Robert Triggs / Android Authority
There were loads of great smartphones released in 2021, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 series, iPhone 13 range, and Google Pixel 6 phones. But there were also a few great devices that flew under the radar this year.
We recently posted our list of the most underrated smartphones of 2021 but also asked readers to choose the most underrated device of the year. Here’s how you voted in this poll.
BlueStacks
TL;DR
BlueStacks has just launched the public beta of BlueStacks X. This new version of the software is browser-based and takes advantage of cloud streaming. Due to the new format, only a very limited selection of games are currently available. If you want to play Android games on your PC with a keyboard and mouse, few software systems outmatch BlueStacks. However, that software has some significant limitations. The latest version only works on Windows, for example, and you’ll still need a PC powerful enough to emulate the games you’d like to play.
Alongside its flagship Snapdragon 865 chipset, Qualcomm announced two new options in its upper mid-tier portfolio during 2019’s Snapdragon Tech Summit. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and Snapdragon 765G offer integrated 5G connectivity at a more affordable price point, along with a whole range of other features and improvements.
Both models replace the Snapdragon 730 and 730G as more affordable, high-performance chipsets for the super mid-tier market. Phones with these chips have previously appeared in the sub-$500 and even sub-$300 brackets.
The beta version of Valve’s Steam Link app for Android hit the Play Store about a month ago, allowing gamers to stream their favorite PC games to their smartphone or Android TV. I’m very well acquainted with Valve’s TV hardware version of the technology, so let’s dust off a Bluetooth controller and see how it works on a phone.
If you want to give the app a try for yourself, you can grab it for free from the link below.
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Welcome to Wallpaper Wednesday! In this weekly roundup, we’ll give you a handful of Android wallpapers you can download and use on your phone, tablet, or even your laptop/PC. The images will come from folks here at Android Authority as well as our readers. All are free to use and come without watermarks. File formats are JPG and PNG, and we’ll provide images in both landscape and portrait modes, so they’ll be optimized for various screens.
Ankit Banerjee / Android Authority
Kodi has been around for a long time and remains one of the best media center apps you can get. In the company’s own words, “Kodi is the ultimate entertainment center,” and is probably a fair description What exactly is Kodi and what can it do? Here’s everything you need to know!
What is Kodi?
Kodi is a free, open-source software media center. It runs on pretty much any platform, including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS.
The Android Market, now Google Play, has never been great for app discovery. You’ve got the top app lists and some editorial recommendations, but finding goodies beyond the most popular big name apps has always involved some digging.
Well, Google has now introduced a “Recommended for You” section. As you can see from the screenshots it pops up when you load Google Play on your phone and recommends a list of apps you might like.
Anker PowerWave StandAnker did a decent job with the Anker PowerWave Stand. It may be simple, but simple means it's sturdy and charges most Qi-based phones at a reasonable rate.
Sometimes simple is better. While it might be easy to go for the most powerful or attractive option, there are times when the minimalist approach is best. This is how you should look at the Anker PowerWave Stand wireless charger. It lacks the frills of competing stands, such as the Samsung Wireless Charging Stand and the Native Union Dock Charger, but it retains the pure essentials of wireless charging.
Infineon The eSIM chip itself is tiny, and is installed directly into the smartphone’s circuitry SIM cards have been in our cellphones for more than 25 years. The only thing that’s really changed over the decades is the size of the card itself. SIM cards have made it somewhat cumbersome to connect to a service provider, given the need to have them physically present, plus they’re easily damaged and lost.
In general any new software release should be “better” than its predecessor, and while sadly this isn’t always the case (I’m looking at you Windows 8.x), it is generally true. So, as you would expect, Android 8.0 Oreo is better than Android 7.0 Nougat, but how exactly is it better? Let me explain…
The improvements come in two categories: new features and changes. In both of these categories there are some big, eye-catching improvements and at the same time some smaller, yet still very welcome, improvements.