2R3pZVO While the phone industry wrestles with notches, pinhole cameras, and full-screen displays, there’s another massive smartphone revolution waiting in the wings: flexible displays. Royole is one of the companies that’s developed the flexible screen tech itself, but is making its proper smartphone debut with its own device, the FlexPai. We tracked it down at CES 2019 to give it a bend ourselves and see what it’s like. Design So yeah, the Royale FlexPai folds. The full screen is a 7.8in AMOLED, essentially making this a proper tablet, but it’s made out of a flexible plastic that means you can fold it over to get something closer to the average smartphone size – albeit one with a display that then wraps…

Price: £499 inc VAT from fave.co/2WfZsZi Following an October Chinese launch, the Mi Mix 3 is now officially available in the UK. It’s all about the cameras and the display in the Mi Mix 3, which refines the already great Mi Mix 2S on two primary fronts. This new generation also includes a dedicated button for calling up either the Google Assistant or Mi AI client, depending on whether you buy the UK or Chinese model, and in early 2019 a fifth variant will be introduced making Mi Mix 3 one of the first 5G phones in the world. This is the standard model, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable internal storage. In China an 8GB RAM model is also sold with either 128- or 256GB storage, and…

Android phones might get a bad rap, but they’re actually quite secure. Or at least they can be. With a little work, your Galaxy, Pixel, or OnePlus phone can be a veritable fortress, virtually impenetrable to hacks, attacks, and bad apps. So whether you’re looking for a little extra security or a complete lockdown of your phone, here’s everything you need to keep your data from falling into the wrong hands. Android security: Default protection Even if you skip the entire setup process and ignore every safeguard prompt, your Android phone still does plenty to keep your information safe. Play Protect Google has built a malware scanner right into the Play Store called Play Protect. First and foremost, it runs a safety check on apps before you download them, but…

If Seinfeld was the first show about nothing, the Meizu Zero is the first phone about nothing. Ahead of Mobile World Congress, the phone maker has teased the world’s first ‘totally seamless’ handset that does more than dump the headphone jack: it gets rid of every single port, button, and slot. That announcement was shortly followed by Vivo’s own portless concept, the Apex 2019. That means there’s no way to charge them without a pad, no way to connect a set of wired headphones, and no way to swap out the SIM card. Heck, you can’t even raise the volume without feeling your way around the pressure-sensitive sides. They’re basically the dystopian version of the iPhone 7. And you thought Apple was courageous. What the Zero does have is a…

Price: From $199 (around £150) Release date: To be confirmed As Google and Amazon began to introduce smart displays to the market, pretty much the first question anyone asked was: why not just use a tablet? It seems that Lenovo at least has taken the criticism to heart, using CES 2019 to unveil its two new Smart Tabs: Android tablets that offer Alexa support and are sold together with a speaker dock. Designed to offer the simplicity of the Echo Show or Google Home Hub – or Lenovo’s own Smart Display – while pairing it with the convenience and portability of a tablet, this seems like an obvious win, though it faces obvious competition in Amazon’s Fire tablets, which come with the option of a charging dock that accomplishes the…

Price: £799 inc VAT from fave.co/2RqtwOk Gaming-focused smartphones are becoming more of a thing and we’ve been waiting for the ROG Phone since it was announced in June 2018. Read on for our thoughts. Design In many ways, smartphone design has become stagnant and boring, but that’s not the case here. The ROG Phone is, as you might expect, eccentric and unconventional. ROG does stand for ‘Republic of Gamers’ after all. Indeed, the phone has so many striking elements that it’s hard to know where to look first. There are unusual shapes everywhere, from the glass around the camera to the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. Then there’s the large lump on the side, complete with exposed copper, which is matched on the front for the stereo speakers. And yes, the iconic…

Even if you’re wary about rooting your Android phone and installing a custom ROM, you can still try out some features and settings that aren’t turned on by default. Every Android phone comes equipped with the ability to enable Developer options, which lets you test some features and access parts of the phone that are usually locked away. As you might expect, Developer options are cleverly hidden away by default, but it’s easy to enable if you know where to look. Find your Android Build number Before you can enable Developer options on your Android phone or tablet, you’ll first need to find your phone’s build number. On most phones, you can simply type build number into the search field, but here’s how to find it on a few popular…

The battle over your wrist just got a lot more interesting. In January, Fossil announced that it was selling $40 million worth of its smartwatch technology to Google, giving the Wear OS purveyor a serious stake in the wearable hardware game. The deal may be a relatively small sum compared to the billions Google spent on Nest, but it could be just as important. For one, Fossil is one of the only companies consistently turning out new Wear OS watches that people actually want to buy. But even if this deal doesn’t result in a Pixel watch or Google-branded hardware at all, for the first time Google will have a wearable hardware team under its roof to help drive future design, navigation, and UI decisions. And most importantly, it means…

Price: £499 inc VAT from fave.co/2Rm3ED0 Honor is no stranger to flashy designs – bright blue, glass-backed phones have become the company’s signature look – but thanks to a punch-hole camera and a unique ‘nanolithographic’ rear, the View 20 is a seriously striking device even by Honor’s standards. Although the phone was released in China in December 2018, Honor showed the View 20 off to western media at CES, and it’s now available in Europe, too. Design In all honesty, most of the things that make the View 20 unique come down to its design, rather than its specs, with both the front and rear of the device exciting in their own ways. For the front, you get a punch-hole/pinhole/ in-screen camera (take your pick, no-one seems to have decided…

Google Assistant is everywhere, ranging from the Android smartphone in your pocket to the smart speakers and smart displays ensconced in your kitchen or living room. And that means you can control all your smart home devices without so much as turning your head. All you need to say is “Hey Google!” What do you say after that? Well, almost anything, but here are 15 essential commands you should commit to memory. 1. Get a weather report One of the simplest commands is probably also one of the most useful. As you’re getting ready to head out the door, say “Hey, Google. What’s the weather like?” You’ll get a succinct explanation of the current conditions and the forecasted conditions for later in the day. 2. Read the news Want to…

If you didn’t buy the Global version of your new Xiaomi phone, you may now be regretting your purchase. It’s a great phone, yes, but if you don’t speak Chinese you may be struggling without the software. Fortunately it’s easy to add all the usual Google services with which you’re familiar. Note that we’ve installed Google Play on a Note 5A running MIUI 9.5. If you are running an older version of the OS you may not be able to install the necessary software, so it’s worth checking you’re running the latest version first. Update MIUI 8 OpentheSettingsapp Scroll down to and select ‘About phone’. Tap the link at the bottom of the screen for ‘System updates’. Follow the prompts to install any software that may be available. Update…