The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 11

Reviewers largely agree that the Google Pixel 11 undercuts the Pixel 11 Pro by $200 while matching its RAM, storage, and chip, according to The Verge. Whether that's worth it depends almost entirely on what phone is already in your pocket.

The latest Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra leak suggests the notch is staying. Renders published earlier this month show the same shallow, V-shaped cutout on the upper display edge that shipped on last year's Ultra, contradicting earlier rumors that Samsung would switch to a punch-hole camera, according to SammyGuru and Android Headlines.

Apple seeded tvOS 27 RC, build 24J360, to developers and public beta testers yesterday, and the update is now available through Software Update on enrolled compatible Apple TVs (MacRumors, yesterday; iClarified, yesterday). If you're trying to figure out how to install tvOS 27 RC, the requirement comes first: it runs on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation, 2021) or newer, and it does not run on the Apple TV HD (2015) or the original Apple TV 4K (2017) (iThinkDiff, 2 weeks ago; iClarified, yesterday).

Roku began selling subscription bundles through Premium Subscriptions on Sept. 17, letting US and Mexico account holders combine two participating streaming services under one Roku subscription. Roku says the bundles can save subscribers up to 30% compared with buying the services separately.

Is Spotify shuffle actually random? That question is worth asking again because Spotify no longer runs one shuffle algorithm. Ten months ago, Spotify made Fewer Repeats the default shuffle experience for Premium subscribers, moving away from pure randomness because more randomness itself was producing more frequent repeats, Spotify's announcement explains.

Samsung is reportedly validating the Galaxy S27 series with Qualcomm's unreleased SM8975 chip, which is expected to become the company's next flagship Snapdragon platform. A leaked Qualcomm project-portal screenshot names the Galaxy S27 series broadly rather than singling out the Galaxy S27 Ultra, Pro, Plus, or base model.

Most Mac users assume the system language is all-or-nothing: change it, and everything from Finder to your third-party apps follows along. That's not quite right. macOS has a dedicated setting for how to change language for individual apps on Mac, letting you override one app's display language while leaving the rest of the system exactly as it was.

Google opens Googlebook preorders today, September 21, pushing its new flagship laptop line a step closer to actual store shelves. Pricing and hardware specs surfaced alongside preorders, with the first Googlebooks starting at $899 and U.S. availability beginning October 4, so the real Googlebook vs Chromebook question isn't which is better on paper. It's whether you own the one phone that makes Googlebook's headline pitch work at all.

Chrome didn't kill ad blocking. It killed one specific technical approach, and took a popular extension's full functionality down with it. If ads have started slipping through since your last Chrome update, or an old uBlock Origin install stopped filtering the way it used to, the good news is that ad blockers that still work in Chrome are easy to find, once you know which one actually matches your problem.

If you searched for "Microsoft Teams unable to make or receive calls," the real picture is narrower than that phrase suggests. BleepingComputer reported two separate problems on Sept. 4, not one sweeping outage: some Windows users couldn't get the Teams desktop client to open, and separately, some Mac users were blocked from joining calls and meetings.

A Seoul Economic Daily reported on Aug. 23 that Samsung's unreleased Exynos 2700 outperformed Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 in internal tests covering CPU, GPU, AI performance, and power efficiency. The results reportedly came from Samsung's own Mobile eXperience division, making them an early indicator rather than independent proof that Exynos has overtaken Snapdragon.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8? The honest answer depends on what you actually want from a foldable, because Samsung's most eye-catching phone in years is also its most opinionated. It's the first globally available phone to ship with a passport-shaped, ultra-wide design, and several reviewers who've spent real time with it sound won over. Being won over isn't the same as being sold, and at $1,899 the phone asks a lot of buyers before it gives much back.

Samsung's next Ultra phone could tackle one of the most annoying parts of going without a screen protector: the tiny scratches that build up through everyday use. A new rumor claims Samsung and Corning are developing a self-healing surface coating that may appear on the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

This guide walks you through preordering any of the three new Galaxy foldables in a way that minimizes total cost or preserves flexibility, depending on which matters more to you. By the end, you'll know which channel fits your situation, how to run a real cost comparison, and what to verify before submitting your order.

The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 both start at roughly $1,900, putting them in unusually direct competition. At that price, the more useful question isn't which is cheaper, but what each gives you for flagship-foldable money.

Netflix nudging ahead as UK viewers' starting point is a narrow finding with a broad implication: the broadcast default is gone.

Sony packs most of the useful controls for its headphones and earbuds into a phone app, and if you've ever wanted to flip noise-canceling modes or tweak EQ from a laptop instead, there hasn't been an official way to do it. A trio of open-source projects, including one called Sony Device Center, now claim to bring that control to Windows. The Sony Device Center Windows app is the newest and most talked-about of the three, but "claim" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Nothing reviewed for...

HONOR shared its first official camera samples from the upcoming Magic 9 Pro Max this week, and anyone searching for a HONOR Magic 9 Pro Max leaked video should know upfront: the supplied reports describe official still samples, not a leaked video. The images show shots captured at 85mm, 500mm, and 1,000mm (Gizchina, 2 days ago).

The Pixel 11 Pro has a flashlight problem. The phone starts at $1,099 for the 12GB/256GB configuration, and independent testing and hands-on reviews have converged on the same finding: the Pixel 11 Pro's flashlight throws noticeably less light than the phone it replaced, and less than several rivals besides.

Apple's newest Watches can listen for a doorbell, identify music playing nearby, recover the last few seconds of a conversation, and eventually summarize conversations from throughout the day. That raises an unavoidable privacy question: What happens to all the audio needed to make those features work?

Peacock's Premium Plus plan, the closest thing NBCUniversal offers to ad-free streaming, jumped from $16.99 to $19.99 a month today for new subscribers (The Verge; Android Authority). Existing subscribers won't feel it until their next billing date on or after Sept. 17. It's Peacock's fourth price increase in four years (Android Authority), and it raises an obvious question: what is the actual cost of ad-free streaming services per month for someone who wants to watch the major platforms...

A leaked hands-on video posted by Instagram account mundoelectronica.aa has given the clearest look yet at Samsung's unannounced Galaxy S26 FE, showing the phone next to its retail packaging in a glossy shade reportedly called "Blueberry." Android Authority described it as showing off every important design element of the phone, retail box included, making it the most complete pre-launch look at the device so far.

AppleCare One Family launches in the US on Sept. 14 for $49.99 a month, giving households a new way to protect all eligible Apple devices across a Family Sharing group of up to six people. Unlike AppleCare One Individual, which starts at $19.99 for three devices and adds $5.99 for each additional product, Family keeps the same monthly price as more eligible devices are added, according to Apple's current AppleCare details.

Google's new Search profile looks like the kind of feature every creator should rush to claim: a dedicated, shareable page that puts your work front and center inside Google Search itself. Before spending time hunting for one, it helps to understand Google Search profile eligibility rules, since they set a high follower bar and apply only in the United States for now. This guide walks through who qualifies, how to run a Google Search profile eligibility check on your own name, and what claiming...

Apple is drawing a hardware line in tvOS 27 for the first time in four years, cutting two older Apple TV models out of the update entirely (TechRadar, 2 months ago). But knowing whether your box makes the cut is only half the story. The more useful question, especially if you own one of the tvOS 27 compatible Apple TV models, is whether upgrading right now would actually get you anything.

Pixel 11 Pro XL Extreme Charging mode can be activated from the phone's Battery and charging settings, the lock screen when eligible, or Quick Settings after the feature has been activated once.

Google began rolling out Gemini 3.5 Live Translate in Google Translate three months ago, a new audio model built to translate speech continuously as someone talks rather than waiting for them to pause, according to Google. The company frames the goal as a phone-and-headphones setup that functions like a personal interpreter riding along in a conversation.

An iPhone that keeps losing charge during CarPlay usually gets blamed on the car first: a bad port, a cheap cable, a head unit that can't keep up. Before touching any of that, plug the iPhone into a wall charger with a known-good, compatible cable and see if it charges normally on its own. That single test won't rule out every car-specific variable, but it's the fastest way to tell whether the problem starts with the phone before spending an evening swapping cables in the driver's seat.

Google has begun rolling out its "Take notes for me" tool for in-person meetings, starting with Android, the company said Thursday. Once fully deployed, Google Meet take notes for in-person meetings will let Gemini turn a room conversation into a transcript, summary, and action items saved to Drive, the same way it already handles scheduled video calls (Google Workspace Updates, Aug. 13, 2026).

Google Pixel Now Playing notifications could be coming back. A teardown of the latest Android System Intelligence build has turned up code suggesting the silent song-ID alerts may return, months after Google removed them and broke some third-party music tools in the process, according to Android Authority.

Some Android Auto users trying to open Spotify on their car's display are hitting a wall instead of playback controls. The app throws up a message reading "Spotify isn't responding," with only two options: exit or keep waiting, according to a report Android Authority published Monday.

New code buried in a macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate is fueling fresh camera-equipped AirPods rumors, showing in granular detail how Apple's prototype earbuds actually capture and process images, according to MacRumors. The details point to a device built for Visual Intelligence, Apple's visual AI feature, rather than conventional photography.

Ask why smartphones are cheaper in the US than their sticker prices suggest, and the answer usually comes down to one mechanism: carrier installment credits attached to postpaid plans.

When researchers swabbed 178 healthcare workers' phones in a Peruvian hospital in 2023, 90.5% turned up some kind of microbial contamination. That number is a clinical-setting data point, not a diagnosis of the phone in your pocket: a hospital ward is a different exposure environment than a coffee shop counter or a train seat. Still, the question of how to clean your phone safely deserves a real answer, and two hospital studies tested the same disinfectant.

Android desktop mode on Android 16 can give a Pixel 9 Pro a PC-like external-display setup, at least for the parts that matter most: a big screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. Plug a Pixel 9 Pro running GrapheneOS into a dock, connect a monitor, and the cursor moves freely between the phone's own screen and the external display, extending it the way a laptop extends to a second monitor. That setup worked in a firsthand test on GrapheneOS build 2026032001, documented four months ago on Corions...

A Samsung Galaxy S26 FE hands-on video making the rounds this week appears to show Horizontal Lock, the video stabilization mode Samsung built for its S26 flagships, running inside the camera app of the company's cheaper Fan Edition phone. Two separate clips, posted to TikTok and apparently filmed at what looks like a Samsung retail display in Malaysia, offer the first real-world look at the unannounced device ahead of a launch expected in early September (Android Authority; Tech Advisor,...

To stop CarPlay from automatically connecting, turn off the per-car toggle if the iPhone shows one for that vehicle. Use the Screen Time restriction when the goal is blocking CarPlay everywhere, across every paired car at once. Reach for Forget This Car only when a full re-pairing is acceptable, since that's the method Apple's own support page walks through for CarPlay.

The Google Pixel 11 hasn't launched yet, and leaked details about it are already complicating the case for buying one. Google has confirmed that portions of the lineup will cost more, and says the increase comes from higher memory costs, not tariffs (TechRepublic, last week). At the same time, leaked battery figures suggest the Pro and Pro XL models may actually pack smaller batteries than the Pixel 10 phones they replace (PhoneArena, last week). That's the real tension behind the question of...

On the ten biggest album releases measured by Spotify streams, US traffic fatalities averaged 139.1. On the surrounding comparison days, the average dropped to 120.9. That 18.2-death gap sits at the center of a music streaming traffic fatalities study built on an event-study comparison of release days against nearby control dates in an NBER working paper.

Google Android sideloading rules take effect on September 30, 2026, but only for apps distributed through seven participating stores and only for users in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.