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How to use Watch Party with Amazon Prime Video to stream videos together online

Jason England
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We’ve seen a lot of normal every day activities change during the coronavirus pandemic. Some have changed for the short term, but some will be long-lasting changes. Before COVID-19 hit a lot of us took for granted the ability to get together with friends and family to watch movies and TV.

Fortunately, many of the streaming services have stepped up with Watch Party features to allow us to stream together while apart. Some of the services that support this include Disney+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.

Today, we’ll look at how to start a Watch Party on Prime Video so you can watch your favorite shows and movies with others.

Heads Up!

Before you get started, every member of the watch party must either rent or own the video you’d like to watch. Alternatively, if it is a Prime eligible video title, then every member will need to be a Prime subscriber.

Furthermore, Watch Party is only available on the web at this time. Every member will need to use the browser on their computer to join, and Apple’s Safari browser is not supported.

Let’s Go!

Now, follow these simple steps below and get to binge-watching with your friends and family.

1. Open the video title you’d like to watch in Prime Video using your desktop browser.
2. Click on the “Watch Party” icon.
3. Enter the name you’d like to use while chatting and click Create Watch Party.
4. Copy the link to your Watch Party and share it with up to 100 friends. Remember, each person will also need to be a Prime member or they will need to rent or buy the same video title.

That’s all there is to it. Once everyone joins in, the host of the Watch Party can start the video. It’s important to note only the host will have control over the playback of the video, just like in the good ole days when one person was in control of the remote.

Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer review

Jason England
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I get it. You saw the headline and you immediately had questions. To answer the first question, no, the Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer is not certified to kill COVID-19. However, just because it doesn’t kill COVID-19, doesn’t mean it’s not useful. Ultraviolet light has been shown to effectively kill up to 99% of harmful germs and bacteria, such as E. Coli, Staphylococcus, and Candida albicans. 

During the past year, we’ve all become obsessive about disinfecting and killing germs, bacteria, and viruses. Not only are we sanitizing our hands at an alarming rate, but we’re also looking for convenient ways to disinfect items we’re constantly touching. And I’m sure if you’re anything like me, your smartphone ranks as one of the most touched items you own.

Design

The Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer resembles a cellphone tanning bed. It has a clean white design that wouldn’t look out of place in a lab or on a random counter in your house. On the back is a USB-C port used for connecting it to a power source. Unfortunately, there is no power brick included, so you’re going to have to supply your own.

There is a solitary button on the front which is used to turn on the UV light for 10 minutes at a time. The lid uses a strong magnet to keep it closed during cleanings, and can be a little difficult to open. It would have been nice if there was a button to help release the magnet making it easier to open up.

Inside there are ridges on the bottom to help elevate your phone or device, with the UV lights positioned on the left and right sides. The inside dimensions are deep enough to allow for objects such as a phone, keys, glasses, earbuds, and perhaps your wallet.

However, I wish it was a little deeper. I wasn’t able to fit the charging case for my earbuds in there, nor was I able to fit my smartwatch with the wristband stretched out.

User Experience

What’s there to say? The Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer is as simple to use as pressing a button. The light will only come on if the lid is closed, and the lights will turn off for safety reasons if you open the lid in the middle of sanitizing.

How can you tell if the lights actually come on? I’m glad you asked. If you’re in a dark room you can see the lights through the white casing. You can also try what I did, and place your phone in while taking a video to ensure the lights come on and stay on the entire 10 minutes, spoiler alert, they did.

The manual suggests that you place the phone in for 10 minutes with the display facing up and for 10 minutes with the display facing down. Even though it has some ridges at the bottom to lift your device up, the light coverage will be much more even on the top than it will on the underside. However, wireless charging will only work reliably if the phone is placed inside with the display facing up.

Speaking of wireless charging, the Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer supports fast-charging. As I mentioned above though, you’re going to have to supply your own power brick, and it will need to be fast-charged enabled for this to work. While the UV lights won’t come on unless the lid is closed, you can charge your phone with the lid opened or closed.

How well does it work?

It’s hard for me to say just how well the Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer disinfects smartphones or other items. I lack the equipment and expertise to test this. Samsung says it has been “tested by world-leading inspection and testing companies, Intertek and SGS” though, and with Samsung’s reputation, I’m willing to put a little faith in them.

Besides, this is a preventative measure, and it’s not the only cleaning method I’m relying on to ensure my phone and other devices stay clean.

Final Thoughts

While it’s difficult to say just how effective ultraviolet light sanitizers like this are, it gives me some peace of mind after the roller coaster of a year the pandemic has put us through. In 2020, I’ve become much more active in keeping my house and frequently touched items clean and disinfected.

Disinfectant wipes are fantastic for cleaning most everyday items, but they can also damage the protective coating on your phone’s display. For that reason, I was looking for a safer way to sanitize my phone, and even though it’s not proven to kill COVID-19, it can’t hurt to be proactive and UV light has been proven to kill other germs and bacteria. At the very least it might help prevent me from catching some other sickness and it’ll keep my phone charged up.

The Samsung Qi Wireless Charger and UV Sanitizer retails for $49.99, but at times it can found on sale for as low as $39.99.

Buy from Amazon Buy from Samsung

POCO F2 mid-ranger may launch in 2021 following POCO spin-off

Josiah Ward
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Last year, POCO was officially spun off by Xiaomi into an independent brand, though this is a brand independence, with POCO still using MIUI as well as Xiaomi supply chains. Now, in a video tweeted by POCO recapping 2020, you can see the text “F2” flashing intermittently, hinting at the launch of the POCO F2.

While not much is known about the F2, discussions suggest that the device will be a mid-range smartphone featuring a Snapdragon 732G, a quad-camera setup and a 4,250mAh battery.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 480: 5G chip for budget phones

Josiah Ward
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Today, Qualcomm announced their Snapdragon 480 chipset, bringing 5G to ultra-budget handsets in addition to other premium features.

Connectivity

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 features 5G connectivity, both sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G.

The Snapdragon 480 also features a variety of networking technologies, in addition to Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6200 system, which supports dual WiFi-6 antennas, Bluetooth 5.1, and Qualcomm aptX Adaptive audio, among other things.

AI

The chipset features a Hexagon 686 DSP and a Sensing Hub to improve AI performance over 70% over the Snapdragon 460 by allowing for ultra low-power always-on AI processing.

Camera

One notable feature of the Snapdragon 480 is the triple Spectra 345 ISP, which can capture photos from three 13MP cameras at once or three 720p video streams.

It can also support up to a 64MP still shot from a single camera.

Other Features

The Snapdragon 480 features Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+, support for Full HD resolution at up to 120Hz refresh rate, and support for both UFS chips and LP4x RAM.

There is no information on when the chipset will be available, though it is known that HMD Global, OPPO, and Vivo will be manufacturing phones with this chipset. We can expect that these devices will be around $125-$250.

This bundle will make you safer in 2021 and includes VPN, cloud storage, password manager, and more

AndroidGuys
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Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro revealed in first impressions video ahead of launch

Jason England
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Samsung recently announced that its Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on January 14, 2021. While the big star of the show will be the brand-new Galaxy S21 lineup of phones, if the rumors are true, that won’t be the only hardware Samsung shows off at the event.

Samsung is also expected to launch its latest true wireless headphones dubbed the Galaxy Buds Pro. Over the past few months, we’ve seen plenty of information leak out about the Galaxy S21 phones, including renders, specs, and even a hands-on video review. However, all we’ve seen of the Galaxy Buds Pro are some renders and specs. That is until now.

YouTuber Digital Slang recently got his hands on a pair ahead of the launch. Apparently, he saw a listing for the unreleased Galaxy Buds Pro on Facebook Marketplace, took a chance, and turns out they were the real deal.

After teasing us with some photos on his Twitter account he’s now posted an unboxing and first impressions video about the upcoming true wireless headphones from Samsung. In the 17 minute long video we get a detailed look at the packaging, the case, and the Galaxy Buds Pro themselves.

Furthermore, we get an overview of the app and he shows off the touch-control options which include, noise controls, Bixby, volume, and Spotify integration. The standout features here being the active noise cancellation and Ambient sound or transparency mode that will turn on automatically when it hears you speak.

When it comes to sound quality, he was a big fan, but unfortunately, the ANC was lacking when compared to the AirPods Pro. On the bright side, the Galaxy Buds Pro supports wireless charging which makes them easy to keep topped up.

Digital Slang also has a comparison video between the Galaxy Buds Plus and Galaxy Buds Pro on his channel, and that’s about as good of a look at Samsung’s latest headphones we’re going to get until they officially launch at the Galaxy Unpacked event in ten days.

It’s official, Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event is scheduled for January 14, 2021

Jason England
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Over the past few months, we’ve covered the multitude of rumors and leaks about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S21. We’ve seen renders, videos, specs, and heard that the Ultra variant will include support for the S Pen. Among those rumors, was also one that stated Samsung would host its Galaxy Unpacked event much earlier than last year.

Now, Samsung is making it official, by announcing that the Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on January 14, 2021, at 10 a.m. EST. Considering we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic, we can expect the event to be much different from usual. However, Samsung will be streaming the event live on Samsung.com so you won’t have to miss a second of the action no matter where you live.

Along with the announcement of the Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung also posted a video teaser to its YouTube channel recently teasing the Galaxy S21. In the video, we see a brief history of previous Galaxy S devices and the design evolution of the series.

Unfortunately, the video doesn’t confirm anything about the new Galaxy S21. Although, after the past couple of months we’ve learned just about everything there is to know about the devices. All that is left now is for Samsung to officially unveil them and confirm all of the leaks.

If you’ve been following along and you’re already psyched up for the latest Galaxy phone, Samsung has already opened registrations for pre-orders. Even if you’re still on the fence about the new phone, it doesn’t hurt to sign up. Samsung won’t charge you anything and there is no commitment to buy, and by signing up you’ll be able to check the trade-in value of your current device and receive $50 towards accessories.

However, there are sure to be plenty of deals for the new devices whether or not you register for a pre-order at this time. Samsung is notorious for its launch promotions, and registering for pre-order has never been a requirement to get in on the deals.

Besides the new phones, we’re also expecting Samsung to launch its latest true wireless headphones called the Galaxy Buds Pro. Recent leaks have pointed to the new headphones featuring an ambient sound mode, ANC, support for Bixby, and more.

Amazfit Bip U review

Jason England
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Recently, I reviewed the Amazfit Band 5, a capable little fitness band at an affordable price. Today, I have the Amazfit Bip U, another fitness band from Huami with a larger display and a slightly higher price.

Design

The Amazfit Bip U uses a similar design to the Apple Watch with a square 1.43-inch display. While I’m not a big fan of square watch displays, it is highly effective, giving you plenty of screen real estate to view all the information that matters to you.

I found the display to be bright, colorful, and easy to read. At the same time, the Bip U was extremely lightweight and comfortable to wear. All in all, as far as a fitness tracker goes, it does a fantastic job of being comfortable and providing a large display for viewing information. It also has a 5 ATM water-resistant rating making it possible to wear in the pool for tracking swimming.

Plus, there’s a button on the side that can be used to turn on the screen or quickly open up the exercise tracking. That’s something I wish the smaller Amazfit Band 5 also had.

User Experience

The Bip U is able to monitor your heart rate, blood oxygen level, stress level, steps, 60+ exercises, calories burned, and track your sleeping. Out of all of those, it monitors your heart rate and stress levels 24 hours a day, and automatically tracks your steps or when you’re sleeping.

It appears the only measurements you have to manually initiate are exercise tracking and the blood oxygen readings. I wish it automatically tracked your blood oxygen levels throughout the day, but that’s only a minor complaint considering everything else it does.

Additionally, the Bip U can show you the weather, control music playback on your phone, and view notifications. However, the notification support is rather limited only showing a few words and not allowing for any interaction such as replying or dismissing it from your phone.

When using the Amazfit Band 5, I had to manually enable a lot of the 24-hour tracking of all of this data. I didn’t have to do that with the Bip U and I assume that’s because the app was already set up from my previous review of the Band 5. Just be aware that you may have to go in and manually enable all of this on yours, including toggling on app notifications and which apps you want to be notified by.

Now that it’s tracking all this information, you’re going to need a way to view it. The large 1.43-inch display is perfect for showing you all of your stats, and there is a wide selection of watch faces to choose from, nearly 50 in the store. I settled on one called Sports Rainbow which is reminiscent of the Apple Watch and gives you a nice overview of most of your data.

You can get an even better look at your data by using the Zepp app which you’ll need to set up the watch.

App

I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Zepp app in the Amazfit Band 5 review. This was mostly because it was a huge pain to set everything up. The app isn’t organized all that well and some of the English translation is a little off.

However, with everything already set up from the Band 5, using the Zepp app this time around was a lot more pleasurable. That’s because after you get everything set up, you mostly stick to the main page for checking your stats.

When that’s all you’re using the app for it works great. It’s easy to check your most vital stats, tapping on them gives you a more in-depth look, and additional useful information. This is a big reason I loved the Zepp app, for the way it presents your health data and the insight it provides about the information.

Battery Life

Huami rates the Amazfit Bip U for up to nine-days of usage off a single charge. In my experience, I was getting closer to 5-6 days after a single charge.

Surely, it’s possible to get nine days of usage off a single charge, but if you’re like me, then you want to enable all the sensors and get full use out of the watch. If that’s the case, you’ll be charging it up once a week to keep it running.

Final Thoughts

The Amazfit Bip U is an impressive little fitness band. It lacks the Alexa integration of the Band 5 I reviewed, but the larger display makes it much nicer to use. When comparing it to the Wear OS watch I typically use, I only found myself missing two main features, the always-on display and better notification support.

If you’re not interested in having an always-on display or being able to read more of your notifications and reply to them, then the Bip U would be a fantastic choice. It is a device that helps bridge the gap between basic fitness bands and a full-blown smartwatch at a price that’s more than reasonable.

Right now you can pick the Bip U up for $60 on Amazon or on sale for $50 from the Amazfit website.

Buy from Amazon Buy from Amazfit

Tronsmart unveils new ANC headphones with Apollo Q10

Andrew Allen
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Apple isn’t the only competition in town when it comes to wireless headphones. Other companies like Tronsmart has been making them for years. The brand is now set to do it again with the Apollo Q10 headphones.

Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation

The biggest selling point of this new entry for Tronsmart is the active noise cancellation. This has five mics that are filtering 35dB of noise. With this technology, you should be able to enjoy your music and phone calls with a much richer experience.

The ANC features present you with three separate modes to enjoy your mood music and calls. You have full active cancellation where the mic array blocks out the entire 35-decibels of outside noise. If that’s a little much, you can turn it to Music mode that switches to passive noise cancellation with the physical design of headphones. Last, you can actually have the microphones feed outside noise in Ambient mode.

Tronsmart has paired this with an impressive 40mm driver system. This should give the Apollo Q10 headphones a great listening experience.

Touch Controls and Impressive Battery

New headphones wouldn’t be complete these days without controls. Tronsmart has included a capacitive area on the outside of the Apollo Q10 cups to help interact with your playback. You can switch ANC modes, answer calls, change tracks, and control the volume.

Another compelling bullet point is that Tronsmart estimates the Apollo Q10 headphones will get a whopping 100 hours of audio. While we will reserve judgment for our full review, this is a massive endurance for wireless headphones.

New App

To round it out, Tronsmart has developed a new app to customize your experience further with the Apollo Q10. This app will manage software updates for the headphones and allow you to have a more granular equalizer to help tweak the audio to your perfection.

Available Now

The new Tronsmart Apollo Q10 is fully available for purchase today 12/31. While other new wireless headphones will cost you more than $100, and some hundreds more than that, Tronsmart is setting a new trend with the Apollo Q10 only costing $60.

JOMISE K7 Dash Cam review

AndroidGuys
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There are plenty of good reasons for people to have a dash cam these days. For one, it can help prove fault in an accident. Or maybe you need to show the officer that you definitely did not run that red light. Whatever the use case, you’ll want one that will actually take a good video. After all a camera isn’t much help if the output is grainy or pixelated.

Here, we take a look at a dash camera from JOMISE, a relatively unknown brand who sells its wares through Amazon. How does it fare in our testing? Read on for our review of the JOMISE K7 Dash Cam.

JOMISE K7

The JOMISE K7 1600P Dash Cam promises a resolution of 2,560 x 1, 600P @30fps or 1,920 x 1080P @60fps. Having that 60fps at full HD can come in handy if someone needs to slow the footage down.

There are also other features of this device that can prove convenient, including built-in GPS, G-Sensor, and Loop Recording. The GPS, for its part, will embed your driving location, speed, time and date into the video file. If the G-Sensor detects an impact to the vehicle it will actually lock the video and save it into a separate folder so it’s not accidentally overwritten should the camera be set in Loop Recording. This will be useful if you have to go to court as the result of an accident.

Green Light Reminder

There are other features and reminders which can be helpful in your day-to-day lifestyle, too. A built-in “green light reminder” will remind you that the stoplight has turned green, prompting you to snap out of a daze. This function has been hit or miss for me as I found it works much more reliably at night time. In fact, it almost doesn’t function at all in bright sunlight. This feature isn’t a deal breaker, to me and I assume no one would need to consistently rely on it.

Front car move reminder

Another one of these types of reminders is the “front car move” reminder. I’m honestly not sure if this works less reliably than the green light reminder or if I’m just not giving it enough time to kick in. It seems a bit hit-or-miss thus far.

I will add anecdotally that one day I was trying to locate my Covid mask at a stop light. I happened to be too far for the green light reminder to work, however, the camera did prompt me to keep up with the car in front of me. 

Sensors

Thankfully, I haven’t had to find out if the G Sensor works well or not. Outside of saving the video file in case of an accident, it can also “monitor” your vehicle in a way.

For instance, if it detects someone attempting to steal your vehicle, it will turn the camera on and record the sound. Like I said, this is something I didn’t have to find out if it works or not, and I’m very thankful for that fact. I’m fairly comfortable with the “just trust me, bro” approach on this one.

App

In order to get everything set up you’ll have to go through the installation process in a mobile app. This was my least favorite part of the overall experience.

For some reason it uses Wi-Fi to sync with the dash cam and that’s kind of a pain. The instructions aren’t super helpful, either. What you’ll need to do is make sure you’re in a good coverage area for data because you will need to go to a website to sync your cam with your app.

In short, you’ll download the app and power on the cam. Then, you’ll get a QR code which will take you to a website and ask for a code on the device.

Once it’s synced, you actually have to physically ‘add’ it to the app. When you realize this is what you have to do it’s pretty straightforward; I was stuck for about 10 minutes wondering why I couldn’t see any of the settings to the dash cam. Personally I would have liked to see Bluetooth in here.

Video Quality

Overall I would say the video quality is actually quite good. In bright daylight things tend to get blown out, which is totally understandable considering the size of the sensor in this thing. Night time video was surprisingly good. Everything was a lot more clear and not as noisy as I expected it to be. Overall, I think video quality here justifies the price tag.

Parting Thoughts

With all the features and, in my opinion, excellent night time video the JOMISE K7 dash cam is definitely something I would recommend buying if you’re in the market for a good dash cam. Having all the information it includes on the video file is reason enough.

You can buy yours at Amazon and if you use the coupon code 8HN286QR at checkout before the end of 2020, it will bring your total down to $139.99 (from $199.99).

Hurry, the coupon code is only valid until 12/31/2020!

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