04-08 Cinco Dias HQ

LATEST SMARTPHONES, TABLETS & WEARABLES
ANDROID
ISSUE
52 ADVISOR
BEST W ES
NE N
HO
TP
AR
SM
Asus ZenFone 5, BlackBerry KEY2, HTC U12+
SNAP HAPPY: ROUND-UP

GooglePh otos’ ANDROID
top new features ANTIVIRUS
APPS
ANDROID ADVISOR
CONTENTS
4
REVIEWS
4 Asus ZenFone 5 (2018)

18 BlackBerry KEY2
32 HTC U12+
48 Huawei Nova 2i
ROUND-UP
59 Best antivirus apps
32 18
2 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 52

ANDROID ADVISOR
CONTENTS
59
FEATURES
What does Google know about you? 67

Google Photos’ best new features 74
Messages features you should start using 87
Master Google News 92
Google’s podcasting app 100
OPINION
Why Android phones

should run stock Android 104
74
ISSUE 52 • ANDROID ADVISOR 3

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REVIEW
Asus ZenFone 5 (2018)

Price: £349 inc VAT from fave.co/2J5ILYN
I
f the ZenFone 5 sounds familiar, it probably should
– Asus released a phone of that name way back in
2014. Unsurprisingly, this latest version has had a
few upgrades – not least a very familiar notch.
It was first announced the phone at Mobile World
Congress 2018, but Asus has unusually decided to wait
until July to actually release the phone. We’ve spent
some time putting the phone through its paces, and
here’s what we think of the firm’s latest attempt to
crack the smartphone market.

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Design
If you thought the ZenFone 5 sounded familiar,
that’s nothing compared to how it looks.
No, that isn’t an iPhone X, but you’d be forgiven
for making that mistake. Asus was one of the first of
the major Android manufacturers to incorporate the
notch into its own display design, and even though
other notched phones have beaten the ZenFone 5
to market, few have stuck quite so closely to Apple’s
original design, right down to the vertically stacked
dual cameras in the corner of the phone’s rear.
It’s not all the same though. For one, the 6.2in
display is larger than the iPhone’s 5.8in screen,
though doesn’t quite reach the very bottom of the
device. Still, the chin is so minimal you’re not likely
to mind too much – it’s hard to complain about a
90 percent screen-to-body ratio, especially since
the notch here is actually a bit smaller than Apple’s.
Other differences include the fingerprint sensor
– here on the back of the phone – along with the
welcome inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Beyond the display you get a very slim metal-
framed body, and a glass back, all of which
looks and feels great. At just 7.9mm thick, this is
comfortable to hold despite the large screen, helped
in part by the even-thinner-than-normal 18.7:9
aspect ratio. And with a weight of 155g, it’s light too,
despite all that glass and metal.
There are concessions to budget, of course.
Despite the glass rear there’s no wireless charging
here, and waterproofing is totally absent too. It would
be unreasonable to expect either in a sub-£400 phone

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though, and they’re still the sort of luxuries that most

users can very happily do without.
The phone is available in two colours: Midnight
Blue and Meteor Silver. This only affects the colour
of the back of the body – the sides are black metal
either way. Finally, you get a simple clear case
included with the phone, along with the charger
and a pair of wired in-ear headphones.
At the end of the day, the ZenFone 5 looks a lot like
a larger iPhone X. Still, that’s hardly a criticism. Apple’s
handset is a beautiful phone, and the Asus’s offering is
just as beautiful, for essentially a third of the price. By
any stretch, that’s a remarkable achievement.
Display
First up, the 6.2in display is Full HD+, and IPS-style,
in an 18.7:9 ratio that’s even thinner than some of
its rivals. It’s impressively bright and vivid, with great
colour reproduction, helped by the inclusion of a
full suite of colour and display options, letting you
tweak hue and saturation independently, change the
colour temperature, and set up a blue light filter to
ease eye strain late at night.
Sure, it isn’t OLED, but this is undeniably a great-
looking display for the price – as long as you’re a
fan of the notch. At 6.2 inches it’s also one of the
largest notched displays out there – noticeably
bigger than either the iPhone X or its closest mid-
range rival, the Honor 10. Paired with the notch, it
means the display feels absolutely massive, which
is yet another reason it’s all too easy to forget how
affordable this thing is while you’re using it.

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The ZenFone 5’s

display is impressively
bright and vivid,
with great colour
reproduction
Processor, memory and storage

The ZenFone 5 is one of the first phones to use
the Snapdragon 636, Qualcomm’s new mid-range
processor designed to offer support for full-screen
displays. The 636 is backed up by 4GB of RAM in
the UK (though some other markets will get a 6GB
option) and 64GB built-in storage, with microSD
support up to a massive 512GB.
In real-life usage, the result is a phone that’s
perfectly zippy, with fluid, responsive performance
across the board. The benchmarks are arguably less
impressive than that though – in line with slightly
cheaper phones, and well below the results of the
Honor 10 (reviewed last issue), which is only £50 more
in the UK. Still, we think you’d have to be a serious
power user to ever describe this phone as slow.

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Geekbench 4
GFXBench Manhattan

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GFXBench T-Rex
JetStream

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Performance is strongest in the Geekbench CPU

test and JetStream browser test, which correlate the
best with the performance you’ll see across most
apps, though the ZenFone 5 struggled slightly more
in the GFXBench graphics tests – suggesting that
big display might have an impact on performance
in high-end games. It’s worth remembering that
later in the year Asus is set to release the ZenFone
5Z, boasting the exact same design but powered by
Qualcomm’s flagship chip, the Snapdragon 845, along
with more RAM and storage – so if you love the look
of the ZenFone 5 but want it to come with a little
more oomph, you might want to hold out for the 5Z.
Cameras
As for cameras, you get dual lenses on the back: the
main shooter, powered by Sony’s flagship IMX363
sensor, is 12Mp with an f/1.8 aperture, paired with an
8Mp, f/2.2 wide-angle lens. Asus has opted for wide-
angle this time, after previously using a zoom lens,
which it claims allows it to take even better portrait
mode shots in low light. On the front, you get an
8Mp, f/2.0 selfie camera.
The cameras follow in the footsteps of the Honor
View 10, using AI to recognize 16 scenes and objects –
from sunsets to dogs – and automatically adjust to the
optimum settings on the fly. This does well at spotting
objects, with a little icon to let you know what it thinks
it’s looking at, but it’s hard to tell how effective the
setting adjustments are as there’s seemingly no option
to turn the feature off, short of switching the much
more complex ‘Pro’ mode inside the camera app.

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Wide-angle shot
Macro shot Low light shot
AI aside, camera performance is strong, if not

quite best in class. Colours are bright, and especially
impressive in low light tests, where our photos came
out crisp and vibrant despite what was clearly a lot of

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software work to brighten things up. The camera also

does a good job picking out details, in both landscape
and macro shots, though the autofocus struggles a
little when things get too close.
As for video, you can shoot in Full HD at up to 120
frames per second, or up the resolution to 4K, but
with a corresponding frame rate drop down to 30fps.
Videos come out pretty well, but anyone with serious
video ambitions will have to spend more than this.
Connectivity, audio and biometrics

Audio has been amped up, too. The built-in speakers
are seriously powerful – among the loudest we’ve
ever heard in a smartphone – while maintaining good
tone. Elsewhere there’s DTS Headphone:X support
for virtual 7.1 surround sound, along with Bluetooth
5.0 and aptX HD. Plus, as we’ve said, you get an actual
3.5mm headphone jack, which is still the only way to
get the best audio out of a phone.
Beyond audio, the phone uses USB-C for fast
charging, and includes NFC for contactless payments
through Google Pay. We’ve already mentioned the
fingerprint sensor on the rear – as fast and simple
to use as you’d expect from a 2018 device – but
there’s also the option to unlock the device with
facial recognition.
With only a single front-facing camera, the tech
here certainly isn’t as comprehensive as the iPhone X’s
Face ID, and as a result is likely a bit less secure. It’s a
little less reliable, too – it mostly works fine, but does
tend to require you to look at the device pretty much
straight-on, and seriously struggles in low light.

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Battery life
The ZenFone 5 is packing a 3,300mAh battery, which
has become fairly typical for the price point. It lasted
almost exactly seven hours in the Geekbench 4
battery test, with a score of 4036 – roughly in line
with the results we saw for the OnePlus 6 and Galaxy
S9, which is no bad thing. Real-world usage has been
similarly impressive: it’s been reliably lasting for at least
a day and a half of typical usage, and can just about
manage two days at a push – though it was getting
very low on power by that point.
Software
Beyond the notched screen, the ZenFone 5 features
that Asus has put the most work into pushing are
all about the software. Android 8.0 Oreo, is driving
everything, with Asus ZenUI 5 on top – and that’s
where most of the changes lie.
ZenUI as a whole has

also been cleaned up,
bringing it a bit closer
to stock Android

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For one, there’s that notch. Android OS and app

support for the notch has improved over the last
few months, and so for the most part its seamless
here. Generally speaking app notifications appear on
the left, while system notifications are on the right.
Tapping on the notch opens a slightly extended
notification area to reveal any that don’t quite fit,
while swiping down from the left brings up all your
notification cards, and swiping on the right expands
the control centre shortcuts.
ZenUI as a whole has also been cleaned up,
bringing it a bit closer to stock Android: there’s Gboard
as the default keyboard; Google’s own browser, email,
and messaging apps; and Facebook and Instagram
are the only third-party apps that come pre-installed.
There are a few of Asus’s own apps, like the clock,
contacts, and calculator, but none of these are
too objectionable, and you can always install your
The software lets

you customize which
shortcuts appear

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preferred Google or third-party variants if you have

strong feelings about them.
With a sense of thudding inevitability, Asus has
also created its own take on animated emoji, here
dubbed ZeniMoji. You have to access the feature
through Asus’s Selfie Master app, but can then share
the results across your preferred messaging and social
media apps. The results are fun, and Asus wins points
for including an anthropomorphic croissant as one
of the options, but the animations are less detailed
than Apple’s, and there are none of the customization
options included in Samsung’s version, or on their way
for iPhone users in iOS 12.
The rest of the big software features are, on trend
for 2018, all about AI. From the camera to the charger,
notifications, and even your ringtone, Asus claims it’s
cracked how to use AI to improve your experience.
We’ve already discussed the camera features, but
elsewhere the phone will do its best to alter your
ringtone volume to suit ambient noise – cranking it
up if you’re in a busy bar, turning it down for a quiet
office – tweak the colour temperature of the display
based on light levels, and even tweak the text colour
on notifications based on your wallpaper image.
Then there’s AI Boost – essentially overclocking
by another name, letting you crank the processor up
for intensive tasks. This will increase battery drain,
but Asus claims it will give you power equivalent to a
Snapdragon 660 – still mid-range, but definitely more
powerful than the 636 normally is.
Finally, there’s AI Charging, which will learn from
how you charge your phone to help preserve the

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battery in the long term. For example, if you often

keep your phone plugged in overnight, AI Charging
will top it up to 80 percent and keep it there until early
in the morning, before bringing it all the way to full
just before you wake up, which Asus claims could as
much as double the battery’s lifespan.
These are all the sort of quality of life features
that are hard to test, and which most users won’t
even notice are quietly improving their experience
– though that only makes it all the stranger that
most of them are turned off by default, and buried
deep in the Android settings menus. You’d only ever
discover they were there if go looking for them,
and we suspect most users won’t bother, and so
will never enjoy the benefits – a shame, as there
are some genuine improvements here.
Verdict
The mid-range Android market gets more compelling
– and competitive – every year, so it’s remarkable
that Asus has managed to come out swinging with
a handset that offers a £1,000 design with a third of
the price tag. The AI features are mostly marketing
hype, and the average user won’t even notice them,
but the decent camera, smooth performance, and
big, beautiful display mean the ZenFone 5 should be
seriously tempting for anyone looking for a full-screen
phone that won’t break the bank. Dominic Preston
Specifications
• 6.2in (2,246x1,080; 434ppi) IPS LCD capacitive
touchscreen

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• Android 8.0 Oreo

• Qualcomm SDM636 Snapdragon 636 processor
• Octa-core Kryo 260 CPU
• Adreno 509 GPU
• 4/6GB RAM
• 64GB storage (microSD up to 512GB)
• Dual rear-facing cameras: 12Mp (f/1.8, 24mm,
1/2.55in, 1.4µm, PDAF, 4-axis OIS); 8Mp (f/2.0, 12mm,
1/4in, 1.12µm), gyro EIS, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
• 8Mp front camera: (f/2.0, 24mm, 1/4in, 1.12µm), gyro
EIS, 1080p
• 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 5.0
• A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• NFC
• Fingerprint sensor (rear mounted)
• USB 2.0, Type-C 1.0
• 3,300mAh non-removable battery lithium-polymer
battery
• 153x75.7x7.9mm
• 155g
The fingerprint scanner on

the rear of the phone is
quick and easy to use

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BlackBerry KEY2
Price: £579 inc VAT from fave.co/2Ks21VR
B
lackBerry is back again – sort of. The brand
has been revived by manufacturer TCL, a
company invested in cashing in on nostalgia.
The BlackBerry KEY2 is a better phone than 2017’s
KeyOne (£349 from fave.co/2IJvnt5), but still a
stunted device compared to the rest of the market.
It’s an undoubtedly slick smartphone, with a look
clearly modelled on 2015’s BlackBerry Passport
Silver Edition, a phone that supposedly was meant
to run Android until the last-minute change to
BlackBerry’s own software.

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History aside, the KEY2 is a device with limited

appeal in 2018. Unless you really, really want a
keyboard on your smartphone, this is not the handset
for you, despite especially secure Android Oreo 8.1
and productivity-focused keyboard functions.
If, however, you are in the vocal minority that
insists typing on glass sucks and want some niche
software features you won’t find anywhere else,
then this is your next phone.
Design
In our time testing the KEY2, we’ve had a fair few
(expected) comments from friends, ranging from
“is that a BlackBerry?” to “what the hell is that?”.
This is down to incredulity – most people don’t
know you can still buy a BlackBerry in 2018.
We assured those people that despite its odd
looks considering the year, the KEY2 is a really
well-made phone. TCL has used premium feeling
series 7 aluminium for the frame that looks
exactly like the silver BlackBerry Passport, only
squeezed into a slimmer unit.
Not the slimmest, though. The KEY2 measures
151.4x71.8x8.5mm (the very thinnest phones are
around 7mm thick), but because of the form factor
this is feels very svelte and weighs in less than the
180g KeyOne at 168g.
The metal frame neatly wraps around as the rim
(or is that RIM?) of the phone as well as intersecting
the lines of the keyboard. It’s a step up in design and
feel from the KeyOne, as is the improved and still-
unique grippy textured plastic rear of the phone. It’s

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a pleasing world away from the usual glass slabs that

smartphones tend to be in 2018.
It’s no secret that this handset is a nostalgia trip,
with BlackBerry Mobile telling us that the feel of the
newly matte keyboard was modelled on the old Bold
9900. Cleverly, there’s a fingerprint sensor integrated
into the spacebar. The keys are an upgrade on the
mushy, glossy keys on the KeyOne.
On the KEY2 they are matte, 20 percent larger
and satisfyingly clicky, much like the excellent
volume and textured power keys. Below that key
is a smooth convenience key that you can map to
perform nearly any function you like.
The 4.5in display is an odd 3:2 aspect ratio to
accommodate the form factor and means you’ll have
to get used to generally smaller on-screen text and
a phone that it is not fun to play landscape games
on. But TCL knows and owns this, and the trade-off
is the keyboard – the whole phone works around
that. All those key gaps mean that the KEY2 is no
way waterproof, though.
Capacitive buttons on the bezel of the screen
above the keyboard light up and so aren’t remappable,
but they fade away when not in use for a pleasingly
subtle effect. There’s also a headphone jack up top,
and dual down facing speaker next to the USB-C port.
Dual cameras on the back protrude ever so slightly,
while the front camera sits on the slim top bezel next
to the earpiece. It’s a pleasing piece of technology
to hold, but one that is necessarily utilitarian and
functional in its design. It’s one of the only phones
out there that you don’t really need a case for.

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Dual cameras protrude

from the back of the
KEY2 ever so slightly
Display
The BlackBerry has a 1,620x1,080 4.5in screen with
Gorilla Glass 3 and decent colour reproduction, but it
isn’t the brightest, and will have you squinting to read
it in direct sunlight (though this is true for the majority
of LCDs). Notably, you can select from natural,
boosted and saturated colours just like on the Pixel 2.
Compared to the KeyOne, the display here has shifted
upwards and the forehead is 25 percent smaller in
order to fit in an overall larger keyboard area. It means
that the phone is a tad top-heavy and we sometimes
found it difficult to know where to hold it comfortably.
There are useful functions like double-tap to wake
and an ambient option that wakes the screen when
you receive a notification and briefly displays it. Also
present is the ever-more common night mode that
decreases the blue light the screen kicks out.

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Compared to the
KeyOne, the display
here has shifted
upwards and the
forehead is 25
percent smaller
Despite the physical keyboard this is obviously

a touchscreen, and you’ll find yourself tapping and
swiping when necessary. BlackBerry remains the only
OEM that offers a handy swipe up on apps with three
dots for a quick widget view, which we love.
You can also toggle the option for an on-screen
keyboard should you want to, but it covers most of
the display. Tapping the symbol key on the keyboard
also brings up the virtual keyboard to get to those
lesser used symbols.

The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 paired
with 6GB RAM as standard (the KeyOne’s RAM differed
depending on the colour you chose). The 660 is a
power efficient mid-range processor and is used here
for two reasons – the KEY2 is not designed to be used

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Geekbench 4
GFXBench Manhattan

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GFXBench T-Rex
for high-end gaming and is also supposed to last

well over a day on a single charge.
Most KEY2 units have 64GB storage (single SIM)
and a microSD card slot for expansion up to 256GB.
You can hold out for a 128GB dual SIM model if you
want, but these aren’t as readily available at launch.
The phone is noticeably faster than the
KeyOne in day to day performance – the updated
processor and more RAM clearly helping alongside
Android Oreo 8.1. There was only the tiniest hint
of slowdown, yet again when using BlackBerry’s
Hub software. We found it pretty easy to not use
it though, and it’s easy to disable (it’s a big RAM
hog, collecting as it does every single notification
you receive into one inbox).

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Benchmarking the KEY2 against the KeyOne

and other phones with similar specifications and
price shows it’s a decent performer for a mid-range
device, though at over £500 you might expect better
performance for your money – the £469 OnePlus 6
has a Snapdragon 845. But then again, the KEY2 is a
market all on its own with its physical keyboard.
Keyboard
This is the reason you buy this phone. The keys are
the best for a while on a BlackBerry – bigger than
the small square keys of the KeyOne and the Priv.
Here there are angled towards the centre like much
older BlackBerrys and have a matte finish that is
more pleasant to type on.
There’s a dimple on the D key so you know where
you are, but if you’re used to typing on glass now
then a physical keyboard is a slow experience. We
were about 50 percent slower, though once you get
used to it you are more precise with your strokes
rather than jabbing at a glass virtual keyboard that
you know will use autocorrect to the max.
Autocorrect still works on the KEY2 though, and
the three words suggested on the screen can be
selected by swiping up underneath the correct one.
As well as a decent fingerprint sensor imbedded in
the spacebar there is a new key called the Speed
Key. It replaces the lesser used right side Shift key.
This key build on the fact you can map each key
to open an app. For instance, you can programme
the T key to open Twitter with a short press and
Tinder with a long press.

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The keys are the best

for a while on a
BlackBerry – bigger
than the small square
keys of the KeyOne
and the Priv
On the KeyOne, you could only launch from the

home screen, here you hold down the Speed Key
like a shift key and you can hop around apps from
anywhere in the OS. It’s really handy and if you are a
power user who wants to program loads of shortcuts,
it’s great. Similarly, you can customize the currency
key (we used it to bring down the notification shade).
But for most people, it’s a confusing solution to a
non-existent problem. BlackBerry Mobile says it’s a
timesaver for the busy professional, but who doesn’t
have a microsecond of time to find an app?
Yet this is one of the best keyboards ever on a
BlackBerry and using it as a trackpad to scroll is still
a genuinely useful thing and means your thumb
doesn’t cover any of the screen. But only purists
need apply – it’s all very frustrating to use if you are
used to virtual keyboards (and you definitely are).

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Connectivity and audio

Notably, the KEY2 has HD audio and a noise cancelling
speakerphone, again outlining its business-minded
audience. The dual speakers sound okay when on
speakerphone calls (better are calls through the
earpiece), but we found ourselves happily listening
to podcasts without headphones.
When you do need headphones, the bundled
ones are pretty good in-ears with inline remote.
The tips aren’t circular and are more ergonomic
to fit in your ear. They also act as the aerial for the
on-board FM radio. If you want to go wireless the
KEY2 has Bluetooth 5.0 for a reliable connection to
smartwatches and headphones.
Cameras
The KEY2 is not the phone to buy if you want a stellar
camera. There are improvements from the KeyOne
to a dual lens system, but results are middling.
Like most phones at this price, pictures in broad
daylight are great, but anything in low light comes
out grainy and distorted.
TCL has used dual 12Mp sensors, the main with
f/1.8 and second with f/2.6 used for portrait mode
or 2x zoom. Portrait mode photos are what you’d
expect – a blurred background with rough edges
round the subject on closer inspection. There’s still
no OIS, but an element of digital stabilization at play
that unfortunately doesn’t do a lot in low light.
A front-facing 8Mp camera is nothing to write
home about, but fine for video calling and casual selfie
indulgence. You can also tap the fingerprint sensor

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Landscape
to send a photo directly into the

Locker app – not into the gallery
or the cloud. Secure.
Video capture is impressive
with 1080p at 60fps or 4K at
30fps but can be pretty shaky
with no stabilization.
Battery life
With a large 3,500mAh battery,
the KEY2 promises a battery life
of anything from one to two days
depending on usage. It achieves
a day easily but if we being picky, Low light

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it’s not as good as the KeyOne – a phone we regularly

got two full days use out of.
The KEY2 drifts into a second day but around
lunchtime we were reaching for a charger. Don’t get
us wrong – it still outperforms most phones out there,
but there is no improvement here in longevity over the
last generation which is a bit of a shame. It’s actually a
tiny regression and given that many KEY2 buyers might
already have a KeyOne it’s notable.
Software and apps

TCL and BlackBerry Mobile hang their hats on the
keyboard and the software of the KEY2. Their phones
get regular security patches, which is great and the
same applies to the KEY2. There are also features such
as a Locker to put (hide) photos and files from prying
eyes and unique features like a privacy shade to read
slivers of screen at a time and a redactor to blur out
information before sending screenshots.
The screenshot on the following page shows the
home screen, app drawer, notification shade and
settings menu with the in-OS dark theme applied.
The DTEK app tracks basic security and alerts you
if you need to act on something, and the operating
system is chattier than most about letting you know
if an app wants to access your camera and mic – and
lets you deny permission.
Unlike many phones the KEY2 also sets up
a hardware root of trust when you set it up,
improving security.
Android 8.1 is close to stock here and you won’t
find any flashy animations or selfie stickers. There’s still

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From left to right: home

screen, app drawer, notification
shade and settings menu
the productivity tab, which is a Samsung-esque swipe

from the side of the screen that gives calendar, note,
task and message overlays for quick access to various
actions and information.
There are no animations when using the Speed
Key as apps spring onto the screen immediately. The
slickness of the OS is imperative in making the KEY2
feel fast and productive, and at that it succeeds.
Verdict
The KEY2 has excellent build quality, thoughtful
software additions and a keyboard that purists will
adore. But in the smartphone market, that doesn’t
make it a viable choice for most people. Typing
on a physical keyboard this small is difficult no
matter what any enthusiast says, and the form
factor is harder to hold than the smaller BlackBerry
Bolds of a decade ago. Battery life is above average
and it runs much faster than the KeyOne, but the

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KEY2 is very much a phone for a select few people

who still must have a keyboard – and no one else.
Henry Burrell
Specifications
• 4.5in (1,620x1,080; 434ppi) IPS LCD capacitive
touchscreen
• Octa-core (4x 2.2GHz Kryo 260, 4x 1.8GHz Kryo
260) CPU
• Adreno 512 GPU
• 6GB RAM
• 64/128GB storage (microSD up to 256GB)
• Dual rear-facing cameras: 12Mp (f/1.8, 1/2.3in,
1.28µm, dual pixel PDAF); 12Mp (f/2.6, 1µm, PDAF),
dual-LED dual-tone flash
• 8Mp front camera: (f/2.0, 1.12µm), 1080p
• Bluetooth 5.0
• A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS2
• NFC
• Fingerprint sensor (front mounted)
• USB 3.0, Type-C 1.0
• 3,500mAh non-removable battery lithium-ion
battery
• 151.4x71.8x8.5mm
• 168g

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REVIEW
HTC U12+
Price: £699 inc VAT from fave.co/2x2FiJu
H
TC is having a funny old time of it since Google
nicked a load of its employees. Having made
the Google Pixel, Pixel XL and Pixel 2 (but not
the LG made 2 XL), you’d be forgiven for thinking
there wouldn’t be another HTC flagship.
But the HTC U12+ is its high-end phone for 2018
– and the company is so convinced it’s a winner,
there’s no regular model. It’s Plus or bust.
The phone looks quite a bit like the chunky U11
Plus, but with some decent upgrades, particularly
in the camera. HTC has been treading water for a

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REVIEW
few years now and needs a hit, despite the strength

of the U11 line. But the U12+ is a buggy mess. It
has bad battery life, unnecessary pressure-sensitive
buttons and bugs that make it infuriating to use. It
might be the final nail in the coffin for HTC.
Design
It’s always a good start when a phone is eye-catching,
and the HTC U12+ is that. Not quite in the same way
recent Samsung Galaxy phones are, but the new
colours had us swooning.
Continuing the glass design of the U11, there’s
black (which isn’t really black), red (which turns gold
in different light and angles) and a translucent blue
that shows off some of the internals through the
sturdy Gorilla Glass 5. All three colours shimmer
and while they attract some fingerprints they are
certainly lust worthy.
Speaking of fingerprints, the sensor is on the rear,
but the dual front cameras also allow for face unlock.
The design is a little straight-laced though, and
the phone is a monolithic slab of heavy tech at 188g.
While shiny on the back it’s great to see an oleophobic
coating on it, which keeps fingerprints down
compared to Samsung Galaxy phones, but does make
it slippy. There’s a snap-on plastic case in the box.
The phone is quite large and hard to hold with
one hand, much like the S9 Plus, but as the U12+ is
noticeably thicker, you’re going to have to use two
hands most of the time.
It helps to have a slightly protruding metal rim
between the two glass halves as it helps you grip and

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REVIEW
hold onto the thing. Increasingly bezel-free phones

can lack this, so it’s nice to see here.
The display is an 18:9 6in LCD and though a flat
panel has one glass piece that impressively bends
into the frame of the phone. Like LG with its G7
ThinQ, HTC is sticking to LCD. Above that screen is
the surprising addition of two front-facing cameras
– matching the two on the back. All four cameras
are flush to the casing (save for a millimetre rim on
the rear) and their inclusion means you can take
portrait photos or selfies.
Even more unique to the U12+ is that none of
the buttons physically move. The power and volume
keys are pressure-sensitive and give you vibration
feedback rather than actually moving, which
supposedly helps with the waterproofing and means
they can’t break like a mechanical button might.
It’s a step closer to phones being completely
sealed units, though not quite – you still need
the USB-C port for fast charging, but no wireless
charging, despite the glass. As we will explain later
in this review – the gamble has not paid off.
We are taken by the Flame Red that transitions
from red to gold in the light. Ceramic Black shifts
from black to silver, and the Translucent Blue is
less jazzy and shows fewer fingerprints.
It’s a desirable phone, but it may prove too
utilitarian for some, even in the red.
Display
The tall 6in display is 18:9 Quad HD LCD with a
resolution of 2,880x1,440. It’s a fine screen with

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REVIEW
The 6in display

impressively bends
into the frame of
the phone
excellent touch response and colour reproduction, but

it suffers in bright direct sunlight as LCDs tend to do.
It’s nigh on impossible to read anything on the display
without boosting the brightness to 100 percent in
these instances, and it gets annoying.
It’s a flat panel unlike the curved surfaces and
rounded screen corners we’ve seen on other flagships
this year. If you want a standard, rectangular display
on a high-end phone, then the U12+ is appealing.
It’s good to see an always on display option, but
be wary – because it’s an LCD panel, having this
on all the time will drain the battery considerably.
There’s an LED indicator light too, if that’s your thing.

The specifications on show here are mouth-watering.
The U12+ flies thanks to a Snapdragon 845, 6GB

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REVIEW
RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. It’s also

dual-SIM, but the SIM 2 space is taken up if you opt
for a microSD card.
Performance is hard to fault. The phone is
extremely fast and only feels ‘slower’ than the
Pixel 2 and OnePlus 6 – and this is nit-picking. The
fingerprint sensor is reliable and fast, but you can
also use the front facing cameras for face unlock,
which is also decent here.
When benchmarked against competitive devices,
the U12+ performs as expected (see our charts).
While the Pixel 2 XL comes in lower thanks to its
now previous-generation Snapdragon 835, the
performance on all these phones is very similar.
You’ll notice a jump between last year’s U11 and
the U12+, but it will be minimal.
Geekbench 4

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REVIEW
GFXBench Manhattan
GFXBench T-Rex

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REVIEW
JetStream
Edge Sense
Oddly, the phone’s most interesting interaction
comes not from the touchscreen but the sides of
the device. Like the U11’s Edge Sense and the Pixel 2,
HTC has put pressure-sensitive sides into the U12+,
calling it Edge Sense 2.
You can short- or long-squeeze to action
anything you want (open the camera, start Google
Assistant, and so on), or double-tap with your thumb
on either side to do something else, like go back,
shrink the screen to one handed mode or open a
wheel-style menu.
It’s good when it works, but Edge Sense 2 is not
as reliable as the version on the U11. It’s buggy, and
half the times we triggered either function was by

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REVIEW
accident. And double-tapping the side of a huge

phone with one thumb in one hand is a precarious
action. It’s easier to triple-tap the home button –
Android’s default option for one handed mode.
When you begin to squeeze the phone, blue
graphics illustrating the squeeze and dot graphics
appear on the screen. Unfortunately, it’s far too
sensitive and even simply holding the phone can
trigger it, covering your display in blue when you
aren’t about to use Edge Sense. It was enough for
us to turn it off.
Compared to the U11, it’s harder to actually locate
the right pressure points when you want to, as well
as triggering it when you don’t want it. The pressure
sensor on the left is longer and differently positioned
to the one on the right. You definitely have to squeeze
the phone harder than before, even when you can
change the level of pressure needed.
The best feature here is in fact the least obvious.
There’s a smart rotate option that senses you’re
holding the phone in a certain way and doesn’t
autorotate the screen. It’s basically for if you are lying
in bed with your phone – but it works well because it
is a subtle feature that improves the user experience.
It’s the only time here that Edge Sense is successful.
As well as Edge Sense, there are no physical
buttons on the phone. The volume and power key
are pressure-sensitive – but buggy as hell. They work
maybe 60 percent of the time, but that is far from
good enough when they are the only option, and
when HTC clearly thinks they are better than normal
buttons (you can’t adjust the level of sensitivity, either).

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REVIEW
When you begin to

squeeze the phone,
blue graphics
illustrating the
squeeze and dot
graphics appear on
the screen
Sometimes, merely accidentally brushing the power

button registered a lock when other times pressing it
as hard as possible does nothing. These buttons are
not necessary as waterproofing is possible without
them – HTC claims it’s to stop physical buttons
breaking. Fine, but when they these ones are basically
broken out of the box, this assertion is DOA.
It’s worth noting that these problems occurred on
two separate loan devices – the second given to try
and rectify the problems of the first.
Edge Sense on the U12+ managed, in our two-
week testing of the phone, to drive us insane to the
point of not wanting to use the phone. Turning off
Edge Sense goes some way to solving the maddening
problem, but who wants to turn off the headline
feature of their brand-new £700 phone?

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Audio
The volume up button proved troublesome, and
weirdly frequently did not work when it was in our
pocket. The inline control on the headphones doesn’t
have volume controls, only play/pause which itself
worked intermittently – and, a real kicker, there’s
no 3.5mm headphone jack dongle in the box. It’s
annoying that HTC doesn’t include one with its £700
phone – Apple, Google and Huawei all do.
Luckily, the bundled in-ear USonic headphones
are quite good and have noise cancellation. But if you
want to use your own headphones, you’ll have to buy
an HTC adaptor or use Bluetooth headphones. In our
tests, the USonic buds also don’t work with any other
USB-C device we tried them with.
The dual speakers are decent, continuing HTC’s
good track record. You can switch between music
mode and the booming theatre mode. These are
some of the best smartphone speakers out there.
Cameras
Using the U12+ annoyed us to the point of distraction,
but is saved from the brink by its cameras. It’s one of
the only parts of the phone that continues the good
work on the U11 and improves it.
The dual cameras are the first on an HTC for ages,
and they are very good. We are talking nearly-Pixel
2 levels of excellence here, which is no mean feat.
The U12+ is slightly worse off in low light though,
particularly to the Pixel and the Huawei P20 Pro.
The U12+ having dual cameras is very 2018, and
the rear cameras are 12Mp (with OIS) and 16Mp

ANDROID ADVISOR
Dusk shot
REVIEW
Dusk shot
(telephoto) with an impressive zoom that takes full

advantage of the hardware. HTC is keen to highlight
the video capabilities of the U12+ and like on the LG
V30 there are some decent features like zoom tracking
that will zoom in or out automatically on a subject,
and even hone in on the audio of a selected subject.
In daylight, dusk, zoom and portrait modes in
particular, the results are awesome. The U12+ does
not overly saturate in post processing, in fact even
less so than Google does, and HDR does a good job
of keeping colours naturalistic. They all look great on
the display, too. But despite the main sensor’s f/1.75
aperture, low light photos indoors are grainy in places
and are overly brightened by the processing. The
lenses fare better in outdoor low light.

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REVIEW
You’ll can record in Portrait

4K with OIS (important
plus) at 30 and 60fps, and
stabilization is excellent.
There’s also the option for
slo-mo at 240fps with no
length limit, so you can
muck about with that to
your heart’s content.
The camera app is
clean and easy to navigate
around despite the tons of
options available to you.
But it is a little laggy and
slow to react at times,
which is frustrating.
Battery life
Rounding up the U12+ package is IP68 water
resistance, a 3,500mAh Quick Charge 4 compatible
battery (but only a QC3 charger in the box), and no
wireless charging.
But battery life is woefully under par on both the
review units we tested. Apart from battery life being
usually bad (sometimes less than two hours screen-on
time), it was also wildly inconsistent.
Some days we would get home at 8pm on 15
percent, other it was nearer to 35 percent. On
holiday in Budapest, we did not have any confidence
whatsoever that the U12+ would last a day.
Even with 12 hours off charge and using the
standard battery saver mode, the phone died. With the

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REVIEW
supposed improved efficiencies of the Snapdragon

845 and 3,500mAh on board, this is very disappointing.
For context, we haven’t experienced such battery
concerns with any other flagship in 2018. Battery life,
Edge Sense and the buttons ruin the U12+, while only
the general performance and cameras shine.
Software
HTC’s Sense software has been its strength for years
given it doesn’t change stock Android too much, but
it’s now a mixed bag. There are visual differences in
menus and fonts are different throughout the OS. It’s
pleasingly customizable, and the additions you’ll find
on the U12+ are mainly associated with Edge Sense
functions or audio setup.
HTC lets you be as plain as you want with its
software, or you can customize it to within an inch of
its life. The company expects you to do the latter, and
the U12+ still feels like an enthusiasts’ device more
than a mass market option like the Galaxy S9.
It’s also only on Android 8.0, and so you lose handy
features such as better inline notification actions seen
in 8.1. HTC Sense in 2018 is blocky and, basically, very
unchanged from even the HTC One M8 from 2014 –
imagine if Samsung still used similar software design
from 2014’s Galaxy S5. The dialler, contacts and clock
apps are all fluorescent and old, and it’s crazy that
HTC hasn’t done anything to update them.
The U12+’ software does not feel very 2018, and
it’s visually lagging behind basically every major
competitor – it’s a big deal, and it makes us want to
use the phone less when it doesn’t feel new or of

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You can customize HTC’s

software as much, or as
little, as you want
flagship expense. Swiping right on the home screen

takes you to Blinkfeed, not Google, and that’s a
bad thing. Blinkfeed is a stodgy mess of irrelevant
information that’s hard to take in, even if you link
your social accounts. It even served us ads to buy
the U12+, the phone we were holding, and even the
‘brand new U11’ – last year’s flagship. It’s terrible.
There’s also HTC’s largely annoying Sense
Companion (mercifully optional) that pops up
occasionally to tell you there’s a Turkish restaurant
nearby or that you’ve just walked three miles. Like
Edge Sense, we turned it off.
Verdict
The U12+ simply isn’t good enough – even for HTC
diehards, we fear. Cameras and hardware design aside,

ANDROID ADVISOR
REVIEW
The rear of the

12+ shimmers
attractively in
the light
we are so disappointed in this phone. Erratic battery

life, aging software design and terrible pressure-
sensitive buttons mar the experience from the
moment you turn it on.
Add to that the fact Edge Sense is worse than it
was on the U11 and you are faced with a phone that
we struggle to recommend. Yet the cameras are up
there with the best smartphones have to offer in 2018,
making this a supremely frustrating phone.
If you love the design and the software quirks, and
want a smartphone camera that excels while costing
less than the Pixel 2 XL and Huawei P20 Pro, then this
could be a phone to consider. But ultimately there are
simply better – and cheaper – high-end phones to
choose from. Henry Burrell

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REVIEW
Specifications
• 6in (2,880x1,440; 537ppi) Super LCD6 capacitive
touchscreen
• Octa-core (4x 2.8GHz Kryo 385 Gold, 4x 1.7GHz
Kryo 385 Silver) CPU
• Adreno 630 GPU
• 6GB RAM
• 64/128GB storage (microSD up to 512GB)
• Dual rear-facing cameras: 12Mp (f/1.8, 1.4µm, dual
pixel PDAF); 16Mp (12Mp effective, f/2.6, 1µm), PDAF
and laser AF, OIS, gyro-EIS, 2x optical zoom, dual-
LED dual-tone flash
• Dual front-facing cameras: 8Mp (f/2.0, 1.12µm),
1080p, HDR, panorama
• Bluetooth 5.0
• A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
• NFC
• Fingerprint sensor (rear mounted)
• USB 3.1, Type-C 1.0
• 3,500mAh non-removable battery lithium-ion
battery
• 56.6x73.9x8.7mm
• 188g

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REVIEW
Huawei Nova 2i
Price: £229 inc VAT from fave.co/2KsJyIO
T
he Nova 2i is yet another great-value Android
phone coming out of the Huawei/Honor camp.
It’s clear there is a lot of crossover between
the brands, and the 2i is in essence an Honor 7X with
the Honor 9 Lite’s front dual-camera and dual-SIM
functionality. It’s specifications are similar to, but an
upgrade over the Huawei P Smart, as well.
To put that into perspective, as we saw last issue
the Honor 9 Lite is the current champion of our best
budget phones round-up. So falling just a short way
behind this is not a bad place to be, especially when
you have a slightly better specifications for not a lot

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REVIEW
more cash. If money were no option, we could argue

that the Nova 2i is in fact the best of the group.
It stands out in the budget smartphone market
for its good-looking metal unibody build, large 18:9
display and four cameras – two at the front and two at
the rear. Performance is pretty decent for the money,
too. So how much is it exactly?
UK availability
The Nova 2i is not directly sold in the UK by
Huawei, though you can find it on Amazon. Our
review sample was delivered from Hong Kong via
GearBest, where it costs £229 at the time of writing.
GearBest stocks the 2i in black model (as per our
sample), blue and gold.
When you buy from China you should remember
that upon arrival in the UK you are liable for import
duty, which is calculated at 20 percent of the value
on the shipping paperwork. And although we have
had very good experiences with GearBest, customer
support is less likely to be as simple as if you had
bought your phone from a high-street operator.
It was not designed with a UK target audience in
mind, but there’s only two places you’ll spot that.
First, in its dual-SIM support (a bonus, although you
must choose to use either a second Nano-SIM or
a microSD card); second, in its lack of support for
FDD-LTE Band 20 (800MHz).
For most UK networks the latter is not a major
issue, but if you use O2 or any of the networks that
piggyback it, such as GiffGaff, you won’t be able to
receive 4G. This is because the O2 network relies

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REVIEW
solely on that frequency for LTE. You’ll still be able

to get 3G and use Wi-Fi for data, of course.
Design
The Nova 2i is almost identical to the Honor 7X, with
the only obvious differences being the Honor/Huawei
branding on the back, the vertical arrangement of
the rear dual-camera and the addition of a second
camera lens at the front.
The size and weight are matching, and both are
fitted with a 3,340mAh battery that charges over
Micro-USB. It supports neither wireless charging
or Quick Charge, as you’d expect at this price, but
it does come with a 10W charger. In our tests we
found it could juice up to 29 percent in 30 minutes
from empty.
So while that Micro-USB port makes this phone
seem a little outdated (we’d prefer to see USB-C,
The Nova 2i has

a headphone jack
and is charged via
the Micro-USB port

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REVIEW
though it does mean Huawei has included an

increasingly rare headphone jack), other features
impress at this price point.
The 5.9in screen is a great example of this. It’s no
longer a surprise to find full-HD resolution at this
end of the market, but the 18:9 aspect ratio makes
it appear more premium. It’s not just about looks
of course, and the extra screen space is useful for
watching media and playing games.
The Nova 2i has very slim bezels to the left and
right, and minimal space is required at the top and
bottom for such things as the selfie cameras and
earpiece. This results in a very clean appearance,
and coupled with the slim 7.5mm metal case you
wouldn’t believe this was a budget phone.
It’s an IPS panel, which means colours are realistic
and viewing angles are strong. We measured a
maximum brightness of 410cd/m2 using a Spyder,
which means it should remain visible even in direct
sunlight. Text and images are crisp thanks to the
407ppi pixel density, too.
Turn over the phone and there’s more of the same:
the dual-camera juts out slightly but not so much that
its central position causes it to rock when placed on a
table. There are antenna lines running top and bottom,
with a single LED flash found directly above the
camera and a fingerprint scanner below. The branding
is subtle, and overall the Nova 2i looks good.
The Nova 2i feels incredibly well built, as though
it could stand up to some bumps and scrapes, but
Huawei does provide a clear silicon case in the box.
Do note that this phone is not waterproof.

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REVIEW

The Huawei Nova 2i runs the same 16nm octa-core
Kirin 659 chip as the P Smart, Honor 7X and Honor
9 Lite. It’s clocked at 2.36GHz and, in common
with the 7X, is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of
storage. Both the P Smart and Honor 9 Lite have only
3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, so it’s surprising
to see these models outperform the Nova 2i in our
benchmarks (see our charts).
But we’re talking about really minimal differences
here, and in the real world each of these phones
is on par with each other. We found the EMUI
interface quick and easy to navigate, and apps load
in a timely fashion.
Performance is not at a flagship-level, but it’s
sufficient for most users. It’s up there with the
Geekbench 4

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REVIEW
GFXBench Manhattan
GFXBench T-Rex

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REVIEW
JetStream
similarly- priced Moto G6 if you’re looking for a non-

Huawei/Honor phone with which to compare.
You’ll be able to play casual games, watch movies,
browse the web and social media, fire off emails and
instant messages, and whatever else you intend to do
with your smartphone. Maybe even make a phone call.
Unlike the Honor 9 Lite, the Nova 2i does not
support NFC, but most other connectivity bases are
covered with 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 and GPS.
Battery life
Battery life isn’t bad, but despite the marketing
you shouldn’t expect any more than a day away
from the mains. We tested using Geekbench 4’s
battery component and it recorded six hours, 52

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REVIEW
Auto settings
minutes. That’s not bad for the money, and higher

than Huawei’s flagship P20’s score of five hours, 17
minutes, but by comparison the Moto G6 managed
nine hours, 15 minutes.
Cameras
The Nova 2i pairs the rear camera of the Honor 7X
with the front camera of the Honor 9 Lite. That means
it has four in total, with a 16- and 2Mp arrangement
at the rear and 13- and 2Mp at the front, and both are
paired with a single-LED flash. Dual-cameras at the
back are increasingly common, but it’s more unusual
to find them at the front. It’s a bit of a gimmick, of

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REVIEW
course, because in each

case the second camera
is rated only at 2Mp, and
is used to create the
popular bokeh (blurred
background) effect either
during or after the shot.
You can tap anywhere on
the screen to focus and
blur the background.
Still, a 13Mp camera
is pretty decent if you’re
something of a selfie
queen, and the 1.75µm
pixels and front flash aid
in capturing these shots in Low light
low-light. Which is useful,
because low-light performance is not the best we’ve
seen without the flash. You also get a Beauty mode
and an assortment of stickers and fun effects for
jazzing up your selfies.
The dual-camera at the rear is decent enough at
this price, but works best in good light where you’ll
find sharp images and good detail. HDR is either on
or off, but even on we didn’t see a huge difference.
You can see a couple of our test shots below.
The camera app itself is decent, with several
modes such as moving picture (captures a short
video when you take a still), Portrait, Wide Aperture,
Pro Photo, Light Painting, Slow-mo and Time-lapse.
There’s no video stabilization, though, and shooting
maxes out at 1080p (16:9).

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REVIEW
Software
The Huawei P Smart and Honor 9 Lite run Android
Oreo with EMUI 8, but this Nova 2i is – in common
with the Honor 7X – stuck on Android Nougat and
EMUI 5.1. There’s not a huge amount of difference
between EMUI 5.1 and EMUI 8, with new features
focusing on artificial intelligence, smarter split
screen features, instant translations and more in the
way of helpful tips on using the phone.
It is interesting that the two phones running Oreo
and EMUI 8 outperformed those running the older
software in our benchmarks – but only just.
This is not at all stock Android, so by default
you’ll find there’s no app tray (you can add one if
you like). The quick-access toggles in the drop-
down notification bar have a different layout, as
does the Settings menu (which also has a handy
search function).
On our review sample all the usual Google apps
were preinstalled, along with Huawei’s own apps
for things like Health, Themes, Videos and HiGame.
There’s some bloatware, too, such as Booking.com
and Flipboard, though you can uninstall these.
A swipe in from the left of the home screen
launches HiBoard, which attempts to put in one place
all the info you’re likely to want to quickly access, such
as the weather forecast, apps, contacts and more.
There are a bunch of useful features within the
software that let you use gestures to do things like
take a screenshot or launch a specific app. You can
also access a split-screen mode and view two apps
on screen at once.

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REVIEW
If you are taking advantage of the dual-SIM support

you might also appreciate the ability to run two
instances of one app, logging in to two different
accounts at the same time.
Verdict
The Huawei Nova 2i is a great-looking budget Android
phone with a large 18:9 display and four cameras
headlining in its specifications. It promises excellent
value, but you might prefer to buy one of the several
similar Huawei/Honor phones intended for the UK
market. Marie Black
Specifications
• 5.9in (2,160x1,080; 407ppi) MaxView IPS display
• Android 7.0 Nougat with EMUI 5.1
• 2.4GHz Kirin 659 16nm octa-core processor
• 4GB RAM
• 64GB storage, microSD support up to 256GB
• 4G FDD-LTE B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B28
• Dual-SIM dual-standby (2x Nano)
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 4.2
• GPS
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Dual rear-facing cameras: 16- and 2Mp with flash
• Dual front-facing cameras: 13Mp, f/2.0 and 2Mp,
1.75µm pixel with flash
• Micro-USB
• 3,340mAh battery
• 156.2x75x7.5mm
• 164g

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ROUND-UP
Best antivirus apps

ASHLEIGH MACRO’s apps will help keep your phone secure
I
t’s important to remember that, like PCs and laptops,
it’s possible to come across viruses and malware on
mobile devices. There are, however, antivirus apps
available for Android to help make sure your phone
or tablet doesn’t get infected, so we share our pick
of the best here.
Do you need Android antivirus?

Unlike Apple devices, which only allow downloads
from the iOS App Store to protect users from bogus

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ROUND-UP
apps, Android will allow you to install APK files that

could be infected with viruses and malware created
by cybercriminals. There is also less of an approval
process for the Google Play Store, so dangerous
apps can make their way onto the store from time
to time. And even when they’ve been pulled from
Google Play, they can reappear.
Phishing emails and dodgy ads are important to
look out for too, so no matter what platform you are
on, it’s good to have an antivirus program installed.
Security software test lab AV-Test has millions of
different pieces of Android malware in its database
– malware that is typically used to steal your valuable
personal data from your phone without your
knowledge. In addition to the traditional protection
offered by an antivirus app, you might find that the app
you choose has features such as anti-theft to allow
you to lock and/or wipe data from a stolen handset, or
even take photos or audio recordings of the thieves.

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
Another useful feature commonly found in security

apps for Android is call blocking. If your phone is
constantly plagued by nuisance calls or spam texts,
you might be able to block the callers so that they
don’t interrupt your day.
Some apps include schedulers in their call-blocking
facilities, so you can divert all calls from the office to
voicemail at evenings and weekends, for example.
Some suites also include app managers that allow
you to password protect access to the web browser
– invaluable for parents who routinely hand their
phone over to children to play games and worry that
they might stumble onto something they shouldn’t,
or run up horrendous bills by purchasing apps.
Less useful are backup facilities found in many
of these suites. Some merely back up contracts,
which is generally already supported when you
sign in with your Google account on an Android or
iOS device. Others offer a tiny amount of space for
storing your photos and files.
If you still need persuading, another reason you
might opt to install an antivirus app on Android is
that your phone likely isn’t as up to date in terms
of security patches as you think. Security Research
Labs has published the results of an in-depth study
in which it claims several big-name vendors are
guilty of saying they’ve rolled out important patches
when they haven’t – see fave.co/2IQQVnIs.
The worst offenders on its list are Alps, TCL, Oppo
and ZTE, which it says have missed four or more
critical and high severity patches on the claimed patch
date. With two to four misses are HTC, BlackBerry,

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
Asus, Fairphone, LG, Huawei and Lenovo. With one

or two are OnePlus, Wiko, Xiaomi, Nokia, Motorola
and Honor. Those in the good books with either zero
or just one missed patch are Google, ZUK, LeEco,
Samsung, Sony and BQ.
Bitdefender Mobile Security

Price: £9.99 from fave.co/2Nntaab
Available with a 14-day free trial, Bitdefender Mobile

Security managed an almost perfect score in both
real-time malware and discovery of malware on
Android platforms during AV-Test’s January 2018
test (fave.co/2KG9r3W). It has anti-theft features,
works with wearable devices, gives you web security
alongside a privacy advisor and most importantly has
a very effective malware scanner. There is also a new
Bitdefender
mobile Security

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
VPN feature available. However, you won’t be able to

block calls, backup data or have any parental controls.
Norton Mobile Security

Price: £9.99 per year from fave.co/2IOpBq4
A second option, also popular among PC users, is

Norton Mobile Security. It scored 100 percent in AV-
Tests latest report, and costs £9.99 for the year. You’ll
Norton Mobile
Security
get your usual antivirus features as well as controls

to safeguard your online privacy, lost or stolen
device recovery and some backup capabilities. You
can share a single account with multiple devices to
protect your tablet, too, even if it’s an iPad.
PSafe
Price: Free from fave.co/2Nlk1yX
Also scoring 100 percent in AV-Test’s report is PSafe.

Unlike other products in this round-up, PSafe only

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
PSafe
makes security software for mobile, so you’ll be

getting a tool designed exclusively with smartphone
security in mind. It’s free to download, and you’ll get
anti-hacking, app lock, performance boosters and
other features in addition to the antivirus protection.
The free version is ad supported, though. If you
want to remove the ads, you’ll need to pay $4.99
per month (around £3.60), reduced to $1.99 (around
£1.40) per month if you commit to a year. There’s also
the option of the ad-free version of PSafe that comes
with a VPN for $12.99 per month (around £9.30) or
$4.99 (£3.60) per month if you opt for a year.
Avast Mobile Security

Price: Free from fave.co/2KMy5zC
Avast’s Mobile Security app for Android is completely

free, but that hasn’t stopped it from scoring very

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
Avast Mobile Security
well in AV-Test’s latest report. It detected 99.9

percent of the latest Android malware in real-time,
and 100 percent of the latest Android malware
discovered in the past four weeks. Additional features
include app locking, call blocking, app permissions
and a firewall, so you’ll stay safe from malware,
viruses and spying eyes.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Android

Price: £9.99 from fave.co/2KrDikp
Another option worth considering is Kaspersky, which

offers great mobile antivirus too. It scored just below
100 percent in AV-Test (fave.co/2NkCAmV), at 99.6
percent for real-time detection and 100 percent for
the latest Android malware discovered in the past four
weeks. It offers a huge range of features in addition to
the antivirus itself, including has find my phone, anti-

ANDROID ADVISOR
ROUND-UP
Kaspersky Internet
Security for Android
theft, anti-phishing, call blocker and a web filter, too.

A free version is available with limited features, and the
premium version is £9.99 for the whole package.

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FEATURE
What does Google

know about you?
Google holds a lot of data about its users, but you might be
surprised just how much it knows, writes MATT EGAN
I
n order for the search giant to identify you, you have
to have a Google account. Without one Google may
well have anonymous data about you as a cookie
on a phone or computer, but it is impossible to know
what data that is (just as it is impossible for Google to
know who you actually are). So all of the information
below relies on you being logged in to your Google

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Account, which I’m sure you have. Ever logged in

to an Android phone or tablet, used Gmail, or used
YouTube as a registered user?
The email and password you use for those things
(or Google Calendar, Docs, Drive, and so on) is your
Google Account. You may – as I do – have several.
In which case you will need to repeat all of what
follows for each account. Amuse yourself by spotting
the differences between each account.
First, let’s check the basics.
How well does Google know me?

Google used to be only a search engine. Remember
that? Almost certainly you still use Google Search,
a lot. And Google collects a lot of data about the
searches you make, as it says a lot about you. Sign in
and head over to Google and view the search history
that Google holds about you. It’s actually quite freaky
to see what Google knows you searched for. You can
also see your YouTube search history here.
More prosaic but also critical basic information can
be found in your account details. Sign in and head
to myaccount.google.com to see the basic data you
gave to Google. Head to Dashboard and you can see
records of an array of Google tools, and your activity
with them. We’ll click into a couple of these further
along, but suffice to say that this is an important
dashboard for finding out what Google knows about
you. Here’s the basic data it is likely to hold about you:
• Name, gender and date of birth

• Email addresses

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• Phone numbers
• Where you live
• Where you work
• Website you’ve visited
• Searches you made on Google Search
• Your ad preferences (more below)
• Your interests
• Places you’ve visited around the world
• Your YouTube search history and recently
watched videos
• What you’ve said to the Google Assistant
How can I see my Google activity?

With ease, thanks to a relatively new tool that gives
you a timeline of events and the ability to delete those
events individually, should you want to. Log into your
account and head to the My Activity page. You’ll see
Bundle view

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something like the screenshot below. This is what’s

called the Bundle view. You can drill down to the real
details if you click Item view at the top left.
You can see more activity by clicking Other Google
Activity from the left pane. This gives you links to
many other Google services such as Sound searches,
when you’ve left YouTube feedback or clicked on
‘Not interested’ on video suggestions, Google Play
library information, Interests, News preferences, Call
& Message information and even more.
To remove items, click the three vertical dots
on any item in your activity to see a Delete option.
However, bear in mind that only you can see this
activity log: it isn’t visible to others.
What does Google

think you’re interested in?
The principle reason Google tracks all this data
about you is so that it can more successfully target
you with advertising, in order to pay for the free
services you access. Depending on your point of
view (or demographic) this is either a sinister menace
or a cool way of getting free stuff.
But it is interesting to find out just what Google
thinks it knows about you, and how it uses that to
target ads your way. Sign in and head to Settings. You
will see what Google considers to be your gender and
age, as well as your interests.
If you haven’t told the truth when entering basic
information – or you’ve never entered it – you might
find it amusing that Google has your age or gender
completely wrong. When I do this test with my work

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You can personalize

ads, so you only
see ones that are
relevant to you
email account Google thinks I am some sort of tech

maniac. Which makes sense. But on my personal
account my interests are naturally more broad.
This matters because within this page you have the
option to opt out of interest-based advertising.
These are adverts targeted at you because
Google thinks you will be interested in their content.
Personally, I am happy to remain in – in part because
I earn my living from advertising on this website, but
mainly because it amuses me that all the adverts I
see at work are for tech.
How to stop Google

collecting your interests
You can opt out of interest-targeted ads by simply
toggling off ‘Ad personalization’ using the button
shown above. You can also opt out of allowing

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Google’s Location
History displays
where it thinks
you’ve been
website owners to track you via Google Analytics.

Head over to the Google Analytics opt out page.
Where does Google think you’ve been?

One of the options available from the Google Settings
Dashboard outlined above, is the ability to find out
where Google thinks you have been. You can head
there directly at Location History. This is typically
tracked using the GPS in your phone: chances are
even if you don’t use an Android phone you’ll still be
signed into your Google account on an iPhone.
Stop Google collecting location information

Click on Manage Location History at the bottom of
the page and toggle off Location History.

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What devices, apps and services

have access to your Google data?
In many ways this is the most important test of all.
One of the benefits of Android is that it lets you know
what permissions are required by each app you install
on Android. But you encounter myriad Google apps
and services on multiple devices. This page lists the
devices and services, and what access they have. Click
on a listed device and you can see further details and
the opportunity to revoke, on the right-hand side.
How can to change which

Google information is visible to others
With Google’s About Me tool. This shows what’s
publicly visible, and you can click the pen icon to
edit anything to remove it or change it.
It is well worth using Google’s Privacy Checkup
tool as well. Head to the Dashboard and click on
the Get Started link. Now just go through the list
and pick the options you’re happy with.

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Google Photos’
best new features
It’s time to unlock all the machine-learning power that Google
Photos has within. RYAN WHITWAM reports
G
oogle has been dabbling in photo hosting
for years, but it wasn’t until it released the
revamped Google Photos in May 2015 that
it really took photo archiving seriously. We can now
back up all our photos for free, and even get our
images printed in Photo Books. But Photos leverages

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Favourite photos
Google’s machine learning muscle to do a lot of other

cool things – you just need to know where to look.
1. Favourite photos
Google Photos makes it easy to save all your
photographs, but there are probably some you like
more than others. When you come across those
pictures, you can add them to your favourites for
easy access in the future. To mark something as
a favourite in Photos, just tap to view it and look
for the star at the top of your screen. Tap the star,
and your photo appears instantly in the ‘Favourites’
album. This is a special album visible only to you
inside Google Photos, but you can still share the
items inside it.
2. Assistant tab
You’re probably familiar with ‘Assistant’ as the voice-
activated AI in your phone and Google’s smart
speakers. However, there’s a different Assistant in
Google Photos. Just slide over to the Assistant tab
to see what it can do.

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Assistant lab
FEATURE
Assistant lab
The Assistant tab includes basic housekeeping

suggestions like archiving screenshots or receipts.
However, it also generates suggested edits to your
photos. For example, you might get a fun filtered
version of a picture or a little collage of similar
images. You might even get a fancy ‘colour pop’
image that highlights the subject in colour and fades
the rest of the photo to monochrome. When you
see something you like in the Assistant tab, just tap
the ‘Save’ button to add it your library.
3. Create custom collages

Should you poke around in the Assistant tab, you’ll
probably see collages. If you want to make your own,
there are tools for that in the app. Open the overflow
menu and select collage. You can also go over to the
Assistant tab and tap collage at the top of the screen.
You can pick between two and nine photos for Photos

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Create custom
collages
to drop into the collage. Unfortunately, you don’t

have control over which images go in which frames.
Google’s AI optimizes the composition for you.
4. Google Lens
Google uses machine learning to catalogue all your
pics in Google Photos, but you can take it a step
further with Google Lens. This image analysis tool
goes beyond simply figuring out what’s in a photo,
Google Lens

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and actually provides actionable information. It’s

not perfect, but Lens already has some very cool
capabilities. To use Lens, find a picture to analyse
and expand it to full-screen. Tap the Lens icon at
the bottom of the display to turn Google’s neural
network loose on the image. Currently, Lens is great
at identifying books, logos, landmarks, addresses,
and so on. You’ll get useful web links and other
actions based on the recognized objects. You can
also use Lens to copy text from an image.
5. Edit your videos and movies

The photos in Google Photos get most of the
attention, but let’s not forget that the platform
also backs up your videos. Google even included
some basic video editing tools in the app. These
tools come in two versions. When looking at one of
your videos, you can tap the settings button at the
bottom of the screen. This page lets you rotate and
stabilize the video – great if you were holding the
phone at an awkward angle to capture the moment.
The other editing interface resides in the movie
Edit your videos

and movies

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creation section of the app. This is accessible from

the overflow menu in the main photo tab. You can
choose one or more video (under ‘Select Photos
and Videos’), and then splice them together, trim
the ends, and export the project as a new file. Also,
don’t ignore the automatic movie options in this
menu like Selfie Movie, Doggy Movies, and so on.
These are generated using Google’s AI, so they take
a while to process on Google’s servers.
6. Free up storage
So, now you’ve gotten all your images in Google
Photos, do you really need them all locally on your
phone as well? If you’re in need of space, Google
Photos makes it easy to clear out the clutter. Scroll
up to the top of your main photo tab and tap on the
line that says ‘Free up [some amount of space] from
device’. After confirming on the pop-up, Google
Free up storage

ANDROID ADVISOR
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Photos will remove all photos and videos from

your phone that have already been backed up to
Google’s cloud. You can still access those images
at any time in Google Photos.
7. Name people
Face detection was one of earliest examples of Google
Photos’ machine-learning. From the very beginning,
can could open the Photos search interface, type
in ‘people’, and see groupings of all the faces that
commonly appear in your photos. That’s neat, but
you can make this feature even more useful by
attaching names to those faces.
To add names, open the search screen and
type ‘people’ – the app should suggest People &
Pets. You can also tap the arrow next to the line of
portraits under the search box. This opens a series
of thumbnails of all the common faces that appear
in your Photos archives. Tap a face (or pet), and then
select ‘Add a name’ to add a private label. With that
done, you can use that label to search for photos of
Name people

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that person. For example, ‘Rachel in Tunbridge Wells’

will pull up photos of someone you’ve labelled ‘Rachel’
that were taken in Tunbridge Wells.
8. Quick select photos

Google Photos makes it easy to save every photo
you take, but that can add up to a lot of photos. If
you need to select multiple photos – say, for batch
deletion – the default way in most apps is to long-
press then tap on additional items. However, you
can select multiple items in Google Photos without a
bunch of tedious tapping. To select multiple photos,
simply long-press and drag up or down. Photos will be
selected as you go, and the further you drag, the faster
Quick select photos

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photos will be selected. When you release, you can

tap individual photos to add or remove them from the
selection. This is great for bulk actions when sharing,
creating albums, or just clearing out unwanted pics.
9. Shared libraries
A recent Photos addition that really shows off
Google’s machine learning is ‘Share your library’,
which you can access from the app’s navigation slide-
out menu. You can share your entire photo library
with someone else, but there are a number of options
that make it a more targeted and useful experience.
The first step is deciding which contacts you
want included in the share. Once you pick a
recipient, the app will ask you to narrow down your
sharing parameters. The default setting is ‘All photos’,
but you can limit the share to only photos of specific
Shared libraries

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people – perfect for parents who want to share

photos of their kids with other family members. Just
pick your children’s face from a list of all detected
faces, and that’s it. You can also set a date from
which photos will be shared going forward. It can
be the current day or some day in the past.
Your recipients will get instant access to matching
photos as you take them, and can choose to copy
them into their own library. You can also turn off the
shared library at any time.
10. Sharing links

When you share a photo in Google Photos, it pops up
the standard Android share menu. However, there’s
a special option hidden in there. Tap ‘Create link’,
and you instantly create a link that works for anyone
with the URL. This works with multiple images, and
there’s also a toggle to allow others to add photos
Sharing links

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to the album at that link. The link is copied to your

clipboard, so you can send it to any app you want.
Only those with access to the link will be able to
see the album. Should you ever want to discontinue
access to that shared image or images, just head over
the shared tab in the Photos app. Your links are shown
here, alongside regular albums. Tap on the link and
use Menu > Delete. This is also where you can add
more images to your shared link, if you so choose.
11. Shared albums

It’s easy to share individual images with Google
Photos, but you can also share entire albums. This
gives you expanded sharing capabilities, and it’s much
simpler when you need to share a lot of photos.
The first step is simply to pick an album. This can
be something you’ve made yourself manually or an
automatically generated album from Photos. This
Shared albums

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second point is key because Google Photos is great

at organizing photos from an outing or event. When
viewing the album, tap the share button at the top of
the screen. You can use any method you like to let
people see the photos in your album, but you should
choose the direct Photos sharing option if your friend
is also a Photos user. You can allow others to add
photos to the album, and if you connect to someone
via Photos, they get notifications when new pics are
added. You will always see user icons at the top of
shared albums to remind you of who has been invited.
Those viewing the album can even leave comments
for everyone to see. Like link sharing, you can shut
off access to the shared album at any time.
12. Archiving photos

Google Photos uploads everything, and sometimes
you don’t want all the stuff it backs up to be in the
main feed. That doesn’t mean you want to delete it,
though. That’s why archiving was added to Google
Archiving photos

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Photos. To archive photos, open them or select

multiple images at once using the quick-select
trick explained above. Then, go to Menu > Archive.
Archived photos will remain in your private archive,
accessible via the navigation menu. Archived images
are kept in any shared albums, but they won’t clutter
up your main feed. This is great for screenshots and
images of receipts. Google Photos had been getting
plenty of attention because it’s the perfect place
to show off machine learning. That means we’ll
probably see new innovations on a regular basis.
These tips are only the beginning.

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Messages features
you should start using
Add a message subject, archive old threads, and more. RYAN
WHITWAM reveals the app’s best features
T
he Google Android Messages app is one of the
finest ways to send and receive text messages.
It’s even ready for the future with RCS standard
support and ample features. You might not even
realize all the neat things you can do with Android
Messages, so here are the five best.

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Add a message subject
1. Add a message subject

A standard text message doesn’t have a lot of
features, but there are some little-known tweaks
you can make in Messages. Instead of just tapping
Send, long-press it. That brings up two things in the
compose field: You can add a title to your message
by tapping in the new field and entering text. This
makes the message behave like an MMS, but it
should load normally on the recipient’s phone as
there’s no photo or other media attached.
2. Archive old threads

After a few months, your text message list is probably
going to be something of a mess, littered with threads
you haven’t touched in ages. Android Messages lets
you get rid of them without really getting rid of them.
You can archive old threads to get them out of the
way, but still restore them if necessary. Just long-

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Archive old threads
press to select multiple conversations and tap the

archive button at the top of the screen. You can also
swipe left or right on a conversation in the main list
to archive it. Go to Menu > Archived to see those
conversations and restore them if needed.
3. Block numbers
Not everyone you encounter in life will be pleasant.
Android Messages makes it easy to block your
frenemies and spam numbers. Long-press on

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a conversation to select it, then tap the block

button (circle with a strikethrough) at the top. This
prevents messages and calls from that contact
from going through.
Note: Blocking a contact deletes the conversation,
so don’t block someone if you’ll need to see the
thread again later.
If you want to remove a block, go to Menu >
Blocked contacts. Tap the X next to the contact you
want to unblock to receive messages again.
4. Attach money, locations, and more

You probably know that Android Messages lets you
add stickers and photos to a conversation, but there’s
more hiding in that menu. Tap the plus button in a
conversation, and you get a list of stickers and other
fun stuff. Scroll down, and you’ll get to the good
Attach money,
locations, and more

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stuff. You can add your location, a voice note, and

even send or request money via Google Pay. You
need to grant location access to enjoy these features.
Note, too, that Google Pay works in one-on-one
conversations only after you’ve set up the Pay app.
5. Use the widgets

If SMS is still your primary way of communicating with
your contacts, using an Android Messages widget can
be a real timesaver. There are no settings in the app
to clue you into the widgets’ existence, but you’ll find
it in your home screen widget list. There are actually
two different widget options: one that shows the most
recent message in all your conversations, and another
that shows a single conversation of your choice.
The single conversation version also has a pop-up
composition box to send new messages.
Use the widgets

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Master Google News

MICHAEL SIMON shows how to take control of your feed
I
t’s been nearly five years since Google shut down
its Reader service, and we still haven’t gotten over
it. We’ve tried our share of replacements – Feedly,
Inoreader, NewBlur, and so on – but between
subscription fees, cross-platform compatibility, and
interface oddities, we’ve yet to find anything that
completely fills the void Reader left in our feeds.
But Google hasn’t given up on organized,
personalized news feeds. Quite the contrary: After
taking several swings with services such as Google+,

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Get to know the interface
Google Now, and News and Weather, Google unveiled

at its I/O developer conference in May a brand-new
Google News app, with a uniform experience across
Android, iOS, and the web, a new philosophy, and a
completely redesigned interface.
The new Google News isn’t quite a resurrection
of Reader. But with a simplified interface and a nice
combination of personalization and AI, it comprises
a lot of what we loved about Google’s original RSS
service. Once you master it, it just might help you
get over the loss of Reader:
1. Get to know the interface

The new Google News app is deceptively robust.
Open the app and you’ll be presented with four tabs:
For You, Headlines, Favourites, and Newsstand. For
You is essentially an AI-powered collection of stories
based on the data Google has collected (such as

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search trends and location). Headlines is a collection

of the biggest stories of the day divided into topics
(US, World, Technology, Sports, and so on), and
are the same for all users and platforms. Favourites
is the closest to Google Reader, collecting the
sources, topics, and articles you’ve saved. And finally,
Newsstand is where you can find any magazines
you’ve subscribed to.
Beyond the tabs, when you tap your user icon
in the top right corner of the app, you can see
your notification history and sharing activity, and
also find settings. Lots of cool menus and actions
in Google News make it more than just a simple
news aggregator. For example, you can tap the
coloured News icon below a story to can see the
full coverage page, or tap the weather icon to get
a seven-day forecast.
2. Use the search bar

Like Google Reader, Google News works best when
you tell it what you like. To do that you’ll need to
get friendly with the search bar. You can find it in
the top corner of every screen (or at the top of the
web page). Tap it without typing and you’ll see a
list of suggested topics and sources. You can select
any of them to follow.
If you’re looking for a specific source, you can
type that query into the search field and tap the
Follow button that appears next to it. Repeat as
necessary. Any source you follow will then appear
as a publication on your Favourites page, which will
display a chronological feed of everything that site

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Use the search bar
has published. There’s no limit on the number of

sources you can follow, so go crazy.
If you want to search a topic rather than a source,
such as Google or iPhone, you can opt to save those
for future reference as well. Just like with sources, you
can follow as many topics as you’d like, and Google
News will aggregate all the news about it that it can
find. Topics will appear on your Favourites page just
like sources. You can also search for specific article
URLs. Because saved topics and sources are synced
across all of your devices and the web, you’ll be able
to keep track of stories from your phone.
3. Save and share

Next to each story you’ll see an overflow menu
at the far right (or a hover menu on the web) that
contains links for sharing and saving. Tap Share
to send it to an app or a contact, or copy the link

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Save and share
inside the app. On the web you can copy the link or
send it to Google+, Facebook, or Twitter. If you just
want to save it for your own use, you can tap the
bookmark icon and it’ll be added to your article list
on your Favourites page. Because Google News is
always chronological and there’s no ‘read’ or ‘unread’
markings, it can be hard to keep track of every story
you want to read. Saving for later is a great way to
make sure you remember them.
4. Teach it what you like to read

Google Reader was great for organizing, but it wasn’t
so good at discovering new sources of information.
Google News does both. Think of the The For You
section like a Pandora station for news: It’ll show you
articles related to things you like, and the more you
use it the more personal it’ll get. But you can also give
it a little help. Inside the overflow menu below every

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
Teach it what
you like to read
story you’ll see options for ‘More stories like this’ and
‘Fewer stories like this’, as well as ‘Hide stories’ from
the source it’s coming from. The more you use these
buttons the more Google News will filter out the
content you don’t want.
Here’s a tip: If you ever want to see one of the
sources you’ve hidden, you can find them all under
the Hidden in For you tab in Settings.
5. Personalize the look

While you won’t be able to match Google Reader’s
iconic inbox-style list of stories, Google offers a fair
amount of customization over what you see and
how you see it. Inside Settings, you’ll see a Turn
on mini cards toggle. Flip it and you’ll see a couple
of additional stories on the main page about each
topic rather than just one, saving you a trip into
the Full coverage screen. If your Favourites page

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
Personalize
the look
gets unwieldy, you can always move a topic to the

end or the beginning of the list, or stop following it
altogether. You can also turn off autoplay videos in
settings, and choose to add any of your saved sources
or topics to the home screen for easy access.
6. Customize your notifications

Because you don’t always have time to check Google
News diligently throughout the day, it can send you
updates on breaking news, popular topics, and your
interests. But it’s not an all-or-nothing option. Inside
the app’s settings you can customize your alerts so
you’re not peppered with stories all day long.
If you only want stories about the sources and
topics your follow, turn off all toggles except Your
interests. You can also adjust the frequency of
notifications from low to standard to high, with a
couple of steps in between. Generally, the standard

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
Customize your
notifications
setting will send five to seven per day, while high

could be as many as a dozen. When I slid the bar
down to low, I got only a couple each day. You can
also turn on daily briefing alerts and breaking news.
If you miss any, check your notification history in
Activity by tapping your user icon.
7. Save stories for offline reading

Google News relies on an Internet connection to keep
everything current. If you’re going to be on a plane
or without access to a strong connection, you can
download any of your favourite topics or sources for
offline reading. Head over to the Favourites tab, tap
on the overflow menu in the top right of any of the
icons, and choose Download. A tiny download arrow
will appear, and when it’s done downloading (after a
couple seconds) an arrow will show that Google News
has saved all of the stories inside for offline reading.

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
Google’s podcasting app

Android listening experience on offer, writes MICHAEL SIMON
P
odcasts may have started on Apple devices, but
millions of Android users listen to them on their
phones every day. And now Google is finally
getting in on the act with its own standalone podcast
player, aptly called Google Podcasts.
While podcasts have always been available for
listening inside the Google Play Music app or via
searching inside the Google app, Google Podcasts
represents the first real default presence for podcasts
on the platform. But if Google wants Podcasts to

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
become as synonymous with podcasts as YouTube

is to video, it has a long way to go.
The impact on you at home: Google Podcasts
would have been a better app in 2016 than 2018,
but it’s not a terrible first start. Yes, it’s light on the
features, but Google gets the two most important
things right: search and playback. And now that
Google has officially recognized that podcasts exist,
hopefully it will start building out the app into a
powerful player.
Search and ye shall find

The interface looks a lot like the player that was
previously hidden inside the Google app, with a search
button and menu at the top and a “For You” section
that holds your new, in-progress, and downloaded
episodes. Below that, you’ll be able to discover
new podcasts based on popularity and category.
Selecting any of the options available will take you
to a dedicated screen with information, available
episodes for streaming, and a subscribe button.
When playing an episode, you can jump forward
or back 10- or 30 seconds with a single tap, as well
as scrub forward, and a slider lets you slow down the
voice by 50 percent or speed it up by 2x (and several
stops in between). Additionally, little animations
throughout the app do a nice job of showing your
playback and downloading progress, and you can
mark episodes as played or unplayed with a tap.
And that’s pretty much it. The only settings to
speak of are options to save or remove completed
and unfinished episodes. You can’t customize the skip

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
Google’s Podcasts app is worth

a download but don’t expect
much in the way of features
buttons, nor can you make playlists or set episodes

to auto download. There isn’t support for chapters or
Chromecast. And since it lacks basic Outline Processor
Markup Language (OPML) importing, you won’t
be able to access anything you’ve subscribed to in
Pocket Casts or iTunes.
But, hey, it’s a start. While light on features, the
app is simple and easy to use, with equal attention
paid to finding new podcasts and playing ones
you’ve already subscribed to. And Google has put an
emphasis on search. The database includes some 2
million podcasts, and Google has baked in its AI tech,
so listeners will get personalized recommendations.
Podcasts also has Google Assistant and Google Home
support, so you can pick up where you left off on any
device you’ve signed into with your Google account.

ANDROID ADVISOR
FEATURE
In its blog post, Google also outlined plans to add

automatic subtitling to podcasts so you can read
along, a feature that would be something of a game
changer for people with hearing issues. The feature
will be powered Google Translate, meaning subtitles
could then be made available in a wide variety of
languages. However, Google has been known to float
features and then forget about them, so it could be a
while before we see it.
Google is also teaming with podcast publishers
to boost diversity and accessibility of podcasts.
According to the company, the new initiative will be
“guided by an advisory board from around the world,
with the primary goal of enabling skills development
and experimentation from underrepresented voices,
as well as cultivating ideas and processes that can
scale throughout the industry”.
Google Podcasts is available as a free download on
the Google Play Store (fave.co/2NkWVbG).

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
Why Android phones

should run stock Android
Nokia gets it right and everyone else should follow its lead,
argues MICHAEL SIMON
B
ack in Android’s early days, the system’s open-
source generosity offered a huge advantage to
phone manufacturers. In the Android Eclair and
Froyo eras, there was palatable whimsy in interface
design. Owning an Android phone was fun, and
manufacturers developed identity by interpreting
the system in their own special ways.

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
But the modern Android experience is a mess

of unnecessary customizations, ugly designs, and
bloated app drawers. In short, Android’s biggest
problem in 2018 may be Android itself.
But it never had to be that way. For years, Google
has been trying to show phone makers that its
pure vision of Android is best), even going so far
as to demonstrate stock Android’s superiority on
its own Nexus and Pixel handsets. Yet still, nearly
every Android phone uses a version of Android
that is dramatically different than the one Google
provides in the Android Open Source Project. And
for the most part, that means slow updates, wonky
performance, and an overall lousy experience.
Google’s ambitious Android One experience was
never supposed to solve that particular problem, but
it just might. When the platform was unveiled at I/O
in 2014, it was squarely targeted at emerging markets.
With a mission to ‘bring high-quality smartphones to
as many people as possible’, Android One was meant
to bring a clean, unadulterated KitKit experience (the
current version at the time), to handsets short on
specs and storage.
Nokia has taken a different approach with Android
One. Earlier this year parent company HMD made the
bold decision to switch to Android One for its entire
family of phones, from the budget-minded Nokia 3.1
to the Snapdragon 835-powered Nokia 8 Sirocco.
That means when you buy a Nokia phone you’re
getting the peace of mind that you’ll get updates, and
timely ones at that, for at least two years, and security
patches for three years. Or, as Juho Sarvikas, chief

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
product officer at parent company HMD Global puts

it, “pure and secure and up to date”. That’s something
that can’t be said for more than 90 percent of Android
phones, based on the latest Oreo adoption numbers.
And it’s time the leading Android phone makers start
closing the gap.
Premium feel in a budget phone

Under normal circumstances, a phone like the Nokia
6 (£229 from fave.co/2Kw9Fi4) would be just another
sub-£250 Android phone in a veritable sea of them.
With a Snapdragon 630 processor, Full HD display,
3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, there’s nothing
about it that’s particularly unique for its price, but
Android One makes all the difference.
It’s not just the interface that’s clean and minimal.
Without the extra layer of a skin or the intrinsic bloat
of a fork, the Nokia 6 feels just as premium as the LG
G7. Battery life is stellar, pages scroll smoothly, apps
launch in an instant, and the application drawer is only
filled with the apps you need. You won’t find a non-
removable Facebook app, unwanted notifications,
or superfluous settings to slow you down, and the
launcher is purer Android than the Pixel (which uses a
proprietary launcher on top of stock Oreo). If I didn’t
know better, I’d think the Nokia 6 was a new Nexus
phone. And that’s just the way HMD wants it.
Science friction
In an insanely competitive landscape, I understand
the desire to want to stand out, but today’s phones
aren’t doing themselves any favours by tweaking and

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
You won’t find

a single piece
of bloatware
on the Nokia 6
skinning the interface. On its own, Android Oreo is on

par with iOS 11 when it comes to speed, performance,
and longevity, but once LG, Samsung, HTC, and
Huawei get a hold of it, the results are arguably worse.
Extra apps, funky gestures, and ugly UIs don’t just
muck up the experience, they tend to degrade much
quicker than stock Android. Case in point: My LG V30
feels much slower than the Pixel 2 XL, despite both
about eight months old.
“We don’t need to force preloaded applications,
services, or, quite frankly in some cases bloatware
or malware for our own monetization scheme,”
Sarvikas said. “We want to give our users a
completely friction-free Android experience where
you have complete control.”
The key word here is friction. It’s the same thing
what makes the Pixel such a great phone despite

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
having a design that pales in comparison to the Galaxy

S8 and a camera app out of 2015. There are no hoops
to jump through, no confusion, and no battery-
draining processes going on in the background.
Android phones have a reputation among iPhone
users as being slow, laggy, and jittery, but none of that
is the fault of the core OS. It’s the layers that are added
on top of it that begin to affect the experience, starting
with the four most essential apps to any phone: the
phone dialler, contacts, messages, and photos.
Most Android phones go out of their way to
differentiate the UX in unnecessary ways. Take
the worst offender, Samsung. While its Samsung
Experience interface (previously TouchWiz) has got
better with performance and bloatware over the
years, it’s still a far cry from what Google offers the
Pixel. Turn on a brand-new Galaxy S9 and you’ll get
a Samsung-styled browser, app store, photo gallery,
dialler, and address book, as well as messaging,
mail, and files apps. Few of them offer anything that
Google’s doesn’t, and in many cases, the experiences
and features are worse, particularly when it comes to
photos and mail. And that’s precisely what the new
iteration of Android One is trying to eliminate.
“Elements like Google Assistant will be tied to all
of these applications,” Sarvikas said. “Without them,
you don’t get the latest greatest Android experience
or Google service innovation. This tight integration of
core experience impacted our decision greatly.”
A refreshing promise
As much as speed and friction are important, the

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
biggest benefit of Nokia’s Android One phones over

their forked and skinned peers builds down to one
thing: updates. Its two-thirds of Nokia’s ‘pure and
secure and up-to-date’ mantra, and the main reason
why Google started the program in the first place.
“When it comes to security updates or platform
upgrades, it’s significantly easier for us to roll those
out,” Sarvikas said. “We didn’t fork or do any deep
customization that we would need to validate with
every platform update.” It’s something that Google
is desperately trying to solve, with Project Treble
bringing some real hope for timely updates for the
first time and most OEMs dutifully delivering monthly
security patches relatively quickly. But on Android One
phones, customers are getting something they won’t
get on other phones: a years-long guarantee.
Like Google’s Pixel phones, Nokia promises
two years of letter updates and three years of
Up to date means very

different things depending
on your Android phone

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
security updates with every new phone. And since

Nokia works directly with Google on its Android
One phones, it can also ensure that the updates
are pushed out as fast as possible with rock-solid
stability and per-device optimization.
Now consider that Samsung’s Galaxy S7, which
cost £569 when it launched two years ago, only
just got its first Oreo update in June this year, nearly
10 months after Android 8 arrived. The Essential
Phone is touted as a device that ‘evolves with you’,
but its first Oreo update also arrived many months
after the Pixels got theirs. And even if Project Treble
succeeds in helping Android P updates arrive more
quickly, they still won’t be as fast as the ones that
appear on Nokia’s Android One phones. The extra
apps and layers on top of Android on other phones
make it that much harder to push out updates, and
consumers end up suffering for it.
One is the loneliest number

Slowly but surely, Android phone makers are starting
to see the light. The latest Android P beta isn’t only
available on Pixel devices anymore. You can also get
it on the Essential Phone, Nokia 7 Plus, OnePlus 6,
Oppo R15 Pro, Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S,
and Vivo X21 and X21 UD.
But that’s still a pitifully small list and you’ll notice
that the biggest names in Android – Samsung, Huawei,
LG, HTC, and so on – are missing from it. Many of
the Oreo phones shipping right now are still running
version 8.0 rather than the newer 8.1. And security
updates still trickle in weeks and sometimes months

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
The camera app on

the Nokia 6.1 comes
with a robust set of
professional controls
late. The solution to what ails Android is right there for

the taking, but so far only Nokia and a handful of other
phones have taken Google up on the offer.
There’s an underlying belief among Android phone
makers that skins and forks make their phones stand
out among the field, but I’m willing to bet that most
customers are buying phones based on features
and physical looks rather than the interface. And
I’m downright certain that nearly all of them would
pick pure Android over their phone’s UI in a face-
off. Android’s hardware makers needn’t be different
than PCs. You can buy a laptop from HP, Acer, Asus,
or Microsoft and get the same Windows 10 software,
but the experience on each of them is vastly different.

ANDROID ADVISOR
OPINION
And customers still have a choice. Like Windows,

Android One isn’t about homogeneity, it’s about
putting Android’s best foot forward for both the
platform and the consumer. Google allows plenty
of latitude for originality, such as Nokia’s excellent
camera app or the HTC U11 Life’s Edge Sense
squeeze and USonic audio features. When marketing
their newest phones, LG, Sony, HTC, and Huawei
invariably differentiate themselves via hardware
design and valuable features, with nary a mention of
software skins. Android One might limit the amount
of customization a company such as Samsung can
add to their phone, but is that really a problem? No
one is buying a Galaxy S9 because of the Samsung
Experience UI. They’re buying it because it’s a
gorgeous phone with a great camera.
You don’t need to be a data scientist to see that
if given the choice, most customers will choose
the purest, cleanest version of Android you can
get. While I’ll admit it’s unlikely that phone makers
who have spent years crafting their own unique
experience will dump them for Android One, Nokia
has clearly hit on a formula for success with its
own phones. As Sarvikas said, “It felt like everything
matched and clicked, and it was the absolute right
thing for us to do as a company and a brand.”
And if that requires removing some of the
branding along the way, so be it.

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