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Amazfit Band 5 review

Jason England
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Design

The Amazfit Band 5 is a budget-minded fitness tracker with a design similar to many that have come before it. The main tracker consists of a 1.1-inch full-color AMOLED touchscreen display in a polycarbonate case that houses all the sensors. To hold it on your wrist the Band 5 uses a black soft-touch adjustable TPU band.

Of course, the band is replaceable if you prefer something more colorful and a quick search on Amazon revealed myriad colors to choose from.

Finding a comfortable fit was easy thanks to the copious amount of holes on the included band, and combined with the lightweight nature of the Band 5, I could barely tell it was there after strapping it on.

User Experience

I’m coming from a Wear OS smartwatch and I found that the Amazfit Band 5 gave me many of the same features I was accustomed to along with some new ones. For starters, most watch faces will display the time and date, along with your step count or heart rate that the Band 5 monitors 24-hours a day.

Plus, the store has a wide variety of styles to choose from, including some that display additional info, such as the weather, distance walked, calories burned, and more.

Additionally, the Band 5 offers more functions, such as automatically tracking your sleep, checking your blood oxygen level on demand, monitoring your stress levels, and it can even track 11 different sports including swimming. The 5 ATM waterproof rating helps out with that last one.

Just be aware, many of these monitoring features must be enabled manually using the accompanying Zepp app, including viewing notifications on the Band 5. In fact, even after enabling notifications, you still need to manually select which apps you will get notified from.

It’s kind of a big undertaking to get the Band 5 set up initially. The app has so many options that it can feel a bit daunting to sift through them all and make sure you enabled everything you want. Plus, there are many features present in the app that are not compatible with the watch, such as the ones meant for the smart scale, and it quickly becomes cluttered and a little confusing.

For example, it took me a couple of days to find where to set up support for Alexa. Furthermore, it’s not helped by the fact that some of the English translations are a little off, in some areas of the app it’s very apparent a native English speaker wasn’t present when translating.

However, once you get the app and Band 5 set up, you won’t have to go digging around anymore. The Zepp app puts all of your pertinent details front and center, and it makes keeping up with all of your stats quick and easy.

Overall, I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with the Zepp app. I love the way it displays all of my health data, but navigating and setting it up is quite the chore in the beginning. The good news is, Google Fit syncing is supported in case you don’t like the app or you’d rather view all your data from multiple devices or services in one app.

I mentioned above that the Amazfit Band 5 gives me most of the functions I’m accustomed to with a Wear OS watch, however, one I didn’t realize I’d miss so much is an always-on display.

The Band 5 doesn’t have support for this and the lift to wake feature requires quite an exaggerated flip unless you enable the “sensitive” option in the settings. This made me wish there was at least some sort of tap to wake function because I don’t always want to flip my wrist to view the time or my stats for the day. Regardless, it’s a sacrifice for extended battery life and I understand that.

Battery Life

Speaking of battery life, Amazfit estimates the Band 5 will get you up to 15-days worth of usage. In my experience, that’s a big stretch, I’m sure the Band 5 is technically capable of providing 15-days of usage, but it would be a very limited use case.

In my experience, with everything enabled and taking full advantage of the fitness tracker, it lasted around eight to nine days. That’s still not bad at all, you can get a full weeks worth of usage in between charges. Still, it’s a far cry from 15 days.

Final Thoughts

The Amazfit Band 5 is a capable little fitness tracker that is much more affordable than a comparable Fitbit. It has some unique features that truly make it stand out at this price point such as Alexa support and an SPO2 sensor. Still, the app could use a little polish and a more organized design, but once you get it all set up you’ll pretty much live on the homepage anyway.

The Amazfit Band 5 retails for $50 but it can currently be picked up on sale for $30 from Amazon, B&H Photo, or on the Amazfit website.

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Apple TV Plus is headed to Chromecast with Google TV in early 2021

Jason England
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Google announced on its blog yesterday that Apple TV is coming to Chromecast with Google TV early next year. The announcement comes after Apple Music support was recently added to Google smart speakers and displays last week.

With the addition of the Apple TV+ app, Chromecast with Google TV users will have access to award-winning original programming. This includes titles such as The Morning Show, See, Mythic Quest, Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and many more. As someone who has already watched a handful of these, this is fantastic news. Remember, you’ll also need a subscription to Apple TV+ and that will run you $4.99/month.

Additionally, you’ll also be able to access movies and TV shows bought from the Apple store. That means, soon you won’t need multiple dongles and boxes to watch all the great streaming content out there, because Chromecast with Google TV will have you covered with support for every major streaming service.

The post doesn’t mention if the app will also come to other Google TV devices out there, such as the popular Nvidia Shield Android TV. However, given that it is an app running on the Google TV platform, I’d be surprised if it isn’t available on all the supported devices.

It seems as Apple transitions itself from a hardware company to one focused on services, it’s now opening up its walled garden. Perhaps, the tech giant finally realized that if you want to make the most amount of money, you can’t ignore some of the largest platforms. That’s part of what made Netflix so popular in the early days, its app was available on pretty much every platform imaginable.

Unfortunately, there is still one missing piece of the puzzle, Android mobile app support. The blog post makes no mention of support for Android smartphones. That’s more than a little odd, as Apple Music has been on the Play Store for years now. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, we’ll see Apple TV+ make its way to all Android devices.

Stadia is now available on iPhone and iPad

Jason England
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When Stadia first launched one of the most exciting prospects of the service was being able to game anywhere on any screen. Unfortunately, at launch, the service was barely available on a handful of screens, including a very limited number of Android phones.

Over the past year, support has grown for Google’s cloud gaming service adding additional Android devices, and now Stadia is finally coming to iOS devices. Starting on December 16, 2020, Stadia Pro and free-tier users can load up their favorite games on an iPhone or iPad using the Safari web browser.

Unlike on Android devices, Stadia cannot currently work on the iPhone or iPad via an app. That is due to Apple’s app store policies, which requires even game streaming services to submit every game as a separate app for approval. Not only is that ridiculous for a game streaming app, but it’s also just not feasible. To get around this limitation, Google had to implement the service in Safari as a web app.

That explains why it has taken so long for Stadia to make its way to iOS devices, but all you need to know is that you can now open Stadia.com on your iPhone or iPad using Safari and get your game on. You can even add a shortcut to the home screen making Stadia only one tap away.

This year is truly the year that Stadia has evolved into a somewhat viable gaming platform. Initially, Google’s cloud gaming service launched in a barebones state, but it recently celebrated its one year anniversary in November, and it only continues to improve over time.

Most recently, Google ran a promotion giving away free Stadia Premiere bundles with the purchase of Cyberpunk 2077. The promotion was so popular it ended before its original cut off after Google ran out of supplies. Alongside that, Google also enabled the option to live stream to YouTube last week. Plus, this week Ubisoft added support for Ubisoft+ so members can now play 15 of the subscription service’s games on Stadia.

Nokia 5.4 introduced for €189 with Snapdragon 662

Josiah Ward
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HMD Global has just unveiled their Nokia 5.4 phone coming to Europe. Here is what the phone has to offer

Internals

The Nokia 5.4 packs a Snapdragon 662 backed by either 4 or 6 gigabytes of RAM and 64 or 128 gigabytes of expandable storage.

Battery

The phone has a 4,000mAh battery with Type-C charging, though it’s only 10W. HMD Global claims this device has 2-day battery life

Camera

The Nokia 5.4 has a total of four cameras with a 48 megapixel main sensor, a 5 megapixel ultra-wide sensor and two 2 megapixel sensors, one being a depth sensor and the other being a macro camera. The front camera is 16 megapixels.

Features

The device features a Google Assistant button, a rear fingerprint scanner, and a headphone jack.

Design

Nokia 5.4 Color Options

The phone looks like a Nokia device, with a nice chin at the bottom for the logo, the fingerprint sensor on the back, and a circular camera module with the flash set to the right of the phone. It sports a 6.39″ HD+ display, and the front camera is set in a punch-hole on the left top side of the screen.

The Nokia 5.4 will launch in a Polar Night (blue) color and a purple Dusk color on its polycarbonate body, though Dusk will release later.

Software

The Nokia 5.4 launches with Android 10, though it is an Android One device with two years of guaranteed software updates. In addition, HMD Global is guaranteeing three years of security updates.

Release and Pricing

The Nokia 5.4 in its blue color is launching tomorrow, December 18th in the UK, with the purple color coming in January. It will be priced at €189 for the base model. There is no information about a release in other regions yet.

Google and Qualcomm partner up to support four generations of Android

Jason England
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Over the past year, Google and Qualcomm have been hard at work trying to prolong the life of today’s phones with more software updates. And why shouldn’t they? Smartphones these days are the most powerful they’ve ever been, and more expensive than ever. We should all get as much life out of these devices as possible, and not be restricted due to the lack of OS and security updates.

Together the two companies have now announced that all Qualcomm chipsets will support four versions of Android and four years of security updates, starting with the Snapdragon 888.

Hold the phone though, because that four generations of Android includes the initial version of the OS your handset ships with. So what this actually means is, your phone will support up to three Android OS updates and up to four years of security updates.

If you’re using a Pixel phone or a recent Samsung flagship, not much has changed. Both Google and Samsung have already promised three generations of Android OS updates, but this does add an additional year of security updates to the mix.

The real winner here will be low-end and mid-range Android phones, because now all of Qualcomm’s chipsets will support three generations of Android OS updates. However, this in no way guarantees you will receive three OS updates or four years of security updates on your Android device.

That responsibility is still solely on the manufacturer of your phone. The only difference being that now the blame cannot be placed on Google or Qualcomm for the lack of updates. Still, this is fantastic news for the Android platform as a whole. All we have to do now is keep the pressure on OEMs to continue updating its lineup of phones at all levels, whether it be a $1000 flagship or a $200 entry-level smartphone.

Save 85% on this bundle and jump head first into the “Internet of Things”

AndroidGuys
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If you want to really understand the devices and methods we use in our everyday lives, the IoT E-Degree Certification Bundle is the perfect resource. It’s a great resource to help you explore Raspberry Pi or Linux, better understand smart speakers, connected homes, smartwatches, and more.

Whether you want to brush up on your skills or dabble in a side hustle for 2021 this 40 hour bundle is the companion you’ll turn to in the new year. Spanning some seven courses, it packs 120 lessons with projects, quizzes, and other valuable tools, all in the name of “Internet of Things”.

  • Access 120 lectures & 40 hours of content 24/7
  • Gain in-depth understanding of what IoT is all about
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  • Give extensive insights on different topics like Raspberry Pi, Linux & more
  • Learn how to create an IoT ecosystem
  • Hone your practical skills with hands-on projects, several quizzes & exams

Curriculum

  • Module 1: Introduction to IoT with Raspberry Pi
  • Module 2: IoT Device Architecture
  • Module 3: IoT Device Security
  • Module 4: Introduction to IoT with Arduino and Embedded Programming
  • Module 5: Practical IoT Project – I
  • Module 6: Practical IoT Project – II
  • Module 7: Introduction to Embedded Programming in IoT

Get Started!

Normally, this seven-course bundle costs $200; however, for a limited time you can score it for 85% off, or just $29.99.

Best Sellers

Earn Credits!

For every $25 you spend in the AG Deals Store you get $1 credit added to your account. And, if you refer the deal via social media or an email that results in a purchase, you’ll earn $10 credit in your account.

First Time Buying?

If this is your first time buying, you are also eligible for 10% discount! Just be sure to subscribe for email updates.

Free Stuff

Not looking to spend any money today? No worries. You can still visit the AndroidGuys section for freebies and pick something anyhow.

Phone Hub allows for a connection between Chrome OS and Android

Josiah Ward
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Chrome OS’s Phone Hub was first discussed in August, when Google wanted to further the connection between Android and Chrome OS past just sending and receiving texts as part of their “Better Together” initiative.

It appeared and disappeared very suddenly from Chrome OS Canary and Dev channels, but now it has reappeared in Chrome OS Canary. Now there is a revamped UI that makes connections more simple. There are also now individual cards to help set up notification sharing and how it will use both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

When you click on the Phone Hub Icon, you will see your phone’s model and battery life. Under that appears toggles to find the phone, silence it, or turn on a shared hotspot. Hopefully these options will expand further in the future.

Phone Hub seems like a great response to integration between Windows and other devices(though most notably Samsung) through your phone and integration within Apple’s Ecosystem.

 

Best website for finding coupons and online deals

AndroidGuys
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Widilo is a new service in the UK which is expected to launch soon. It is one of the most rewarding cashback and coupon code sites and offers a variety of services to its clients. Widilo offers a lot of services that would interest a large category of people include androidguys.com audience. Are you a lover of online shopping and are looking for ways to make discounts on your shopping? Widilo is the best platform to join. The platform offers rewards to online shoppers, such as cash backs and promotional codes that they can use at their favorite online shops. Not only does Widilo offers those rewards for online shoppers, but you can also build up reward points after some time.

Categories and shops which offer discount

To enjoy the various categories that offer discounts on Widilo, you need to join the site. Joining is free, straight forward, and takes less than a minute. To get the most out of this site, you need to shop online as usual, from the numerous retailers. Various links are available, those that will lead you to retailers. Once you shop online, you earn cashback and discounts that you can withdraw to your bank account. Some of the platforms you can enjoy cash backs plus discount codes include Acer, Adidas, Amazon, ASOS, Booking.com, Deliveroo, Dell, Desigual, e-Bay, E-buyer, EE Mobil, Europcar, Expedia, and FoodSpring. Other deals include shops and online shopping sites such as Foot Locker, Groupon, Hotes.com, HP, LOOKFANTASTIC, Lovehoney, Made.com, Morrisons, Myprotein, Nike, Tesco, The protein Works, Three, Topshop, Under Armour, Vistaprint, Volcom, and Zipcar.

One of the aims of the Widilo site is to assist you in saving money all year round through online shopping. When you activate cash backs on this site, you get to earn points. The points are earned through the Currys discount code that gives you a certain percentage off the product you purchase. Visit Widilo site to Get the best Currys PC World discount codes , to enjoy cash back. The more you shop online, the higher the rewards. The points you accumulate after shopping online are based on tiers, which reflect how much cashback you have earned on the site. The site is frequently on the lookout for upcoming suppliers and new brands in the market to ensure that you enjoy variety during your shopping experience. Aside from saving money through cash backs or with promo codes, you get to discover new brands that you might have never heard of in the past.

How do you ensure that you never miss out on cashback and discount codes?

Widilo site has over a thousand shops, meaning that you have access to thousands of deals and brands. To ensure that you never miss out on cashback and discount codes, enter Widilo’s toolbar extension, the Widilo’s cash reminder. The tool will alert you of the incoming cashback options to consider and make the cashback option active when you make an online purchase at the site with just a single click. Missing out on deals and cashback can be frustrating, but the site is keen to send numerous reminders. The cashback reminder option is easy and quick to set up. You only need to head over to the Widilo website, download the toolbar extension near the search engine, and that’s it. The reminder is free. What better site to join other than Widilo?

EDITOR NOTE: This is a promoted post and should not be viewed as an editorial endorsement.

Just $49, this 66 hour training preps you for Cisco CCNA and CCNP exams

AndroidGuys
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Cisco is the world leader in networking technology and hardware and it shows no signs of slowing. According to a 2019 Global Knowledge report, one-third of North American IT pros say Cisco CCNA tech will be a key ingredient in their organization this year.

With salary figures routinely at $100,000 and above, Cisco-certified personnel are highly coveted and in demand. Right now, you can get on the path to join that elite-level of IT administration with the Complete 2021 Cisco Enterprise Certification Training Bundle, just $49.

Spread over more than 66 hours, this online training features 225 lessons to ready you for CCNA & CCNP certification exams. Designed for those with a little bit of background on Cisco, it’s available 24/7 and through both desktop and mobile.

Features

  • Work Towards a Top Cisco Certification & Build a Rewarding Career as a Network Administrator
  • Implement & Troubleshoot for Advanced Routing Technologies and Services
  • Design Network Architecture for Cisco Enterprise Networks
  • Gain the Core Knowledge & Skillset You Need to Be Successful in Implementing Technologies While Working in an Enterprise Network Environment

Once you’re through the training you’ll get a certificate that you can use for negotiating a pay raise. More importantly, you will be ready to sit for the CCNA 200-301 certification exam. And that could lead to an entirely different position or career.

Availability

Value at well over a thousand dollars, you can purchase the Complete 2021 Cisco Enterprise Certification Training Bundle in the AndroidGuys Deals Store for just $49 right now. Hurry, though, the price drop won’t last forever!

Best Sellers

Earn Credits!

For every $25 you spend in the AG Deals Store you get $1 credit added to your account. And, if you refer the deal via social media or an email that results in a purchase, you’ll earn $10 credit in your account.

First Time Buying?

If this is your first time buying, you are also eligible for 10% discount! Just be sure to subscribe for email updates.

Free Stuff

Not looking to spend any money today? No worries. You can still visit the AndroidGuys section for freebies and pick something anyhow.

Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 GPS review

Jason England
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0

Today we’ll take a look at the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, a relatively new wearable in the Wear OS space that runs about $300. With a full suite of hardware, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100 processor, it looks great on paper. How does it fare in practice? Read on to find out.

Design

The TicWatch 3 Pro GPS isn’t a huge departure from the previous Ticwatch Pro 4G/LTE I reviewed last year. It has a slightly larger 1.4-inch AMOLED display with a higher 454 x 454 resolution. Plus, there’s not a massive unsightly black bezel around the display like on Fossil’s smartwatches. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a larger bezel than I’d like, but Mobvoi was at least smart enough to hide some of it with a metal frame.

As far as the quality of the display, in short, the screen looks fantastic, the colors are vibrant and everything looks nice and crispy. Also, unlike the TicWatch Pro 4G/LTE, there was no orange tint on the display present at extreme angles.

While we’re on the subject of displays, the secondary low-power LCD display is one of the standout features of the TicWatch Pro lineup. This time around it has a new layout, and in my opinion, it’s a lot more stylish.

However, the thing that impressed me the most about the design was how Mobvoi was able to make the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS slimmer while also including a much larger 577mAh battery. That’s no small feat, and I commend them on this bit of engineering, because it not only looks better, but it also increases the battery life.

The design of the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS isn’t perfect though, and I have two main criticisms. For instance, I wish for a “Pro” model it would use more metal and that Mobvoi would include a rotating crown. This will forever be something I envy about Wear OS watches from Fossil and its sub-brands, and I will continue to hope with each new release that Mobvoi will finally give me a rotating crown.

The watchband on the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS has a leather-like appearance embellished with orange stitching to further sell the illusion. Upon closer inspection, you’ll realize it is actually a silicone band. This is a nice compromise in my opinion because it looks fashionable while also providing the comfort and durability needed for exercising.

For better or worse, the charging cradle for the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is the smallest one I’ve ever seen for a Wear OS smartwatch. On the bright side, that makes it ultra-portable, but it also forces the watch to sit at an awkward angle while charging.

It’s not a big deal, but I would prefer for the watch to lie perfectly flat while charging. And if you were going to redesign the cradle I would have preferred to see one that holds the watch vertical, similar to this replacement charger I bought for the TicWatch Pro 4G/LTE.

Even better, I would have loved to have seen the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS go with wireless charging. I know it would have made the watch thicker, but I think it’s a fair trade-off.

User Experience

The user experience on the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is pretty similar to most other Wear OS watches, except for all the extras Mobvoi has packed in. For example, I noticed a new app launcher with two columns of app icons and a mode to change the level of the auto-brightness adjustment.

I wasn’t a fan of the new launcher, and thankfully it can be disabled in the settings. However, the option to adjust the auto-brightness setting is a welcomed improvement to Wear OS. Some other new helpful settings I discovered include options to change the display time out, different DND modes, and the ability to take screenshots.

Besides some additional options in the settings menu, what truly makes the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS standout is the range of Tic apps. This includes TicBreathe, TicExercise, TicHealth, TicHearing, TicOxygen, TicPulse, TicSleep, and TicZen.

Some of these apps overlap with Google Fit such as TicExercise, TicHealth, and TicPulse. However, the rest of them make up for much of Wear OS’s shortcomings as a fitness smartwatch.

I must admit, one of the main reasons I love the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is because of the Tic apps. They allow me to monitor my 24-hour heart rate, blood oxygen levels, as well as track my sleeping, exercising, stress levels, and more. It gives me everything I’ve wanted out of my smartwatch for years now, and makes up for all the foot-dragging Google has done with Wear OS.

App

Now that you have the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS and all the Tic apps keeping an eye on your health, you need a way to view all of this information. That’s where the Mobvoi app comes into play. Using the app, you can check all of your stats collected by the watch and check your progress for the day, week, and month.

Unfortunately, Mobvoi updated its app not too long ago, and I must say, I’m not a fan. Previously, the app displayed the 24-hour heart rate monitoring with an easy to view line graph that was color-coded based on how high your heart rate was. That has been replaced with this monstrosity of a vertical line graph which is just a mess.

Additionally, the new blood oxygen reading and stress levels are displayed as minuscule dots on a small smartphone screen. I have perfect vision, and even I found it difficult to make sense of these tiny dots scattered all over the screen. A simple line or bar graph would have done wonders here as well.

Fortunately, the Mobvoi app syncs with Google Fit and will allow you to at least view your heart rate with the traditional line graph view. It’s just a pity the stress monitoring and blood oxygen levels aren’t supported in Google Fit at this time.

Performance

The TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is the first smartwatch running Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor, which promises up to an 85% increase in performance with longer battery life. Mobvoi also made a good decision to include 1GB of RAM which Wear OS seems to require for smoother performance.

All of this adds up to the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS being the quickest and snappiest Wear OS smartwatch I’ve ever used. While that may not be saying a lot if you look at the rest of the watches on the platform, it still makes a huge difference in day to day use.

Battery Life

Most smartwatch companies tend to overestimate the battery life of its watches by listing times achieved with optimal use. Mobvoi is no different here, claiming the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS will get you 72-hours of usage in smart mode.

If you’re like me though, you want to take full advantage of your smartwatch and you enable all the things as well as using the always-on display. Well, I’ve got good news for you, even if you do that, you’re going to get nearly two and a half days of battery life off a single charge. That’s far better than charging once a day like I’ve had to do with most other Wear OS watches.

While we’re on the subject of charging, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the TicWatch has a history of bricking the charging dock. Many users have had issues with the charger dying after plugging it into a fast-charging brick.

If you want to ensure this doesn’t happen to you, then only plug your charger into a brick that supports 5V at 1A or use the USB port on your PC. Rest assured if you do brick your charger, Mobvoi will send you a replacement one after you talk to the support team.

Final Thoughts

The TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is an impressive showcase device for the latest Snapdragon 4100 Wear OS chipset. Not only does it offer some of the smoothest performance you’ll experience on Wear OS, but it impresses with stellar battery life and a range of helpful fitness apps.

Put simply, the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS has the fastest performance and best battery life out of any Wear OS smartwatch I’ve ever used, and it’s also one of the most functional thanks to the Tic apps.

Regardless, I think it still comes up just shy of perfection. If Mobvoi could add a rotating crown, wireless charging, and make some tweaks to the Mobvoi app–it would be the holy grail of Wear OS smartwatches.

Buy from Amazon Buy from Mobvoi

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