Home Blog Page 418

See how Random Dice: PvP Defense stacks up as a tower-defense game

AndroidGuys
-
0

Random Dice: PvP Defense is a dice roller tower-defense game by 111%. While battling waves of monsters you can merge, level up, and defend your war turf. This game features real-time PvP battles, co-op, and solo play. Listen below to find out what we think about this tower-defense dice game and see if you should download it today.

Listen to the embedded podcast to learn more and hear how we ended up with our score.

Watch the embedded video to learn more and see how we scored the various components.

https://youtu.be/BbZSja18dzA

 

Boost Mobile’s latest Carrier Crusher plan is an all-you-can-eat buffet

AndroidGuys
-
1

Boost Mobile has been on a roll will its latest offerings. Less than a month ago, the prepaid carrier offered its first round of Carrier Crusher plans. Now, with only a few weeks remaining in 2021, Boost Mobile is looking to shake up the wireless industry even more.

Unlimited Everything

Starting today Boost Mobile’s newest addition to the Carrier Crusher plans is an unlimited plan that works out to $25 a month. This plan features unlimited talk, text, and data for $300 a year.

To get this deal you must upfront the $300 plus the taxes. You are essentially prepaying for a year of unlimited wireless service.

In addition to the all-you-can-eat data plan, this Carrier Crusher plan includes 12GB of hotspot data a month. Your data speeds will be reduced if you go over 35GB for the month.

For reference, AT&T also offers an upfront $300 prepaid plan, but that plan only comes with 8GB of data per month. Since Boost Mobile uses AT&T and T-Mobile’s towers, you are paying the same but getting much less in return.

Boost Mobile claims this new Carrier Crusher unlimited plan will save consumers as much as $400 a year compared to the big wireless carriers.

Boost Mobile’s CEO, Stephen Sokol said:

AMERICANS DON’T WANT TO PAY A PENNY MORE THAN THEY HAVE TO FOR WIRELESS ACCESS. BOOST BELIEVES THAT WIRELESS SERVICE SHOULD BE AFFORDABLE TO ALL. TODAY, BOOST CARRIER CRUSHER PLANS OFFER AMERICANS A NEW REALITY WHERE CUSTOMERS CAN GET UNLIMITED DATA, VOICE AND TEXT FOR LESS THAN 50% OF WHAT THEY PAY ON THE NATION’S LARGEST CARRIERS.

Additional Carrier Crusher plans

If you aren’t looking for unlimited data, but like the idea of saving money, Boost Mobile offers additional plans designed to take on its competition.

You can get 5GB of data for only $15 per month if you prepay in either 3 or 6-month chunks. You can drop that to $14 a month if you are willing to pay a year upfront. If you like the idea of unlimited data, but don’t want to pay 12 months in advance, you can get unlimited data for $30 per month if paid every three months.

These latest Boost Mobile offerings have piqued my interest in what Dish plans to do when they officially roll out their own 5G network. Let me know what you think of the plans in the comments.

Protect your data and privacy with a lifetime RealVPN subscription

AG Deals Team
-
0

Your data and privacy are important. So important that businesses and individuals will go to great lengths to obtain that information. When you go to a coffee shop or use public Wi-Fi, the information you are sending over the internet is not safe or secure. When you are at home, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has access to all of the data from all of your devices. This can be used to track and provide tailored ads to not only your device but others in the house as well.

Protecting your information and your privacy doesn’t need to be a difficult task. It is as easy as getting yourself a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and turning it on. A VPN routes all of your internet traffic through their own servers, effectively blocking and encrypting your data wherever you are.

Today AG has an opportunity to get a lifetime subscription to RealVPN for only $19.99.

What you get with RealVPN

  • Easy to use – one button to enable protection
  • Multiple VPN servers available worldwide for better connection speed
  • Secure all of your internet access, from online shopping to banking
  • Personal data sent through high-grade AES-256 encryption
  • Total anonymity online, your data is only yours
  • Connect up to 5 devices at the same time
  • 24/7 customer support.

Get Started

Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to protect all of the information you send over the internet. Normally priced at $250, you can get RealVPN for just $19.99. No renewal fees, no contracts, just $19.99, and lifetime access to your own VPN. What are you waiting for, protect your data today.

TP-Link Deco X20 Mesh router system review

Andrew Allen
-
0

Our lives revolve around an internet connection these days. Love it or hate it, that’s the reality we live in. Smartphones keep us locked into the web while on the go, but the most coveted pipeline may be the home network. The newest wave to technology around the household internet has been mesh routers.

TP-Link has joined the fray of this new option of WiFi router that also supports WiFi 6. The Deco X20 mesh system pits TP-Link against the likes of Amazon’s Eero units as well as Google’s Nest WiFi. The company allowed us over a month with the Deco X20 routers and I’ve come away impressed.

What’s a mesh WiFi system?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the specs list for the TP-Link Deco X20 routers, let’s briefly summarize mesh networking. As a relatively new introduction to the average home consumer, it will help set the foundation for this system’s strengths.

Mesh WiFi is essentially two things: a router unit hooked to your modem with identical units that then blanket the house with the same connection. Each “beacon” or access point device shares the exact same settings and network SSID name and password.

This gives you a much more modular approach to extend your wireless connection seamlessly across your house with minimal setup. The “smarts” of these networks like the Deco X20 duplicate all the same settings to where your connected devices see the units as the same router across the home. It simply searches for the closest mesh router with the strongest signal and passes your device connected to the best option.

For instance, I set up the TP-Link Deco X20 three-pack in my office, living room, and my bonus room. This gives me coverage throughout my home with no dead spots. My kitchen is closest to my office so when in that room I connect to the main Deco X20 plugged into my modem. When I move upstairs my devices are automatically passed to the bonus room X20 and the same when I enter the living room and that Deco is the closest.

Hardware

TP-Link has done a decent job of balancing a techie vibe and home decor design with the Deco X20 routers. These cylindered units can easily sit on a shelf and be mistaken for something like an air freshener or wireless speaker. This allows the X20s to blend in well under any environment or room placement.

Around the back of the Deco X20 router is where the business happens. Here you’ll find a proprietary barrel port for charging and two ethernet ports. Each of these network ports is capable of up to gigabit data speeds if your service supports speeds that high.

One omission and one miss are present in my mind. I’d love to see a USB connection from a traditional router maker like TP-Link. This could set the Deco X20 apart from more modern offerings from Google and Eero. The miss is the proprietary charging cable. In the age of USB-C, this should be the standard for any device like the Deco X20 routers in 2021.

Setup

The setup of your network with the TP-Link Deco X20 is drop-dead simple. The “main” router needs to be plugged directly into your modem. This acts as the brain of the operation to create the mesh network with the other satellites and to create your base settings.

After powering on and plugging into your modem, you will need to download the Deco app and create a log-in. The app wizard then walks you thru how to get started while creating an SSID for your wireless network and assigning a room to the main Deco.

Your last step is creating the mesh network with additional Deco X20s thru your home. Each company has its own idea of how this works, but I prefer the way TP-Link pulls this off. You simply plug in the new Deco and wait a few minutes. No separate screen in the app or scanning a random QR code, just plug and play with the system identifying and adding the satellites automatically.

App controls and web interface

The app interaction TP-Link has created is superb. The Deco Android application is well laid out and intuitive to use. From here you can handle several tasks and network management. This includes simple things like renaming a device connected to the network or more advanced things like port forwarding.

While the more advanced usage cases are there I’ve found myself basically setting the Deco X20 up and forgetting about it. I’ve set a few devices to have network priority and renamed new devices that have generic default names, but otherwise, I’ve left it alone.

Speaking of naming, TP-Link has made this pretty easy; if the naming isn’t to your liking, it notifies you of each new connected gadget on your network and lets you edit the name. I’ve used this several times now to click the notification when adding a device and immediately renaming to something I will recognize.

One major inclusion I like from TP-Link over my Google Wi-Fi system is a web interface. While it’s limited in comparison to the app, you can still make simple changes like changing the Wi-Fi name or seeing clients connected. It’s a little thing that offers some basic securities if you break your phone or the app is unavailable for some reason.

Daily use

General use has been exceptional. I’m getting consistent network reliability throughout my home that frankly is better than my Google WiFi system. The Deco X20 three-pack covers a slightly larger area of my home and adds WiFi 6 to my home for newer devices with the new protocol. This allows for better multi-device performance and simultaneous connections versus WiFi 5.

I’ve been happy with my speeds under wireless and wired connections. My ethernet wired desktop is hitting my network’s peak 300mbps consistently without issue. Wireless connections depend on my location and conditions, but I often see the same speeds as my wired units.

Another nice feature that TP-Link includes with the Deco X20 is auto frequency selection. The Deco system communicates with your devices on the initial connection and sets the channel to either 2.4GHz or 5GHz. This is set by the default of each client. Most of my home automation devices like Simplisafe and WiFi outlets prefer 2.4GHz and the software sets that in the Deco app without any input from me the user.

Conclusion

TP-Link has created a new mesh network system that is truly compelling. You can upgrade to a better network with WiFi 6, a great app, and excellent performance. And you can get all this without breaking the bank.

The base price is $100 on Amazon for a single unit, $130 for a two-pack, or $200 for a three-pack. Any of these investments are worth it for the TP-Link X20. Whether upgrading from an existing mesh network just for WiFi 6 or entering the mesh crowd for the first time, these routers won’t disappoint.

Where Does GIS Data Come From?

AndroidGuys
-
0

You must be wondering what GIS data is, but before explaining it, let us give you an example of an occurrence where we encounter GIS data in our daily lives. 

When you book a car for yourself on an app, you can see the progress of the car with the help of a mini-map on your phone. The same thing happens when the delivery personnel brings you the food you ordered. 

It is possible to keep track of their movements with the help of a satellite that revolves around the Earth. This satellite takes pictures or captures videos and sends that information to the device. 

This entire process is made possible by GIS which expands to form a Geographic Information System. The data that is deciphered from this information is known as GIS data. Let us find out about it in detail. 

What is GIS data? 

This system is responsible for taking pictures of the earth’s surface and displaying the same on various devices at any corner of the world. Many establishments and organizations are benefitted from this. 

The GIS data usually works well with the help of a person or object’s location. That being said, it can display other details like the traffic in a particular area, types of vegetation of a location, color of soil, etc. 

How does GIS data benefit us? 

The most obvious thing that we benefit from GIS data is getting a heads up about the amount of traffic that a particular road may have. We can then use an alternative route to reach our destination without wasting time. 

But, GIS is capable of giving us so much more. The system can also provide us with information about an individual, their address, as well as income. 

Moreover, we can also find out information about the pollution of an area or which areas are more prone to storms. Thus, the list of benefits that we are offered by GIS data is never-ending. 

Types of GIS data

The system is so advanced that it can even give you the population demographics of an area. Apart from that, the data can be divided into a few types. 

Cartographic data

The system primarily uses location to analyze this kind of data. Various information about rivers, mountains, schools, etc. is displayed on a map and uploaded on the system. 

Photographic data

This involves taking aerial pictures of the surface of the earth and analyzing those pictures to give information about the various features that turn up in them. 

Digital data

This type of data usually consists of information regarding various locations. For example, the data can show you the nearest location of a town or village. It can also give you information about forests and hill stations. 

Conclusion

GIS data makes us realize where technology has taken us. We can keep an eye on everything that walks on the earth’s surface, and even the ones that are stagnant. 

Photo by Kaique Rocha from Pexels

Jumpstart your cybersecurity training with this $30 exam prep bundle

AG Deals Team
-
0

If you’re pondering the ever-expanding field of cybersecurity for your next career pivot, consider getting started with educational materials and training like the CompTIA Security Infrastructure Expert Bundle.

Over four courses you’ll have access to 72 hours of content designed specifically to prepare you for relevant CompTIA cybersecurity exams, such as Security+, CySA+, CASP, and PenTest+.

Among other things, you’ll learn how to implement cryptographic techniques and integrate advanced authentication and authorization techniques. Additionally, you’ll explore conducting passive and active reconnaissance, learn about planning and scoping penetration tests, and analyze vulnerabilities. And that’s just part of the training.

Topics explored in the six-course bundle

  • Hone Your Cybersecurity Skills with Hands-On Abilities in Penetration Testing & Vulnerability Management
  • Ace the High-Stakes Security Analyst Certification & Become a Well-Respected Professional in the Cybersecurity Field
  • Learn the Basics of Cloud Computing & Prepare for the CompTIA Cloud+ Certification Exam
  • Fight Back Against Today’s Cyber Threats & Secure Enterprise Networks
  • Gain Basic Knowledge Needed to Plan, Implement & Maintain Information Security in a Vendor-Neutral Format
  • CompTIA Security+ Topics & Sample Questions Required for the CompTIA Security SY601 Exam

Get Started!

Thanks to the lifetime access, you’ll be able to pore over these guides as often as you want or until you’re confident enough to sit for each of the six critical CompTIA exams.

This exam prep bundle is valued at over $1,200, but for a limited time, AndroidGuys readers can sign up for only $29.99 through the AG Deals Store.

Verizon brings two new Stream TV soundbars to the market

AndroidGuys
-
0

Verizon teamed up with Bang & Olufsen (B&O) to launch 2 new Verizon Stream TV soundbars. The soundbars are powered by Android TV, which means they can use Google Assistant for search and has Chromecast built-in.

They are also capable of streaming from your favorite services like Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime.

Verizon Stream TV
Stream TV

Stream TV Soundbar

With a launch price of $399.99, the Stream TV Soundbar consists of 5 speakers tuned by B&O. There are 3 full-range speakers and 2 woofers.

It also has Atmos virtual surround sound, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, 16 GB of onboard storage, 2 HDMI ports, 4K capability, Chromecast, Stadia support, and access to the Android TV Google Play Store.

Verizon Stream TV Pro
Stream TV Pro

Stream TV Soundbar Pro

The more expensive of the two offerings is the Stream TV Soundbar Pro. Launching at a price of $999.99, this soundbar ramps up to a total of nine speakers. There are 4 full range, 3 tweeter, and 2 woofer speakers.

In addition to the features of its less expensive sibling, the Verizon Stream TV Soundbar Pro includes the wall mounting hardware & template. It also ups the HDMI ports, for a total of 3.

The devices look great, but Verizon did slap their logo on the front of these. Let me know if you intend to add either of these to your media setup.

Verizon’s new holiday deals have dropped

AndroidGuys
-
0

If you missed all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals at Verizon this year, don’t worry as Verizon has dropped a few more deals for you to pick from.

The most exciting deal is if you are switching to Verizon from another carrier, you could get up to $2000 to make the jump. You can get up to a $1000 trade-in on an eligible device when you select an unlimited plan. Verizon will also give you up to a $1000 prepaid Mastercard to cover the breakup fees from your previous carrier.

Some other notable deals at Verizon this holiday season are:

  • Buy a select 5G phone and get another free on an unlimited plan.
  • Buy select smartwatches and get another free.
  • Get up to $250 off select tablets when you purchase any smartphone on monthly payments.
  • New Fios Gigabit customers will get a free year of Disney+ and AMC+ as well as a $200 gift card.
  • If you are a new 5G Home Internet customers will get a free year of Disney+ and AMC+, a Google Hub Max, and a $100 bill credit.
  • New LTE Home Internet customers get the same deal as 5G customers except you get a free Google Nest Mini instead of the Max.
  • You can also snag various accessories at a discounted price.

While the deals may not be as spectacular as some of the previous offerings, if you missed those deals, you could still get yourself and a loved one a brand new device this holiday season.

The real deal is if you need to break from your current carrier, as Verizon is effectively giving you a free phone and paying off your old one as well.

Qualcomm announced their all-new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 platform

AndroidGuys
-
0

At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Tech Summit is currently taking place in Hawaii, it took the wraps off its brand new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The Snapdragon 8 is set to power many of the top upcoming Android devices, not made by Google. Let’s break down what you have to look forward to.

Connectivity

Qualcomm has equipped the Snapdragon 8 with its new integrated X65 5G modem. This modem will support 10 Gigabit download speeds, WiFi 6, and WiFi 6E. The Snapdragon 8 WiFi can handle speeds up to 3.6 Gbps to ensure smooth performance.

Camera

The Sight technology included in the Snapdragon 8 platform is capable of capturing a lot of data. Up to 4000 times more camera data than its previous flagship chip, the Snapdragon 888. This data is for increased dynamic range, color, and sharpness at speeds up to 3.2 gigapixels per second.

It is the first mobile platform to capture video in 8K HDR with support for HDR10+. They even included a new Bokeh Engine to help all your photos taken in portrait mode.

They have included an Always-On function that allows the camera to run in a low power state. This enables the device to unlock when it sees your face and immediately lock when it is no longer detected.

Snapdragon 8 info

Gaming

Consisting of over 50 Snapdragon Elite Gaming features. It will deliver ultra-smooth responsiveness, HDR, and desktop-level capabilities.

The new Adreno GPU provides a 30% increase in graphics capabilities. All while using up to 25% less power compared to previous generations.

The Variable Rate Shading Pro will allow game developers to fine-tune performance. Volumetric rendering brings increased realism for things like fog and smoke.

Sound

Snapdragon Sound Technology and Bluetooth 5.2 allows for crystal-clear voice and music. The Qualcomm aptX Lossless Technology enables CD-quality lossless wireless audio.

Security

A dedicated trust management engine provides an extra Root of Trust for apps and services. It will be the first mobile platform to feature Android Ready SE. Which is the new standard for digital car keys, and your driver’s license. It will also have iSIM support.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Featuring a 7th Gen Qualcomm AI Engine powered by a Hexagon processor. It is up to 4x faster than its predecessor, with up to 2x larger shared memory and a 2x faster tensor accelerator.

The Snapdragon 8 platform is going to bring some great new features and capabilities. You won’t have to wait long to see it in action as devices are rumored to launch with the Snapdragon 8 in Q1 of 2022.

Samsung announced their cheapest 5G device, the new Galaxy A13 5G

AndroidGuys
-
0

Samsung announced the Galaxy A13 5G this morning, and it packs quite the punch in the affordable phone market. Priced at only $250, Samsung has thrown a few goodies into this competitive part of the market.

One of the main selling points of the A13 5G is its large 90Hz edge-to-edge 6.5-inch HD+ LCD display that sports a 720 x 1600 resolution. An adaptive 90Hz refresh rate is not common at this price point, and there are phones that cost up to 3 times as much without this feature.

Another selling point for the Galaxy A13 5G is its massive 5,000 mAh battery. It even supports 15W Fast Charge to top you off when you are running low on juice.

Samsung Galaxy A13 5G Home screen

The device is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 700 and has 64GB of onboard storage. If you find that to be a bit limiting, it is expandable, supporting up to a 1TB microSD card.

Rounding out the device is a side fingerprint sensor, Sub-6 5G, and Samsung Pay support. All of this runs on Android 11.

The Galaxy A13 5G will be available on December 3 from AT&T and Samsung.com. T-Mobile will launch it sometime in January 2022.

Samsung also stated that they have another device coming January 2022, the Galaxy A03s. The details are scarce, but Samsung stated that this device will have a triple camera setup and a fingerprint reader. It will be available at AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Samsung.com for $159.

1...417418419...1,315Page 418 of 1,315