Articles by Jeramy Johnson

It’s that time of year again. Black Friday is nearly upon us, if you can believe it! Much like last year, many of the best deals will not only be availabe in person at retail stores, but online as well. It’s never too early to start looking for bargains on the best Android phones, so here is a running list of Android phone deals that we’ve got our eye on leading up to the biggest shopping weekend of the year. We’ll be keeping this guide updated regularly leading up to Black Friday, so be sure to check back frequently if you don’t see the phone deals that you’re looking for.

Every year, there are some pretty stellar Black Friday phone deals, though you have to know where to shop if you want to find the best offers. Whether you’re hoping for the best Samsung deals, Google Pixel deals, some other Android phone, or even an iPhone (gasp!), this is truly the best time of the year to find one.

We’ll be scouring all the usual retailers and phone carriers to scope out any worthy offers and …

Protecting our homes and families with smart technology has never been easier. You can now see what’s going on when you’re not at home, even if it’s just to see what mischief the family pet is getting up to while you’re at the office. Whatever your reason might be, we’ve got a roundup of the best indoor cameras for you to choose from.

Stick it anywhere

Ring Stick Up Cam Plug-In HD security camera

Staff Pick

This camera sends alerts when it detects any motion, and it has night vision and two-way audio. It is available in battery-powered, plug-in, or Power-over-Ethernet. You can also mount it easily on any flat surface. Best of all, they now have end-to-end encryption, so your videos are private and secure. You’ll need a Ring Protect sub to get AI features, but it’s a reasonable price.

$100 at Amazon $100 at Best Buy

Built-in privacy shield

Arlo Essential Indoor

The Arlo Essential Indoor has a privacy shield to make it visible if the camera is recording or not; you ca…

The best cheap standing desks are those that are flexible enough to work well in your existing workspace or just about anywhere around your home. Standing while working — even in short spurts — is one of the best things you can do for your health if you are physically able to. The trouble with standing desks is that they are often expensive and replace otherwise perfect office furniture, but thankfully there are several affordable and portable alternatives. Our favorite overall is the FLEXISPOT Standing Desk Converter because it sits on top of an existing desk or tabletop, and it is incredibly spacious, sturdy, and adjustable.

Best overall cheap standing desk: FLEXISPOT Standing Desk Converter (M7MB)”

FLEXISPOT is a well-known manufacturer of standing desks. In addition to the stand-alone electronic and manual desks, it also makes several desktop units that you can place on existing workspaces. Out of these, our favorite is hands-down the FLEXISPOT Standing Desk Converter. Th…

The adage “you get what you pay for” definitely holds for certain categories of products, like shoes, mattresses, and yes, office chairs. The simple fact is, the more you have available to spend (up to a point), the better chair you can buy. The range of options for the best office chairs available is quite diverse and includes styles and features for just about any taste and preference. Our top pick is the AmazonBasics High-Back Leather Executive Chair. It’s got the looks to fit in a corporate environment or a home office, and it’s so comfortable you might not want to get out of it.

Best overall office chair: AmazonBasics High-Back Leather Executive Chair

When you think of a classy office chair, this is probably pretty close to what you have in mind. Leather? Check. Recline, swivel, roll? Check. Imposing and serious styling? Check!

While it doesn’t have great neck support, the back does rise far enough and is sufficiently padded to provide maximum comfort to your back for long …

Next week will undoubtedly be a packed week for Samsung.

Late Tuesday evening, Samsung surprised us all with yet another event announcement for its upcoming Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Part 2, set to take place on Thursday, October 20. This event comes just a couple of months after its first Unpacked showcase of the season, which was held back in August. At that time, Samsung unveiled its latest generation of foldable phones in the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3, as well as the Galaxy Watch 4 series debuting the all-new Wear OS 3.

Next week was already looking pretty busy with an Apple event where we are expecting new Macs, as well as Google’s Pixel 6 event. With the spotlight on two of its biggest frenemies, Samsung clearly didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.

It’s unclear whether we’ll see an update to the popular Galaxy S20 FE or any new Android phones at Unpacked Part 2, or whether this event is meant to showcase Samsung’s software roadmap. Perhaps it will be a li…

It’s good that we have so many great messaging options.

What you need to know

After the massive Facebook outage this week, we wanted to know which messaging platforms our readers relied on.
Fully 30% of WhatsApp users pivoted to their default SMS app.
Almost an equal number took up Telegram, while nearly as many switched to Signal.

When a service as large and interconnected as Facebook goes down, it affects just about everyone and everything we do, including how we communicate with each other on our Android phones. Monday’s outage not only affected Facebook proper, but its messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, and even Instagram DMs. Given that billions of people worldwide rely on these services, we wanted to know how their absence affected our readers and which messaging apps they turned to during the outage (and after).

It seems at least some of the major competitors fared well, with Telegram saying it gained 70 million new users this week, and Signal also reported a …

If you are looking for an affordable, mid-range smartphone, we think the Google Pixel 4a remains the best Android phone under $400 — assuming you can still find it. You get the same software, features, camera experience, and software updates as the higher-end Pixel 4, much less than the new Pixel 5a. The only shortcomings come in the hardware and a couple of the specs — a fine trade-off to save hundreds of dollars.

Best overall Android phone under $400: Google Pixel 4a

The Pixel 3a from 2019 stood out as one of the best Android values for well over a year, only for the Pixel 4a to fill its shoes — and then some. However, if you want a small, affordable phone with reasonably high-performing specs, plus a camera that outperforms its specs, the 4a still fits the bill. More so than the Pixel 5a, a larger mid-range device for bigger spenders.

With the Pixel 4a, you get a Snapdragon 730 that doesn’t lag too far behind the 765G found in the Pixel 5, 6GB of RAM, and a guaranteed, …

As our connected lifestyles and smart homes continue to merge, we find new ways to secure our houses and belongings, like choosing from among the best security cameras with local storage. In light of recent data breaches and privacy scandals, many are looking for options that feature on-device storage solutions (a.k.a. don’t use the cloud), so we’ve put together a list of some of the best options for your reference. My favorite out of the bunch is the eufy Cam 2. It has all of the features I want, with none of the added expenses (subscriptions).

Best overall security camera with local storage: eufy Cam 2

Eufy makes a line of quality smart home products like this Indoor/Outdoor camera, but one of the things we like best about its products is the one-time fee model they espouse. You don’t have to purchase an ongoing cloud storage subscription to access or store your videos, and this device even comes with 16GB EMMC digital storage, which is enough to store up to a year’s worth of r…

At this price point, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better Google smartwatch.

In the early fall of 2020, Fitbit held a virtual press briefing where it announced updates to its Versa and Inspire wearables and introduced a new holistic fitness watch in the Fitbit Sense. At Android Central, we were quick to test out the latter two devices and write up our impressions of them, but it took a little while for us to sort out our feelings about the former watch. Even at this later date, when I first endeavored to write this Versa 3 review, I wasn’t sure that it would blow me away. After all, we’d already been calling its predecessor, the Versa 2, our favorite fitness tracker for quite a while leading up to the launch of this smartwatch. How could the new device be that much better?

The Versa 3 had a little bit of a rocky start for some reviewers, including myself, but after a firmware update with new features and bug fixes, I’ve really been enjoying wearing it on my wrist. It’s comfortabl…

It’s all about interconnectivity.

This week, Amazon held a virtual press event to show off its latest innovations in hardware and devices, services, and sustainability initiatives. Of course, a few things that were shown off had been expected, like a new Echo smart display and updates to its popular Ring and Blink home security devices. But there were a few other surprises that look to be either revolutionary or concerning, depending on your point of view.

To start off the event, the company unveiled a new Echo Show device called the Echo Show 15, which, in addition to sporting a larger display, can be mounted on a wall or other surface. It also features a new user interface with quick action tiles that Amazon is calling Alexa widgets.

We also saw the second-generation of Halo fitness wearable that boasts an AMOLED display, updates to the Halo fitness subcription service, a first-party Amazon smart thermostat, and new smart video doorbells, lights, and alarms from its Ring and Bli…