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In Adventure of Priestess, your biggest enemy is the game’s translation (Review)

Gerson Noboa
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Browsing through some deals, I found a small little game called Adventure of Priestess. It seemed cool: a RPG with pixelated graphics and sprites that resembled cats. It was being offered for free, so I went for it. It has 4.4 stars in the Play Store, so I figured it should be good, right? Play Store ratings are always a reliable source of information, right?

Developer: SoftCone
Price: $0.99

Overview

In Adventure of Priestess, you “control” five different characters. I put it between quotes because they actually attack automatically. It is your job to make things easier for them. This is done by you activating a special set of skills: healing, shield, sleep, and cheer. There’s a main character, called Stella, who is responsible of healing other characters. However, if she dies, then the game is over, regardless of the condition of other characters.

Tutorial

From the start of the game, you immediately realize flaws in the execution. Here is the first screen that you see after pressing Start:

The English is just awful. As a non-native English speaker, I understand that English is a hard language in which read and read are pronounced in different ways, even though they are written exactly the same. However, the flaws in the text are just unacceptable for a game sold in an app store. There are plenty of offerings out there to make sure that the text you ship in your apps is good enough.

This is not a complaint just for the sake of complaining. If you don’t understand what the text is trying to explain, then all immersion is lost. Worst of all, a tutorial is shown after, and the English is just as bad there. It’s very hard to understand what the game is trying to tell you, which makes it unnecessarily difficult to get the hang of everything at the initial stages.

Gameplay

After the initial shock of the baffling tutorial this game offers, you will slowly discover how things work. In each stage, there are several enemies coming right at you. In theory, you can let the characters just play automatically without any input, but this makes things complicated for no reason.

At the bottom of your screen, you will find four different blocks, which correspond to the four skills you can use at the beginning of the game: heal, shield, sleep, and cheer. Heal and shield should be pretty self-explanatory. Sleep casts a spell on your opponents that makes most of them sleep (it doesn’t work on bosses). Finally, cheer is probably something like “boost” badly translated, since it increases the attack power of your characters.

These are activated through MPs, which are refilled automatically at a rate of 10 per second (at least initially). There’s also a cooldown period to avoid using the same skill over and over until your MP bar is depleted, which means you have to think through your activations. If you are low on HP, it is better to use a low MP skill (like shield, which also reduces the damage you receive) until you wait for the cooldown timer to end. If HP is not a problem, then you can save your MP to activate the cheer skill and go all-offensive on your enemies.

Boss fights

There are several stages to a dungeon, and they all end with a boss fight. For these, the enemies have a character that works like Stella in some ways. It is behind waiting for all the smaller monsters to deal with you, but it can also come at full force to attack you. The game incorporates a mechanic in which your phone vibrates when it thinks that you should either activate a shield or sleep your enemies.

If you die here, or in any other stage leading to the boss fight, it’s game over. You not only have to repeat the stage you are into, but the whole dungeon instead. Those are ten minutes you are never getting back.

Levelling and progression

The powers you can activate during your fights are all temporary, but you can increase their strength and duration with gems. These are normally earned through gameplay, and I haven’t found a way of earning them in other ways. These gems, which the game actually calls soul stones, are also used for increasing your character’s levels.

You will find, however, that the process is very, very slow. Each level asks for more gems than the previous one, but since gems are awarded at a very slow rate, this means that you need to grind a lot to be able to tackle the upper dungeons.

Another complaint with the levelling system is that you don’t actually see how much does your purchase will increase your character/skill.

Sure, you get stats for the skills right now, but there’s no way of knowing how will your hard-earned stones affect the skill until you press that level up button. This, coupled with the low yields of stones, makes the progression unnecessarily hard.

Graphics and sound

As previously said, the graphics of this game are all pixelated. The game actually does a good job in maintaining that general style throughout all the elements and sprites that appear during gameplay. There are some weird choices, like displaying the word “BOSS” on the screen when a boss comes, and the cheer icon is kind of creepy. Other than that, the graphics are adequate, if not extraordinary, but the consistency is appreciated.

A small complaint with the graphical part is that, since the stage never moves, you can have the situation where characters overlap. This happens when the enemy has you cornered on the left side, or you have them cornered on the right side. This has made me lose some characters because I haven’t been able to see their health bar, so they have been slowly dying without me noticing.

The music on this game consists of a small snippet on repeat. While this piece is good enough, the part where it loops is very noticeable. Other sound effects range in quality. For example, the healing skill sound is cool and appropriate for the action, but the sound effect when a character dies is pretty low quality.

Conclusion

Adventure of Priestess combine a pixelated art design with an auto-playing gameplay, while giving the user some control through the skill mechanic. However, there are several things that are too big of a setback in order to consider it enjoyable.

The translations to English are awful, the progression is slow and tedious, and the upgrade system needs some additions in order to be fun. There is also almost no story to speak of. As it is, you are just tapping at the screen in intervals, killing enemies, and going to the next stage. Even though it is cheap, there are better games out there for you to spend your money on.

Download and install Adventure of Priestess from the Google Play Store.

Google imagines Home Alone in 2018 with Google Home commercial

AndroidGuys
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Kevin McCallister is home alone… again. A new ad campaign from Google imagines what life would be like if Macaulay Culkin had to defend his home in 2018, but now with help from Google Home.

The ad features the actor revisiting some of the more memorable scenes from the 1990 film; the attention to detail for the set is really awesome, by the way.

Now, instead of freaking out over how he’d defend the house, McCallister relies on Google for assistance. The commercial does a great job of using nostalgia to show off the capabilities of what Google can do for users.

Whether it’s reminders, grocery lists, home automation, or dealing with deliveries, the ad highlights the various ways in which Google Assistant can enhance your life.

Google Home Hub review

Easter Eggs and Fun Stuff

It wouldn’t be Google if it didn’t sneak in a few fun things for us to try. If you have a phone with Google Assistant, or own one of the smart speakers and/or displays, you’ll want to give the following commands a try.

These are available for a limited time.

  • Hey Google, how much do I owe you?
  • Hey Google, did I forget something?
  • Hey Google, the Wet Bandits are here.
  • Hey Google, it’s me Snakes. I got the stuff.
  • Hey Google, I’m the man of the house.

Here’s a quick video with a behind-the-scenes look into creating the commercial.

AdLock Review: a convenient way to get rid of ads, no root required

Alexandra Arici
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Ads! No matter what you do and where you turn, you can’t seem to escape them. Whether you’re using your desktop or your mobile device, advertisers don’t ever miss a chance to harass you with their latest offers.

Well, the good news is that you have options when it comes to getting rid of ads. There are apps out there which promise to remove ads, so you can get a clean browsing experience.

In this post, we will look at one such app, called AdLock. There’s no shortage of app blockers on the Google Play Store, but be warned that not all of them are as good as they claim to be.

But AdLock it’s quite a different story. It actually works, even if you’re using it on a device that’s not rooted.

The app is free to download and try out (comes with a 14-day trial), but to keep using you’ll have either to register and get 30 more free days or to shed 9 € (or $10.19) / per year. The app is available for Android and Windows.

Setup

As we mentioned above, AdLock does not need rooting to work on your phone. However, the installation process is a bit different when compared to the average apps you used before. For starters, you won’t find the app in the Play Store. Rather, you’ll be required to download it from the official AdLock website.

But before you can actually install it, you will need to enable installation from unknown sources on your device. What’s more, the app will require you to give a series of permissions.

Once you open the app, it will prompt you to enable HTTPS filtering in order to block ads. What this means is that AdLock will then replace websites’ certificates with its own.

Impressions

The app’s main purpose is to remove annoying ads when you’re browsing the web or using any other apps that might contain pop-ups or irritating adware. And AdLock will work its magic to make sure you never have to see them.

Using the app it’s quite simple. Tap on the circular white button to turn on AdLock’s functions and the app will run in the background providing real-time ad-blocking throughout the device.

But the application is not only about removing ads, as AdLock also offer safe browsing, anti-tracking, malware and spyware services. In a world where privacy woes are constantly on the rise, having an app like AdLock on your phone to keep things safe and private might be a very good idea.

What’s more, AdLock has been designed to aid increase speed on your device. Since ads usually take up a lot of bandwidth, a page riddled with ads will have the effect of slowing down your browsing and streaming speeds across the board. But with AdLock installed, browsing tends to get a lot faster.

However, during our time using the software, we did notice some web-pages are blocked outright without any notifications. To get around this, you need to add the sites in question to the exclusion, but that means they won’t be ad-free.

The app also has embedded firewall features that can block unwanted internet access to different applications. You’ll be able to view how much data you saved each time to glance at the app’s main screen.

An energy management option is available in Settings, so that users can conserve battery life with simple control of your internet usage,

Conclusion

All in all, AdLock is a great option for customers looking for an easy-to-use ad blocker. It doesn’t require a rooted device to work, so almost anyone can install and use AdLock. What’s more, it comes bundled with extra features like saving data and offering a safe browsing experience.

In our experience, the app did its job as intended, and we did not run into any specific issues while using it. Except for some web pages being blocked without warning, AdLock worked great and kept us ad-free. But if you’re not OK with adding those websites to the exceptions you can always contact support and they should solve the issue.

Ten tips and tricks for the OnePlus 6T

Alexandra Arici
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The OnePlus 6T launched not so long ago, and while it’s the priciest OnePlus phone we’ve seen so far, it’s still comfortably cheaper than devices like the Pixel 3, Galaxy S9+ and LG V40.

If you’ve bought one recently, or plant to, let us walk you through some of the best software features you’re going to want to learn and use.

The OnePlus 6T ships with Android 9 Pie-based Oxygen OS out of the box. Oxygen OS is simply one of the best Android interfaces around. It keeps things simple, retains the stock Android look, and even adds some super useful extras.

Also read: Android 9 Pie review: the reason I gave up my iPhone X

So here’s how to make the most of the software running on your new and shiny OnePlus 6T.

Quick launch

The OnePlus 6T is the first device from OnePlus to come with an in-display fingerprint sensor. Well along with it, comes the Quick launch feature which takes advantage of the new authentication system.

Quick launch basically lets you use the scanner to directly trigger certain activities or apps. Simply keep your finger on the in-display scanner. Continue doing so even as the screen has been unlocked. Soon you will see a mini app launcher with shortcuts for certain activities (new event, new note, my library) or apps.

In order to access the option, you need to head over to Settings> Utilities> Quick launch and enable the option from there. You can also customize the list of shortcuts from there.

Customize the fingerprint animation effect

Speaking of which, each time you authenticate you’ll notice a cool animation effect that appears as you press your finger against the display.

Well OnePlus lets you customize this effect. There are three options to choose from and you can find them by going to Settings> Fingerprint> Fingerprint animation effect.

Navigation bar customization

The navigation bar on the OnePlus 6T is customizable and you can choose between three types of Navigation bar style, each with its own unique layout. To access these options, go to Settings> Buttons & Gestures> Navigation bar & gestures.

  • The Standard Bar – comes the usual buttons: Back, Home and Recent. You can customize the bar by swapping the buttons via the Navigation bar customization setting.
  • Two Button Bar – this layout features a home and back buttons that can swap sides like on the standard style bar. The Recent button is missing, so to access your Recent apps, you will have to press and swipe up the home button to the top.
  • Navigation gestures – the OnePlus 6T comes with the navigation gestures that were introduced by the iPhone X. To access Home, you have to swipe up from the bottom center edge of the screen. For Recent apps, swipe up from the bottom center edge of the screen and pause, and for Back, swipe up from the left/right side of the bottom of the screen.

Use Dark Theme

OnePlus is known for including a dark theme on its devices. It’s very simple to switch to it. Head over to Settings> Display> Theme and choose your favorite. There’s also Colorful theme to be taken advantage of, but note that dark theme is good for conserving battery life.

Also read: First 10 things you should do with your new OnePlus 6T

Night Mode

Speaking of all things dark, the OnePlus 6T also has a Night Mode. This option is here to counter the negative effects of blue light which your phone’s display emits in abundance.

To enable Night Mode go to Settings > Display > Night Mode.  You can opt to have it automatically enabled from sunset to sunrise.

Double tap to wake

The OnePlus 6T has ditched the LED notification light, but if you still want to be able to quickly check to see if you got any new notifications, you can enable Double tap to wake.

The option can be found by following this path Settings> Buttons & gestures> Quick Gestures > Double tap to wake.

Once enabled you’ll be able to double tap to wake the display, without pressing the wake button or using the fingerprint reader.

Of course, the OnePlus 6T also has the Ambient display which also shows notifications. You can set it to show up when you pick up the phone or tap the screen (both options available under Settings > Display > Ambient display).

Set a motion wallpaper

As every OnePlus phone before it, the OnePlus 6T comes with a series of official wallpapers you can take advantage of. But this time around you also have three motion wallpapers to make use of, which are very satisfying to look at.

You can enable them by going to Display> Wallpapers. You’ll find the option in the Customization section. Alternatively, long press on a blank area the lower portion of the home scree and then tap on Wallpapers.

Swipe down

The OnePlus 6T has a big display and sometimes it can be a chore to reach all the way to the top to swipe down and open quick settings. Fortunately, the phone has a Swipe down option which when turned on lets you swipe down to open quick settings from anywhere on the display.

To activate it, you will need to long press on the blank area on the Home screen > Home > Swipe down.

Customize how you take calls

On the OnePlus 6T, you have to swipe down to answer an incoming phone call. Well, if you’re having a hard time adjusting to this gestures, you can always enable Swipe Up to Answer.

You’ll need to access OnePlus’ native Phone app and then tap on the three-dot menu located in the top right corner. Tap Settings> Swipe up to answer (under Calls).

There’s another option to answer calls. Go to Settings> Buttons & Gestures> Quick gestures> Answers calls by gesture. This will allow you to answer an incoming call by simply raising the phone to the ear.

Smart boost

OnePlus has included a new feature that is used to test out new features. It’s called OnePlus Laboratory and you can find it by going to Settings> Utilities > OnePlus Laboratory. From there activate the Smart Boost option which is meant to boost the overall performance of the device by about 20%.

While at the moment Smart Boost is the only feature available in the OnePlus Laboratory, the company will probably add more soon.

Bonus

Calculator Easter Egg

Unlock a cool Easter Egg, by opening the Calculator app typing 1+=. You’ll see a Never Settle logo appear on a red background!

BlackBerry Key2 LE review

Andrew Allen
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BlackBerry has found new life over the last 2 years under the close partnership with hardware maker TCL. During that time, we’ve seen two fan-favorite devices that return BlackBerry smartphones to its roots with full QWERTY keyboards: The KeyOne and the latest Key2. While they’ve both been well received, they were not exactly budget-friendly, but BlackBerry and TCL have set out to fix this with the BlackBerry Key2 LE.

Unfortunately, they may have missed the mark with the LE model. Let’s deep dive into the nitty-gritty in our official review.

Hardware

Hardware can be overrated at times, but it has a lasting impact on how a phone is perceived. This is the main knock I have against the Key2 LE. The internals are OK. You’ll find a Snapdragon 630, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage with expansion microSD.

The screen is the same 1620×1080 IPS panel found in the KeyOne and Key2. Around the right side, you still have volume rockers and the power key. One thing the company did move is the dedicated “Convenience Key” that can be mapped to launch a specific app or function via the Settings.

On the top, you have a 3.5mm headphone jack and the bottom is flanked be speaker grills and the USB-C port. The basic design layout is almost identical to that of the Key2.

They are all par for the course with the Key series lineup from BlackBerry. However, the overall feel of the phone isn’t great. Holding the Key2 LE doesn’t have the same results as the Key2 or the KeyOne. Those phones were tanks that scream premium materials.

The Key2 LE feels like a cheap toy. It’s super light in the hand and almost feels like a demo unit with no internals. BlackBerry has traditionally made superior hardware over the years, even on budget models, and the Key2 LE doesn’t match up. Especially, with the keyboard.

Keyboard

I’d wager that if you’re reading this review, it’s most likely because the Key2 LE has a physical keyboard design. Well, sorry. This keyboard is terrible. Really, BlackBerry should be ashamed of it.

The overall travel and feedback are extremely mushy. The plastics echo the same cheap feel of the rest of the phone. I also struggled to consistently type on it with keypresses not registering on a regular basis. As mentioned before, the main draw to these devices is the keyboard and the LE simply fails to make this compelling.

Speaking of compelling. One of the most unique features of the keyboards found on the KeyOne and Key2 didn’t even make the cut to be included on the LE and that’s bonkers! The other models offer a touch-enabled keyboard that allows you to use gestures on the actual keys to maneuver around fields much like a traditional trackpad on a laptop. It’s a really cool feature and a great selling point that I don’t understand being nixed on the Key2 LE.

BlackBerry is already intentionally hitting a niche market. By doing so, they should lean on the keyboard to lure customers. Removing the touch portion of the keys on the Key2 LE was a corner that shouldn’t have been cut. It’s an iconic feature of the lineup that deserves to be there. Even on the budget version.

One positive addition is that of the “Speed Key.” You activate it by hitting the circle-grid in the bottom right plus the letter you assigned to a specific app. So, from anywhere in the operating system you can launch into your favorite apps with just two key presses. Having a dedicated key to add more keyboard shortcuts is a nice feature that I found myself using on the regular.

Performance

I was pleasantly surprised by the day to day performance of the Key2 LE. The Snapdragon 630 with 4GB of RAM is just enough juice to not show many hiccups while using the device. Transitions are good and apps launched as expected.

If you push the device with heavy apps like graphics intensive games, you may see it stutter, but most of the time, the Key2 LE performed admirably. The market that the price point is looking for will be more than happy with the daily usage.

Camera

Let’s just say that it has one. The Key2 LE takes very average photos for 2018. Images come out dull and washed out with little detail. You can take decent shots at times in really good lighting, but as soon as the illumination lowers the results struggle. It’s another corner that we often see cut on most budget phones and the Key2 LE fall in line with this trend.

Software

The software on the Key2 LE could use some work. While I commend BlackBerry for trying to implement its app suite and the Hub, its just overkill on Android Oreo. The original Hub for BlackBerry 10 was awesome. It was the central notification center of the system and really had some new ideas like having Twitter and Facebook built into the Hub where you could respond without leaving the notification area.

Unfortunately, most of that integration is no longer there on the Android version, and honestly, it’s done better already in the default Android notification shade. The Hub just seems like a redundancy that’s no longer needed with Android. It duplicates the entire notification system again inside BlackBerry’s Hub. I would recommend that TCL and BlackBerry simply drop this development for what’s already available in the operating system.

I’m also over manufacturers making duplicate general apps. If I’m buying an Android phone, chances are that I’m already using Google Calendar and Contacts. I really don’t need another option on the Key2 LE. While it may be nice for the limited number of BlackBerry holdouts, I don’t think the average Android user is looking for another duplicate app suite to Google’s offerings.

Battery Life

This is one strong point for the BlackBerry Key2 LE. I have not had any issues going through my normal day with above average battery life. I even had a weekend where I made it through a second day until having the charge up. The combination of Snapdragon 630 with the 3000mAh battery makes for a powerhouse of a phone for users.

Conclusion

I think BlackBerry is correct in that they need a phone hitting the price point below the $700 Key2 proper. However, I don’t know if the Key2 LE is that device. The keyboard and overall build materials make me feel the Key2 model needs to stay at the premium level. At $450 unlocked, I’d be more pressed to point a buyer towards a more polished product from Motorola or Nokia. They have much better hardware at even cheaper prices. If you can afford another $100, I’d also totally recommend the OnePlus 6T.

Deal for switchers: Sprint’s Unlimited Basic plan is $20/month for five lines

Alexandra Arici
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If you’ve been wanting to change your wireless carrier for a while now, the holiday season might be the best time to do so, with all the promotions coming in.

Case in point, Sprint is currently offering a holiday deal aimed at switchers. The carrier is giving new customers who agree to jump on board with an Unlimited Basic Plan under its umbrella, three free lines of services.

Basically, all you have to do is join Sprint and sign up for a total of five lines of services under an Unlimited Basic Plan. Interested parties will then have to pay $60 per month for the first line, $40 for the second line, while the remaining three lines come free of charge. This translates into paying $20 for each line.

But keep in mind that these rates will be available only until January 2020. After the date, customers who previously took advantage of the promotion will be required to pay $60 for the first line, $40 for the second line and $20 for lines three through five.

Sprint baits switchers with new holiday offer

In case you don’t know, Sprint’s Unlimited Basic plan includes a Hulu Limited Commercials subscription, as well as the ability to stream in SD (DVD-quality), 500MB Mobile Hotspot, unlimited talk and text and 5GB of 4G LTE data in Mexico and Canada, global roaming in more than 200 destinations and unlimited data, talk and text nationwide. Last but not least, keep in mind that customers can add HD streaming on the plan for an additional $10/month per line.

Sprint claims this promotion – which is available for a limited time only – will allow switchers to save more than $1,000 during the first year over at Verizon or AT&T.

So if you think Sprint’s offer might be for you, don’t hesitate to take advantage of the promotion while it’s still hot.

In related news, Sprint offers a series of other discounts in time for the holidays. For example, you can save up $250 instantly if you buy the Samsung Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9+.

ZTE Blade Max View review

AndroidGuys
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After some time on the sidelines, Chinese manufacturer ZTE is back in the US. Staging a comeback of sorts, the phone maker has seen its fair share of troubles after running afoul of the government for doing business with Iran. With that in the rear view mirror, and a promise to keep things on the up-and-up, ZTE is ready to tackle the unlocked market again in the United States.

One of its first efforts as it dips its toes in the water, is the Blade Max View, an inexpensive phone that work on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon networks. Had things gone differently in the past, we’d probably have seen this one paired with one more of those carriers or their respective prepaid brands.

As often is the case with ZTE, the Blade Max View is a low-cost alternative to brands like Motorola and Samsung. For US consumer it’s in the same wheelhouse as Blu and Alcatel.

What is the Blade Max View?

The Blade Max View is a big phone, offering up a 6-inch display with a 2:1 aspect ratio. It’s tall and narrow and fits the hand quite well. Its overall footprint it not unlike the Samsung Galaxy Note 9; however, its build materials are far below that of the tier-one counterpart.

The phone isn’t exactly glamorous, but doesn’t quite tread into the space where we’d call it “boring”. It’s slim, black, and is comprised of metal and plastic. The rear employs a matte finish with chrome accents that sparkle in just the right lighting. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass so it will take on pocket and purse scuffs without breaking a sweat.

We noticed early on that the matte finish is prone to pick up fingerprints, smears, and smudges. Not only that, but they don’t wipe away as easily as they might were it made of glass. There’s no wiping this against your pant leg or sleeve to clean things up. It’s really unsightly stuff.

Tall, at nearly 6.5-inches, the Blade Max View sits in your hand better than we expected. Moreover, it’s a little bit lighter than anticipated, so we were pleasantly surprised at how well it works in one hand — even with smaller fingers.

First Impressions

Fresh out of the box we like to give our phones a once-over to check for any imperfections or things that don’t look right. It’s also here where we’ll squeeze, press, tap, and blindly listen and get a true feel for the device.

We found the glass and metal to be solid and strong, but the plastic around back was a slightly different story. Pressing on it and applying some slight pressure in the bottom middle we were reminded of phones from a few years back — just before the industry adopted what’s commonly referred to as “premium” materials. Sadly, this is how we added all the fingerprints and smears.

If anything, the phone feels a smidge cheaper than most others of the day. For lack of a better description, it feels like an entry-level prepaid phone. But, given the $200 price tag, it sits just fine with us.

Design and Build

Although the 6-inch display counts for most of the front side of the Blade Max View, there’s a slight bit of space above and below. The selfie camera and sensors are tucked away neatly and are hardly visible. The bezels to the sides are acceptable and do not distract.

As for buttons, the power and volume are found on the right edge. Each has a decent amount of travel and feedback and signal to the user that they’ve been pressed. Instead of a toggle or rocker, ZTE opted for separate buttons for volume up and down.

The SIM card and memory card slot are on the upper left hand side. At the top edge you’ll locate the 3.5mm headphone jack while down below is the USB-C port.

Around back the fingerprint reader is found fairly high up the panel. The dual-camera setup is just above the reader and is ever so slightly raised.

The 6-inch screen has a 2,160 x 1,080 resolution with a 2:1 aspect ratio. The LCD panel delivers sharp and vibrant colors with accurate tones and a modest amount of brightness; things look great indoor and outdoors. Considering the cost of the phone, we were impressed with the display size and overall picture.

The ZTE Blade Max View has an incredible battery tucked inside, giving us some 4,000mAh worth of power. That’s a lot more than most phones at this price and is on par with some flagship models from more prominent US players.

This is the sort of phone that doesn’t make lofty promises. It’s not geared toward gamers and heavy users. Instead, it’s an excellent option for less-demanding consumers who don’t care so much about how a phone looks or performs just as long as it works when needed. To that end, the Blade Max View does that for days at a time. The 4,000mAh battery routinely had power left over at the end of two days.

While other phones now employ Quick Charge 3.0 and wireless charging, this one offers Quick Charge 2.0. Spend 15 minutes plugged into the wall and you’ll get around 15 percent of life but it somewhat slows after that. It’s certainly slow by comparison but on it’s own works just fine. Besides, most people are plugging in at night. And, again, we’re dealing with a generous capacity.

Software

In a rather interesting, and somewhat befuddling move, the Blade Max View runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat. It’s a straightforward, nearly untouched version of the software, but it’s certainly behind the times.

Included in the suite of apps is your standard fare of Google titles as well as a handful of other helpful apps. Our review unit came with a web browser, file manager, email client, music player, sound recorder, and video player. There is some overlap, of course with Chrome, Google Play Music, and Gmail. There’s also an FM radio app but it only works when headphones (not included) are plugged in.

Reportedly, the Blade Max View will receive an update to Android 8 Oreo before the year ends, so that’s a positive sign. Would 9 Pie be appreciated? Sure, but that’s not at all what we expected in a $200 phone. As long as security updates and important bug fixes are pushed out, we think the target demographic will not care about the OS.

ZTE does offer a decent amount of personalizing and customization. Users can swap the button configuration, adjust font and icon sizes, and tweak a few other small settings. These aren’t presented at the time of setup and aren’t hard to find, if you feel so inclined.

Camera

The camera experience is okay and borders the line of acceptable and nearly acceptable. To be transparent, we use much pricier and more robust phones as our daily driver and the camera is one area where things are noticeable. Going from a Pixel 2 to this is quite a step down.

Getting to the camera isn’t a streamlined process — it’s at least a two-step process no matter where you are in the phone. You can get to it from the lock screen but you need to press the power button and then swipe from the bottom corner.

We’d really like to see a double-tap of the power button to open, or a flick- the-wrist action like Motorola. About half of what we shoot on our phones tends to be spur of the moment stuff and we prefer not “thinking” before snapping.

There are a variety of shooting modes including photo, video, portrait, and bokeh. The latter two are fairly similar while the former is more for people while the latter is for objects. Nothing spectacular happens in any of these modes however we’ve seen more expensive phones shoot worse.

In the camera mode you’ll find secondary settings for time lapse, panoramic, manual, and mono. As expected, the manual mode gives you control over white balance, exposure, and ISO. Unfortunately, shutter speed and focus controls are not present.

Mono mode is interesting and doesn’t strictly deliver monochrome results. It’s possible to adjust a dial to retain a specific color and to varying degrees.

The main camera has a 16-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/2.0 while the 2-megapixel camera captures depth and contrast. In theory this produces an admirable result. Sadly, it doesn’t.

Generally speaking, when the pictures aren’t what we’d term as acceptable, we found color, exposure, and focus to be lacking. Unless you are in an ideal setting, chances are good you’ll get grain or a soft image.

Performance

The Blade Max View is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor with 3GB RAM. It’s adequate for most tasks and represents the price point well. Do not ask it to do much more than your standard daily tasks, though, as it’s not optimized for gaming.

What are the differences in Snapdragon processors?

In terms of the target user base, the phone has what it takes to handle duties. It’s not a fancy, powerful, or overly ambitious phone but that doesn’t matter much. There is a huge market full of people who will be fine with such an experience.

Conclusion

We’ve entered into a period where there’s a sizable gap in adoption between the entry-level phone and high-end flagship experience. There’s always been a divide in hardware, of course, but it seems now that users tend to gravitate to one of the extremes more so than in years past.

The ZTE Blade Max View finds itself on the lower end of things, in both specifications and price tag. It’s a great option for parents looking to save money on purchasing multiple devices. There’s plenty here to satisfy casual users.

The ZTE Blade Max View makes sense as a phone that’s paired to a particular carrier, such as Verizon. The brand is often found at prepaid providers and this would be right at home for a Boost or Metro customer.

Sold on its own, it requires a touch savvier shopper and we suspect that such a person would compare this to other models in its range.

As much as we appreciate what is put forth here, this area of the smartphone space belongs to Motorola and its G and E series of phones. It is still the leader when it comes to affordably priced unlocked phones with great performance.

The phone ticks a couple of boxes that are often important to buyers: big screen and long-lasting battery. These are primary reasons to consider a handset for a lot of people and, to that end, the Blade Max View will not disappoint.

 

On the other hand, a lot is made today about picture quality on phones. The bar keeps raising and we expect more from our mobile devices. If you’re primarily shopping because you want a nice camera in your pocket, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

We would have really liked to see Android 8 installed out of the gate, but a timely update essentially nullifies this complaint. Let’s hope that ZTE handles patches and security updates in a respectable and consistent manner.

Lastly, we’d like to remind of the first thing we noticed about this phone. You are going to smudge the back and it’s going to be nearly impossible to clean. It’s ugly. There’s no way around it and you’d be wise to get it into a protective case as quickly as possible.

The Blade Max View can be purchased for $170 through ZTE’s website as part of what appears to be a limited time promotion. That’s a great price point and we’d like to see it stick around. At this cost it goes from being just another device to consider to something more appealing and even borders on a “steal”.

Vivo Go debuts as Blu’s first phone with Android 9 Pie (Go edition)

AndroidGuys
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Squeezing out one final model before the end of 2018, smartphone maker Blu is back with another new handset. This time we’re looking at the Vivo Go, the company’s first to launch with Android 9 Pie (Go edition).

Priced just $80, the Vivo Go is an unlocked phone that works with T-Mobile, AT&T, and their respective prepaid brands. For instance, if you’re a subscriber on Cricket, Metro, or Straight Talk, you’ll be able to use the new device.

What does one get for that sort of money? A fairly impressive set of hardware, actually. It won’t set any benchmark records by any stretch, but it’s enough for first-time smartphone buyers. That’s the exact demographic for an Android 9 Pie Go edition phone.

The Vivo Go has a 6-inch display at 720 x 1440 pixels with a 2:1 aspect ratio and curved glass. Internally, there’s a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek processor, 1GB RAM, and 16GB of storage space. Should more room be needed, a microSD card slot allows for up to 64GB of media.

In terms of cameras, the phone has an dual configuration of 8-megapixel and VGA shooter on the back; a 5-megapixel sensor is found around front. A fingerprint reader is located on the rear of the handset. The Vivo Go has metallic plating finish on the battery cover and a mirror finish on the middle housing.

The Vivo Go carries a retail price of $79.99 at Amazon.

MediaTek’s new mid-range Helio P90 chip puts a focus on AI

Alexandra Arici
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Low-cost chipmaker, MediaTek today unveiled the Helio P90 platform, which according to the company can rival most premium chips out there.

Mind you, this is not a 5G-capable chip, but still, one that brings plenty to the table, as we will see in what follows.

MediaTek new processor is an octa-core affair that comes equipped with two Cortex-A75 cores running at 2.2GHz for tasks requiring power and six Cortex-A55 efficient cores running at 2GHz. MediaTek relies on its new CorePilot technology to ensure processing its done in the most efficient way possible across the eight cores.

The chip is made using a 12nm process and arrives with a PowerVR GM 9446 GPU on board which is said to offer a 50% boost in performance compared to the Helio P70.

AI is all the rage right now and MediaTek knows it

But where the new Helio P90 provides a substantial upgrade is in the AI capabilities department. The processor features a multi-core AI processing unit (APU) to offer four times the AI performance than its predecessors, the P60 and P70. The main purpose of the APU is be to enable high-quality photography on more affordable phones.

According to MediaTek, The P90 comes with support for a 48MP camera, or a dual setup of 24MP+16MP. What’s more, the chipset offers 480fps slow-motion video shooting at 16MP and is compatible with Google Lens.

What’s more, the Helio P90 comes with support for SIM dual VoLTE 5G LTE WorldMode with fast Cat-12 (DL) / Cat-13 (UL) 4G LTE modem.

MediaTek notes that we should see the first devices powered by the Helio P90 make a debut starting Q1 2019. And some of these smartphones might even make it on the US market, or at least the company hopes they will. But we’ll have to wait and see whether MediaTek’s new platform can do anything to dislodge Qualcomm, who is the dominant player in the country.

These $30 truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds crush Apple’s Airpods

Matt Adams
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Let’s not beat around the bush: Apple makes the most popular truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds on the market today. Yes, it seems like half the people I know are walking around with Airpods in their ears. It’s part of the reason we made our guide on pairing the Airpods with Android devices. Just because Apple makes them doesn’t mean you can only use them with Apple products.

Read more: Yes, you can use AirPods with an Android phone; here’s how

But, just because Apple makes them doesn’t mean they’re the best around. Sure, they’re fantastic (I own a pair myself) but there are other options. One of those options is the Xiaomi Air Dots. The recently released truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds are only about $30 USD (though prices are high to import them) and absolutely crush the Airpods in terms of value.

The Air Dots are really well made. Both the case and the earbuds themselves have a soft-touch plastic that feels pretty interesting. I like it but it’s a stark contrast to the hard white plastic of the Airpods.

This soft-touch cover is also a little translucent. When you’re charging the Air Dots in their case, you can actually see the charging LED through the case. It’s a really cool feature and makes them stand out from other wireless earbuds on the market. I’ve had a few people ask me about this feature so you know it’s catching people’s attention.

The case features magnets much like the Airpods case. It snaps shut and the Air Dots drop into place with a satisfying plop due to the magnets in the case. I will say that I don’t have as much confidence in the Air Dots case staying closed as I do with the Airpods, but it hasn’t been an issue yet. I’ve thrown them in my bag a few times and they’ve stayed tucked tightly in their case each time.

In terms of battery life, we’re looking at a rating of four hours of playback with another three charges in the case. In reality, I have found that I get anywhere between three and four hours of playback depending on volume level. You’re not going to reach that five-hour mark, but they won’t die on you in the middle of your workout either.

I do wish these recharged a little faster. It takes between 45 minutes and an hour to recharge both the buds. This isn’t terrible, but with several options on the market that feature quick charging, it feels slow in practice. Also, we’re still dealing with a micro USB connector here. I know that these are extremely cheap but I’m left wondering just how much more it would’ve cost to include USB type-C. Almost everything uses USB type-C now and it’s an annoyance to find a micro USB cable for these.

Luckily, Xioami has included a micro USB cable in the box. It’s a short cable but it gets the job done. Also in the box are some more ear tips in differing sizes and what I’m assuming is an instruction booklet.

I’m assuming that because it’s in Chinese. And that’s one of the biggest drawbacks here. The instructions are in Chinese. The voice prompts are in Chinese. Everything about this is a Chinese product since it’s not officially being sold here in the states. I had no idea how to pair these aside from just heading into my Bluetooth settings and pairing the right earbud. Luckily that worked.

Once I got them paired, I noticed how good they sound. You don’t get the same bass and low-end you get with Airpods, but the Air Dots are also $100 cheaper depending on where you buy them from.

In addition to my own testing, I also had my partner check them out. They don’t care about sound quality as much as I do and just care about having something decent to listen to while at the gym. We both came away with the same feelings, “they’re fine.”

You’re not going to be blown away by how these sound, but you shouldn’t expect to be for the price. I think they’re within striking distance of the Airpods personally and my partner still prefers the Airpods, but not by much.

Voice calls are another story. While everything sounded okay on our end, those on the other end of the line said we sounded muffled and hard to understand. In my testing, you can have basic conversations, but you definitely don’t want to use these for any kind of important call or teleconferencing.

There are no wings or special fittings here, but they do stay in place pretty well. Some other reviewers have mentioned that they fall out of their ears despite trying different tip sizes, but I haven’t had any issues.

I do like that both of the earbuds have touch-sensitive controls. You can do things like launch Google Assistant and play/pause your music with a quick tap or two. These also have no buttons so turning them on or off is as simple as laying your finger on the buds for a few seconds. Once they’re on, they pair incredibly fast. It’s a great experience.

Like most tech under $50, there are trade-offs here. But, the minor negatives are outweighed heavily by the positives. They sound almost as good as Airpods at less than half the cost. They have decent battery life and really nice build quality.

I’d like to see some updates in the next gen like USB type-C or, if we’re feeling really bold, wireless charging. But, I’m willing to live with those shortcomings to keep almost an extra $100 in my pocket.

If you’d like to pick up a pair of Xiaomi Air Dots, head over to GearVita where you can get some right now. As a special gift to our readers, GearVita wanted to pass along a special coupon code. Enter AGMAirdots at checkout to save $15!

Check out these other great truly wireless earbuds:

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