Showing posts with label android. Show all posts
Showing posts with label android. Show all posts

If Not Chinese Then What ? Mobile Alternatives || Premium Midrange and Premium Samsung Phone

In this series of "If not Chinese then what?" today we are going to see the premium devices from Samsung and some underrated phones which are more value for money and compare directly to the flagships. Samsung has been experimenting with the A-series of its devices. The A80 is a phone that had the flip camera, most of the devices launching in this series have an in-display fingerprint scanner and more premium design than the M-series.

The A51 was launched just in India for ₹25,999/- for the 6/128GB variant. It has the Exynos 9611 which is the same as seen in the M21s, M30, M31s. It might seem that it is priced much higher than them and it is true. The main upgrade that it offers is that it has in-display fingerprint scanner than the traditional one at the backside, the back is a glastic back with premium crystal-like shine and not the gradient one and the display is the punch-hole style. As the displays are manufactured by Samsung themselves the hole is much smaller than other manufacturers.  The display is also less rounded off on the corners which gives it a more premium feel in the hand.

This is a phone that was designed for the western market. It has a snapdragon730 with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. It also supports Samsung pay and 25-watt fast charging. It is not a much upgrade over the A51 or even the M31 at a premium of ₹32,999/-

Best Samsung M-Series Devices

The one devices that escape the radar are the lite versions of the flagship devices, especially the older generation ones. They are underestimated because of the older hardware so nobody cares after the new iteration are launched so many times the prices drop considerably. Buying a generation old flagship device makes much more sense as these devices are designed too last longer than mid-range devices so at a discounted price these provide more value.

The hardware is almost a generation old retails at ₹37,999/-. It has an Exynos 9810 processor(2 gen old) and 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. The best part is that it is a note device which brings all the note feature with the stylus.

This is also a generation old and retails at ₹42,999/- and comes with snapdragon 855 with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. Also being the premium S lineup it has all the perks of flagship features.
Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite (Prism White, 128 GB)
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OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z

The new OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z have launched silently and have created quite the noise.

The design is the same as that of the bullets wireless 2 which was much appreciated for the comfort for the more rounded off design. All the much-appreciated features are present too like the warp charge which provides the 10 hours listening time with 10 minutes of charge, switching between paired devices with the double-tap of the function button and type-c charging port with sweat resistance.
                                    

The improved sections are the latency has been reduced and it will be more perceptible in the OnePlus devices. There are also more colour varients available with blue, mint and oak to the mix. The pairing is also supposed to be very seamless with all OnePlus devices i.e. just tap and connect.
The most exciting thing about these Bullets Wireless Z is that OnePlus has launched them at ₹1,999/- which is a ₹4000/- less than the Bullets Wireless 2.


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Best Alternatives to iPhone SE

iPhone recently launched the iPhone SE and the major attention that it has gotten is from the western audience primarily due to the face that the phone costs a mere $400. Although the phone seems to be a perfect fit for the western market, it has major competition in the Asian market due to the presence of major android payers like the Samsung and OnePlus. In India, the closest competitors are the Samsung Note 10 Lite and OnePlus 8 at ₹41,999/- and ₹41,999/- respectively as opposed to ₹42,500/-.


Note 10 Lite
The one ace that the iPhone SE has is the A13 chip which is the flagship of Apple's offerings. The Note 10 Lite is powered by an Exynos 9810 which is a flagship of 2 generations old. But the main selling point of a note device is the s-pen. Even in the lite version, all the s-pen features are available like the remote trigger for cameras and the note features.
This is a phone for the s-pen focused users. In recent years the s-pen has become the flagship thing and this lite version tries to bring the good things from the note devices to a much affordable price. Even though the device is not the most powerful of all but the target audience is totally different and the s-pen will be more important than the raw performance for those people.


OnePlus 8
If you are just concerned with performance, OnePlus 8 is a better option as it has the latest snapdragon 865 with 6GB RAM. The clean oxygen os with 90Hz display is the dream of a performer. Although it is not the pro version it still has the flagship processor which makes it future proof as the first thing to get outdated is the processor.


In general both the OnePlus 8 and Samsung Note 10 Lite makes more sense as in my opinion at this day and age he processors have evolved and even the mid-range phones perform good enough to daily drive with ease. The things that matter the most like the screen real estate, battery, cameras are more in these other devices. If you want the iOS there is no option other than the iPhone SE. Even the cameras have gotten good to a point that the normal user does not care about the colour accuracy, photo quality that he prefers a variety of lenses than a little improvement in the quality. So in a country where the pricing is a major concern for an average user the other devices are a better option.
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Best Android Phone Tips and Tricks

Today I am going to tell you some of the tips and tricks I use on my phone.

  1. I am using a mi a1 for this. It is a fairly old device with 4gb of ram. Recently I realized that the ram management is getting worse day by day and especially during payments the page would reload and the payment would fail. So I started using the Microsoft launcher. This is still in preview but you can also use the stable version. I feel this launcher uses less ram and the pages won't reload every time. So this is some improvement over the default launcher. It is also fairly customizable. I have a broken lock button so I have given the double-tap gesture from the home screen to lock the screen. It is very simple to use with gestures to search and apps arranged alphabetically. It is customizable although not as much as some of the other launchers like the nova launcher. If you are having trouble with ram management you can try lighter launchers like this.
  2. Next is the SMS app I use. This is SMS organizer. I found it best as it gives you only notifications for the messages you need like personal messages and OTPs. Especially when you receive OTPs it is displayed in huge block letters so it is easy to read. It also arranges it under different tabs like personal transactions and also the offers and promo codes are arranged differently. If it has a promo code for a certain app it gives notification when you open the app. The best feature is that it also backups the messages in the drive so that you can recover it if you change the device. You will find it much useful if you receive many promotional messages and want to cut off the distractions.
  3. Next thing I like to do is reduce the transitions and animations of my phone to 0.5x. To do this go to the settings and in the about phone section tap on the build number 5 times, this will enable the developer options. In the developer, options scroll down to find Window animation scale, transition animation scale and animator duration scale and reduce all to 0.5x. The build number and developer settings might be located in different options in settings depending on the phone model you are using This will reduce the transition and animation times and make the phone feel faster although it isn't. 
  4. My browser of choice is the brave browser. This browser is great for general browsing purposes as it is built around security and it has a built-in ad blocker which is fairly good and it also has a dashboard for that where you have granular control with fingerprinting protection and scripts blocker. It has a reward system where it shows ads in the notification according to your preferences which can be turned off completely. It then rewards in a cryptocurrency called BAT which can be used to reward your favourite creator. And also it has some of the flags enabled by default which you have to enable manually in chrome. I have also made a video on the chrome flags which I find useful. I’ll link it in the I button and also in the description. The only issue I find in it is the sync situation is a little unconventional as it syncs everything in a chain of devices and not to an account.
  5. I use an app called Edge gestures. With the phone screens getting long and big this app comes in handy. You can customize the edges to perform tasks with gestures like one tap, double-tap, triple-tap, long press and various swipes. I have customized the double-tap to an app to lock the screen and then down swipe to access the notifications and up swipe to get the recent app. So with this, I can use my phone with basically one hand. And also the bottom edge can also be used for gestures but I find it in the way as I have hardware keys. This is a paid app though. If you want the bottom gestures like the iPhone there is an app from xda called navigation gestures.
  6. My file explorer situation is all over the place. I use the Xiaomi file explorer for simple tasks like opening files and copy-paste tasks and extraction as the UI of the app is very simple and clean. Next, I use the es file explorer for serious cleaning purposes as it can give the analysis of the files according to the size and I can easily clean off the large files and see what is eating the space. Es file explorer can also access the files from external drives with file formats NTFS and exFAT but it can't edit them. Editing NTFS is not possible for now but for editing the exFAT format drives there is Mixplorer which I have linked below.
  7. Next app is the YMusic. It is an app where you can listen to only audio from the youtube videos. You can also minimize which is not possible on the youtube app. It is best for music and podcasts. There is also the youtube vanced app which is the youtube app itself but with additional features like picture-in-picture and minimizing capability. For logging in with your Google account in it you will also need to install the microG app.
  8. One tip I have for editing a pdf document is when opening a pdf file, open it with Microsoft Word. It will convert the pdf to word file and make it fully editable. This trick also works on pc.

If you are serious about cleaning your phone I also use an app called sd maid. It is a paid app but it deep cleans the phone. It deletes temporary files, uninstalled app files, duplicates and large files too.
These were some of the things I use on my phone which you might find useful. I have linked all the things in the description. Please check it out. Thank you for watching everyone. Please like, share and subscribe for more such content and Stay Home Stay Safe.

👉My Video of the same👈

The Links of all the Apps:


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Best Mobile Browsing Experience (Chrome Flags)

Chrome has some interesting features in testing which are hidden in the flags section which you can access by typing this URL in the address bar. Although these features are experimental they work 99% of the time. Today I am going to share some of these flags which I find useful.

 1. An ephemeral tab in an overlay panel  #enable-ephemeral-tab
Sometimes while searching for something we often open multiple unnecessary pages which are not required at all. This flag enables an option to preview a web page with an overlay on the previous one. This is like peeking in the page and closing if it is the wrong one. When we click on a link it opens but the previous page is lost and the browser loads it again when we go back which is time-consuming. This does not close the previous link so you can quickly close it. This also works with images to preview.

 2. Overscroll history navigation #overscroll-history-navigation
This flag enables a simple gesture where if you swipe from the left edge it goes back and swipe from the right edge to go forward.

 3. Chrome Duet #enable-chrome-duet
Nowadays displays are getting taller and taller and it is hard to reach the top. The browser controls are all located on the top. This brings all the controls at the bottom of the screen. So when this option is enabled the home button, bookmarks, search tabs and options button shift to the bottom of the screen so that you don't have to reach to the top of the screen.To use this flag with tab group enable #enable-duet-tabstrip-integration.

 4. Horizontal Tab switcher #enable-horizontal-tab-switcher
In android and ios to switch tabs, you have to do a horizontal scroll but chrome still has the vertical scroll. But the tabs scroll can be switched to horizontal by this flag. This will even out the interface and match the new interaction methods. (Remover from recent update).

 5. Tab Groups #enable-tab-group
This feature is especially for those who open 100s of tabs at once. This enables the option to group tabs and managing them becomes very easy. But you may have noticed that the duet feature gets disabled due to this and the old layout is back. You can group tabs by dragging them over one another in the tab manager.

 6. Android Chrome UI dark mode #enable-android-night-mode
Everyone is getting dark mode, but chrome has just added it and you can enable it in settings. But if for some reason if you are not able to see it enable this flag and after relaunching the app, go to settings and you will see a new themes option. There set the theme to match the system or a permanent dark one.

 7. Send Tab to Self #enable-send-tab-to-self , #enable-send-tab-to-self-show-sending-ui
Many times we need to share links between our devices for various purposes. By this, you can do this within chrome itself. After enabling these two flags in all the device between which you want to share a link, click on the share button then you will see the send to your devices button then you will get the active device. Clicking it will send a notification to the other device. Make sure the other device also has the flag enabled like this on the computer.

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Minimize YouTube App (YouTube Vanced)

Sometimes while watching a video on youtube you get a message and when you tap on it to reply the video stops and you get furious as to why it stopped and then the realization kick in that it not a player by the youtube app.
Natively youtube does not allow background play or picture-in-picture view but what if it does, life would be much easier as youtube has a good crunch of our screen times on phones.

YouTube Vanced
YouTube vanced is an app which allows you to watch youtube videos in a minimized picture in picture view and even minimized background playback like any music player. This app does not tamper with the advertisements which means that you do not harm your favourite creator by blocking the adds.

The app is also customizable like the minimized view in the app can be set to the strip type with the media controls like in the default app ar the video only view as the old app style. While in the full-screen view we got used to the gesture controls like MX player. The sliding gestures to control volume and brightness are available.

Installing app:
1. Install XDA labs apk
2. Go to XDA labs app and then to apps/xposed updates and search for Youtube Vanced and install the stable version.
OR
Click here (you will have to login on xda to download the app)
3. Install MicroG

OR 



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There's a Spark in Android - Spark Email

April 2 marked a special day when Google officially shut down Google+ and Inbox.
While one email client went down one emerged. The famous Spark mail which was on iPhones and mac for quite a while came to the Android. It has been a month now and it has already seen 100k+ downloads.

User Interface
The UI is simple and straight forward with a blue dot for unread emails, hollow dot for marked as unread and no dot for read mail following with a subtle grey icons to indicate the nature of the mail like personal, notification, newsletter besides which lie a coloured mark to indicate the account on which the mail is been received if multiple accounts are logged in.

There is also a smart inbox tab which gives an organized layout of all the emails in the form of personal, notifications, newsletters and seen. On the top, we have the sidebar sandwich button for the other tabs and the search button. On the bottom are two bubble type buttons to compose and another button for inbox, sent, snoozed and pinned emails. The swipe actions are also very intuitive as there are two swipe actions for each side swipe short and long swipes which can be customized. All the buttons and actions are highly customizable in the settings.

    


Composing emails
Composing is the same as any other app. There is cc, bcc, subject, signature etc but the thing that makes it unique is email scheduling and follow up reminder. And also members can be added to the mail to collaborate. The rich text format options are not available on Android yet.

In the settings account management, personalization, signature, notifications, scheduling options are available. In spark security options like passkey lock and biometric lock are also available.
Spark also has a teams option which helps to collaborate on email conversations which avoids the cc option for frequent members. Teams can be built in the settings and have to be only added once while composing. The free version of teams is the default and is limited by no. of collaborators. But by upgrading to a premium membership more features can be unlocked.



Standout Features
The mail organization with subtle icons and dots give it a very clean look. The email scheduling and follow up reminder are handy features for someone handling a lot of emails. The passkey lock and biometric lock is good for security. The teams option is good for collaborations.

 Download from Google Playstore: Click Here


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Adobe Rush on Android

Adobe has dominated the creative industry for quite a while now. Recently the creative has seen a shift from large scale movie and professional format to the short format and faster output. Youtube and Instagram is the home of this type of content. Rather than the content, in recent times there is been a surge in creators and consumers. Content creation is a challenge on the go due to a lack of computing power of small devices. The devices in our pocket have evolved to the extent that we now call them mobile computers rather than phones. Truly they are more computers than phones. Adobe seems to be targeting their next software/app in this ecosystem and the low powered computers too.

Today we are going to have a look at the Adobe rush app for android. Rush has been present for ios and pc for a while and today it officially launched for Android. Rush is a video editing app. This app has been created by keeping creators in mind who focus on speed and getting the content out fast. This can be observed from the ground up. The UI of the app is very simple as opposed to the overwhelming UI of Adobe Premiere where the instead of being productive, sometimes we wander in its many features. This is not certainly bad for professional work but for someone like a vlogger timely content is a priority over more accurate timing and cool effects or accurate colour grading. Regular creators mostly create by joining clips putting background music and some text or annotations. Adobe has identified it and created this app.

So for creating a project, we need media like video photos and music which can be imported from the gallery or from phone storage. Rush also has a built-in camera option which is very good as it has full control in the pro mode like iso shutter speed exposure bias, colour temperature, tint, focus, and quality of the video.


After the video is imported the editing window looks like this. We have the undo and export buttons on the top under which we have the video with the play pause and next previous buttons. Then under that, we have the timeline and all the editing options at the bottom.

The timeline can be expanded to add multiple overlay and audio. The next button sets the layout for the video. The layouts are limited to landscape, portrait and square. The aspect ratio is also fixed to 16:9 and cannot be changed. The title library to add annotations and text is very good. Various fonts can be set and other fonts can also be added to the library from adobe creative cloud. The editing option for fonts is many, like the size font type, colour, outline, shadow. Then in the transitions, we have cross dissolve, dip to black or white and the time of transition can be set.


Then in the colour tab, there are presets to colour grade or you can play with the options and create your own presets. Then in the audio tab, the audio option is available to set clip volume and audio type. If music is selected the option to auto duck is available. If we select voice type the options to reduce noise, reduce eco and enhance speech appears. Then in the transform tab, we can position scale and crop the clip. Then the next options are to cut duplicate, delete the clip, expand the linked audio to the clip and last is the selection tool.


Then to export click on the share button on the top. The resolution is automatically set depending on the clips. If we go in the presets the limit is 1080p, but if the clips are 4k it will select it automatically. If anyone of the clips is not 4k it will export in the lower settings. It cannot upscale the clips.


A particular appreciation has to be given to the colour grading options and text options. It would be better if more layout options like 4:5 and 18:9 and custom could be added. Also, the transitions are only 3. For a free app, it is very feature-rich.

 Try it out HERE
Rush is already available for iOS and PC.




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