Choosing the best Android phone can feel overwhelming as there are so many options from so many brands, its hard to know where to start. Unlike Apple, which sticks to its sleek lineup of iPhones, Android offers a world of variety. Whether you're eyeing the latest flagship from Samsung, a budget-friendly smartphone from Motorola or something unique with a foldable design, theres an Android device out there to suit your needs.The beauty of Android is its flexibility. Youll find phones with different screen sizes, camera setups, battery life and even quirky extras like stylus support or rugged builds. Plus, Android lets you customize your device to your heart's content something Apple fans might envy. Weve tested and researched the top Android phones to help you find the right one for your budget, lifestyle, and tech preferences. What to look for in a new Android phone Performance When it comes to picking our favorite Android phones, the main things we look for are pretty straightforward: good performance (both compute and AI), a nice display, solid design, sharp cameras, long battery life and a significant commitment to ongoing software support. For performance, not only do we look at benchmarks and other metrics, but we also evaluate phones based on responsiveness. Regardless of whether youre reading, text messaging, scrolling through social media or playing a game, no one wants a gadget that feels sluggish. Display Sam Rutherford/Engadget When it comes to displays, we generally prefer OLED panels that can produce rich, saturated colors with at least 600 nits of brightness, though many of our top mid-range and high-end phones can hit 1,000 nits or more. And more recently, most of our favorite devices also support screens with fast refresh rates of 90Hz or 120Hz, which adds an extra level of smoothness and fluidity. Design Now we will admit there is a bit of subjectivity when deciding which phones look the best, but there are other design aspects like dust and water resistance or screen durability that can make a big difference to long-term survival. Its also important to consider things like support for wireless charging, power sharing (aka reverse wireless charging) and UWB connectivity, which can have an impact on how your phone interacts with your other devices. Cameras Obviously, for photos were looking for sharp, colorful shots in both bright and low-light conditions. And we want video clips with high dynamic range, rich audio and smooth image stabilization. Extra cameras for ultra-wide and telephoto lenses are a plus. The best cameras should also include features like dedicated night modes, support for various video recording resolutions, and additional photo modes like timelapse, slow motion and more. Battery and software Finally, in terms of longevity, were looking for all-day battery life on devices that also delivered great results on our local video rundown test (at least 16 hours on a charge, but more is obviously better). Wireless charging capabilities have become almost ubiquitous over the past few years, and most of our top picks have this extra perk. Fast-charging is available on some Android phones, too. Finally, with people holding onto their phones longer than ever, we like to see companies commit to at least three years of software support, upgrades and regular security updates. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/best-android-phone-130030805.html?src=rss

I knew I had found my favorite computer of CES 2025 early last December, long before I had a chance to see what most other PC makers were cooking up. It comes from ASUS and its the new Zenbook A14, a system that the company had joked about calling the Zenbook Air.To be fair, the name would have been fitting: the notebook weighs less than 2.2 pounds (or 1kg), a half a pound lighter than Apple's most svelte MacBook Air. In almost every respect, the ZenBook A14 outclasses Apple's ultraportable, with specs like a 14-inch OLED screen and up to 32 hours of battery life. The only catch is that it runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X and X Elite chips, which limits compatibility with older Windows apps (along with some devices).What's most remarkable about the Zenbook A14, though, is that it simply feels great to hold. The light weight is a big part of that, but its also covered in ASUS's unique Ceraluminum material, which feels markedly different than a typical metal case. ASUS has deployed Ceraluminum across its premium lineup for years, but this is one of the first times we've seen it on practically every surface of a laptop (the top lid, keyboard desk and bottom).The Zenbook A14 also features plenty of thoughtful design elements. It's easy to open up one-handed, thanks to a refined hinge that counter-acts the laptop's tiny frame. It also has a surprising amount of ports, including one USB Type A connection, two USB C ports, HDMI 2.1 and a headphone jack. That's all connectivity we'll never see on a MacBook Air.In my short time with the Zenbook A14, its keyboard and trackpad also felt relatively comfortable. ASUS says the keys offer 1.3mm of travel, and while they could always be deeper, they seemed fine for casual typing. The laptop also sports a 1080p IR camera, speakers with Dolby Atmos support and Wi-Fi 7. Basically, it has everything we'd want in a premium laptop in 2025.The ASUS Zenbook A14 starts at $900 with a Snapdragon X Plus CPU and 16GB of RAM (in a slightly chunkier 2.4 pound case). The lightest 2.18 pound model is available for $1,100 with a Snapdragon X Elite chip and 32GB of RAM.ASUSThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/asus-unveiled-the-zenbook-a14-at-ces-2025-and-its-the-macbook-air-competitor-ive-been-dreaming-of-173026277.html?src=rss

CES 2025 announcements include a new trio of Acer Predator gaming laptops that are packed with high-end specs. While they all come in at different price points and with different features, they all will be packed with NVIDIA RTX-50 series GPUs. The baddest of the bunch is the Predator Helios 18 AI. As the name suggests, this notebook features a massive 18-inch 4K Mini LED display with a standard refresh rate of 120Hz. But a new dual-mode display feature will let users switch to FHD resolution at 240Hz as well. The brightness metrics are decent, at up to 1000 nits. Acer The Helios 18 AI is available with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and up to the NVIDIA GeForce 5090 GPU. It also includes a dedicated NPU for AI tasks, which allows for premium graphical gaming and AI experiences. To the latter point, this laptop ships with more than 150 optimized AI apps, including many popular LLMs and image generators. Users can soup this beast up with up to 192GB of RAM and up to 6TB of PCIe storage. The cooling tools have also been improved, as the laptop feature's Acers proprietary 6th-gen AeroBlade metal fans, which boost airflow by around 20 percent when compared to plastic fans. Purchasers also get Acers swappable MagKey 4.0 keyboard. The Predator Helios 18 AI will be available in the US in May, with a starting price of $3,000. The Helios 16 AI is pretty much the same laptop as the 18 AI, with an identical cooling system, MagKey 4.0 keyboard and the same available CPU and GPU options. The display is smaller, at 16-inches, and this one is an OLED panel with a refresh rate up to 240Hz. The memory takes a hit here, with configuration options up to 64GB of RAM. Storage caps out at 4TB. The Predator Helios 16 AI will be available in the US in June, with a starting price of $2,300. Acer The Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is the most budget-friendly of the bunch, while still retaining high-end features. This is a slim laptop, at just 19.9mm. It also supports CPU options up to the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX with an integrated NPU and includes the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU. It can be outfitted with up to 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. The laptop comes with a 16-inch OLED WQXGA screen with up to a 240Hz refresh rate, a 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut and integration with NVIDIA G-Sync. The price is where this computer really shines. It starts at just $1,700, with availability beginning in April. Acer In addition to the trio of laptops, Acer unveiled the Predator XB323QX gaming monitor. This 31.5-inch 5K IPS display boasts a 144Hz refresh rate and a 0.5ms response time. It supports NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar, with 10-bit color depth and a 95 percent DCI-P3 color gamut. On the back, theres a DisplayPort 1.4 and a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports. It features adjustable tilt, swivel and height and comes with an integrated two-watt speaker system. Theres no pricing or availability information on this one yet. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/acers-latest-predator-gaming-laptops-include-nvidia-rtx-50-series-gpus-040018607.html?src=rss

At long last, Alien: Romulus is set to make its Disney Plus debut in mid-January.

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Its not surprising that I suffered from burnout and eventually left the practice of medicine. Only in retrospect can I see clearly that I had built a life around the wrong-sized purpose. The signs were there along the way, but I chose to ignore them. The reasons are many, but the outcome was always the same. I spent much time thinking about the destination and very little about the path I was taking to get there. That path was much less gratifying than I hoped it would be. I simply didnt enjoy being a doctor.I had failed to recognize that the destination is in fact the way, and the path is more important than its end point. I was doomed to fail from the beginning.These shortcomings started from a very young age. Somehow, as young children often do, I decided that my fathers unexpected death was my fault. As silly as it sounds, this belief drove me to co-opt his purpose in life. His dream was to delve deeply into medicine and help people, and I felt that I could undo the existential tragedy of his death by taking his place. It was only decades later, while skimming through some of his medical notes left over in my moms attic, that I realized how different we truly were.My dad had an innate love of the delicacy and intricacy of the human form and how it goes wrong. I didnt. He thought in extremely three-dimensional terms and was an excellent photographer. I had a learning disability and would often draw words upside-down and backwards. Conversely, I loved deep conversations, and baseball cards, and writing poetry. My father had no interest in those things.Becoming a doctor totally fulfilled my fathers sense of purpose and he loved the moment-to-moment work required to accomplish the goal of helping his fellow man. Unsurprisingly, even when things got tough, his deep interest and love carried him through. Trying to fix the cosmic tragedy of his death, I saw the end goal of helping my fellow man as laudable; but I was actually ill-suited to the day-to-day activities required to meet that goal.Dont get me wrong: I was able to overcome my discomfort and eventually do exactly as I had plannedwalk in my fathers shoes. But the blisters that formed on my heels in doing so never callused over. They festered and bled until the pain eventually became unbearable.I was not made for such work. So why did I keep on pursuing it?It took many years and quite a bit of emotional heartache to reach the conclusion that I hope to convince you of now: When it comes to purpose, bigger is not better.THE FALLACY OF BIG P PURPOSEPurpose has two separate and distinct entities. Most of our anxiety actually stems from what I call big P Purpose. This is the same kind of purpose that led to my yearning to become a doctor. Big P Purpose is overly focused on outcomes.Little P purpose, on the other hand, is the true creator of the wonderful health and longevity benefits that all those researchers have proven with their studies. It focuses not on the destination or the outcome, but rather on the path or process. Because of this, it lacks glamour. It is even considered downright unsexy. And most people do whatever it takes to avoid this petite purpose in favor of doing something they believe will be more substantial.Why do we do this?Before getting into a much more granular discussion about what defines the different types of purpose, I want to theorize on why we are programmed to pursue big P Purpose and eschew little P purpose. Why do we fall for this fallacy?If you can dream it, you can do it. This quoteincorrectly attributed to Walt Disneysums up the ethos of much of modern-day America. All you have to do is have big dreams to eventually do big things. Right?Yet there are many people who dream of being Michael Jordan and have none of the skill, ability, or genetic attributes (e.g., height) to get there. No matter how much you want to be an inventor or businessperson, you might not have the intellectual capacities. And if your dream is to be the first human to time travel, at present, it seems your wishes will go unfulfilled.The problem with such messaging is that it places too much importance on big audacious dreams of challenging tasks instead of being thoughtful about what actually fits a persons personality. Not everyone has to hit a home run every time at batand, more importantly, most people will fail if that is their intention. Not everyones purpose needs to be outsized.Ironically, the true source of the quote is a woman named Sheralyn Silverstein, who created the copy as part of a recruiting tool for General Electric (GE) to convince more young students to follow their passion in math and science and eventually work for GE. She wasnt telling kids to become astronauts or neurosurgeons. Her message was much more mundane: become an engineer and help our company make more money.We define ourselves more by our accomplishments than we do our passions. Furthermore, we are more likely to cling to those things we are good at than those we love.We want to convince the world that we are pursuing purpose with a big P, and we have the accomplishments to prove it.This pressure ends up creating more anxiety than joy. In fact, I often hear my dying patients complain that they spent too much time on their big audacious goals, to the detriment of their own happiness and the enjoyment of what they already had.Little P purpose embraces an abundance mentality. There is room for everyoneI mean everyoneto pursue that which brings them inner joy and happiness. This pursuit will never rely on whether someone else is succeeding or failing. It will never be limited by some resource that another human being has already gobbled up. Little P purpose centers on you as an individual. It is truly unique in the sense that, while many other people may have your same sense of purpose, how you fulfill that purpose and which activities you choose in pursuing it are all your own.Copyright Jordan Grumet.Adapted from The Purpose Codeby Jordan Grumet, published by Harriman House,www.harriman-house.com,7 January 2025.Available to buyherein all formats.

In November 2024, a left-leaning cohort of social users ran to Bluesky. The movement made the platform a liberal havenand more popular than far-right alternative Truth Social.According to a new report from The Righting, Blueskys November user share toppled Truth Socials. Where Bluesky had 5.325 million unique visitors, Truth Social had 4.25 million. Of course, thats nowhere near X, which consistently pulls in more than 130 million unique visitors per month in the U.S. But the shift could be a sign of changing positions in the niche market; as Bluesky rises, Truth Social sinks deeper into trouble.Bluesky is on the riseWhile Bluesky has been around since early 2023, November 2024 was undoubtedly its breakthrough month. That was the month of the presidential election, when Donald Trump won himself a spot back in the nations highest office. It was also the month that Elon Musks insider relationship with Trumpand how he would wield it for political powerbecame increasingly visible. Liberals fled Musks X for the nearest alternative, with many opting for Bluesky.Now there are figures to understand the scale of that exodus. In November, Bluesky hit 20 million total users, with COO Rose Wang acknowledging that the company was growing so quickly that it was racing to secure more servers. On unique visitors alone, Bluesky grew 1,048% from November 2023 to November 2024, per The Righting. While Threads faced continued algorithm complaints, and alternatives like Mastodon faded into obscurity, Blueskys numbers continued to rise and rise again.Of course, that growth rate wasnt sustainable. Its since slowed, with the apps user count now sitting just above 26 million. Only a few months ago, it seemed like X and Threads were stealing all of Blueskys features; now the reverse may be true. And other issues have emerged, like the prevalence of AI bots. But theres no question that Bluesky has made it into the social media pantheon, far more than its alternately partisan twin, Truth Social, ever did.Can Truth Social survive?While Bluesky captures a certain left-leaning user base, Truth Social is still struggling to pin down the right. The two apps blew up with curiously similar audiences: Those trying to avoid then-Twitter for political reasons. Truth Social took flight after Trump was banned from Twitter for inciting the January 6 insurrection in 2021. For years, it was the only place you could find Trumps paragraphs-long postsand thus it became a watering hole for the alt-right.Truth Social hasnt stopped growing. According to the Righting report, the app is up 39% in unique visitors year over year. But its having a sort of identity crisis, one that wont be solved anytime soon. As Trump picks up his posting on X, and as the app becomes more and more welcoming to right-wingers, who is Truth Social for anymore? Theres no more big bad Twitter to fuel its growth.Truth Social isnt likely to shut down in the near term. After all, Trump still owns a controlling share of the company. But its fate could be worse than collapse: It could become, or perhaps already is, obsolete.

With the Wi-Fi HaLows 9.9 mile range, you could connect to your home Wi-Fi at work, at the grocery store, and even inside your car throughout your ride.Wi-Fi is probably the most important part of any piece of technology today. It helps devices connect, communicate, update, and be cutting-edge but the problem with Wi-Fi is that its a high-frequency radio wave that means it doesnt travel far, and it cant penetrate walls. Its why we recommend placing Wi-Fi routers strategically at home so that you get seamless connectivity, but theres a company hoping to make Wi-Fi so powerful, it passes through walls and can even connect devices nearly 10 miles apart. The Wi-Fi HaLow, developed by Morse Micro, is an upcoming technology that the company hopes will become a part of every device in the future so that bad internet connectivity is a thing of the past.Designer: Morse MicroWithout getting into the specifics (because I have no technical background), the Wi-Fi HaLow router (shown above) promises to make internet connectivity seamless over massive distances. It relies on Sub-GHz frequency waves that travel long distances (like AM and FM radio) to transmit internet connectivity, so you could potentially use your home Wi-Fi router within a 10-mile radius of your house.Morse Micro, the company behind the tech, hopes that this Wi-Fi capability will coexist with current 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz Wi-Fi bands. These existing bands are great for low-latency internet connectivity, but add HaLow to the mix and you get long-distance connectivity too, giving you the best of all worlds. Sub-GHz Wi-Fi wont ever be as fast as 5GHz Wi-Fi (HaLow has max speeds of 32.5 MB/s), although those speeds are perfect for most everyday tasks like checking email, browsing the internet, or even for IoT devices to communicate with each other.Sadly, the router isnt something you can currently just plug into your home. While it does broadcast long-distance Wi-Fi, most devices like your phones, laptops, and smart home tech arent equipped to read that frequency band just yet but Morse Micro is hoping to influence tech companies to adapt their hardware for the future so that instead of dual-band radio antennas, every device will have a tri-band radio antenna for 2.4, 5, and Sub GHz connectivity.For now, Morse Micros working to deploy HaLows in commercial setups like Amazon warehouses (where robots can communicate seamlessly with each other over long distances), along with other industries like security and telecom. Potentially, this technology isnt too far off. Imagine your lawnmower robot being able to easily connect to your home Wi-Fi without an intermediary hub, or your pool cleaning robot doing the same even if your pool is more than 20-30 meters from your home router.The devices shown here are engineering samples. Morse Micro is sharing chipsets, dongles, and routers with engineers interested in building the tech into their existing stacks, so that potentially in the future your home Wi-Fi could also be your work Wi-Fi or your car Wi-Fi. And instead of asking your friend to share the Wi-Fi password when youre at their place, you can just continue using your home Wi-Fi just fine!The post This Game-Changing Wi-Fi Router at CES 2025 has a Connectivity Radius of 9.9 Miles first appeared on Yanko Design.

Doing what Hollywood couldn't.