Table of contents for Issue 54 in Android Advisor

Price: Free As was widely expected Google released the open public beta of its new operating system, Android P, at its Google I/O event on 8 May 2018. It brought noticeable visual change along with some quite dramatic gesture controls. In August, Android P was unveiled as Android 9 Pie and rolled out immediately for all Pixel phones. We’ve been using the operating system for a few weeks, so here’s a rundown of what we think about the new look including new gestures, menus, settings, and adaptive features. We downloaded Android Pie onto a Pixel 2 XL and it’s a bigger overhaul from Oreo than Oreo was from Nougat. There’s a lot to unpack. Design Google introduced what it calls Material Design into Android in 2014, and Pie is an…

Along with updates to Google Assistant, Lens, Gmail and just about every app with the word Google before it, there was one unveiled at I/O that isn’t about enhancing Google’s ecosystem of services. In fact, it’s about using all of them less. Baked deeply into Android P is a set of tools Google is calling Digital Wellbeing, and it’s all about balancing your digital life with your real-world one. Through a series of settings, options, and features, Google wants Android P to be the least-used version of Android, and it just might make us love our phones even more. The bitter truth about app usage The premier feature of the new initiative is Android Dashboard, which provides a snapshot of your daily usage, not unlike the Battery tab in Android…

Price: £279 inc VAT from fave.co/2Pv3gBu The Play is Honor’s latest foray into the UK phone market, and the first in a planned line of devices under the ‘Play’ branding. As you might be able to guess from the name, the target market is gamers looking for something a little more affordable than the likes of the Razer Phone. Honor has a great track record for producing top spec phones at accessible price points – without compromising on design or build quality along the way – and after a couple of weeks of playing with it, the Honor Play looks to be another strong example. Read on for our thoughts. Design The first thing to note about the Play is that it’s big – but not in a bad way.…

It’s that time of year again. No, we’re not talking about back-to-school or the end of summer – it’s time for a new flavour of Android. And this year the tasty confection is... Pie. That’s right, the ninth version of Android has an official name and that means it’s ready to install on the precious few phones lucky enough to support it on day one. This year, however, the wait for Android Pie might not be so excruciating. Thanks to Project Treble, several phones already have beta versions of Android 9 in the wild, so it could be weeks, not months, before it starts showing up on more phones. But no matter how long it takes, it’ll be worth the wait. Pie introduces enough new features to make any Oreo…

Price: £899 inc VAT from fave.co/2BTVkIj Like clockwork, Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note 9, the big-screen, stylus-toting cousin of the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus. It looks a lot like the Note 8, but despite the hype we think the upgrades are significant enough to make this Samsung’s best phone alongside the S9 Plus. While headline changes are the (variant depending) yellow S-Pen with Bluetooth, a bigger battery and improved cameras, the general look, feel and performance of the Note 9 means this is Samsung’s most refined Note to date. Since the launch of the iPhone X, the idea of a £1,000 phone is less alien now, and that’s roughly the price you’ll pay if you want a Note 9 off contract. But it’s such a pleasure to use,…

Epic Games’ Fortnite is eating the world, and now the battle royale game (and occasional golf simulator) is finally coming to Android. Samsung Galaxy devices held exclusive access to the Fortnite beta for now, but Epic has started rolling out invites to owners of other phones as well. Can your phone even play Fortnite for Android though? The game requires some serious graphical horsepower despite its cartoonish looks. Here’s how Android users can gain access to Fortnite, followed by the full list of phones that can play it on Android. How to play Fortnite on Android To celebrate the launch of the Galaxy Note 9 (see page 46), Samsung Galaxy owners can play the Fortnite beta right now. Anyone who owns a Galaxy S7 or later, the Galaxy Note 8,…

For the first time since we met the navigation bar, Android has a whole new way to get around. Pie introduces a new series of gestures designed specifically for navigation, and they bring some wholesale changes to the way we launch, switch, and quit apps. Here’s how to get started. Gestures: Getting started When you install Android Pie on your phone, your navigation bar will look the same as it always has, with a back, home, and overview button at the bottom go the screen. That’s because the new system is optional, at least for now. To try Gestures out, you need to turn it on. You can find the toggle in the Settings app. Open System, then Gestures, and tap Swipe up on home button. Inside you’ll find a…

Price: £439 inc VAT from fave.co/2BI5zPL After buying and rescuing Motorola’s phone business, Lenovo went all-in on modular design. 2016’s Moto Z introduces Moto Mods, the snap-on accessory ecosystem that gave you a speaker, extra battery or even projector if you wanted it. Two years later and Moto is on to the third generation of Moto Mod smartphones. It’s great that accessories two years old work with the latest crop of Moto phones, but the Z3 Play is a hamstrung device compared to the Z2 Play and even the original Z Play. The ‘Play’ moniker refers to the mid-range version of the Z range and has stood for mid-range specifications but with similar design and superior battery life. That’s not so clear cut anymore, and while the Z3 Play is…

It’s been a rough couple of months for Google. A new report by Digital Content Next reveals some troubling news: Android phones, even when idle, send data to Google at an alarming pace. In fact, the study found that an Android phone “communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period” with the Chrome browser merely active in the background. That’s 10 times more data than iPhones give up. If that’s not enough to scare you, this report comes on the heels of a class-action lawsuit filed after Google was accused of being less than clear about how, when, and where it tracks your location. In response to an AP report that showed Android phones still tracked location even with Location History turned off, Google changed some of…