Back in the mid-90s, before there were mobile games, Tamagotchis ruled supreme as the ultimate virtual pet. The game was offered on a flat, egg-like plastic gizmo with three buttons and a keychain on top.
But the little-pixelated creatures almost went extinct in the years that followed. Only to resurface yet again in the present. Developer Bandai Namco this week officially released the My Tamagotchi Forever app for Android and iOS users around the world.
The 90s are back
In case you aren’t familiar with Tamagotchis, these were digital pets that lived inside a small, handheld device. The ultimate goal was to keep your creature alive by feeding it and playing with it on a daily basis. Ignoring your Tamagotchi for a few days would result in certain death for the little animal.
Well the new mobile game mirrors the original concept in many ways. For example, in My Tamagotchi Forever each creature has a sleep meter, a hunger meter, an entertainment meter, and a bathroom meter.
Obviously, you must make sure you cater to the needs of your creature in order to keep it happy, as well as earn virtual currency to buy equipment for entertainment and food. Users can earn coins by playing mini-games. You can also unlock new creatures by decorating your town.
As it grows, your creature will slowly evolve into something else, depending on how you treat it.
Yet, like many games launching today, this app is geared towards pushing you to spend money. For example, the game lets you skip past several steps, like waiting for your Tamagotchi to sleep by purchasing Diamonds.
My Tamagotchi Forever also strays from its predecessors by offering support for augmented reality (AR). So gamers can transpose their virtual pet onto a real background. Get your Tamagotchi to sit on the couch with you or on the bed.
Sounds like fun? They go ahead and hatch your egg. Install My Tamagotchi Forever on your Android right now.
Looking for a new game that’s a bit more challenging than the average lot? Well if you like puzzle games, we might just have the thing for you.
Most of us prefer a game we can pick up anytime, play a few minutes with and then return to whatever we were doing before.
Well, the game we’re going to talk about is not part of the casual games category. No, you’ll be spending quite some time trying to understand the mechanisms behind the game and attempting to solve the levels.
So are you prepared for an intense mental workout? Then head on to the Google Play Store and download Casualty.
Setup
Casualty is not free to download, so you’ll have to pay $1.99 if you want to give this puzzle game a try. The good news is that the game is not riddled with annoying ads which pop up randomly when you least expect it. What’s more, there are no in-app purchases either.
As soon as you install the game on your Android smartphone or tablet, you’ll be thrown into the action. There are 15 levels spanning four different worlds, so tap on the first box to begin.
Gameplay
This is a trial-and-error puzzle game, so don’t expect to be served up instructions or any useful hints as you play. You’re on your own figuring out how this weird universe functions.
Basically, you’re thrown into a bizarre universe where you have to lead one, two or three different colored astronauts around a floating path to their corresponding exits. It might sound easy, but trust me, it’s not. Obviously, the puzzles get more and more complicated as you advance.
The first ten levels ease you into the whole dynamics – basically you swipe down to move time forwards and implicitly the astronauts and swipe up to rewind it. The astronauts will run along the path, but you get to control their direction by changing the arrow tiles.
Tap the arrow to change the direction and make the astronaut follow the new path. If you realize you’ve made an error in judgment and sent the astronaut the wrong way, you can quickly swipe up to go back and change your approach.
But there’s a catch – each level comes with a pre-set number of moves. Run out of them and you won’t be able to complete the level. The good news is that you don’t need to reset the level every time you get stuck. The timeline at the bottom of the screen maps down all your actions and you can rewind and fast-forward as many times as you want until you come up with the right solution.
Difficulty increases as you advance to the next levels and into the next worlds. Soon you’ll stumble upon switches that raise and lower obstacles, alien tentacles, cracked floors and shadow stalkers who can devour the astronaut.
A puzzle game that will put your brain on fire
When more astronauts are present on the screen, their actions will be interconnected. This means they will both advance at the same time. Also, they won’t be able to pass one another, leading to blockages. So players need to figure out how the two (or three) astronauts can work in tandem in order to reach their corresponding exits.
The game becomes even more challenging when time traveling portals are introduced. These allow your astronauts to travel back or forward in time, so the past/future self and the present self can work together to achieve a goal.
Once new mechanics are introduced (like the time traveling portals), you’ll play a few simplified puzzles to help you learn how to navigate the new scenario. And if you get stuck on the more complicated levels, you can simply skip to the next one. This helps with keeping the player’s motivation up.
That’s the trouble with Casualty. It can get extremely frustrating. The lack of instructions can also be quite bothersome, especially if you don’t have a lot of time to invest in playing.
The game relies on users’ perseverance, so if you were hoping for a casual game to relax your mind and spirit, Casualty is definitely not for you. But, if you’re a competitive puzzle master, then you’ll love the mind-boggling mechanics underlying this challenging game.
Visuals/Sound
The graphics and soundtrack are pretty well done too. The animation is fluid, backgrounds are other-worldly and the VHS-like effects when you travel through time are a brilliant addition. The music complements the visuals very well. It’s comprised of Sci-Fi bleeps and clicks and burbling ambient noises which really sum up the vibe you get playing this puzzle game.
Note: There’s also an VHS effect that can be applied on the overall gameplay.
Conclusion
Most people play games to relax, but Casualty definitely doesn’t let you do that. Instead, it will push the boundaries of your reasoning skills, while challenging you to constantly think and re-think your strategies.
It’s a complex game that can very easily become annoying. The creators of the puzzle know this all to well, so paradoxically, although it’s hard, Casualty is a very user-friendly game. You’re almost never forced to restart a level completely, you can just rewind. Also once you’ve finished the first 10 levels, the next five are unlocked automatically.
Even so, you have to be OK with knowing that you will spend a fair amount of time trying to solve each level. Casualty is not a game you can go through without breaking a sweat, but for diehard puzzle fans that won’t a problem at all.
Though it didn’t announce a specific timetable for release, Epic’s Fortnite Twitter account confirmed that its wildly popular PUBG-style Battle Royale game would be making its way to mobile platforms in the coming days. While iOS users were invited to sign up for a beta test on Monday (that is, March 12th), Epic would only say that an Android version is on its way “in the coming months.” In the same press release, Epic also mentioned that Fortnite would be getting complete cross-platform integration – meaning that players can play with each other regardless of platform, and all player progress will be saved between platforms.
Interestingly, though, Epic released two different versions of its press release: one that mentions crossplay between Android, iOS, PC, Mac and XBox, and one that mentions crossplay between Android, iOS, PC, Mac and PS4. For those of you paying attention, the only difference between those two phrases is the home console with crossplay integration. Microsoft has been rather publicly pro cross-platform, so it can only be reasonably assumed that Sony is blocking crossplay between XBox and Playstation.
What does this mean for gamers? There are a couple different endings to this story. Either users will have to choose between XBox and Playstation when signing up for an Epic account (even if they plan to play on iOS or Android) resulting in a fragmented user base for Fortnite, or Mac, PC, iOS and Android users will all be able to play and progress with both PS4 and XBox players, but not at the same time. If this sounds pointless and confusing, that’s because it really is. Sony is Gorbachev in the Gaming Cold War while Microsoft’s Reagan screams “Tear this wall down, Mr. Sony-chev!”
Once Sony stops being afraid to unify the gaming world, allowing gamers on any platform to play with one another, we’ll all be better off. Whether we chose XBox, Playstation, Android, iOS, Mac, or even those crazy PC Master Racers, everyone wins.
This post went off the rails a while ago, but lets bring it back by celebrating the real victory – Fortnite Battle Royale is coming to Android!
The Essential Phone (PH-1) made waves in the Android community at its debut. It sounded like a true contender and boasted a rad, minimal-bezel design to peak interest. But that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing out the gate. It’s always tough for a startup to strike success in the crowded smartphone market, and even one backed by an Android co-founder proved to be no exception, as the company has only moved around 100K devices over several months.
It wasn’t that the phone came with malfunctions or questionable quality. On the contrary, it’s probably the most solidly built original phone ever. But it launched top-end pricing ($700), and that put it in an arena with stiff competition. There were some crucial aspects where the Essential Phone couldn’t compete, like screen quality and camera performance. It also didn’t help that there’s no water resistance and that the software wasn’t as snappy as other Snapdragon 835 devices.
But the Essential team has been hard at work since then to address some of those “beta” issues. They have pushed some lofty camera updates and the latest Android build: 8.1 (Oreo). In that time, the price of the phone has also been dropping. So today, we’re seeing if these two factors have converged into making the PH-1 one of the most compelling smartphone choices right now. This is our review of the updated Essential Phone.
Design
We won’t dwell too much on the design of the Essential Phone. The phone isn’t “new” and chances are you know the deal here. But it is worth mentioning that the titanium frame and ceramic rear panel do hold up well over time.
Because the phone is glossy all over, it feels fragile like competitive phones built with aluminum and glass, but our unit has maintained its pristine, like-new appearance. That doesn’t mean it’s impervious to breaking, but something must be said for how well it holds up against the daily grind.
That said, this is probably the most smudge-prone smartphone we’ve ever used. The back panel is so reflective and easily becomes a smudge feast.
This is what the phone really looks like in real-world use.
We also feel that the glossy perimeter was a mistake – the phone is already slippery as it is (and it becomes a gross, smudgy mess too). Having a matte, grippier material would’ve gone a long way to help the user feel a more secure grip and manageability. Its weighty 185g doesn’t help here either. Basically, it would’ve been fantastic if Essential just expanded that ceramic-like trim on the edges of the frame.
Performance
Coming from popular flagships like the Note 8, LG V30, and Pixel 2 XL, upon receiving the Essential Phone I immediately noticed that its software was noticeably slow to respond. Not that it lagged or took time to execute actions – on the contrary, it was (and continues to be) consistently functional.
But it wasn’t as snappy as other Snapdragon 835 driven devices. For instance, there was consistently a very short but noticeable delay from when you would tap an app icon or hyperlink and when it would act. Also, when scrolling, it was obvious the frame rate was fluctuating, and not silky smooth like on the competition. These things are far from deal breakers, but one has to question why this was happening with a chipset that should devour common processes.
This is something that Essential sought to address in the Android 8.1 update, referring to it as a fix to the “display touch scrolling jitteriness”. So did the update take care of it? Well, it is certainly better but still noticeable, at least to a picky user like myself.
Example of our battery results on T-Mobile’s network.
This is in comparison with my daily driver Note 8, which is immediate to respond to a tap, and scrolling in apps like Chrome and Google+ is seamless (and it’s even better on the Pixel 2). On the PH-1, I just don’t feel as enabled to tap, tap, tap as quick as I can on the Note 8. This is surprising, because Samsung’s software sports a heavy UI, whereas the PH-1 is a bare-bones “essential” version of Android. But this could be a personal gripe. I’m quick with my phone navigation and feel like the Essential Phone makes me work slower.
The same goes for scrolling. It’s definitely better than pre-8.1, but I can still see the frame rate drop. But we reiterate – it’s far from unusable and definitely a nit-picky thing, and certainly acceptable at the PH-1’s now lower price.
Speaking of battery life, it’s been a good experience for me. The 3,040 mAh battery seems to punch above its weight, and I think it’s due to Essential’s software optimization. I observed consistent drainage with a multitude of average tasks. It, of course, wasn’t until I ran videos in high brightness or did some gaming where I saw the results significantly drop.
Display
Another downside of the PH-1 is its decision of an LCD panel in an OLED world. Fortunately, it’s a pretty good LCD panel. As a long time user of OLED panels, this aspect of the PH-1 surprisingly wasn’t a contention for me. Sure, I can notice the slightly washed-out quality and brightness shift when tilting the view. But these drawbacks happen to be really slight on this phone. Outdoor visibility leaves some to be desired, though.
That notch for the selfie cam is a bit of an eyesore for me, but I recognize that it’s a personal taste. Many people are able to tune it out – I’m just not one of those people. At least it’s the smallest notch on the market.
The hard notch life.
But from an objective standpoint, the notch does cause a minor problem. The top status bar is custom tweaked to suit it. It’s wider than usual, so its touch response to toggle the notification shade is therein wider. This can conflict with content underneath it, that doesn’t adjust to the different size. Sometimes when I go to click something that’s close to the boundary, like a link in Chrome, it annoying pulls down the notification bar. It can also overlay incorrectly in some apps. For instance, in Feedly, you see a gray bar atop that spills over its boundary.
Camera
Essential Phone camera interface.
So probably the biggest con of the Essential Phone at launch was its camera performance. Not just in quality, but in speed too. It also didn’t help that it lacked Auto HDR support – something that has become a requirement of top-end smartphones as of late. Essential acknowledged the complaint and improving it through software has been one of the team’s biggest efforts since launch.
And they’ve done a pretty good job. Auto HDR is now in there, and the overall performance is at satisfactory levels. Though, it still can’t really stand with the best out there. At times, the cameras can pull off some impressive shots, but it takes just the right lighting. In dark situations (like indoors) or wide range of lighting, the HDR processing often overdoes it and makes the image look washed out (overexposed). And when HDR isn’t applied, we can sometimes end up with dark spots.
The sharpness is overall good when looking at the big picture, but when you zoom in you see more artifacting then we would like. Here’s an image comparison with the Note 8 in a shot with dynamic range:
One last complaint is that the camera is a good step behind the competition in macro shots. We don’t remember when we had such a hard time getting a smartphone camera to focus on something like a flower. This is even when specifically targeting the focus subject on the screen. It struggles so much.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re far from a terrible camera here; it definitely gets the job done and can pull off some terrific and dramatic shots.
Shot of my collie using Portrait mode.
But it’s certainly a hit or miss situation, where more established manufacturers have well refined past that point in their lives. We commend Essential in doing something about it, and the improvements are significant, but we’re not quite there yet.
Essential Phone Camera Samples:
Essential was kind enough to also lend us the phone’s modular accessory. One might forget that there’s two pin connectors on the back to magnetically clip on mods. This is because, well, there has been only one available – a 360-degree camera. But for what it’s worth, it’s a really nice option.
It’s compact and effortless to use. Just line up the pins and it will magically magnetically fasten. The phone powers the device (no need to charge it separately). It’s comprised of two very wide fisheye, 12MP lenses. You’ll hear a fan inside spool up and a custom 360 camera interface launches on the phone. This is an instant way to capture a 360-degree image, just with a press of a button. And it can do 4K and record video.
Software
After the 8.1 Oreo update, the Essential Phone aesthetically keeps things…essential. It’s a really close experience with the Pixel 2, which is a great thing. Not many phones have a stock-like, no-frills experience.
It’s not exactly the same as the Pixel 2. Essential has a couple of its own things, but they’re very minimal. For instance, some colorings are different, like in some icons and the dark quick settings menu. The app drawer is also transparent, and you can move the persistent Google search bar to your liking (what’s up with this, Google!?). But again, minimal differences.
Of course, many of the newer Android 8.1 features are here, like Picture-in-Picture (PnP) mode (lets you overlay a small window to keep playing a video atop everything), Google Lens (Google’s own image subject query tool), better consolidation of notifications, and custom app icon long-press actions/shortcuts. But you won’t get the Now Playing feature (displays track info of music the phone hears when the screen is off) because the Essential Phone doesn’t have an Always-On display.
Final Thoughts
So back to the original question: Do the updates and the lower price make the Essential Phone a bargain now? Definitely yes. No, the updates didn’t do something magical and fix all the concerns – they just made them less…concerning. What really helps is that the phone is now at a sub-$500 price. The Essential Phone easily pulls ahead of the mid-range smartphone competition. None are built like this, have an 85% screen-to-body ratio, and an up-to-date, stock Android experience. The gripes we have are now minor in the grand scheme of things.
Google today made it official that Android Wear is no longer the name for its wearable operating system. A blog post from the company tells us that the platform will heretofore be known as Wear OS.
As our technology and partnerships have evolved, so have our users… we’re announcing a new name that better reflects our technology, vision, and most important of all—the people who wear our watches.
The name change is a smart one and comes not a moment too soon. Given that Android Wear added support for Apple’s iOS back in 2015 it clears up any sort of confusion as to what’s compatible. According to Google one out of three new Android Wear watch owners also use an iPhone.
With more than 50 watches powered by Android Wear since its inception, Google saw some 60% growth in year-to-year activations over the the last two holiday seasons. Things are looking up for the smartwatch industry, even if it doesn’t seem to flying off shelves.
If you head to the new landing page of wearos.google.com, you’ll find nearly three dozen models to choose from. Interestingly enough you’ll not be able to purchase any of them direct from Google; instead, visitors are redirected to a watch’s respective brand website.
The latest rebrand
In a similar move, Google recently changed the name and branding of its Android Pay to Google Pay. These sort of changes signal to consumers that there’s no preference to smartphone platform — even though it has a horse in the race with Android.
What happens now?
Google tells us that users will start to see the new Wear OS name and branding on watches and apps over the next few weeks. Moreover, new features and improvements are expected in the coming months. We expect to learn all about the updates and fun stuff at Google I/O in May.
There is no shortage of smart speakers on the market, yet LG thinks it can take on the competition with a couple of its own offerings.
Launched a few months ago, LG’s first Google Assistant-powered smart speakers are now available for pre-order in the US at B&H.
The online retailer is currently offering two LG ThinQ speakers, one of them coming with an embedded touch display.
Does LG have what it takes to compete in the smart speaker niche?
LG has partnered up with Meridian Audio so that the speakers can offer a premium audio experience. The non-touchscreen ThinQ speaker is available for $196.99, while the touchscreen version can be yours for $296.99.
Obviously, the latter is meant to be a more affordable version of the Google Home Max, which is currently sold for $399.99. This particular ThinQ includes two speakers tuned by Meridian Audio and there’s also a camera on board, so users can make calls via Google Duo.
With Google Assistant powering the device, you can go ahead and ask questions, set reminders and of course, watch YouTube videos.
While the two speakers are available for pre-order at B&H, there’s no information regarding when the new products will start shipping out to buyers. Assuming there are people interested in purchasing anything other than an Amazon Echo or Google Home.
So, LG just made a debut on the smart speaker market in the US. But what about its future flagship, the G7 which was MIA at MWC 2018? When will you be able to pick that up?
According to recent reports, the LG G7 will be unveiled in May and will come with a pretty hefty price tag, higher than last year’s model.
Even so, expect it to pack some premium features such as a dual-rear 16-megapixel camera with AI integration. To better compete with the Galaxy S9, the G7 will also include a Snapdragon 845 processor. But perhaps the most controversial rumored feature is the iPhone X-like notch.
The Pixel 2 is arguably the best camera experience on Android with Google achieving with software what others require hardware to do.
One of these features is the Pixel 2‘s Portrait Mode which identifies a subject and then blurs the surrounding background to provide focus on that subject. Google is using semantic image segmentation to achieve this, which is essentially analyzing each pixel in a picture and categorizing it as a person or sky, for example. By applying an identification to each pixel, the software knows exactly what the subject is and therefore which pixels to blur out.
The Portrait Mode has been exclusively available to the Pixel 2 devices, but Google has now made the magic that achieves this open-source. This means that developers can use the same technology in their own implementations so not only can Portrait Mode be brought to other devices and apps, developers can take it one step further.
This release includes DeepLab-v3+ models built on top of a powerful convolutional neural network (CNN) backbone architecture [2, 3] for the most accurate results, intended for server-side deployment. As part of this release, we are additionally sharing our Tensorflow model training and evaluation code, as well as models already pre-trained on the Pascal VOC 2012 and Cityscapes benchmark semantic segmentation tasks.
The move to bring this open-source is great news for Android users who either don’t have a Pixel 2 or prefer other manufacturers. It means that developers can freely enhance their own apps with the technology that makes the Pixel 2 deliver such good results.
Does this lessen the appeal of the Pixel 2 now the technology could potentially be used in other devices? Let us know in the comments below.
Most retail stores have their own off-brand versions of popular products. Amazon is no different with its own Amazon Basics initiative, which is basically the retail giant’s equivalent of a store brand.
Well if you purchased one of the power banks sold by Amazon Basics, then you should know the company this week issued a recall for these products due to overheating risks.
These power banks are affordable options that many users may have purchased to charge their Android smartphones and tablets on the go.
Amazon’s power banks might not be safe to use
Amazon is targeting 260,000 units including the 16,100 mAh, 10,000 mAh, 5,600 mAh, 3,000 mAh and 2,000 mAh capacity models. So far Amazon received to 53 reports of defective power banks, that in some unfortunate cases, even led to chemical burns and property damage.
One of the affected units
Some units are apparently leaking liquid. If this is happening to your battery you shouldn’t touch it because the battery acid could easily lead to skin burns.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission already set up a page for the recall. So we can see the batteries were made in China by Guoguang Electric Company Ltd.
If the product ID number printed on the back is one of the following, you should unplug the power bank immediately and contact Amazon to get a full refund.
B00LRK8EVO,
B00LRK8HJ8,
B00LRK8I7O
B00LRK8IV0
B00LRK8JDC
B00ZQ4JQAA
Amazon is also sending out emails to customers who might have purchased these faulty units.
Amazon has been selling these products on Amazon.com, Amazon Bookstore and Amazon Pop-Up Stores from December 2014 through July 2017 for between $9 to $40.
Another affected unit
In case you’ve purchased one of these batteries, but you haven’t been contacted by Amazon yet, you can follow this link to Amazon’s recall site and register to get a refund for your purchase. And remember, unplug the product as soon as possible, to avoid any inconveniences!
The Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus made a debut at MWC 2018, alongside its smaller brother the Galaxy S9, but did Samsung make enough changes from the Galaxy S8 Plus?
Well Samsung did make sure to include a bunch of new gimmicky features with the new Galaxy S9 Plus. The new flagship is a nice incremental upgrade. But we’re wondering if it will be enough to get people to open their wallets again.
In an attempt to anticipate consumer behavior, below we take a look at how this year’s Galaxy S Plus model differs from the one that came before it.
Design and Display
Considering the major overhaul the S-series received last year, the S9 Plus was not expected to see a major re-design this year. So the Galaxy S9 Plus keeps the curvy glass and metal look, minimal bezels and 18:5:9 aspect ratio, but also the headphone jack, microSD card slot and IP68 rating for water resistance.
Thankfully, Samsung moved the fingerprint scanner beneath the camera sensor, where it should have been sitting all along, ever since last year.
Subtle Differences
At first glance, it looks like overall Samsung has made no major alterations to the Galaxy S9 Plus. The new flagship features a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED display with 1440 x 2960 resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass 5, just like last year. Although the screen-to-body ratio is now at 84.2%, thanks to the thinned-out top and bottom bezels. A slightly straightened side curve ensures a better, more ergonomic grip too.
The S9 Plus is also slightly thicker and heavier than its predecessor at 158.1 x 73.8 x 8.5mm and 189g. Comparatively, the S8 Plus dimensions are 159.5 x 73.4 x 8.1mm. The phone tips the scales at 173g.
Samsung also put a thicker, tougher Corning Gorilla Glass 5 as a cover glass for the new Galaxy S9+, a measure taken with the aim of preventing screen damage.
What’s more, the physical keys on the Galaxy S9 Plus are a bit thicker too and placed higher than on its predecessor. As a result, they are easier to feel and press, even without looking when you’re holding the phone with one hand.
Samsung also improved the metal frame on the Galaxy S9 Plus, which is now made of a higher series alloy that fends off scratches better than the Galaxy S8 Plus’s wrapping.
More Obvious Differences
If these differences are too subtle for you, let us point out more obvious ones. Like the fact that the Galaxy S9 Plus has gained a pair of stereo speakers (with Dolby Atmos supports). The phone will be able to provide surround sound. This is achieved thanks to the bottom-firing speaker and earpiece which now acts as a speaker.
Performance
Obviously, the Galaxy S9 Plus takes advantage of Qualcomm’s latest premium chipset, which was unveiled not long ago, the Snapdragon 845.
The CPU inside the Snapdragon 845 is called the Kyro 385, and just like its predecessor, the Snapdragon 835 which powers the Galaxy S8 Plus, it features eight-cores: four performance cores and four efficiency cores.
The performance cores have a clock speed of up to 2.8GHz. They’re said to offer a 25-30% boost over those in the Snapdragon 835. The efficiency cores, for their part, which clock at up to 1.8GHz, offer a 15% performance increase.
This year, the S9 Plus comes packing 6GB of RAM instead of the 4GB found in the S8 Plus. The flagship will go on sale with a choice of 64GB/128GB or 256GB of internal storage, depending on the market. The latter option is a new addition, which wasn’t available for the Galaxy S8 Plus.
Samsung also made sure to boost cellular performance on the new phone. So at least on paper the device can reach 4G speeds of 1200 Mbps (downloads) and 200 Mbps (uploads). This is an increase from the 1024 Mbps and 150 Mbps of the Galaxy S8 Plus.
On the other side of the coin, the S9 Plus relies on the same 3,500 mAh unit. Yes, you’ll still get fast wired charging and fast 15W wireless charging. But will the Galaxy S9 Plus be able to deliver satisfactory battery life with the new dual camera on board?
Users can at least console themselves with knowing that thanks to Samsung’s 8 Point Quality Check, the battery is promised to boast a 95% battery capacity retention after two years, which is pretty impressive.
Cameras
The biggest difference between the Galaxy S9 Plus and Galaxy S8 Plus is that the latter now comes with a dual-camera setup à la the Galaxy Note 8.
On top of a main 12-megapixel sensor, the S9 Plus also includes a 12-megapixel telephoto lens which offers 2x optical zoom.
But the main sensor is pretty impressive on its own too, since it’s the first to boast a dual aperture. This means it can switch automatically between f/1.5 (for low light) and f/2.4 (for well-lit shots) depending on the amount of light present in the environment.
With the Galaxy S9 Plus, Samsung also added a super-slow motion feature. This allows users to shoot at 960fps at 720p resolution.
Love to take selfies? You won’t be too happy to hear that the Galaxy S9 Plus comes with the same selfie 8-megapixel camera. No improvements included.
Other features
The Galaxy S9 Plus is full of minor improvements and revisions. One such upgrade is facial recognition, which Samsung has fortified with the help of machine learning and the inclusion of a second sensor.
The new system is called Intelligent Scan. Basically what it does is switch between facial recognition in daylight and iris recognition at night. This is a step beyond the Galaxy S8 Plus, but the Galaxy S9 Plus still doesn’t bundle a dot projector, a tool that adds true depth sensing to Face ID for improved reliability and security.
This year, Samsung also introduced AR Emoji with the Galaxy S9 Plus (and Galaxy S9). Inspired by Apple’s Animoji, Samsung’s take on the whole AR avatar thing is a bit unsettling.
What you do is snap a single picture of yourself smiling, and the S9 Plus will take it from there. The phone uses machine learning to create an animated 3D model of your face, which you can then customize.
In the software department, the S9 Plus ships out with Android 8.0 out of the box. But Android 8.1 has been out for three months. We’re not surprised, given how long it took Samsung to update the Galaxy S8 to Oreo.
Samsung made Bixby (its own version of the Google Assistant) a central part of last year’s Galaxy S8 launch, but this info about Bixby upgrades seem to have slipped through the cracks.
Yes, Bixby does sport a few new features, but unfortunately they are far from being groundbreaking. There’s an integrated makeup store that lets users try out makeup on virtually. Also included is a calorie detection feature that can estimate how many calories are in the food item you’re about to eat.
Price
Samsung is selling the unlocked Galaxy S9 Plus with 64GB of storage for $840 (pre-tax), which is actually a bit less than what the company was asking for last year’s model which is $850. Prices vary by carrier, so you could end up spending up to $929.99 at Verizon. Ouch! On the bright side, this might be the best time to buy a Galaxy S8 Plus, as many retailers and carriers are offering it with a discount.
Should you upgrade?
Even if you’re coming from a Galaxy S8, the S9 Plus might be interesting for you because of the dual-camera. Other than that, the differences aren’t really big great enough to warrant an upgrade. But if you’re coming from an older phone, by all means, the Galaxy S9 Plus is a significant step upwards.
Apparently there’s a new trend developing among people who love to shoot photos with their smartphone. And that’s adding a “Shot on” custom watermark on your pictures. Want all your friends to know you shot that gorgeous image using your trusty Huawei Mate 10 or Pixel phone? Or maybe you’re looking to protect your vision and prevent your work from being used without consent?. Then you’ll definitely want to try the ShotOn app.
Setup
Simply download the app from the Google Play Store. But before you go ahead and do that, let us tell you this is a paid app. It costs $0.99 to download and use. Sure, a free version of the app is also available (here), but you won’t be able to use all the features.
Impressions
Once you open the app, it will show you a quick tutorial, so you can sense what it can do.
At first, you need to select the phone you’re using. There are a few pre-set options including the Google Pixel, Huawei Mate 10, Moto G5S+, Nokia 8 or Samsung J7.
If you want to play by the rules, you’ll pick exactly the model you have. But you don’t necessarily have to.
Once you’ve selected the type of phone you’re using to shoot your images, you can go on and customize the look of the watermark and what it says.
Basically, the stamp says “Shot on X phone model, by Your name”, but you can easily change that. Use the Settings section located in the upper right corner to Change the text and Change the logo, which appears on the left side of the text. You can opt for any logo you like, regardless of the phone you’re actually using.
ShotOn: watermarking photos made easy
The app includes a bunch of options to customize the stamp. You can choose the location of the watermark (left, right, middle, etc) and you can also easily change the text font and colors.
The app works as intended, although at times it’s a bit difficult to arrange the stamp in the right position using only the X, Y coordinates provided. Or to adjust the size.
Because the logo, “Shot On” text and “By your name” text each come with their own set of X, Y coordinates, sometimes they can overlap. Or stretch beyond the screen. This makes your job a little bit difficult and can easily lead to frustration.
I would have liked to be able to simply drag and drop the watermark and pinch it in an out to resize the logo and texts. It would have led to a more seamless experience.
Anyway, apart from stamp creation, the app also lets you auto apply the Watermark on all new photos.
You simply have to choose your preferred stamp and select the camera folder path. So the app will know to apply the watermark whenever you use a certain camera app. A message will be displayed once the watermark has been successfully applied to an image you just snapped.
The app will automatically stamp the default watermark (although you can tweak the text), so if you want to customize the size or color of the stamp, you’ll have to take the image first and edit later. The auto feature seems to work with some apps, but not with others.
You’re also supposed to be able to save the images stamped with the customized watermark from the app, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find them in my gallery after I had done so. That’s probably due to some sort of bug.
Conclusions
Overall the app delivers what was promised: you can stamp your photos with a watermark which lets viewers know who took the photo and using which device.
However, you can customize the text to say whatever you want. So if you wish to communicate something else entirely, you can.
You’re also not restricted to using the logo of the company which produced your smartphone, as the app does not recognize your device.
The problem with Shot on is that anyone with basic Photoshop skills could do what the app does within minutes. With perhaps better results. So the auto-stamp feature is probably the only highlight of this app.
Indeed not everyone uses Photoshop, so if you want to be able to easily apply custom stamps on your images, then this app is for you.
