Articles by Daniel Bader

As high-end phones get more expensive, cheap Android phones are getting better. It’s 2020, and flagship smartphones are all nearly a thousand dollars or more, so why not spend a little less? We’ve researched and ranked all of the best cheap Android phones you can buy, and with our buyer’s guide, you’ll find the perfect phone for you.

Top 5 cheap Android phones at a glance

Moto G Power — Best Overall: Very little sacrificed to hit this low price point.
Google Pixel 4a —Best Upgrade Pick: A better camera for just a little more cash.
Moto G Fast — Best Value: Cuts a few corners if you need to save even more money.
Samsung Galaxy A71 —Best Camera System: Four cameras to help you get the best shot.
Nokia 5.3 — Best Under $200: A decent phone with a clean interface.

What are the best cheap Android phones?

The past year has been tremendous for Android phones in the budget space. You’re seeing features like multiple cameras, faster processors, and 5G hit price points that would…

Free hacking and slashing, but only in Australia.

I might be a bit late publishing this. Sorry about that. It’s not that I didn’t want it to go up with everyone else’s embargoed content — really, I did. It’s just that, well… I lost track of time.

See, when you task a Diablo addict, someone who’s played every Diablo title since the 1997 original and collectively put in thousands of hours between then and now, with playing an unreleased mobile-first version of the game — one that’s been two years in the making — it’s easy to see why this might be late.

When Diablo Immortal was announced as a free-to-play title back in 2018, it wasn’t clear how Blizzard would navigate the choppy waters of monetization, which has ruined many a mobile game while bolstering the appeal of others. While the company built Hearthstone, its deck-building game set in the Warcraft universe, into one of the best Android games, Diablo is a much more valuable brand. If the core mechanics to be sacrificed …

Right now, the best smartwatch for Android users is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2. It’s optimized for Samsung phones but runs well on all Android devices and has all the smartwatch and fitness features you’d expect. It’s compact and lightweight but still offers good battery life. But if you’re not into that one, the good news is that there are so many other amazing options from Fossil to Garmin to Fitbit and more.

The best smartwatches at a glance

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 — The Galaxy Watch Active 2 is great for all Android users, not just Samsung phone owners, with an incredible balance of features, battery life, and aesthetics.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Active — If you want something a bit cheaper and need the extra sensors, this is your best option.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 — The Galaxy Watch 3 is a solid upgrade pick that offers LTE connectivity, a beautiful design, and improved health/fitness tracking.
Skagen Falster 3 There’s no better option if you want to wear Goog…

Let us know which products wowed you in 2020!

Technology is expanding and advancing at a faster rate than ever before. There were dozens of incredible new computers, phones, speakers, games, and home automations launched in 2020. With the end of the year drawing closer, we’re celebrating with the announcement of the annual Future Tech Awards.

The Future Tech Awards recognize the best people, products, and services from across the U.S. technology sector. We’re asking iMore readers, to vote on the best products and professionals in multiple categories to help us honor the ground-breaking innovations of this year.

There are four prizes that make up the Future Tech Awards:

Future Choice – The best products, as voted for by Future Tech’s editorial committee.
Reader’s Choice – The best products as voted for by Future Tech’s readers (that’s you!).
Future 50 – The top 50 tech people, across five key tech industry categories.
Tech Hall of Fame – Decorated industry veterans and deserved r…

Best Black Friday Canada deals:

Smart Home
Audio
Phones, Tablets & Accessories
Laptops & PC Components
Gaming
Televisions
Lifestyle & Kitchen

Black Friday is often considered to be a very U.S.-centric holiday, and while that may be true, that’s not to say Canadian shoppers don’t get to bask in killer deals as well. If you know where to look, it’s very possible to save a ton of cash even if you live in the Great White North.

Unlike years past, Black Friday 2020 looks a bit different than normal. Instead of retailers trying to pack their stores with as many shoppers as possible, we’re seeing tons of online deals that you can take advantage of from the comfort of your home. We’ve rounded up our favorites below, so feel free to browse through the best of what Canada Black Friday has to offer!

Best Canada Black Friday deals at a glance:

Amazon: Shop the holiday dash deals now
Best Buy: Early Black Friday deals are flowing
Walmart: Holiday deals are ready to buy
Neweg…

Save memories, store and catalog your photos, make edits, and more with Google Photos.

Google Photos is more than just an app for storing your photos. While it’s primarily for backing up photos, there are more ways to edit and share hidden inside. You also have some serious control over every aspect of the photos, from which folders get backed up to image quality and looking back at past photos. It gives you a solid place to store and sync all of your photos so that you never lose one again.

Top photo app

Google Photos

Backup your photos and more

Free at Google Play

Google Photos is our favorite photo backup solution. Store your photos, make fun creations, and order photo books and prints.

Getting started
Sharing photos
Managing your photos
Cost
Additional features

Google Photos Getting started

Google Photos aims to be your one-stop-shop for all of your images and videos. Before you can start to take advantage of the many things you can do by using Google Photo…

As high-end phones get more expensive, cheap Android phones are getting better. It’s 2020, and flagship smartphones are all nearly a thousand dollars or more, so why not spend a little less? We’ve researched and ranked all of the best cheap Android phones you can buy, and with our buyer’s guide, you’ll find the perfect phone for you — like the Moto G Power, our best overall pick.

The best cheap Android phones at a glance

Moto G Power — Best Overall: Very little sacrificed to hit this low price point.
Google Pixel 4a —Best Upgrade Pick: A better camera for just a little more cash.
Moto G Fast — Best Value: Cuts a few corners if you need to save even more money.
Samsung Galaxy A71 —Best Camera System: Four cameras to help you get the best shot.
Nokia 5.3 — Best Under $200: A decent phone with a clean interface.
Samsung Galaxy A51 — Best Budget Samsung Phone: Get the Samsung experience without spending thousands.
TCL 10L — Best Features: A phone that flew under the rada…

2020 has been an exceptionally strange year, but it hasn’t been without its share of amazing games. It’s a testament to how hard studios work to make the things we love and release them in the current economic climate. Whether coming from AAA studios or indie developers, we’ve had the opportunity to escape from real life thanks to some of these titles.

In our Best of 2020 awards, we’re taking some time to recognize the achievements of some incredible products, and some of the companies behind them.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Best PlayStation Games of 2020

Game of the Year

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

$50 at Amazon $50 at Walmart

The best of the best.

Final Fantasy 7 was already one of the most beloved games to ever release, so entirely remaking it from the ground up was a tall order. Square Enix pulled it off masterfully, crafting a remake that remains both faithful to the original while adding new elements to enhance the experience even further and modernize its combat….

Update, 8:45pm: YouTube is back after a nearly two-hour downtime. You can resume your watching.

What you need to know

YouTube and YouTube TV are having problems right now.
DownDetector says that the problems began around 6:45pm ET

YouTube, the most popular destination for consuming online video, is down right now. So is YouTube TV. As of 7:40pm ET, the services have been down for nearly an hour, and those in the eastern US are mostly affected, though according to DownDetector’s outage map, people all over the world are experiencing similar problems.

If you’re having trouble watching videos on YouTube right now, you’re not alone – our team is aware of the issue and working on a fix. We’ll follow up here with any updates.— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) November 12, 2020

No word on when the service will resume; right now you can visit youtube.com but none of the videos are loading — at least not for me. YouTube’s support Twitter account says that the “team is aware of …

Being stuck in the middle works for Google.

Since 2016, when the original Pixel debuted, it has felt like Google just needed one more year, and then another, to make the brand a household name. To be broadly considered a success.

And judging by the Pixel’s outsized influence in the Android smartphone market relative to its reported sales numbers, I’d say Google can celebrate that success. Its phones are synonymous with great cameras, with innovative and useful software features, and with playful if divisive approaches to smartphone design.

But influence doesn’t sell phones, and Google’s Sisyphean journey to bring its own Android experience to more people just hasn’t really worked. At the high-end, Pixel phones could never compete with Samsung, LG, Huawei and OnePlus (among others) on sheer brute-force specs; and on the value side, Pixels cost too much to attract the value-conscious buyers of Motorola and Nokia products. As the classic Stealers Wheel song goes, they were stuck …