Huawei reveals 5G modem and base station chips

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Huawei reveals 5G modem and base station chips

Huawei’s plans to support the rollout of 5G networks have accelerated with the launch of new modem and base station chips that it says will ease deployment and enable a wider range of applications.

Balong 5000 is a multi-mode chipset that supports 2G, 3G, 4G and 4G on a single chip. It reduces power consumption and latency when moving between different modes, while enabling ultrafast speeds on multiple spectrum brands.

The theoretical peak on sub 6-GHz frequencies is 4.6Gbps and is 6.5Gbps on millimetre Wave (mmWave) spectrum.

 Everything you need to know about 5G  Huawei 5G chips

Huawei bills the Balong 5000 as the first chipset to support both standalone 5G – which is based on 4G infrastructure -and standalone 5G which uses software-defined, disaggregated network architecutre.

Speaking at a product launch in Beijing, Huawei said the Balong 5000 is capable of serving operator customers at various stages of their 5G rollout and will enable a raft of new applications – not just mobile broadband – early in the lifecycle of next-generation networks.

"It will enable everything to sense, and will provide the high-speed connections needed for pervasive intelligence,” said Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group. “Huawei has an integrated set of capabilities across chips, devices, cloud services, and networks. Building on these strengths, as the leader of the 5G era, we will bring an inspired, intelligent experience to global consumers in every aspect of their lives."

The Shenzhen-based firm also detailed a new core chip for 5G base stations. The Huawei Tiangang promises support for a wide range of spectrum, support for large-scale integration of active power amplifiers and passive antenna, high compute capacity and the ability to control up to 64 channels thanks to on-board intelligence and beamforming technology.

The Tiangang chip is also 50 per cent smaller, 23 per cent lighter and consumes 21 per cent less energy than previous generation of chips. This is important for mobile operators because they have weight limits to consider when attaching new equipment to existing sites. In addition, Huawei claims 5G base stations will take half the time to deploy as 4G.

Huawei says it has signed more than 30 commercial contracts for 5G and has shipped more than 25,000 base stations around the world.

However, several countries are excluding the Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer from their 5G rollouts, while other nations are considering measures that would limit the company’s influence on their communications infrastructure due to national security concerns.

The main basis for these fears is a perception that Huawei is linked to the Chinese government and that the use of the company’s equipment risks the possibility of backdoors that could be used for espionage. These fears are heightened by 5G because of the sensitive information these networks will carry.

Huawei has repeatedly denied accusations of spying, pointing out that it works with security agencies around the world and that it sells products to more than 500 operators in 170 countries without issue. This includes the UK, where BT, EE, Vodafone and Three are all customers.

 Here are the best Huawei phone deals in 2019   

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The best business productivity accessories

It's no secret that the modern office is becoming increasingly populated with gadgets and tools aimed at improving connectivity, efficiency and productivity.

But how can you spot the products that will give you that extra boost?

We've rounded up some of these clever extras, from an ultra-secure USB drives, through a tiny docking station, to one of the weirdest gadgets ever to land on Techradar Pro, courtesy of a Kickstarter campaign.

The Mophie Powerstation USB-C XXL looks like no portable battery we've seen before. It uses a soft fabric finish and while it has some hard edges, it minimizes the risk of getting your items scratched by eliminating pointed corners altogether. At $149.95 though, it will be a tough sell with so many choices out there in the market.

Its relatively low capacity (19,500mAh) will be a concern when competitors routinely offer 30,000mAh or more. That said, Mophie claims that the battery will be able to add up to 14 hours to the battery life of a USB-C Macbook which is no small feat especially as Mophie says that this would be additional video playback time rather than having the laptop just sitting idle. 

Apple states that the MacBook has a battery life of up to 10 hours so you'd be more than doubling that. The battery charger also supports Fast Charge and can send 30W of power to any compatible devices. At 390g for a thickness of merely 23mm, it is very portable.

Add in a two year warranty and it looks like a decent deal. Bear in mind though that it has only two ports (one USB Type-C and one USB-A) and that the competition offers more features at less than half the price (albeit without the cachet). 

Jackery, for example, offers a 19,200mAh battery with a 45W output that can charge bigger laptops, ditto for the RavPower Turbo series which packs a larger 20100mAh battery. Both have three USB ports and come with a very significant discount compared to the Mophie (up to 67% off).

Note that there is an even bigger (and even more expensive) Mophie 3XL battery that comes with an additional port and a third extra capacity.

The D300S was announced by Kingston and is an updated version of the D300, launched in 2016, with the suffix S standing for Serialised; more on that later. The drive looks like a standard USB drive but sturdier and much, much more expensive. The smallest capacity - 4GB - retails for £100 while the largest one - a 128GB one - sells for a staggering £520. 

Now there is a reason why the D300S carries such a premium according to Kingston. The drive uses custom hardware for encryption (FIPS 140-2 Level 3 256-bit) and decryption which eliminates vulnerabilities associated with any process done on the host system.

That chip and the rest of the hardware is sealed in a tamper evident epoxy material that hardened when it dried.

The drive is also waterproof up to 120cm and should handle bumps and falls easily. The D300S also uses a digitally signed firmware which makes it impervious to the BadUSB attack and it will delete the encryption key after 10 invalid attempts, thwarting any brute force attacks.

Two additional features that separates the S model from the standard model is a barcode and a unique serial number; together they allow system administrators to scan or read the code when configuring the drive.

There's also a virtual keyboard that reduces the risk of having a keylogger storing the password. Sadly though, it does suffer from the fact that you need to install an application prior to using the drive on Windows and the write speeds claimed by Kingston are shockingly low at 40MBps. Read speeds are better at 250MBps.

All in all, Kingston delivers a solid product but this is a very competitive market with the likes of Aegis, Secure Data or Datashur providing some interesting alternatives.

Note that a Serialised Managed (SM) model will follow shortly if Kingston's website is to be believed.

If you need to have small amounts of sensitive data being carried around, then the 3NX could well be a life saver. It brings advanced data protection features to a mainstream market thanks to its attractive low price ($59 for the 2GB/4GB model) and $189 for the 128GB one.

What you do get is some military grade, enterprise-level features like FIPS 140-2 level 3, real time hardware-based encryption, a platform-agnostic setup and a rugged extruded aluminum enclosure.

The data is encrypted using an onboard 10-digit keypad and is powered by an onboard battery.

The 3NX comes with a three-year warranty as well as an IP67 rating. Apricorn claims that the device can hit read/write speeds of up to 77MBps/72MBps, which is more than decent for a USB 3.1 device.

As part of the package, the key can be configured to support independent admin and user PINs. Having the keypad on the key itself makes it near impossible to hack as the encryption hardware is sealed inside the USB drive, not on the host computer.

Furthermore, the buttons are wear resistant and designed not to reveal the most used buttons. Just make sure you don't forget your PIN as you will only have as few as four attempts before the drive deletes the encryption key and with it the ability to decrypt the data stored.

The thought of packing the equivalent of nearly 1,000 CD-ROMs on something barely bigger than the average human fingernail would have been unimaginable only a decade ago.

Now storage companies like Samsung, Sandisk or Integral are slowly pushing 512GB microSD cards in the market, fuelled by demand from mobile devices.

PNY is one of the latest to do so with the Elite, a card that has a rated reading speed of up to 90MBps and enough capacity to store over 80 hours of full HD video content, plus the bonus of having lifetime warranty.

At $350, it is comparable in price with other products in the same category but far more expensive than the 400GB SanDisk Ultra which can be had for about a third of the price for three quarters of the capacity.

We managed write speeds of around 21MBps and read speeds of 66MBps, which are decent numbers without being spectacular, 

Owning a 512GB card, the highest commercial capacity available, will allow you to dramatically increase available storage on your smartphone. 512GB is the maximum storage capacity available on phones likes the Samsung Galaxy Note9 and a 512GB card essentially doubles that amount; great for 4K footage of field visits or business videos.

Other devices like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 6 tablet will also benefit if you want to extra (removable) storage capacity although the read/write speeds are likely to confine the card to a pure secondary storage role.

Omnicharge's Omni Ultimate battery charger is not for everyone. It is big, it is bulky and expensive. Note that the Omni Ultimate has been approved as plane safe - so you can take it with you in the cabin when travelling. You just need a form to fill in for it pre-boarding, which you can get at the airport/gate.

For a growing community of demanding power users though, this battery pack is likely to be an absolute godsend. So much so that an Indiegogo campaign started beginning of October 2018 is likely to raise nearly $1 million from more than 4000 backers, nearly 20x its original flexible goal.

The external battery is built like a tank and is both dust and splash resistant with rubber flaps covering its power outputs. And its list of features is just as impressive: it has a power outlet that can delivery up to 150W DC or 120W AC output, a 40.3Ah/145Whr capacity, a USB Type-C connector that can deliver up 60W power, two USB ports supporting 15W (5V3A) each, a three-hour fast charging (QC3.0-compatible), pass-through charging and a useful OLED display that shows you battery capacity in real time (and to three decimal places).

You can charge it using a solar panel and it is equipped with pass-through charging plus you can even add a spare battery pack. Note that there is a 230V EU version available (but no UK because of the plug size).

With an SRP of $599 though, it will be a tough sell especially when there are cheaper (but less powerful) options around. The MaxOak K2 for example is cheaper and has a higher battery capacity but doesn't have AC output or USB Type-C connectivity. The RavPower AC Power Bank can output to AC but has a battery capacity of only 27Ah.

The Omni Ultimate will be available via Amazon in Q1 2019 (planned for end of January/start of February) in the UK and in the USA. Other territories will follow.

Ensuring your device is powered up on the go is a daily worry for many of us, and there's nothing worse than running out of battery at a crucial time. Linedock thinks it has the answer with its slim and stylish power bank to keep your Macbook charged up when you need it the most.

At just 9mm across, the device slips in neatly under your laptop and packs in a massive 20,000mAh rechargeable battery that should keep you powered up on the move.

Linedock has nine ports in all, including three USB-C ports, three USB 3.0 ports equipped with Qualcomm QuickCharge 3, an SD card and a DisplayPort hub, and multiple devices can be connected at once.

But that's not all - as Linedock can also act as a spare SSD for your device, with the option of adding 256GB or 1TB of storage as an extra bonus to make this a true mobile work hub.

Lindeock has been designed for 13in MacBook Pro devices, but the company says that it is compatible with any laptop powered by USB-C, meaning PixelBook owners are in luck. At $299, this is simply a must-have for Mac users that work on the go, offering style, power and flexibility.

With conference calls becoming an increasingly common part of modern business life, the need for reliable hardware to support this is greater than ever. The OfficeCore M2 is the latest release from Chinese firm EMeet, and looks to provide a smart and stylish way to make sure your calls go off without a hitch.

The OfficeCore M2 offers 360-degree voice recognition thanks to a number of embedded microphones, supporting a range of up to 26 feet away, with the company adding that should support calls with up to 12 people without interference. The device can also link to mobile smart assistants to facilitate greater communication, with Siri, Cortana and Google Now all supported via Bluetooth, although our tests found that this was often patchy to set up.

The major selling point of the OfficeCore M2 is its portability. Equipped with a 2500mAh battery that should easily last through even the longest conference calls, the device can quickly be picked up and carried around in a shoulder bag or rucksack. At $189, it's not the cheapest speakerphone on the market today, but if you're in the market for a device that can easily be taken on the go, this could be the one for you.

Staying online when working on the go has become an incredibly important issue for all mobile workers, as an unreliable connection can be a disaster.

Netgear is looking to solve these worries with its new Nighthawk M1 mobile router, which it says is the company's fastest yet. Capable of supporting Gigabit LTE speeds, the Nighthawk M1 uses four-band carrier aggregation and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X16 LTE modem to support mobile downloads of up to 1000MBps, as well as uploads of up to 150MBps. Our time with the device found the actual speeds to be fractionally lower, however streaming and uploading were both fast and reliable, both at home and out and about.

The Nighthawk M1 is slim and lightweight, meaning it can be easily carried around in a rucksack or messenger bag. Netgear says that the battery life of the can last 24 hours, and our tests found it comfortably survived a full working day. Set-up is a quick plug-in process, with no external software needed, and the device can even use its USB connectors to charge your mobile device.

In the UK, the Nighthawk M1 can be purchased from Amazon for £299, or via pay-monthly contract with BT or EE. Both options are fairly pricey, with EE offering the device for £29 a month for 24 months after a £99 upfront payment, but if you're looking for fast and reliable connections, this device is ideal.

Offices can often be noisy places to work, so if you are looking to cut yourself off from the world around you, Jabra's latest Bluetooth headset could be the answer.

The Jabra Evolve 75e is the company's latest attempt to help boost the productivity of office workers everywhere with a comfortable headset that offers long battery life and stylish design.

Jabra says that the Evolve 75e are the world’s first professional UC-certified wireless earbuds, making the device ideal for carrying out external or conference calls wherever you are without the need for tangled phone wires or complicated UC set-ups.

Set-up is simple, as the headset connects to your smartphone, laptop or desktop via Bluetooth and a USB plug-in. There's no need to download any extra apps or services, meaning you can jump on calls right away. The sound quality was excellent, with the buds cancelling out the noise of an active workplace, and the in-built microphone able to deliver a clear input.

The only issue we had with the Evolve 75e is that Bluetooth connectivity would occasionally drop for no apparent reason, but with the compact design and long battery life (Jabra promises up to 14 hours) provided, this seems like a minor hiccup.

As more and more consumers ditch cash for contactless and digital payments, businesses of all sizes also need to adapt. Square has long been one of the most exciting payments companies around today, and has now finally brought its Reader product to the UK for the first time.

The product acts as a mobile POS, allowing customers to quickly pay for their items using a contactless card, mobile or wearable device. Targeted predominatly at small businesses or traders, the Square Reader is slim and compact, easily fitting in the palm of your hand.

The £39 reader weighs in at just 56g, meaning it can be handheld, or tethered to a till or counter using an additional £19 dock, allowing for a truly mobile steup. Anyone signing up to Square's service can get approval to start using the system within the hour, taking much of the headache out of setting up a new payments platform, with Square’s own software system offering a POS service as well as in-depth analytics.

The tool seems like an invaluable asset to any small business looking to grow or expand, or any company looking for a more mobile setup. Perhaps our only gripe would be that the device is potentially too compact, and could be lost - but asides from that, a Square Reader could be the key to taking your business to the big time.

Dealing with a number of connectivity options is now an increasing challenge not only for office workers, but also those whose working habits are a bit more flexible. If you're someone who is constantly connecting in different locations, for example hot-desking in multiple offices, then StarTech has you covered. This new mobile hub hooks up to your smartphone or laptop via USB-C, coming with connections ports for USB, HMDI, ethernet and USB-C, meaning you should never be caught short - and it's small and light enough to be carried in your pocket. The HMDI connection supports UHD 4K displays, with the USB-A supporting Fast-Charge technology, meaning you can power both the adaptor and your device in one go.

Many of us know the pain of conference calls being ruined by poor connection or call quality, and with many businesses today choosing to embrace mobile working ideas and services, the need to stay flexible yet connected is paramount.

Sennheiser is looking to solve these woes with its ultra-mobile TeamConnect Wireless - in essence a portable conference room, which can be packed up and carried around for workers on the go. Made up of four speakers, all carried around in a stylish case which doubles as a charging hub, the system can be connected to any laptop, smart device or VC system via Bluetooth, USB or 3.5mm jack. 

Set-up is quick and easy, allowing users to get up and running in a matter of minutes, with Sennheiser saying the kit can support up to 24 participants at once. Our tests showed the audio quality to be very effective, even with multiple participants on different lines, with no connectivity issues.

The ultra-portable design of the TeamConnect Wireless is the major selling point here, as the stylish case is able to charge up the speakers to ensure you're never caught short, and takes up less space than a rucksack. 

However this stylish product doesn't come cheap, costing £3,940, meaning it may be out of the price range for some SMBs. For those that can splash out though, this is an eye-catching piece of kit that allows you to stay connected and conversant with your team or customers wherever you are.

Check out the best productivity apps you can get for your mobile device

Another option for workers constantly on the go, the TP-Link M4750 offers download speeds of up to 300Mbps, and 50Mbps. That's not enough to reliably stream high-quality media or teleconferencing, but if you need to work on documents or other files, the LTE Cat 6 network connection should be ideal.

Our tests found that the device was reliable in reaching these speeds, even in central London, and more than enough to enjoy reliable connections whilst on the move. The battery life for the device was excellent, lasting a full working day with ease, as TP-Link says that the M4750 can offer up to 15 hours of  juice, and recharging the huge 3000mAh battery is also quick and easy using the microUSB port. 

The M4750 is also light and portable, being small enough to fit inside a jacket pocket, and its rubber build will help protect from any accidental drops or bumps. Set up is remarkably easy, requiring you to just insert the SIM card and turn on, making this much more straightforward than other similar devices.

The device can also work as a wireless hotspot, supporting up to 32 devices at once, across 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, meaning you can set up multiple connections around the home, or even in a small office if needs be - although speeds will drop if you do so. 

However buying the device in the UK is a bit tricky, as you'll have to go through a reseller to get your hands on one - with prices varying among stores, so stay on the lookout for the best deal.

More and more industries are now choosing to use mobile devices in day-to-day operations out in the field thanks to their portability.

The FLIR ONE Pro offers a compact and powerful thermal imaging camera than can show up in-depth information about the world around you.

Attaching via USB-C, the device clips onto the bottom of your phone, acting as an extension to your normal camera, and displaying heat information on the world around you, with hotter objects showing up in brighter colours (see below).

The technology could prove incredibly useful for a number of industries, such as home inspectors looking to find insulation leaks, or electricians aiming to identify an over-heating connection.

You’ll need to download and register with the free FLIR ONE app in order to start using the device, which is an unneeded extra step for many, but does grant you access to the company’s helplines, galleries and app store.

The actual app was often slow to recognise when we had the device plugged in and turned on, however, and sometimes failed to detect it at all, which was slightly annoying for us, but for a worker in the field could be a major hindrance to getting your work done.

Once you do get it up and running, however, the FLIR ONE Pro’s VividIR imaging system reveals a wealth of information on the world around you, and the compact build and design means it’s easy to carry around (although could also make it easier to lose in a crowded toolbox as well….)

Battery life is also not very long, with our tests only finding the device lasting just over an hour, although re-charging was a speedy process. If you’re out working in the field with a cable though, this could be a major downside.

The FLIR ONE Pro also doesn't come cheap, costing £349.95 in the UK, but it could prove invaluable for workers in such specialised areas, and is definitely worth your consideration.

TP-Link says that the M7650 is the fastest Wi-Fi router it has ever made, offering speeds of up to 600MBps, which is easily enough to stream video to your laptop or tablet whilst on the move, as well as high-quality VoLTE audio through your phone - useful if you don't want to miss that conference call.

Our tests found that the device often reached speeds of over 500MBps, which is impressive for central London, and more than enough to enjoy reliable connections whilst on the move.

The M7650 can support up to 32 devices at once, meaning you can set up multiple connections around the home, or even in a small office if needs be - although speeds will drop if you do so. Set up is remarkably easy, requiring you to just insert the SIM card and turn on, making this much more straightforward than other similar devices.

Battery life for the device was excellent, lasting a full working day with ease, as TP-Link says that the M7650 can offer up to 15 hours of  juice, and recharging the huge 3000mAh battery is also quick and easy using the microUSB port.

The M7650 is also light and portable, being small enough to fit inside a jacket pocket, and its rubber build will help protect from any accidental drops or bumps.

However buying the device in the UK is a bit tricky, as you'll have to go through a reseller. This means you'll also need to be on the lookout for differing price options, but if you get the right deal, the M7650 is a must-have.

We love our smartphones so much so that we carry them all the time even at our work, prompting businesses to consider shedding regular landlines and simply embrace the BYOD (bring your own device) paradigm. 

Which is why it is so surprising that few companies have come up with a product like the Invoxia NVX200. In a nutshell, this £209 device converts/transforms your smartphone into a desk phone with a Bluetooth speaker and a charging dock thrown in. It comes with a bunch of connectors and adaptors to connect most smartphones.

Most Apple devices (including the iPod, iPad and iPhone) are supported, as are the latest Android smartphones, thanks to a USB Type-C port. A clever adjustable stand means that any device will sit snuggly on the NVX200. Connect the device via Bluetooth to the latter, put your smartphone in place and you’re ready to go.

Hold down the voicemail key bring up the settings and you will be able to configure the device to your taste, down to the ringtones.  Outwardly, it looks just like a normal desk phone, with lots of curves, a soft surface and a handset with a cable that’s sufficiently long for the user to stand up. Setting it up is straight forward: connect the device to a power socket, dock your smartphone, connect it to the NVX200 via Bluetooth and you’re ready to go. We did encounter some issues though.

The test smartphone, a Sony Xperia Z3, has a micro USB port located on the side rather than at the bottom of the device. To make matters worse, it is not anywhere near the middle which makes it impossible to dock in landscape mode. Things got a bit more complicated when you factor in the casing used to protect it.

Altogether a wireless solution, which integrates no-wires charging, might have been a better solution but would have restricted its appeal. We couldn’t get the speaker to play music wirelessly but it did somehow play music via the micro USB connector but only, and only if Bluetooth is disconnected.

Fed up with losing your connectivity when out and about? Then check out the Multivox Multisim. It is a service that allows access to multiple UK mobile networks from a single SIM card. 

No need to swap tiny pieces of PCB or opt for a sub-optimal dual-SIM smartphone to eliminate the issues associated with poor connectivity, especially when you are out and about. The technology works on almost any recent smartphones and feature phones and doesn’t need a dedicated app. 

If there is no coverage on the primary access network, then your phone will search for another available UK mobile network and if there is one available, it will connect to it. If there are multiple networks available, then it will pick up and run on the network with the strongest signal. 

The Multisim works without having to manually select a different network to switch to and you get to keep your phone number regardless of the network. The only caveat is that a call will drop when the network being used loses coverage altogether; there is no “incall” switching.

You get unlimited UK calls to mobiles and landlines as well as unlimited texts, all courtesy of EE’s network. Four data packages are available, ranging from 2GB (£29.40) to 10GB (£41.90) excluding VAT. The packages can be configured at Immervox.     

There are a fair few solutions available for digitally-savvy globetrotters looking who whiz across the globe for leisure or pleasure. We might have uncovered one of the best ones yet.

From Knowroaming comes a global hotspot that uses a Novatel Wireless Mi-fi, the 6630, and can connect you up in more than 140 countries with 92 of them offering unlimited data for a flat fee of $7.99 per day (about £6.40), a price that even include free, unlimited Whatsapp.

We tried it during a recent trip to Japan where the cost of connectivity is prohibitive and international data roaming is a no-no unless you want to spend hundreds. The Mi-fi device comes in a nice pouch with a few accessories; we just took it out and used it for a few days. It is sturdy enough to withstand a few knocks.

The 6630 is about the size of a Tic-tac box and its user interface is intuitive with only three buttons and a small screen on its front. On top is the power button as well as two USB ports, one for charging up and the other to provide power to external devices.

Inside the 6630 is a 4,000mAh battery that can power the device for up to 20 hours. It is compatible with Cat4 LTE although KnowRoaming only supported 3G for now and an LTE offer is in the pipeline. In use, the service was as seamless as it could be.

Switch it on and connect to it using the provided login details. Note that you can’t change these from the device itself; that can only be done by accessing the device via a browser. Various options exist on the Mi-fi device including the ability to set a number of restrictions, the ability to view your consumption, the number of devices connected at any time and the battery life left. The 6630 supports dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi but no 802.11ac.

Since this is primarily marketed as a business device, it comes with a number of security features including VPN pass-through, NAT firewall, security hardened web interface, Anti-CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) and session timeouts. Sadly though you won’t be able to buy a consumer version of that yet. Instead, the device is only being sold to corporates for $199 (about £160) with discounts being offered for multiple purchases. 

As it stands, the service is meant to be managed centrally by an administrator or IT manager with an entire backend, cloud-based infrastructure provided by KnowRoaming. Suggested improvement to the Mi-fi device would include a thinner, more pocketable model, support for 802.11ac, the inclusion of a microSD card reader and having a smartphone app to allow you to access admin essential information from your smartphone, rather than through a browser.

Find out more at Knowroaming

If you've ever been stuck for mobile signal when travelling to a new country, then the NUU Konnect i1 could be the gadget for you.

Able to provide 4G connections in over 100 countries, the i1 looks to offer a simple, portable way to get online wherever you are in the world.

Most current mobile hotspots are only able to connect to 3G networks, so the Konnect i1 already has an advantage there, thanks to its LTE Cat 6 Qualcomm modem.

The device supports VPNs and Wi-Fi calling, and is equipped with LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/17/20/39/40/41, meaning there's a wide range of possible connections.

NUU Mobile says that it is trying to target frequent travellers with the Konnect i1. The device itself is small enough and light enough to easily slip into your pocket, and is able to power up using its microUSB port.

Setting up is easy enough, with the capacity to connect up to five devices at any one time.

What's more, you'll only play a flat rate of $10 a day to use the device as much as you want, with no contract or sign-up fees.

However, after the first 500MB of data, you'll be dialled back to HSPA+ networks for the next 500MB you use, and then down again to just 128Kbps speeds for anything more than that, unless you spend more for further LTE usage.

For the moment, you can only get hold of the Konnect i1 if you backed the product on Kickstarter, with news of a wider release not available just yet.

If you're in the market for something a bit more heavyweight when it comes to your 4G roaming needs, then you may be interested in the YRoam YR4.

YRoam's services are available in over 100 countries worldwide, including popular business travel destinations such as the USA, Singapore and France.

Simply select one of the company's price plans, starting at 5.9p per MB when you buy a 2GB worldwide package.

If you're only travelling to one location, YRoam also offers a UK, US or EU specific package, lasting for 30 days.

Any data usage you purchase can be used either on a PAYG basis, or the ability to top up later.

YRoam also offers discounted rates for connections in your home country, say if you're out in a remote locations not served by your current provider, starting at just 3p per MB.

You can connect up to five devices at any time, meaning you could have a laptop, phone, tablet and more all online at once.

The device features a huge 6,000mAh battery, although this does mean that you're stuck with a fairly heavyweight build.

However this means that the device doubles up as a power bank to recharge your devices in case of an emergency, with a USB and microUSB port to connect up.

Overall though this is a sturdy hotspot that should serve you well wherever you are in the world.

TheBestVPNFor.Me

If you've just started your own business, or need to work from home often, having a flexible and reliable technology set-up should be one of your top priorities.

In order to keep you from wasting time setting up complex systems, teleconferencing experts GoToMeeting have you covered with an all-in-one box of tools that should allow you to get up and running quickly.

The pack contains an Asus Chromebox PC, Logitech wireless keyboard, Logitech 1080p HD webcam and a FLX UC 500 conference phone from Revo labs - pretty much everything you need to get started. 

The products have all been specially selected to work seamlessly together, meaning most of the usual set-up process can be sped through quickly and easily - even if you're not particularly tech-savvy.

Setting up your new kit can be done in a matter of minutes - all you need is a monitor to hook the PC and webcam up to, with all the rest of the hardware able to just plug and play.

The tiny Chromebox PC is incredibly powerful for something so small (at just 12.4cm wide and 4.2cm tall), coming with a powerful 1.7Ghz processor, 4GB of RAM and 16GB storage, making it a great choice if you are strapped for space in your office. The PC also features 4 USB ports alongside DP, HDMI and LAN connectors, offering everything you should need to get started.

Space saving is also helped by the Logitech wireless keyboard, which connects to the Chromebox via USB tracker, and also includes a trackpad in place of a mouse. If you do prefer using a physical mouse, you'll have to splash out on a separate piece.

All the devices work together quickly and easily, meaning you'll be able to start working, calling and even videoconferencing in no time. The webcam is once again surprisingly powerful for its size, offering a smooth video experience, although we did see some slowdown in some cases.

The only minor downside is the need to buy the entire package, meaning that if you only need a conference phone, or a compact PC, you may be better off buying these separately. 

At the time of writing, the kit is only available to buy in the USA, costing $999, with a subscription fee of $99 a month, making it a fairly pricey proposition - however if you're already an existing GoToMeeting customer, it can be built into your current subscription. 

As many jobs require more computing power, the need for extra connectivity is also becoming a common demand among workers. StarTech's latest hub allows users to connect two PCs, allowing for multi-hardware and screen access all from a single source. The hub supports two Mini DP PC connections, and resolutions up to 4K AT 60Hz, making this ideal for designers, animators, or other graphics-based roles.

Switching between the two connected PCs is as simple as pushing a button on the front of the hub, and users can also set up hotkeys to make usage even easier. As well as the PC connections, there are three USB 2.0 ports on the front, including a dedicated mouse and keyboard slot that offers plug-and-play support for Windows, Linux and Mac accessories.

The hub is also small and light enough at 845g to be carried around in a laptop case or backpack, making it an ideal partner for those moving around different locations.

If you're someone who travels for work a lot, staying powered up on the move may often prove a challenge. Although power banks for mobile devices have been popular for some time, anyone looking for a laptop equivalent could be caught short. However Orico's new SC28 offering provides a huge capacity that should be perfect for staying charged up on a trip. With a capacity of 28,800mAh, the SC28 provides easily enough juice for even the thirstiest laptops, which can be quickly recharged via USB or power socket. 

The latter features a number of adaptors for different markets, meaning you should never be caught short, with Orico promising five hours of life for a 13in laptop. The SC28 can charge up to three devices at once, meaning you can power your laptop, phone and router all at once for the ideal mobile working solution. The device itself looks stylish, with a sleek aluminium alloy body that weighs in at just under 1kg, but should still easily slip into a rucksack or laptop bag.

In modern busy offices, it can be tricky to get some quiet - particularly if you’re trying to carry out a conference call or video meeting from your desk. Sennheiser, which is perhaps better known for its consumer headphone line, is looking to address this with a new headset targeted at business customers.

The MB 660 may resemble normal ‘cans’ style headphones, but in fact can act as a Bluetooth-enabled wireless headset, allowing you to use them as a meeting accessory in today’s UC-dominated workplace.

As you would expect from a brand such as Sennheiser, the audio quality is excellent, whether that’s with a voice call, watching video or even listening to music. This is complimented by the noise-cancelling ability of the headset, which comes with three separate settings that allow you to select your level of isolation. This high-standard audio quality does come at a price, but if you value your calls and media, it may be worth shelling out.

The headset comes with its own stylish and compact carry case, which also house the charging cables and USB connector. Battery life was excellent, with the headset not needing a recharge during our week-long test - and when we did plug it in, recharging was quick and effective.

If you're looking for a slim and stylish accessory to help guide you through your presentations, then Logitech may have just the tool for you. The company has released a new edition of its Spotlight presentation remote, promising "a whole new standard" in presentation control.

The new product offers a stylish minimalist design made out of polished metal, weighing in at just 49g, with the slim build meaning it sits nicely in the palm of your hand. Three programmable buttons on the front giving you the opportunity to control your presentation however you like. The remote is able to highlight and magnify certain areas on screen, allowing you to focus on specific items or points, and has a range of up to 30 metres for those grander presenting occasions, connecting via Bluetooth to your Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS or Android device.

It even comes with a timer, which can show how long you've been speaking for and vibrate to tell you if you're about to run over your allotted presentation time. Battery life is substantial enough to last you through a working day, and is quickly recharged.

The only downside is the price - at £119.95, it is quite an expensive option, but if you're looking for an effective and stylish presentation helper, this is the tool for you.

If you thought that the era of writing stuff down using pen and paper was dead, then Moleskine is here to prove you wrong.

The iconic notebook provider, well-known for its leather-bound pages, is embracing the technology world with its new Smart Writing Set, which it says combines the pleasure of writing with pen and paper with the ease and speed of editing offered by modern word processing software.

The kit consists of a smart Pen+ tool, which, when used to write on the accompanying 'Paper Tablet', will also display what you are writing on an accompanying phone or tablet device. Connected via Bluetooth, your device, boosted by the Moleskine Notes App, then allows you to record and edit your scribblings, meaning you can add extra colour, highlights and more.

The app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, stores all the writing done in your Paper Tablet, meaning you can delete or move pages across devices, and even sync using your Google Drive or Evernote account.

As for the kit itself, it resembles your traditional writing tools, with the Pen+ taking after a standard fountain pen - albeit with a hidden camera by the nib which traces and digitises everything you write. The Paper Tablet is slightly thicker than a usual Moleskine, but features NCode technology embedded in every page to allow the Pen+ to pick up your writing or drawing.

All in all, the device works well - once you're registered on the app, using the Pen+ is smooth, and the data transfer is effective, even if like us, you aren't particularly artistically-minded. But whilst this is clearly a clever product (and at £199, a premium one too...) there remains a slight nagging question about what it's trying to achieve. 

Those of us used to writing with a pen and pad will find some advantages, most notably the chance to edit and remove notes, but with tablet devices and lightweight laptops so commonplace today, it still seems like an odd choice of platform for Moleskine. 

The idea behind the F3 is a simple one: provide with a stand that simplifies and organises a desk while maintaining a clean, functional style, without an expensive price tag.

Satechi achieves it with this product which packs some interesting features on top. It has two, rather than one, preset height options thanks to a pair of sturdy aluminium legs with rubber pads.

Physically, it is a fairly big slap of plastic (550 x 231mm) available either in white or anthracite. Plastic usually infers flimsiness but there wasn’t any in sight. This is proper solid stuff. The aluminium legs slot in within seconds after the shorter, permanent ones are deployed.

There’s plenty of connectivity as well; four front facing USB 3.0 ports plus headphone/microphone ports with long cables to connect to your PC or laptop.

It doesn’t require power as the ports are essentially passive ones. The F3 took the weight of a 27-inch monitor without flinching and there are reports of customers using it with a 34-inch behemoth.

You will be able to put items weighing up to 11Kg on top. There’s enough clearance (about 30mm) underneath the actual plastic stand to slot in a keyboard.

Adding the aluminium feet adds another 50mm. A few more USB ports or a smartphone stand might have been useful together with a couple of extra height options. There’s also the fact that a more premium material like glass or aluminium might have been a better, albeit more expensive, option.

A few vendors (Acer, Lenovo) have tried to deliver laptops with dual displays but these proved to be niche products with high prices and they were commercial failures.

Enter PackedPixels (£149 each, about $194, AU$252), a deceptively straightforward product from Dovetail Technology that brings multiple displays to laptops with one big caveat.

Your laptop will need to be equipped with a DisplayPort or Thunderbolt 1 or 2 ports. Newer Thunderbolt 3 ports won't work even with an adaptor, and obviously older ones like HDMI, DVI or VGA are out of the picture.

Note that you can use a USB 3.0 to DisplayPort converter according to the manufacturer. That is what you will have to do on non-Apple laptops.

If you have a DP or a TB1/2 port (Dell XPS 13 first generation, MacBook Pro etc) then using the bundled universal adaptor, you will be able to connect either one or two displays, each of them 9.7-inch in size and with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels.

That's a 4:3 aspect ratio, something that works well in cramped spaces and is actually the same screen as the iPad Retina Display.

The designers made the right decision to hide the connecting ports (DisplayPort and USB) where the stand is supposed to slot.

Bear in mind that using two extra screens will eat up your battery faster, although, as Dovetail technologies suggests, you might also use a mobile phone adapter or an emergency power bank (like the Aukey 30Ah) to help out.

Given the connector, you won't need any additional driver installation for any operating system. The screens are automatically adjustable and can be used in portrait or landscape mode.

Jackery is a little known company that focuses - like so many out there - on producing portable laptop and smartphone chargers. Its flagship product is the massive PowerPro, a 500Whr/140Ah Portable Power station rechargeable battery pack, The Jackery Titan S is a portable battery (72.4Whr) that can not only charge your mobile or tablet but also, according to its manufacturer, the popular Apple MacBook laptop. 

We didn’t have one at hand to test that claim sadly; note that it is also available in orange which for some reason has a lower capacity. Its black metal aluminium casing ensures that it will survive more than a few drops and it does feel very solid. Shame though about the sharper-than-usual edges on both sides and we’re not fans of the curvy profile of the Titan S as this caused it to slip a few times. 

This is a portable charger/battery pack so don’t expect too much innovation; it doesn’t switch off automatically but does identify the connected device by itself, charging it at the maximum permitted power.

Other than a big power button and a 4-led battery status indicators which means you will never really know when the item will be fully charged when you reach four blue dots or discharged when it shows one blue dot. 

There are two full size USB ports - a 15W one (5V, 3A) and an 18W one (supporting variable voltages thanks to Quick Charge, up to 3.4A) - and a USB Type-C one that can deliver 15W power (5V, 3A); the latter can also be used to charge the battery. 

At 155 x 80 x 22mm for a weight of 435g, it is a tad smaller (volume wise) and lighter than the Aukey Powerbank although the latter has a far superior capacity (30Ah compared to 20.1Ah). The Jackery Titan comes with a micro USB charging cable and a two-year warranty but no carry case. The item is out of stock in the UK at the time of writing. 

This printer is not for everyone. It is slow, expensive to buy and to maintain, and it is not even wireless! But then not all printers can list on their spec sheet that they're the world's lightest all-in-one printer, one that can not only print (obviously) but also scan and copy.

The Primera Trio uses only a normal microUSB cable to charge and to connect to the host computer, and unlike most of the competition, it is truly portable (as in it has a battery inside) and boasts a smaller footprint than most laptops.

Outside of this nifty gadget, you'll be hard pressed to find a compact device that you can take with you to print important documents that need immediate signatures (or at least draft copy). The scanning capability is not a big deal – you can always take pictures instead – although with the Trio, you will be able to do copies fairly easily.

Home working can often be a battle for space within a fairly cramped environment, so wireless accessories have become more and more popular in the past few years.

The Gyration Air Mouse Voice looks to take wireless mouse technology one step further, offering flexible use cases from the desk to the boardroom and beyond thanks to the power of voice.

The device, which costs $99, is able to act as a typical desktop mouse, connecting via Bluetooth, but thanks to in-built microphones, can also double up as an in-air meeting pointer, where it can work with voice recognition to skip through slides.

The voice commands can also be used to zoom in on specific details in a slide, and even open up your web browser - all activated just with a push of a button.

Asides from the voice control, the device can also be used as an in-air mouse, allowing to to navigate around a companion PC or laptop whilst in use, which could be super handy for launching new documents or finding specific details.

Set-up is quick and easy, with no special drivers needed, and each of the three device buttons able to be programmed to specific commands via a desktop app. The Air Mouse voice has a wireless range of 70 metres, meaning it’s ideal for both the boardroom and the conference hall, and works with both Windows and OSX software. 

The mouse itself may not feel particularly premium, with a rather fragile-looking plastic finish, but if you need to give presentations on a regular basis, this could be an ideal product to take your work to the next level.

Your daily meetings might be about to get even more interactive thanks to the GoTouch pen from Anyractive.

Comprised of a wireless pen and camera unit, the device is in theory able to turn any wall, table or even floor into a display that can be written on. The GoTouch works by connecting to a smartphone or Windows PC connected to an external display, which is then broadcast to your surface of choice.

Unfortunately setting up the device is quite fiddly, requiring a separate app download before you can start projecting. Linking to your Android or iOS device is then done by Bluetooth, which is rather spotty, and means connecting your display and smartphone to the app, which can take some time - not ideal if you quickly need to start a presentation.

Once we did get the GoTouch operational, the pen was largely successful when writing, but did cut out several times. As a pocket-sized projector, however, the GoTouch camera was rather more successful.

Battery life was good, with the camera staying operational for several hours of broadcast, and recharging speedily via USB, however the pen is powered by physical batteries, meaning it might need keeping an eye on in case of embarrassing power failures during a presentation.

Ordering the GoTouch may also be a bit tricky unless you are fluent in Korean, with the company’s online store not offering an English-language version just yet. This also means we have no idea how much it actually costs, as although Anyractive’s Kickstarter page (which says the GoTouch costs $89) smashed its initial $300,000 target, the device is yet to start shipping.

Overall, the GoTouch is a great idea, but one let down hugely by setup problems.

Monoprice's latest 27in monitor looks to offer a premium display without the high price, and for the most part, it succeeds.

The Monoprice 18545 comes with a 27in LED backlit IPS display sporting a 16:9 2560x1440 maximum resolution - equating to 1440p. This does mean it isn't 4K-equipped, however our tests showed the display to perform well with HD video content as well as regular day-to-day use.

The device comes with 178° viewing angles and the company's Pixel Perfect guarantee, which promotes the wide range of colours. Thanks to a flexible rear hinge, the device can also be angled for your viewing preference, with a tilt range from +15 to -5 degrees, which can be useful if you sit near a window.

The monitor comes with an incredibly slim build which is just 2.1in thick, meaning that the screen should easily fit into most workplace desktop environments - and the metal base is pleasingly solid, meaning you shouldn't be able to accidentally knock it over.

The polished grey metal design of the Monoprice 18545 should help blend in to your home or office, but be warned though, the corners of the aluminium build can be remarkably sharp if you catch it unexpectedly. The rear of the display was also quick to warm up quite alarmingly on several occasions, although this did not appear to impact performance.

Given that it isn't 4K-ready, the $279 price tag for the Monoprice 18545 is certainly reasonable, however if you are looking for a truly top-of-the-range offering, it might be worth spending a little more money elsewhere.

Keeping workplace data safe is a major consideration for many workers, and the Aegis Secure Key 3Z features one of the toughest alternatives around. 

Primarily targeting those workers who are out and about a lot, and also want to keep their valuable information secure, the device is equipped with a physical keypad to protect what's inside.

Despite only being the size of a regular USB stick, the Aegis Secure Key 3Z is one tough cookie, able to stand up to almost any work environments. The rubber exterior, which is IP58 protective against dust and water, safeguards a rugged aluminium build inside and out, meaning that there is no easy way to break into this device.

The Aegis Secure Key 3Z also features top-of-the-range encryption that meets government standards alongside the onboard keyboard to enter a custom PIN and access the data within. Despite all this protection, setting up and using the device is fairly straightforward, not requiring any extra software or complex processes, with all the protection contained within.

In fact, the only downside appears to be the high price - at $79 for the 8GB model we reviewed, this is a far pricier alternative than other devices around today. But if security is your number one concern, then this is the storage device for you.

With data security becoming paramount for many of us these days, the diskAshur Pro looks to offer a comprehensive security offering to ensure your important data stays intact.

The key selling point of the diskAshur Pro is its obvious physical security - the device comes with a keypad that will only grant access to the data stored within upon entering a PIN number. Far from your usual ATM PIN number though, the device requires an identifier between seven and 15 digits, offering far tougher security, with the number able to be quickly personalised and changed, in order to keep your data safe.

Asides from the physical security (which extends to IP56 water and dust resistance and even a self-destruct feature), the diskAshur Pro also comes with some enviable encryption, sporting XTS-AES 256-bit real-time full disk hardware encryption and EDGE technology to offer even more levels of safety.

This version of the drive offers 500GB of storage, which should easily be enough to store all your vital documents, media and more, and connects to your PC or laptop via a standard USB 3.1 port.

The diskAshur Pro works across all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Linux, and requires no extra additional software to be installed, meaning using the device is incredibly easy.

Getting hold of the product may be the main issue with the diskAshur Pro, with the company manufacturing and selling many other models of the device on its site. We found this particular model for sale on Amazon for £211.96, and on iStorage's own site for £209.

If you are able to get one, however, the diskAshur Pro is unparalleled in both its physical and internal protection, and the compact build and hard-wearing design make this a must-have for the security-conscious.

The Apricorn Aegis Secure Key cuts a familiar figure; it does look a lot like the iStorage one but has 60x more capacity while costing about five times more. Comparing it to other secure USB drives, it does come across as being a bit of a bargain if you want to store massive amounts of data although it costs around three times the cheapest 512GB USB drive.

The USB drive itself incorporates a full 10-key alphanumeric keypad with two function keys plus three status lights. It then slots into a hardened epoxy-potted rugged aluminum enclosure which makes it dust and waterproof; the device is also certified IP-58 and at 46g and 93mm long is fairly chunky, putting a bigger strain on a device’s USB port than most USB drives.

As expected, it comes with built-in hardware encryption (256-bit AES) which means that it is totally independent from the host client and OS-agnostic. No keyloggers and no BadUSB vulnerability. It can be used where no keyboards are present and doesn’t require any drivers or software. It also means that it is powered by a battery which, unfortunately, adds another potential point of failure, especially as it runs rather hot in use. 

The Aegis Secure Key has also received a FIPS 140-2 level 3 accreditation from NIST, the US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology, which oversees US government IT and computer security. Setting the drive up is the hardest part of the process. There is no factory default PIN so you need to create your own PIN (at last 7 numbers up to 16) to use it. 

The drive can be configured with an admin PIN and a user PIN, both of which are independent and is a particularly useful option in a corporate setup when multiple units are deployed. 

The presence of an on-device keyboard makes brute-force attempts difficult and after 20 incorrect PIN entry attempts, the drive automatically deletes the encryption key, rendering the data unreadable. What’s more, it auto-locks when it is disconnected from the host PC or after a set period. Note that it may not work with a USB-hub because of higher power requirements.

There is also a read-only mode that prevents the user from tampering with data on the drive. Add in a rated data transfer rate of up to 190MBps/160MBps (read/write speeds) and a three-year warranty and you get a very solid product. As always, bear in mind that such a device – especially of this size- doesn’t remove the need to have a secure backup; drives – even those with high MTBF - do fail, get damaged or lost.

Plug in the Kingston Ironkey D300 (IKD300/8GB) in your computer and the first thing you will notice is that the drive shows up as a CD Drive with a 14.4MB capacity.  Surely some mistake! Well, you actually need to initialise the drive before using it for the first on any computer.

Note that Kingston strongly advises not to use the drive via a USB hub. Launching the application will request that you create a password (between eight and 16 characters) and will go on to format the drive.

You will confusingly end up with two “drives”, one with the initialisation software and the other one being the actual empty drive. Insert it in another computer (Linux, Mac or Windows) and you will be prompted to enter the right password.

Otherwise, as for other similar solutions on the market, enter the password wrong 10 times in a row and your content will be erased. As for the drive itself, it is an 8GB model with a zinc casing – which also doubles as a heatsink as the D300 heats up a fair bit under use - and tamper-evident epoxy seal for physical security.

With its cap on, it is waterproof (up to 4ft) and dustproof and at 51g, feels solid. More importantly though, the more compelling protection happens inside the device itself. It is a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified device with 256-bit AES hardware encryption.

There is a hardware cryptographic module inside the device itself which means that the encryption and decryption is done on the drive rather than on the host PC, with digitally signed firmware which makes the D300 immune to the notorious BadUSB exploit.

The D300, which comes with a five-year warranty, also offers a read-only option which allows any user, once authenticated, to open and view content on the drive but not change, update or erase the content.

There’s also a managed version of the drive which, as its name implies, allows the drive to be deployed en masse across an organisation but requires Ironkey EMS by Datalocker which allows for the drives to be centrally managed. This allows for drive-specific policies and allows administrators to disable lost or stolen drives remotely and more.

The drives are available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 128GB. The rated transfer rates of the drive vary between 80MBps to 250MBps (read) and 12MBps to 85MBps (write) depending on the capacity. Rule of thumb is the lower the capacity, the slower it will be.

The 8GB model performed better than expected with CrystalDiskMark benchmark results hitting 237.6MBps and 58.69MBps on Read and Write respectively.

The trend for thinner, lighter and more aesthetically pleasing laptop designs gave us the Apple Macbook, a stunningly beautiful device with only one connector, a lonely USB Type-C port.

There's a plethora of accessories - adapters and docking stations - on the market to solve that problem though, especially as more and more laptops are following Apple's lead and cutting the number of connectors to a minimum.

The Satechi Slim Aluminum Type-C Multi-Port Adapter is one of them. Available in four Apple-friendly colours, this device quadruples the amount of ports of the aforementioned MacBook.

There's a pass-through USB Type-C as well as two USB Type-A ports and an HDMI connector capable of supporting 4K video content, albeit at 30Hz - we'd certainly have preferred a DisplayPort.

Physically, the device is about 105mm long and comes with a 150mm USB Type-C cable. The enclosure is made entirely of aluminium which has a propensity to get scratched and marked when flung around too often.Compared to other products on the market, having a cable is preferable to avoid accidental damage to your laptop's port.

Note that each USB port on the Slim Type-C hub can provide 5V/1A (or 5W) and that Satechi advises that the maximum power load on the hub shouldn't exceed 10W, which excludes using it for heavy duty activities (e.g. charging two tablets).

The product comes with a one-year warranty. 

Sandberg's Powerbank is neither the cheapest or the most powerful around. However, it does come with a couple of features that make it a rather enticing option.

It outputs to a number of voltages (12V, 16V, 19V and 20V), automatically choosing the right one depending on the device connected to it.

There are also two USB ports and these are obviously hardwired to output 5V on both. There are also 12 different charge tips but none would fit my Dell XPS 13, and they won't be useful for USB Type-C models like the Dell XPS 13 2016 edition.

There are a couple of things that differentiate this from most of its rivals on the market: it uses a brushed, premium, aluminium finish, with bright blue LED status lights that clearly indicate the amount of juice left or how close the battery is to being charged.

Speaking of charging, Sandberg decided to equip the Powerbank with a dedicated input port which allows the device to be charged in record time thanks to a 36W (18V/2A) power supply unit.

In comparison, the Aukey 30Ah we reviewed recently could only be charged using a 12W USB port which makes charging a lengthy process, often an overnight affair. It also means that you don't rely on your laptop or mobile charger to get the battery replenished.

Sandberg has equipped the Powerbank with an automatic 'switch on and switch off' mechanism to save power. It can deliver up to a total of 85W meaning that it can accommodate a massive 70W on its laptop/DC Out port. Note that the device comes with an industry-leading five-year warranty.

Quite a lot of Ultrabooks (and even a fair few graphics cards) now come with Mini DisplayPort connection as standard in lieu of the traditional D-Sub or HDMI ports; which can prove to be a pain if you're planning to deliver a presentation at a client's office and they only have a HDMI projector.

In theory, Mini DisplayPort – which is popular with Apple - has enough bandwidth to drive 4K monitors at 60Hz (HDMI can only do it at 30Hz) which results in a smoother end-user experience. However, today's product doesn't achieve this (it does reach 4K at 30Hz though).

What it does is merely converting the Mini DisplayPort to a HDMI port, all for just over £23 (about $35, AU$45), more specifically from DP m1.2 to HDMI 1.4 without the need for drivers or external power source.

Unlike other passive video adaptors, this one offers active signal conversion which means that it doesn't require a multi-mode DisplayPort source signal (like AMD's Eyefinity) which greatly expands its compatibility option. In addition, mDP supports 5.1 Surround Sound out of the box and is compatible with most Intel Thunderbolt devices. You will still need to have a HDMI cable at the other end though.

From a distance, it looks like a standard USB cable with a microUSB connector on one end and a bigger-than-average one on the other. 

But look closer and you will see that it is a mirroring and KM (keyboard and mouse) sharing accessory. The KMC6105 allows you to view and interact with your Android device regardless of the brand and platform (i.e. tablet, Chromecast, smartphone) as well as sharing your keyboard and mouse.

Perhaps more importantly, it charges your Android device while in use, something that the previous generation model did not offer. Unlike that one, it allows you to use your smartphone as an additional screen. It also offers copy/cut and paste as well as drag and drop across the platform.

You will need to install a small executable file that is located on the device itself. Otherwise it will only behave like a standard (expensive) cable. You will need to enable Developer Options in newer smartphones by clicking seven times on the "build number" menu.

Subsequently, you will need to allow USB debugging which is how the KMC6105 works its magic. The installation process will also download the device's driver where necessary. Note that the device carries a standard two-year warranty and is USB 2.0 only.

The Android OS Mirroring and KM sharing cable is on sale at Lindy for £24.96.

Audio has historically never been a forte for laptops and that hasn't changed for Ultrabooks especially for those at the lower end of the spectrum (one might even say that it became worse).

Which is why something like an external sound card comes in quite handy. USB devices in general usually carry a performance penalty mostly because they use the host's processing power.

They also have a small impact on the battery life. However, given how powerful the recent crop of Intel-based processors has been, that shouldn't be an issue. 

The ICUSBAUDIOMH External USB Card lets you add an S/PDIF digital audio output or a standard 3.5mm analog audio connection to your system through USB and essentially adds a 5.1 sound card.

The device, which is about the size of a lighter, has two 3.5-inch jacks for headphone and microphone (some Ultrabooks like the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro only have one port).

Startech's external card comes at the end of a rather long USB cable, uses a Via VT1630A chipset and is capable of sampling audio at up to 96kHz.

Available in black or white, it does support Sony's PlayStation 3 gaming console and comes with a two-year warranty.

This USB Stereo Audio Adapter External Sound Card is available for sale at Startech.

more info...

10 best Android phones 2019: which should you buy?

If you're on the hunt for the best Android smartphone around, you've come to the right place. We've put all the major Google-powered handsets through their paces to give you our best Android phones round-down.

There's one key way in which Android is massively different from its Apple-branded smartphone competition - the number of phones out there running Google's hot mobile OS.

Update: Our in-depth Honor View 20 review is live, and the affordable flagship has done enough to find its way into our best Android phones list.

The big names are all here; Samsung, LG, Huawei, OnePlus and Google are at the fore. The many variations in screen size, processor power, software features and design makes finding the best Android phone for you extremely tough.

Best smartphone: the 15 top phones we've testedBest cheap phone: head here if you need a device under £200

To help find the most fitting Android phone for you, we've rounded up the best Android handsets out there today, rating the phones on hardware performance, OS upgrade potential and, of course, how shiny and nice they are to have and boast about to work colleagues.

So here they are - the best Android phones money can buy today.

Samsung still has a firm grasp on the top spot of our best Android phone in the world right now list.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus is in the top position thanks to an incredible design, amazing display and some truly great power packed into the phone.

Everything that has made Samsung phones great over the last few years has been packed into this 6.2-inch device - that's almost bezeless too - and comes with top of the range hardware and some easy to use Android software.

Samsung has added a dual-camera to the rear to enhance low-light photography, plus there's a better located fingerprint scanner and 960fps slo-motion video recording.

Sure, the Galaxy Note 9 has more power and an even bigger screen, while the Galaxy S9 provides a slightly more compact form factor at a lower price point, but it's the Galaxy S9 Plus which gets the balance just right.

Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus

It's a Samsung one-two, with the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 entering our best Android phones lists at number two.

The Galaxy Note 9 boasts a huge screen and a huge amount of power under the hood, plus there's the iconic S Pen stylus which slides into the body of the phone for safe keeping.

It means the Note 9 offers a huge array of productivity functions few phones can compete with, but the overall package isn't quite as finessed as the Galaxy S9 Plus - not to mention its high price tag.

For power users who want a phone that will doing pretty much anything they ask of it, the Galaxy Note 9 is a top choice.

Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy Note 9

The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the best phone from the Chinese firm to date, offering up a heady mix of design, power and performance with a party piece in the form of an in-display fingerprint scanner thrown in too.

The Mate 20 Pro packs a huge 6.39-inch display giving you a lots of space for gaming and movies, and its QHD resolution and HDR10 support ensures everything looks great.

It also comes with three rear cameras, nabbing the excellent 40MP wide-angle and 8MP telephoto lenses from the P20 Pro - but the third sensor is new. It's an ultra-wide 16MP snapper allowing you to cram even more of your surroundings into each shot.

The Mate 20 Pro is a full-featured phone for a full-featured price - it even has a few tricks you won’t see elsewhere, and more powerful specs than most of its competitors.

Read more: Huawei Mate 20 Pro review

What's this? Another Huawei phone in the top five? Your eyes do not deceive you, the Huawei P20 Pro really is fourth in our best Android phone rundown.

After years of threatening the top players in the smartphone game without really worrying them, 2018 saw a significant uptick from the Chinese firm and the beautiful P20 Pro.

The triple camera setup on the rear of the P20 Pro provides great flexibility - and an excellent low-light mode - while the battery life comfortably gets through a day.

Then there's the eye-catching, two-tone finish on the rear which really sets the P20 Pro apart from the competition.

Read our full review: Huawei P20 Pro

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is a great smartphone, but it's not quite as good as its bigger brother which boasts an extra camera on the rear and more screen real estate.

There's still a lot to love about the S9 though, with an expansive 5.8-inch Infinity Display, powerful chipset, 4GB of RAM and excellent 12MP rear facing camera.

Its battery life isn't quite as strong as the S8 it replaces, and visually it's almost identical to its predecessor. However, the small changes are welcome and it's an impressive all-round offering.

Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy S9

If you're looking for a the best camera phone on the market, look no further. The single rear snapper on the Google Pixel 3 XL (and the smaller Pixel 3) is the best we've come across.

You also get a big screen, decent battery life and plenty of power under the hood, making the Google Pixel 3 XL a great all-round flagship smartphone.

The Google Pixel 3 XL marries the best camera phone we’ve ever tested with a sizable OLED screen. It’s the right fit for people who don’t mind the notch cut out at the top and have already adjusted their grip for bigger smartphones in the past.

Read more: Google Pixel 3 XL review

The price of flagship phones are rising every year, but you don't need to pay top dollar for a top-notch experience.

OnePlus offers flagship phones at a lower price point and while its first few handsets didn't trouble the established names, its more recent efforts have really pushed the likes of Samsung, Apple and co. 

You get the latest flagship power under the hood, a huge screen, dual rear cameras and an in-display fingerprint scanner included with the OnePlus 6T.

The OnePlus 6T is a good-looking and powerful smartphone that can compete with handsets from the larger and more established brands on the market while undercutting them in price.

Read more: OnePlus 6T review

The Honor View 20 is the best phone to come out of the Chinese brand, with a striking rear design (which may divide opinion), plenty of power under the hood, an impressive 48MP camera and a 'punch-hole' display which ushers in the post-notch revolution.

There's a huge 6.4-inch display on the View 20, giving you plenty of space to play with. It's the location of the front-facing, 25MP camera within the screen which is the real talking point though, as rather than appearing in a bezel or a notch which juts into the screen, it's surround by screen. 

The Honor View 20 has a big 4,000mAh and the result is a battery which will comfortably last through an entire day and into the next on a single charge. It's also the world's first smartphone to boast a 48MP rear camera, as the firm has used Sony's new sensor to provide a camera which really packs a punch.

An ultra-high-resolution camera and punch hole screen are the highlights on the Honor View 20, and they set a standard this year’s more expensive phones will need to match.

Read more: Honor View 20 review

The LG G7 ThinQ is a confident step up from its predecessor - the LG G6 - with LG allowing itself to be a little bolder with the design and features on its latest flagship Android phone.

Its display comes with an ultra-bright mode which boosts brightness to an eye-dazzling 1000nits, handy if you're desperately trying to Instagram your latest snap from the beach.

The AI built into the camera can recognize what you're shooting and adjust the settings accordingly, to give you the best shot.

There are two cameras on the rear of the G7 ThinQ, with the secondary snapper offering up a super-wide angle lens to give you a different perspective on things. We just wish LG would drop the 'ThinQ' part of the name.

Read our full review: LG G7 ThinQ

Three Samsung phones in the top six?! It may seem extreme, but there's a very good reason why - they're all really, really good.

The Galaxy Note 8 doesn't quite hit the heights of its newer S9 siblings, but it's a triumphant return to form for a series that was potentially in trouble after the Note 7 debacle.

But enough about other handsets, what makes the Galaxy Note 8 worthy of its fifth place birth? There's no question the phablet is more of a niche device, but its iconic S Pen stylus is now even better, with higher accuracy and more levels of pressure sensitivity making it great for sketching and drawing.

Then there's the massive 6.3-inch QHD Infinity Display which is superb for movies and games, and with a display this big using apps side-by-side isn't just possible, it makes sense!

Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy Note 8

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Samsung Galaxy Sport release date, price, news and leaks

Update: A device that sounds remarkably like the Samsung Galaxy Sport has been spotted on the FCC website in the US. That may mean we're set to hear about it very soon.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is notable for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that it’s a highly capable smartwatch that doesn’t run Wear OS or watchOS, relying instead on the Tizen operating system.

With a stylish design, long battery life and loads of tracking skills it does enough to compete with any wearable running those better-known operating systems, but it isn’t perfect by any means, so we’ve come up with a list of improvements that we want to see on the next Samsung smartwatch.

Originally we wrote these expecting them to be improvements we'll see on a Samsung Galaxy Watch 2, but since then we've heard rumors of a product called the Samsung Galaxy Sport instead.

You'll find what we want to see as well as everything we've learnt so far about Samsung's next smartwatch. That includes possible release timing, price and features.

Cut to the chase What is it? The next smartwatch from SamsungWhen is it out? Maybe February 20, or later in 2019What will it cost? Probably at least $329 / £279 / AU$499 Samsung Galaxy Sport release date and price

The Samsung Galaxy Watch landed on August 9, 2018, alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, so there’s a fair chance that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 will land in or around August 2019, possibly at the same event as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.

That said, rumors of the Samsung Galaxy Sport are now heating up so we may instead see that a touch earlier as a line of devices that sits separately to the Samsung Galaxy Watch. 

A device we believe to be the Samsung Galaxy Sport has been spotted in an FCC filing, which may mean it's nearly ready to be released. If that's the case, we expect to hear more about it alongside the Samsung Galaxy S10 that is set to be announced on February 20.

However, there’s no guarantee of that and there are no exact release date details yet. If this is in fact the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2, we may be waiting until later in 2019 to see it released.

There aren’t any price rumors yet either, but the Samsung Galaxy Watch launched for $329 / £279 / AU$499 for the 42mm version or $349 / £299 / AU$549 for the 46mm model, with prices going up if you want a version with LTE. So we’d expect the Samsung Galaxy Sport will cost at least that much and it may cost more.

The Samsung Galaxy Sport is sure to be a fairly expensive wearable

Samsung Galaxy Sport news and rumors

There aren’t yet any whispers about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2, but there are some renders seemingly showing the Samsung Galaxy Sport, which may well show us some of what to expect from the Galaxy Watch 2.

You can see these below. The main change being that the bezel is smooth rather than toothed and looks like it might not be rotatable. The two buttons on the right edge are also a different shape.

All that aside, it’s very likely that Samsung is working on the Galaxy Watch 2, and we can take some educated guesses as to certain features that it may have.

For example, it’s sure to retain most or all of the features found on the Samsung Galaxy Watch. That includes GPS, a heart rate monitor and NFC, along with tracking for various sports, sleep and stress.

It’s also likely to have a circular face and a rotating bezel, especially as the likes of the Gear S3 also have those things.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch can track a lot of activities

What’s less certain but still very likely is that the Galaxy Watch 2 will run Tizen. Samsung has been using Tizen on wearables for a while and although a move to Wear OS was rumored for the Galaxy Watch, no such change happened in the end.

It’s possible that Samsung will switch to Wear OS for the Galaxy Watch 2, especially as Google’s smartwatch operating system has a healthier app ecosystem. But there are plenty of reasons to like Tizen and Samsung hasn’t shown any real sign of giving up on it.

What we want to see

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is a great smartwatch but one with plenty of room for improvement. The following seven features are things we’d really like to see on the Galaxy Watch 2 / Galaxy Sport.

1. More third-party apps

The Samsung Galaxy Watch runs Tizen, rather than one of the big-name wearable operating systems, and one downside of that is that there are fewer apps available than you’ll find on Wear OS or watchOS.

So by the time Samsung launches the Galaxy Watch 2 we’d like to have seen it work with developers to get key apps like WhatsApp, Google Maps and Facebook Messenger on the platform.

2. Better stress tracking

The Galaxy Watch tracks most things well, but not stress

The Samsung Galaxy Watch tracks a lot of things and mostly does a good job, but stress tracking is definitely a weak link.

While it’s available, it required us to manually measure our stress levels rather than tracking them automatically in our tests (despite claiming that it can do it automatically), and its accuracy could be questionable, since the data seems mostly based just on heart rate. So we’d like to see this feature overhauled for the next model.

3. Group challenges

Competing with friends can be a big motivator to get more active and handily the Samsung Galaxy Watch lets you do this. Your friends don’t even need a Galaxy Watch of their own – a Gear watch or the Samsung Health app will do just fine.

However, you can only challenge friends individually, rather than having a group competition. It seems like this would be an obvious and easy feature to add, so hopefully Samsung will.

4. Compatibility with more wireless chargers

The Samsung Galaxy Watch uses a proprietary charger

The Samsung Galaxy Watch charges wirelessly, but not just any wireless charger will do, you need a proprietary one that comes with it. This is inconvenient and if you’re ever without your charger means you’re likely to soon have a dead watch (though the Galaxy Watch at least has good battery life).

So for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 we want it to work with standard, everyday wireless chargers. That way if you’re at the office or a friend’s house without yours there’s at least a chance someone will have one you can borrow.

5. Big improvements to Bixby

Another downside of using Tizen rather than Wear OS is that the Samsung Galaxy Watch is reliant on Bixby rather than Google Assistant.

This is a problem, because Bixby is nowhere near as good as Google Assistant (or Siri or Alexa for that matter), with one particularly major issue being that it simply struggles to understand us.

While you don’t have to use Bixby to interact with the Galaxy Watch, it has the potential to be a major feature, but until it gets a lot better it won’t be.

6. Better iOS compatibility

Interaction is limited when using the Galaxy Watch with iOS

The Samsung Galaxy Watch works with both Android and iOS, but it’s definitely better with Android, because while you can read notifications on the watch when paired with an iPhone, you can’t reply to them or initiate communications, making it a lot more limited.

This may not be something Samsung can solve, as it would likely require a change on Apple’s end, but it’s something we’d like to see nonetheless, as it could make the Galaxy Watch 2 a real alternative to the Apple Watch 5, or whatever we’re up to by then.

7. Wider LTE availability

There are versions of the Samsung Galaxy Watch that support LTE, but only on select networks, which won’t suit everyone. For the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 we’d like to see an LTE model available on more or less all networks, so it’s an option for everyone.

Don't want to wait for the Watch 2? These are the best smartwatches out now

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti could launch on February 15 with a sub-$300 price

The latest word from the graphics grapevine is that Nvidia does indeed have a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti in the wings, and the GPU will launch on February 15, priced at $279 (around £215, AU$395).

This is according to sources in the know who spoke to HardOCP. They also informed the tech site that there is a GTX 1660 model which will follow in March, with a lower asking price of $229 (around £175, AU$325).

Those two models have been previously rumored, but this new report also claims there will be a third GTX 1650 that will arrive late in March at the even more wallet-friendly price point of $179 (around £135, AU$250).

As ever, this is just speculation bouncing around the web, so we should be careful about being too ready to believe what we might want to hear.

HardOCP further notes that the “exact launch prices are still in flux”, so even if these graphics cards do exist, the aforementioned price tags may not be accurate, and just give us a ballpark idea of the cost.

Ray removal

The purported idea with these cards is to offer a cheaper optionto punters who don’t want Nvidia’s fancy ray tracing technology (RTX). The GeForce RTX 2060 will set you back $349 (£329, AU$599), so the pricing obviously needs to be in line with that – although at $279 (around £215, AU$395), it would actually come in under the price of the old GTX 1060 at $299 (£249, AU$499).

An alleged Ashes of the Singularity benchmark that was recently leaked shows the GTX 1660 Ti could be close to 20% faster than the GTX 1060, so if all this is on the money, things would seem to be shaping up nicely in terms of price/performance ratio. Of course, as we’ve already outlined, we can’t put too much store in these rumored prices – or indeed purported benchmarks.

There certainly seems to be a gathering weight of speculation starting to build up now, even if a lot of this stuff seems rather sketchy – including an alleged photo of an Nvidia pre-briefing shindig for third-party GPU manufacturers which could potentially be a fake.

Still, at least we don’t have long to wait to find out the truth behind all these allegations, if the launch of the GTX 1660 Ti is indeed only three weeks away.

Another interesting observation from HardOCP is that Nvidia intends to keep the GTX 1050 Ti in stock at retailers going forward, dropping its price to ensure the GPU remains a viable lower-end option, effectively nestling below the GTX 1650.

These are the best graphics cards of 2019

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Mac in time: 35 years of Apple's legendary Macintosh

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the original Apple Macintosh − the computer that kick-started the PC revolution as we've known it.

Since its release on January 24 1984, the Apple Macintosh – and the Macs that followed it – have had a huge impact on the PCs and laptops we all use.

To celebrate the Macintosh's 35th birthday, here's a potted history of Apple's ever-evolving machine − the first mass-market personal computer to offer a graphical user interface.

1984 − All-in-one beginnings

On January 24, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reveals the first Mac to the world − an 8MHz 68k all-in-one with a 9-inch display, 3.5-inch floppy drive and 128k of RAM. Its biggest selling point is its graphic user interface - including elements from legendary Palo Alto research company Xerox Parc - that can be controlled with a mouse. The first Mac even packs in two then-revolutionary applications: MacPaint and the MacWrite word processor.

The original Mac

It retailed for $2,495, was 14 inches tall and weighed 16.5 pounds (around 7.5Kg), but when placed in its optional carrying case, the system weighed about 22 pounds (around 10kg).

The Mac also launched with that famous US$1.5 million Super Bowl ad by Ridley Scott.

1985 − Office hits the Mac

It's a common myth that Microsoft is an enemy of the Mac. However, it was actually one of its first major partners, a year after the Mac launched. Microsoft delivered two exclusive apps (that you might have heard of) called Word and Excel. At this time, Microsoft also bought PowerPoint from a company called Forefront.

In addition, 1985 saw the arrival of the first Apple laser printer and the Aldus PageMaker desktop publishing program − two developments that kick-start the desktop publishing revolution that Macs were so famous for. By the end of 1985, co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak both left Apple, while Microsoft unleashed Windows 1.0 − a move that proved to be a key milestone in the evolution of the personal computer.

1986 − SCSI is key

The Mac gets a major upgrade in the form of the Macintosh Plus. It now sports 1MB of RAM and SCSI: a new peripheral connection standard that enables devices such as printers and external hard drives to be daisy chained together. The Mac operating system reaches version 3.0 and includes such enhancements as the ability to nest folders inside one another.

1987 − Business is targeted

The Macintosh Plus makes way for two new Macs: The Macintosh SE offers a choice of two floppy drives or an internal hard disk, while the Macintosh II is aimed at business users. The Mac II has a 256-colour 13-inch display, a 16MHz processor and can be specced with up to 128MB of RAM. Mac OS, meanwhile, has reached the lofty heights of version 5.1 and enables background printing.

9 half-baked Apple products that went sour 1988 − CD-ROM points the way

Next Apple introduces the System 6.0-powered Macintosh IIx: one of the first personal computers to sport a CD-ROM drive. At the same time, Steve Jobs reveals the first fruits of his new computer company, NeXT. It's an all-in-one box called the NeXT Cube that ships with a magneto-optical drive (instead of a floppy) and has a 17-inch monitor as standard. Steve Jobs is already taking the foward-looking approach to future technologies that we'll see with later Macs.

1989 − The first Mac laptop

Apple introduces three new Macs − the SE/30, Mac IIc and Mac IIci. Of these, the Mac IIci is the most interesting. It's a modular Mac with a separate colour monitor and a more compact desktop case, but ships with a 25MHz 68k processor − making it the speediest Mac made to date.

Apple also introduces its first laptop − the 7.25kg Mac Portable in September. It cost $6,500. At NeXT, Steve Jobs reveals NeXTstep: a new Unix-based OS that has a big bearing on the future direction of latter-day Macs.

1990 − Mass market computing

Apple introduces its fastest computer yet − the 40MHz Macintosh IIfx. It's designed to combat the perception that PCs running DOS are much faster than their GUI-wielding Mac rivals. Microsoft Windows 3.0 makes its debut in the same year at a time when Apple has 20% of the total computing market.

The Macintosh IIfx was a powerhouse at the time [Image credit: allaboutapple.com] 1991 − Performance is the key

Apple ups the ante on the PC, launching six new Macs, including two high-end Quadras − desktop tower PCs with Motorola 68040 CPUs up to 2.5 times faster than their predecessors. Apple also introduces a new range of Mac portables called PowerBooks: the first laptops to have keyboards at the back and the trackpad at the front. Mac OS reaches System 7.0.

1992 − Apple hits the buffers

The wheels start to come off the Apple bus. Firstly, it ships a range of underpowered consumer Macs called Performas. Then Microsoft teams up with Intel to deliver better-performing x486 PCs running the increasingly-popular Windows 3.1. Things are going better at NeXT, with version 3.0 of the NeXTstep OS transitioning from Motorola 68K to Intel CPUs. It's released the following year.

1993 − Windows takes a bite

Apple introduces 19 new Macs split across six different ranges, encompassing the ColorClassic to the low-end LC, mid-range Centris and upmarket Quadra. In addition to Performas and PowerBooks, Apple announces that it's shipped its 10 millionth Mac, but competition's getting tougher and Microsoft says Windows is now being used by over 25 million people.

1994 − The transition to PowerPC

Apple starts the first major transition that it will make during the Mac's 25 year history. It begins with the arrival of the first three Power Macs − machines that run on PowerPC RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture. The PowerPC chips are much, much faster than the CISC-based chips that Apple has been using up until now and are the result of an alliance between Apple, IBM and Motorola. 1994 also sees the arrival of System 7.5.

The IBM 601v 90Mhz PowerPC processor [Image credit: Konstantin Lanzet] 1995 − The Mac can't compete

Apple is hit with a double whammy around this time: the arrival of Windows 95 and the continued success of Intel's unbelievably popular Pentium CPUs. Apple's PowerPC-equipped Macs are selling well, but the rest of its line-up underwhelms. Apple licenses its OS to belatedly compete with the Windows and Intel systems, but by September Steve Jobs is telling Fortune that he knows how to turn Apple's fortunes around and no-one at the company will listen.

1996 − Jobs is back

In February, Steve Jobs shocks many by telling Fortune: "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth − and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago." Apple finally lays the old 68k processors to rest and begins work on System 8.0 − the next version of the Mac OS. By the end of the year Apple also acquires Jobs' company NeXT and its NeXTstep operating system. Steve Jobs is back in the fold, which turns out to be a prelude to Apple becoming the company we know today.

The 20th anniversary Mac was a total flop 1997 − Jobs gets back to basics

Apple has too many product lines, too few customers and is haemorrhaging money. Jobs, now interim CEO, explains Apple's predicament to Time in October, saying: "Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could... could, could die." Apple persuades Bill Gates to buy $150 million worth of shares in the company. Jobs kills off the Mac clones. The Mac OS reaches System 8 and Apple starts work on Rhapsody, the precursor to Mac OS X. Year end sees Apple shipping Macs with PowerPC G3 chips that easily outperform their predecessors.

1998 − The iMac heralds a new era

Steve Jobs continues to wage war on Apple's inventory, killing off the Newton PDA. He focuses the company on a new product that takes Apple back to its origins: the iMac. Jobs' vision takes shape as an all-in-one system boasting a 233MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard disk drive and a 15-inch display. It has no floppy disk drive or legacy ports, but instead offers easy internet hookup and USB − a nascent peripheral connection from Intel. It's a smash hit with consumers worldwide.

The original 'Bondi Blue' iMac 1999 − G4 speeds ahead

The iMac gets faster and becomes available in more enticing colours. It's joined by the bondi blue Power Mac, which includes G3 PowerPC processors running up to 450MHz. Apple also introduces a new range of G3 laptops, including the toilet seat-shaped iBook. The biggest surprise is the Power Mac G4 tower, which Apple calls the 'world's first desktop supercomputer'. Finally, Apple announces AirPort, the first 802.11b Wi-Fi router and Mac OS X Server − the world's first taste of a major leap in the Mac user interface.

2000 − OS X shows its face

Steve Jobs heralds the consumer version of Mac OS X, with the first betas appearing at the end of the year. Ultimately, it looks good, but lacks features and is too slow. It is, however, very different from System 9. Apple's existing Mac products − the iMac, iBook, Power Mac and PowerBook − get speed bumps and colour changes, rather than anything revolutionary. There's also the launch of the Power Mac G4 Cube − a headless Mac that harks back to Steve Jobs' days at NeXT. It's a flop as it is too expensive and suffers from cracks in the casing.

The G4 Cube suffered from a poor quality finish, but it looked cool 2001 − The spinning beach ball era

Apple ships Mac OS X 10.1, featuring the Aqua colour scheme, use of translucency and missing features. It's still very slow and the 'spinning beach ball of death' quickly becomes a familiar phrase in a Mac user's vocabulary. From a design point of view it's Apple's Windows Vista − all style and substance that was too slow to actually use.

Apple also reveals a totally new design for its laptops, with the PowerBook packing a 15-inch widescreen display and G4 CPU into a 1-inch-thick titanium case. The first iBooks make their debut, but the revamped iMac is a disaster: its patterned Blue Dalmation and Flower Power case designs keep buyers away. Finally, Apple releases a 5GB music player called the iPod, while Microsoft launches the still-trundling Windows XP.

The flower power iMac. Horrendous 2002 − The OS X update cadence takes off

Apple launches a revamped version of the iMac with semi-spherical base and a flat panel display that 'floats' on a cantilevered chrome arm. It also shows off new consumer iBooks, revamped G4 Power Macs and the eMac, which is aimed at schools. OS X 10.2 Jaguar also comes into the fray, offering 150 new features and a long-awaited speed boost.

2003 − A complete refresh

Apple kills off the Mac OS Classic mode and revamps the entire Mac line: iBooks, PowerBooks, Power Mac G4 towers, the iMac and the eMac. A major speed boost also arrives with the Power Mac G5 in June. It has two 64-bit PowerPC G5 processors from IBM running at 2.0GHz apiece. The iPod hits 40GB and is accompanied by the launch of the iTunes Store and the arrival of the iPod and iTunes on Windows.

2004 − The iMac as we know it

The year is dominated by the iPod rather than the Mac, with Apple even touting the Mac as being 'from the creators of iPod'. The iMac gets a major revamp − the floating LCD and hemispherical base replaced by an all-in-one design that packs a computer behind a flat panel LCD − so we've had a very similar iMac design for a decade now. Apple is now in rude health, but it's PC market share falls to its lowest point: just 3% worldwide.

The UK's first Apple Store opens in Regent Street, London. Over the coming months Apple Stores prove to be invaluable PR for the company as Apple desktops, laptops and iOS devices become ever more recognisable.

2005 − The G5 is here, but it can't compete

IBM delivers the first dual-core PowerPC G5 chips to Apple, enabling it to offer Power Mac G5s to its professional customers with two dual-core CPUs inside. However, IBM isn't able to deliver what Apple really needs − a fast, low-powered PowerPC G5 chip that can be used in Apple's ailing iBook and PowerBook line.

And so, in June, "hell freezes over" when Jobs announces that Apple is to undergo its third major transition − a major switch over to Intel processors, meaning that Apple hardware no longer will be differentiated from that in PCs. Mac OS X 10.5 'Tiger' is announced in April.

The Mac Mini also takes a bow in January 2005 with PowerPC G4 processors, and has now been through numerous revisions. From modest beginnings, it's now a very powerful machine available with Intel Core i7 processors.

2006 − Intel takes the Mac

Every Mac that Apple makes ditches the PowerPC chip in favour of Intel Core Duo processors, starting with the iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook Pro in January, and ending with the Mac Pro in August. By the end of the year the MacBook Pro has been revamped again, this time sporting Core 2 Duo processors.

Boot Camp, also introduced this year, enables all owners of Intel Macs to dual boot their Macs with Windows. Universal applications for both Intel and PowerPC aren't that common, but Apple's Rosetta software enables PowerPC apps to run on Intel Macs.

And then there were the Get a Mac ads. Not exactly Apple's classiest hour.

2007 − Portable Macs become performance powerhouses

Apple's year kicks of with a bang and they announce 8-core Mac Pros will be available as a buy-to-order option. Apple adopts the Intel Santa Rosa chipset for the MacBook Pro in August and revamps the iMac so that it now sports an aluminum and glass enclosure with Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs.

2007 also sees the introduction of the iPhone, with banners at Macworld Expo in January referring to the company's history and declaring "the first 30 years were just the beginning".

Windows Vista launches, and is widely criticised, before OS X 10.5 Leopard goes on sale in October. It becomes Apple's biggest-selling OS X upgrade so far.

The original MacBook 2008 − The MacBook Air leaves the envelope

Apple's most successful year ever kicks off with the announcement that the Mac Pro is to offer 8-core processing as standard, plus there are faster iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Apple also announces the MacBook Air − an ultra-light notebook with a multi-touch trackpad for gestures.

By the end of the year, the MacBook and MacBook Pro get another revamp, this time with a new 'unibody' enclosure that sees the bottom cases milled from solid block of aluminium.

2009 − A smaller MacBook Pro

Steve Jobs announces in June that OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard enables all apps to harness the power of multi-core processors.

This year is, however, more notable for the long-awaited release of the 13.3-inch version of the MacBook Pro − the natural successor to the 12-inch version of the PowerBook G4.

2010 − The future is download

The Mac App Store takes a bow and foreruns an optical drive free-future for the Mac. It requires the v10.6.6 update for Snow Leopard, which will become a sticking point for the release of OS X Lion the year after.

The 11-inch MacBook Air is also introduced, amid much speculation that Apple would release a killer machine to rival all the cheap PC netbooks that were around at the time. It decides to kill them with the iPad instead.

The MacBook Pro made its debut with an Intel chip 2011 − Thunderbolt points to faster interfaces

OS X Lion is released in July, the first version of OS X not to be released on disc in one format or another. A USB flash version is offered, allowing those who have issues connecting to the internet to use the store. Many who haven't upgraded to Snow Leopard are caught out because they don't have access to the Mac App Store.

Also in 2011, Apple ships the first MacBook Pros featuring Intel's Thunderbolt tech, which uses the same physical port as Mini DisplayPort. It hasn't yet taken off, though continues to feature on all new Macs.

The tiny Mac mini is also introduced, showing that Apple is still finding new form factors for its iconic Mac PC.

The iMac continued to go from strength to strength 2012 − Retina displays come to the Mac

Fans of the long-neglected Mac Pro line finally gets a fillip with the news that there will be an announcement of a new version in 2013.

The summer sees OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion hit the Mac App Store, which continues the trend of OS X Lion to add an iOS-style sheen to OS X and introduces many of the same naming conventions for apps.

The end of the year features a revised Mac mini as well as a new iMac, with an even thinner display − just 5mm at the edges.

The MacBook Pro is revised but also gets a welcome boost in the form of a new Retina display version and a slimline unibody build with no optical drive. Both 15- and 13-inch versions are released in 2012, with a revision in early 2013. These new models are also notable for their HDMI ports.

2013 − Enter the Mac Pro 

After the MacBook Pro revision comes a further enhancement for the MacBook Air.

The Mac ends the year on a high, with the release of the Mac Pro as well as OS X 10.9 Mavericks (Apple says it ran out of big cat names). Mavericks wasn't a great leap forward and had its problems, but it is still extremely successful for the company.

2015 − Back to basics with the MacBook 

In 2015, Apple release the its new vision for its laptops: the MacBook. Taking design cues from the latest iPhones and iPads of the day, the new MacBook was a brilliant encapsulation of Apple's past, present and future. It is also a pretty great laptop in its own right.

Apple also updates its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, and the iMac with Retina 4K and 5K displays are released.

2017 - The iMac goes Pro

Right at the end of 2017, Apple release the iMac Pro. This incredibly powerful version of its iMac all-in-one is designed specifically for professionals, coming packed with workstation components including Intel Xeon processors, 32GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 graphics card. 

It's also one of the most expensive devices Apple has ever released, with the base model selling for $4,999 (£4,899, AU$7,299).

2018 - Revisiting classics

2018 was a year when Apple listened to its fans and updated some of its most popular devices, which hadn't got a lot of love recently. First up is the Mac mini (2018), which was a brilliant – and long over due – upgrade for Apple's diminutive PC, adding some excellent components that make it a great choice for creative professionals. 

The MacBook Air also gets a much-needed update with a thinner design, improved screen and updated hardware.

2019 - What does Apple have in store?

Now that we're in the 35th anniversary year of the original Macintosh, could we see another year, like 2018, where Apple revisits some of its previous devices to bring them up to date, or will 2019 be a more adventurous year for the company?

We'll have to wait and see, however Apple has already had an excellent CES 2019 and it wasn't even at the show!

Here's our pick of the best Macs of 2019

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Corel adds virtualisation to its offerings with Parallels acquisition

Whether Windows or Mac is your operating system of choice, sometimes a particular task or job requires you use both. That's where virtualisation comes in and Mac users that need to use Windows programs often do so using Parallels. The company's software allows you to run Windows right from your Mac which can be quite convenient for legacy applications or programs that have not yet been released for macOS.

The Canadian software company Corel, which specialises in graphics processing, recently acquired Parallels and TechRadar Pro spoke with its CEO Patrick Nichols about the acquisition and how Parallels will fit into its current software offerings.

Also check out the best virtual machine software

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Honor 20: what we want to see

The Honor 20 (previously rumored as the Honor 11) is the next flagship phone with a more mid-range price tag expected to come out of the Chinese firm.

However, with the recent launch of the Honor View 20 in December 2018, we could still be a few months off a Honor 20 release date.

With the announcement of the View 20, it makes sense to move away from the Honor 11 name, as the firm has a history of synchronized naming, so the Honor 20 is far more likely to be the official moniker.

Nothing much is known about the Honor 20 so far, but we can take some educated guesses about when we might see it and what it might feature. 

You'll find those below, along with a list of the things we most want from the Honor 20, to make it even more impressive than the Honor 10 it's set to replace.

Cut to the chase What is it? The successor to the Honor 10When is it out? Probably mid-2019What will it cost? Likely at least £399.99 (around $540, AU$720) Honor 20 release date and price

There aren’t any Honor 20 release date rumors so far and that’s no surprise, as we the firm has only just launched the Honor View 20.

That does follow the pattern of the previous generations of Honor flagships though, as the Honor View 10 launched in December 2017, with the Honor 10 following in May 2018.

It means that the most likely Honor 20 release date at the moment would be May 2019, assuming the firm keeps with its current release cycle.

Don't count on being able to buy it in the US or Australia though, as many Honor phones don't hit those countries.

As for the Honor 20 price, you’re probably looking at a minimum of £399.99 (about $540, AU$720), as that’s what the Honor 10 launched for. We wouldn’t be surprised if the price goes up though.

Hopefully the Honor 20/Honor 11 will be just as good value as the Honor 10

Honor 20 news and rumors

There aren’t any Honor 11/Honor 20 rumors yet, but some things seem likely. For example, the Honor 20 will probably use the Kirin 980 chipset, as that’s the one used in the recently released View 20.

It’s also possible – though less likely – that the Honor 20 will have an in-screen fingerprint scanner, given that the Honor 10 already has an under-glass one and the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS (which is made by the same parent company) has an in-screen scanner. 

Though such a feature may be reserved for the pricier Huawei P30 if it happens at all.

What we want to see

While we’re waiting for Honor 20 rumors, here’s a list of the seven things we most want from it.

1. Water resistance

We'd like to be able to safely use the Honor 20 in the rain

The Honor 10 has a lot of high-end features, but one that it lacks is water resistance. Coupled with its largely glass build that makes it feel like a very vulnerable phone, and while we don’t necessarily want to see too many design changes we would like to at least be able to get it wet.

So hopefully the Honor 11/Honor 20 will offer some amount of water resistance. We’d like to see at least IP67 certification (which is what the likes of the iPhone X has and means it can be submerged up to 1 meter deep for up to 30 minutes) but the more the better.

2. Better battery life

The Honor 10’s battery life is reasonable, but nothing special, lasting around a day but not much more, as seems to be standard with phones.

For the Honor 20 we’d like to see that improved. If it could stretch to two days of life that would make all the difference, meaning you’d be fine if you forget to plug it in overnight and even making it more viable to take camping and to other off-grid activities.

3. The same stylish back in more colors

We'd be happy with a similar design for the Honor 20 as long as there are more color options

We’re big fans of the Honor 10’s bold, reflective back that in some shades can even morph color, but there aren’t enough shades available, and not all options are available in all regions.

Given how eye-catching the look is, we’d like more opportunity to tailor it to our tastes, so for the Honor 20 we want more than just a few color choices.

4. A faster camera

The Honor 10 has a fairly capable dual-lens camera, but it can take a surprisingly long time to start up. Snapping is speedy enough once it does, but the time taken to actually get into the app can mean missing a fleeting photo opportunity, so we want to see that fixed for the Honor 20.

There’s enough power in the Honor 10 that the delay shouldn’t be necessary as it is, so perhaps a software update could fix it on the existing hardware, but either way we’ll be really unimpressed if it manifests itself again on 2019’s phone.

5. Wireless charging

By 2019 we really shouldn't have to plug our phones in

The Honor 10 supports fast charging but one thing it lacks is wireless charging, so we’d like to see that remedied for the Honor 20.

Its absence is perhaps a cost-cutting measure, and arguably a worthwhile one since the Honor 10 gives you an awful lot of phone for the money, but hopefully the company can find a way to include wireless charging on the next model without pushing the price up.

6. A microSD card slot

There’s lots of storage in the Honor 10 and that’s a good thing too as there’s no microSD card slot. 

But while the up to 128GB of storage found in the Honor 10 should be enough for most people it won’t be enough for everyone, so we’d like a microSD card slot coupled with at least that much storage in the Honor 20, to keep everyone happy.

7. Better low light photography

While the Honor 10’s camera is fairly good it’s not a match for the snappers on the Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro, especially when it comes to low light shots, so we’d like to see the Honor 20 borrow from them and perform better when the sun starts to set.

The OnePlus 7 is another affordable flagship due in 2019

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Australian Open 2019 live stream: how to watch semi-final tennis online from anywhere

It's almost time for Australian Open 2019 finals weekend, and the lineups are starting to take shape. Some giants have fallen (Federer, Serena, we're looking at you two) but there are still plenty of potentially fitting champions in both singles draws. And it's really easy to get access to a 2019 Australian Open live stream from absolutely anywhere that you are in the world with this handy guide to watching the tennis.

We know he's 37-years-old, but we honestly still didn't see reigning champ Roger Federer's defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas coming on Sunday. But the Greek youngster couldn't overcome an in-form Rafael Nadal as well, and the Spaniard has marched into the final. While Novak Djokovic is now hot favorite to win his third consecutive Grand Slam, with only Frenchman Lucas Pouille blocking his route to the last two.

On the women's side of the draw, we now know who will contest the final. Naomi Osaka who memorably won last year's US Open has reached her second Grand Slam final in a row. And Petra Kvitová's story is equally as enchanting, after the two-time Wimbledon champion was attacked with a knife in a burglary. The Czech will be looking for her first major win in five years.

Sounds like we're in for a fantastic last few days of tennis action. And here's how you can live stream all the Australian Open 2019 tennis action from wherever you are in the world. 

See also: there isn't long to wait - see how to watch a FREE Super Bowl LIII live stream Live stream the Australian Open tennis 2019 from anywhere in the world 

For your watching options in the Australia, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, we have more details below - just scroll down the page.

Check out our guide to the best VPN 2019

How to live stream Australian Open tennis for FREE in Australia

How to watch the Australian Open 2019: US live stream

How to live stream Australian Open tennis in the UK

The best way to stream the Australian Open 2019 in Canada

The best way to stream the Australian Open in New Zealand

Image courtesy of ausopen.com

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The best Android games

There are loads of great games available for Android, but how can you pick out the gems from the dross, and amazing touchscreen experiences from botched console ports? With our lists, that’s how!

We cover the best titles on Android right now, including the finest racers, puzzlers, adventure games, arcade titles and more. 

We've tried these games out, and looked to see where the costs come in - there might be a free sticker added to some of these in the Google Play Store, but sometimes you'll need an in app purchase (IAP) to get the real benefit - so we'll make sure you know about that ahead of the download.

Check back every week for a new game, and click through to the following pages to see the best of the best divided into the genres that best represent what people are playing right now.

Android game of the week: see/saw ($2.99/£2.59/AU$4.29)

see/saw hints at the troubles ahead for its protagonists in a note from the professor running a series of tests: “Die to succeed.”

The subjects probably shouldn’t have signed up for these trials, frankly, given that they’re sealed in rooms packed with massive spikes and saw blades, and tasked with collecting coins. Black humor abounds when you realize some can only be reached by killing the subject and cunningly hurling their corpse in the appropriate direction.

The controls are superb – two thumbs are all you need – and the game feels perfect as well. So whether you’ll crack all 150 levels is mostly down to your dexterity, and whether your inner vicious streak will figure out how to chop and impale your character in a manner that will – posthumously – allow them to achieve their goal.

The best racing games for Android

Our favorite Android top-down, 3D and retro racers.

Horizon Chase (free + $2.99/£2.79/AU$4.09 IAP)

If you're fed up with racing games paying more attention to whether the tarmac looks photorealistic rather than how much fun it should be to zoom along at insane speeds, check out Horizon Chase. This tribute to old-school arcade titles is all about the sheer joy of racing, rather than boring realism.

The visuals are vibrant, the soundtrack is jolly and cheesy, and the racing finds you constantly battling your way to the front of an aggressive pack.

If you fondly recall Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge and Top Gear, don't miss this one. (Note that Horizon Chase gives you five tracks for free. To unlock the rest, there's a single £2.29/US$2.99 IAP.)

Need for Speed: Most Wanted ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)

Anyone expecting the kind of free-roaming racing from the console versions of this title are going to be miffed, but Need for Speed: Most Wanted is nonetheless one of the finest games of its kind on Android. Yes, the tracks are linear, with only the odd shortcut, but the actual racing bit is superb.

You belt along the seedy streets of a drab, gray city, trying to win events that will boost your ego and reputation alike. Wins swell your coffers, enabling you to buy new vehicles for entering special events.

The game looks gorgeous on Android and has a high-octane soundtrack to urge you onwards. But mostly, this one’s about the controls – a slick combination of responsive tilt and effortless drifting that makes everything feel closer to OutRun 2 than typically sub-optimal mobile racing fare.

Riptide GP: Renegade  ($2.99/£2.99/AU$3.99)

The first two Riptide games had you zoom along undulating watery circuits surrounded by gleaming metal towers. Riptide GP: Renegade offers another slice of splashy futuristic racing, but this time finds you immersed in the seedy underbelly of the sport.

As with the previous games, you’re still piloting a hydrofoil, and racing involves not only going very, very fast, but also being a massive show-off at every available opportunity.

If you hit a ramp or wave that hurls you into the air, you’d best fling your ride about or do a handstand, in order to get turbo-boost on landing. Sensible racers get nothing.

The career mode finds you earning cash, upgrading your ride, and probably ignoring the slightly tiresome story bits. The racing, though, is superb – an exhilarating mix of old-school arcade thrills and modern mobile touchscreen smarts.

Mini Motor Racing ($2.99/£3.19/AU$4.49)

Mini Motor Racing is a frenetic top-down racer that finds tiny vehicles darting about claustrophobic circuits that twist and turn in a clear effort to have you repeatedly drive into walls. The cars handle more like remote control cars than real fare, meaning that races are typically tight – and easily lost if you glance away from the screen for just a moment.

There’s a ton of content here – many dozens of races set across a wide range of environments. You zoom through ruins, and scoot about beachside tracks. The AI’s sometimes a bit too aggressive, but with savvy car upgrades, and nitro boost usage when racing, you’ll be taking more than the occasional checkered flag.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit exists in a world where the police seem to think it’s perfectly okay to use their extremely expensive cars to ram fleeing criminals into submission. And when they’re not doing that, they belt along the streets, racing each other to (presumably) decide who pays for the day’s doughnuts.

It’s a fairly simple racer – you’re basically weaving your way through the landscape, smashing into other cars, and triggering the odd trap – but it’s exhilarating, breezy fun that echoes classic racers like Chase H.Q.

And once you’ve had your fill of being one of the nitro-happy fuzz, you can play out a career as the pursued as well, getting stuck into the kind of cop-smashing criminal antics that totally won’t be covered by your car manufacturer’s warranty.

Final Freeway 2R ($0.99/79p/AU$0.99)

Final Freeway 2R is a retro racing game, quite blatantly inspired by Sega’s classic OutRun. You belt along in a red car, tearing up a road where everyone’s rather suspiciously driving in the same direction. Every now and again, you hit a fork, allowing you to select your route. All the while, cheesy music blares out of your device’s speakers.

For old hands, you’ll be in a kind of gaming heaven. And arguably, this game’s better than the one that inspired it, feeling more fluid and nuanced. If you’re used to more realistic fare, give Final Freeway 2R a go – you might find yourself converted by its breezy attitude, colorful visuals, and need for truly insane speed.

Rush Rally 2 ($1.49/99p/AU$1.99)

Rush Rally 2 is a curious rally racer, in part because it at first comes across as an unforgiving and simulation-oriented affair. It initially feels too easy to crash, and you too often find yourself pointing the wrong way or rather inconveniently having embedded your car in a tree.

As ever, though, Rush Rally 2 is about clicking with the feel of the game. Slow down a bit and take a touch more care and you’ll figure out how the physics works, and the layout of the courses.

The game will reveal its fun side – an arcade edge that won’t allow you to zoom along without ever using the brake pedal, but that nonetheless is quite happy for you to use other cars in rally cross skirmishes for slowing down instead. For the tiny outlay, it’s a bargain.

Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 ($3.99/£3.99/AU$6.49)

Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 is a racing management game without the boring bits. Rather than sitting you in front of a glorified spreadsheet, the game is a well-balanced mix of accessibility and depth, enabling you to delve into the nitty gritty of teams, sponsors, mechanics, and even livery.

When you’re all set, you get to watch surprisingly tense and exciting top-down racing. (This being surprising because you’re largely watching numbered discs zoom around circuits.) One-off races give you a feel for things, but the real meat is starting from the bottom of the pile in the career mode, with the ultimate aim of becoming a winner.

It’s all streamlined, slick, and mobile-friendly, and a big leap on from the relatively simplistic original Motorsport Manager Mobile.

The best Android adventure games

Our favorite Android point and click games, RPGs, narrative stories, choose your own adventures and room escape games.

The Wolf Among Us (free + IAP)

Telltale has made a name for itself with story-driven episodic games and The Wolf Among Us is one of its best. Essentially a hard boiled fairy tale, you control the big bad wolf as he hunts a murderer through the mean streets of Fabletown.

Don't let the fairy tale setting fool you, this is a violent, mature game and it's one where your decisions have consequences, impacting not only what the other characters think of you but also who lives and who dies. Episode One is free but the remaining four will set you back a steep £9.59 / $14.99 / around AU$18. Trust us though, you'll want to see how this story ends.

80 Days ($4.99/£3.99/AU$5.99)

Of all the attempts to play with the conventions of novels and story-led gaming on mobile, 80 Days is the most fun. It takes place in an 1872 with a decidedly steampunk twist, but where Phileas Fogg remains the same old braggart. As his trusty valet, you must help Fogg make good on a wager to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. This involves managing/trading belongings and carefully selecting routes.

Mostly, though, interaction comes by way of a pacey, frequently exciting branched narrative, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book on fast-forward.

A late-2015 content update added 150,000 words, two new plots and 30 cities to an adventure that already boasted plenty of replay value — not least when you've experienced the joys of underwater trains and colossal mechanical elephants in India, and wonder what other marvels await discovery in this world of wonders.

Her Story ($2.99/£2.69/AU$3.99)

In Her Story, you find yourself facing a creaky computer terminal with software designed by a sadist. It soon becomes clear the so-called L.O.G.I.C. database houses police interviews of a woman charged with murder.

But the tape's been hacked to bits and is accessible only by keywords; 'helpfully', the system only displays five search results at once.

Naturally, these contrivances exist to force you to play detective, eking out clues from video snippets to work out what to search for next, slowly piecing together the mystery in your brain.

A unique and captivating experience, Her Story will keep even the most remotely curious Android gamer gripped until the enigma is solved.

Oceanhorn (free + $5.49/£4.99/AU$6.99 IAP)

There’s more than a hint of Zelda about Oceanhorn, but that’s not a bad thing when it means embarking on one of the finest arcade adventures on mobile.

You awake to find a letter from your father, who it turns out has gone from your life. You’re merely left with his notebook and a necklace. Thanks, Dad!

Being that this is a videogame, you reason it’s time to get questy, exploring the islands of the Uncharted Seas, chatting with folks, stabbing hostile wildlife, uncovering secrets and mysteries, and trying very hard to not get killed.

You get a chapter for free, to test how the game works on your device (its visual clout means fairly powerful Android devices are recommended); a single IAP unlocks the rest. The entire quest takes a dozen hours or so – which will likely be some of the best gaming you’ll experience on Android.

Milkmaid of the Milky Way ($4.49/£3.39/AU$5.99)

Initial moments in point-and-click adventure Milkmaid of the Milky Way are so sedate the game’s in danger of falling over. You play as Ruth, a young woman living on a remote farm in a 1920s Norwegian fjord. She makes dairy products, sold to a town several hours away. Then, without warning, a massive gold spaceship descends, stealing her cows.

Fortunately, Ruth decides she’s having none of that, leaps aboard the spaceship, and finds herself embroiled in a tale of intergalactic struggles. To say much more would spoil things, but we can say that this old-school adventure is a very pleasant way to spend a few hours.

The puzzles are logical yet satisfying; the visuals are gorgeous; and the game amusingly provides all of its narrative in rhyme, which is pleasingly quaint and nicely different.

Samorost 3 ($4.99/£3.99/AU$6.49)

Samorost 3 is a love letter to classic point-and-click adventure games. You explore your surroundings, unearth objects, and then figure out where best to use them. Straightforward stuff, then (at least in theory – many puzzles are decidedly cryptic), but what sets Samorost 3 apart is that it’s unrelentingly gorgeous, and full of heart.

The storyline is bonkers, involving a mad monk who used a massive mechanical hydra to smash up a load of planetoids. You, as an ambitious space-obsessed gnome, must figure out how to set things right.

The game is packed with gorgeous details that delight, from the twitch of an insect’s antennae to a scene where the protagonist successfully encourages nearby creatures to sing, and starts fist-punching the air while dancing with glee. Just two magical moments among many in one of the finest examples of adventuring on Android.

Love You To Bits ($3.99/£3.79/AU$5.99)

Love You To Bits is a visually dazzling and relentlessly inventive point-and-click puzzler. It features Kosmo, a space explorer searching for the scattered pieces of his robot girlfriend, bar the lifeless head that’s still in his clutches. Which is a bit icky.

Don’t think about that too much, though, because this game is gorgeous. Through its many varied scenes, it plays fast and loose with pop culture references, challenging you to beat a 2D Monument Valley, sending up Star Wars, and at one point dumping you on a planet of apes.

Now and again, you’ll need to make a leap of logic to complete a task, and puzzles mostly involve picking things up and using them in the right place – hardly the height of innovation. But this game’s so endearing and smartly designed you’d have to be lifeless yourself to fail to love it at least a little.

Thimbleweed Park ($9.99/£8.99/AU$13.99)

Thimbleweed Park is an adventure that sends you back to the halcyon days of 1987. Mainly because that’s when it’s set, in the titular Thimbleweed Park, and there’s been a murder. But also, this game recalls classic PC point-and-clicker Maniac Mansion, in everything from visual style to interface.

That doesn’t mean this is a crusty old relic. Industry veterans Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick have written a winning script (which gets increasingly weird as you play), and come up with dozens of cunning, tricky puzzles to keep your brain fizzing throughout the game’s 15-to-20-hour length.

Now and again, it perhaps gets a bit too obtuse. But mostly, this is a game that knows it’s a game - and that also wants you to know it’s a take-no-prisoners puzzle title. One that features plumbers who are also paranormal investigators, dressed as pigeons. (We did say it was weird.)

Bury Me, My Love ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.99)

Bury Me, My Love is another game in the Lifeline mold – a branching narrative akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure book, which plays out in real time.

What’s different is this game’s narrative draws from the real-life stories of Syrian refugees. You play Majd, whose wife Nour is trying to reach Europe. She contacts you via a messaging app, and you respond with advice – which may have a very big impact.

This kind of adventure can be tense, leaking into your real life as you await responses, but Bury Me, My Love takes this to the extreme – for example, when it’s been 24 hours since you heard from Nour, who was heading to a heavily armed border.

This kind of topical subject matter won’t be for everyone, but if you want a game that will make you think a bit, it comes recommended.

Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery ($3.99/£3.49/AU$5.49)

Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery is an adventure game that’s about discovery and exploration. It’s a relentlessly beautiful experience, with rich retro-infused artwork and a lush soundtrack. The game encourages you to breathe everything in, take your time, and work at your own pace.

Unlike most adventures, which tend to be obsessed with inventories, Sworcery is mostly concerned with puzzles that are confined to one screen. Solutions are frequently abstract, involving manipulating your environment or even time itself. You may free woodland spirits with musical prowess, or discover a solution requires playing at set points during the lunar calendar.

It might come across as a bit worthy at times, and there are some missteps, such as the awkward, ungainly combat, but Sworcery is evocative and expressive, and full of pay-offs that tend towards the magical, unless you happen to be dead inside.

Minecraft ($6.99/£6.99/AU$10.99)

Minecraft on Android is the hugely popular sandbox PC game based around virtual blocks, right in the palm of your hand. Sort of.

In effect, it’s a stripped-back take on the desktop version, although you still get different ways to play. In creative mode, you explore and can immediately start crafting a virtual world. With survival mode come the added complications of gathering and managing resources during the day – and then battling against enemies during the night.

Although it’s a mite more limited than the full desktop release, Minecraft on Android still gives you plenty to do, and the randomly generated nature of the world provides potentially limitless gaming experiences. It’s certainly more than just a load of blocks.

The Room: Old Sins ($4.99/£4.99/AU$8.49)

The Room: Old Sins finds you investigating the disappearance of an engineer and his wife. The trail leads you to a spooky attic. On getting the lights working, you see a strange dollhouse, which then sucks you inside.

You discover the toy is in fact a full reconstruction of a mansion, with a side order of Lovecraftian horror. Unraveling the mystery at the heart of the game and its impossible world then happens by way of devious, complex, tactile logic puzzles.

Old Sins looks and sounds great, and moving around is swift – there’s none of the dull trudging you find in the likes of Myst. Of course, if you’ve played The Room, The Room Two, and The Room Three, you’ll know all this already. If you haven’t, grab Old Sins immediately – and its predecessors, too. They’re some of the finest games on Android.

The best arcade games for Android

Our favorite Android arcade titles, fighting games, pinball games and retro games.

Power Hover (free + IAP)

There's a great sense of freedom from the second you immerse yourself in the strange and futuristic world of Power Hover. The robot protagonist has been charged with pursuing a thief who's stolen batteries that power the city.

The droid therefore grabs a hoverboard and scythes across gorgeous minimal landscapes, such as deserts filled with colossal marching automatons, glittering blue oceans, and a dead grey human city.

In lesser hands, Power Hover could have been utterly forgettable. After all, you're basically tapping left and right to change the direction of a hoverboard, in order to collect batteries and avoid obstacles. But the production values here are stunning.

Power Hover is a visual treat, boasts a fantastic soundtrack, and gives mere hints of a story, enabling your imagination to run wild. Best of all, the floaty controls are perfect; you might fight them at first, but once they click, Power Hover becomes a hugely rewarding experience.

(On Android, Power Hover is a free download; to play beyond the first eight levels requires a one-off IAP.)

Forget-Me-Not ($2.49/£2.39/AU$3.89)

At its core, Forget-Me-Not is Pac-Man mixed with Rogue. You scoot about algorithmically generated single-screen mazes, gobbling down flowers, grabbing a key, and then making a break for the exit.

But what makes Forget-Me-Not essential is how alive its tiny dungeons feel. Your enemies don't just gun for you, but are also out to obliterate each other and, frequently, the walls of the dungeon, reshaping it as you play.

There are tons of superb details to find buried within the game's many modes, and cheapskates can even get on board with the free version, although that locks much of its content away until you've munched enough flowers.

If there was any justice, Forget-Me-Not would have a permanent place at the top of the Google Play charts. It is one of the finest arcade experiences around, not just on Android, but on any platform - old or new.

Captain Cowboy ($0.99/£1.09/AU$1.39)

Coming across like a sandbox-oriented chill-out ‘zen’ take on seminal classic Boulder Dash, Captain Cowboy has your little space-faring hero exploring a massive handcrafted world peppered with walls, hero-squashing boulders, and plenty of bling.

Much like Boulder Dash, Captain Cowboy is mostly about not being crushed by massive rocks – you dig paths through dirt, aiming to strategically use boulders to take out threats rather than your own head. But everything here is played out without stress (due to endless continues) and sometimes in slow motion (when floating through zero-gravity sections of space).

The result feels very different from the title that inspired it, but it’s no less compelling. Tension is replaced by exploration, and single-screen arcade thrills are sacrificed for a longer game. As you dig deeper into Captain Cowboy’s world, there are plenty of things awaiting discovery, and even tackling the next screen of dirt and stones always proves enjoyable. 

Edge ($2.99/£1.99/AU$2.99)

There’s a distinct sense of minimalism at the heart of Edge, along with a knowing nod to a few arcade classics of old. Bereft of a story, the game simply tasks you with guiding a trundling cube to the end of each blocky level. Along the way, you grab tiny glowing cubes. On reaching the goal, you get graded on your abilities.

This admittedly doesn’t sound like much on paper, but Edge is a superb arcade game. The isometric visuals are sharp, and the head-bobbing soundtrack urges you onwards. The level design is the real star, though, with surprisingly imaginative objectives and hazards hewn from the isometric landscape.

And even when you’ve picked your way to the very end, there’s still those grades to improve by shaving the odd second off of your times.

Still not sure? Try out the 12-level demo. Eager for more? Grab Edge Extended, which is every bit as good as the original.

Super Samurai Rampage ($1.99/£1.69/AU$2.79)

Super Samurai Rampage is a manic swipe-based high-score chaser, featuring a samurai who has - for some reason - been provoked into a relentless rampage.

Said rampage is dependent on you swiping. Swipe left and you lunge in that direction, slicing your sword through the air. Swipe up and you majestically leap, whereupon you can repeatedly swipe every which way, fashioning a flurry of airborne destruction akin to the most outlandish of martial arts movies.

Along with dishing out death, you must ensure you don’t come a cropper yourself. And attack is your only form of defense, because when you’re moving, you’re also deflecting incoming projectiles. You’re also likely racking up quite the body count, which accumulates in bloody retro-pixel form at the foot of the screen.

It’s of course entirely absurd, and without much nuance; but Super Samurai Rampage is an arcade thrill that’s entertaining, and where repeat play is rewarded with gradual mastery – or at least lasting a few seconds longer before your inevitable demise.

Part Time UFO ($3.99/£3.99/AU$5.99)

Part Time UFO is a physics-based stacking game featuring a cute UFO that has crash-landed on Earth and now has to eke out a living. That’s right – in this era, aliens aren’t sent to Area 51, and instead scour job ads to earn some cash.

Fortunately, this little UFO is made of stern stuff and has a massive claw to pick things up. This proves handy for part time jobs, doing everything from stacking deliveries on a truck, to assisting a circus elephant’s grand finale – balancing on a tightrope, with five animals precariously plonked on a pole.

Since Part Time UFO embraces the frustration of claw machines, it can infuriate – not least when you topple a structure as the clock ticks down. Mostly, though, this is a charming and very silly game that’s loads of fun.

Pumped BMX 3 ($3.99/£3.49/AU$5.49)

Pumped BMX 3 might initially give you the wrong impression. Colorful visuals and basic controls have it initially come across as a casual take on a BMX trials outing. But pretty rapidly, it bucks any complacency from the saddle and leaves it a shattered mess on the floor.

Whereas Pumped BMX 2 (also recommended) went for a more relaxed take on hurling a BMX into the air with merry abandon, this sequel is all about mastery. Try to wing it and you’ll be crushed, but properly learn course layouts and timings, and you’ll gradually work your way through each level.

That’s rewarding enough, but with confidence you can start peppering your runs with stunts to boost your scores, with routines that would make even seasoned BMX pros break out in hearty applause.

Holedown ($3.99/£3.99/AU$5.99)

Holedown is an arcade shooter that has you blast strings of balls at numbered blocks. When blocks are hit enough times, they blow up, allowing you to dig deeper. Some blocks hold up others, and should be prioritized – as should grabbing gems that allow you to upgrade your kit (more balls; new levels; a bigger gem bag) when you run out of shots and return to the surface.

The mechanics are nothing new on Android – there are loads of similar ball bouncers. What is new is the sense of personality, polish and fun Holedown brings to this style of game. This is a premium title and a labor of love. There’s still repetition at its core, but Holedown feels hypnotic and encouraging, rather than giving you the feeling that it’s digging into your wallet – in contrast to its freebie contemporaries.

Osmos HD ($2.49/£2.19/AU$3.39)

Osmos HD is a rare arcade game about patience and subtlety. Each unique level has you guide a ‘mote’, which moves by expelling tiny pieces of itself. Initially, it moves within microscopic goop, eating smaller motes, to expand and reign supreme.

At first, other motes don’t fight back, but the game soon immerses you in petri dish warfare, as motes tear whatever amounts to each-other's faces off. Then there’s the odd curveball, as challenges find you dealing with gravity as planet-like motes orbit deadly floating 'stars'.

It’s a beautiful, captivating game, with perfect touchscreen controls. And if you can convince a friend to join in, you can battle it out over Wi-Fi across six distinct arenas.

PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX ($1.99/£1.79/AU$3.09)

Since Pac-Man graced arcades in the early 1980s, titles featuring the rotund dot-muncher have typically been split between careful iterations on the original, and mostly duff attempts to shoe-horn the character into other genres. Championship Edition DX is ostensibly the former, although the changes made from the original radically transform the game, making it easily the best Pac-Man to date.

Here, the maze is split in two. Eat all the dots from one half and a special object appears on the other; eat that and the original half's dots are refilled in a new configuration.

All the while, dozing ghosts you brush past join a spectral conga that follows your every move. The result is an intoxicating speedrun take on a seminal arcade classic, combined with the even more ancient Snake; somehow, this combination ends up being fresh, exciting and essential.

The best endless runners for Android

Our favorite Android games where you hoverboard, jump, sprint, or even pinball to a high score – or a sudden end.

Boson X ($2.99/£1.92/AU$3.66)

Boson X is an endless runner that features scientists sprinting at insane speeds inside particle accelerators in order to generate the high-speed collisions required to discover strange new particles. And if you’re thinking that’s probably not entirely scientifically accurate, that’s true; fortunately, Boson X gets away with this by virtue of being breezy and intoxicating fun. 

It comes across like Canabalt in 3D, mixed with Super Hexagon, as you leap between platforms, rotating the collider to ensure you don’t plunge into the void or smack into a wall. From the off, this isn’t exactly easy, but later colliders are truly bonkers – abstract and terrifying contraptions that shift and morph before your very eyes. Brilliant stuff.

ALONE... ($1.99/£1.49/$2.63)

People who today play mobile classic Canabalt and consider it lacking due to its simplicity don't understand what the game is trying to do. Canabalt is all about speed — the thrill of being barely in control, and of affording the player only the simplest controls for survival. ALONE… takes that basic premise and straps a rocket booster to it.

Instead of leaping between buildings, you're flying through deadly caverns, a single digit nudging your tiny craft up and down. Occasional moments of generosity — warnings about incoming projectiles; your ship surviving minor collisions and slowly regenerating — are offset by the relentlessly demanding pressure of simply staying alive and not slamming into a wall. It's an intoxicating combination, and one that, unlike most games in this genre, matches Canabalt in being genuinely exciting to play.

Doug Dug ($0.99/83p/AU$1.39)

This one's all about the bling - and also the not being crushed to death by falling rocks and dirt. Doug Dug riffs off of Mr Driller, Boulder Dash and Dig Dug, the dwarf protagonist digging deep under the earth on an endless quest for shimmering gems. Cave-ins aren't the only threat, though - the bowels of the earth happen to be home to a surprising array of deadly monsters.

Some can be squashed and smacked with Doug's spade (goodbye, creepy spider!), but others are made of sterner stuff (TROLL! RUN AWAY!). Endlessly replayable and full of character, Doug Dug's also surprisingly relaxing - until the dwarf ends up under 150 tonnes of rubble.

FOTONICA ($2.99/£2.59/AU$3.99)

One of the most gorgeous games around, FOTONICA at its core echoes one-thumb leapy game Canabalt. The difference is FOTONICA has you move through a surreal and delicate Rez-like 3D vector landscape, holding the screen to gain speed, and only soaring into the air when you lift a finger.

Smartly, FOTONICA offers eight very different and finite challenges, enabling you to learn their various multi-level pathways and seek out bonuses to ramp up your high scores. Get to grips with this dreamlike runner and you can then pit your wits (and thumbs) against three slowly mutating endless zones.

Impossible Road ($1.99/£1.49/AU$2.33)

One of the most exhilarating games on mobile, Impossible Road finds a featureless white ball barreling along a ribbon-like track that twists and turns into the distance. The aim is survival – and the more gates you pass through, the higher your score.

The snag is that Impossible Road is fast, and the track bucks and turns like the unholy marriage of a furious unbroken stallion and a vicious roller-coaster.

Once the physics click, however, you’ll figure out the risks you can take, how best to corner, and what to do when hurled into the air by a surprise bump in the road.

The game also rewards ‘cheats’. Leave the track, hurtle through space for a bit, and rejoin – you’ll get a score for your airborne antics, and no penalty for any gates missed. Don’t spend too long aloft though - a few seconds is enough for your ball to be absorbed into the surrounding nothingness.

Run A Whale ($0.99/99p/AU$1.49)

Run-A-Whale is a sweet-natured endless runner. Well, endless swimmer, given that its protagonist is a friendly whale giving a lift/thrill ride to a shipwrecked pirate.

There’s no tapping to leap here, though; in Run-A-Whale, you hold the screen to make the whale dive. When you let go and he breaks the surface, he soars (very) briefly into the air, before returning to the water with a splash.

As ever, the aim in Run-A-Whale is survival – and that in itself isn’t simple. The game’s one failing is it sometimes makes it really tough to avoid hazards, which can include whale-stopping walls someone’s carelessly built beneath the waves.

Mostly, though, this one’s a gorgeous romp through beautiful landscapes, grabbing coins, occasionally being fired into the sky by a cannon, and regularly fending off giant crabs and octopodes.

Super Hexagon ($2.99/£2.39/AU$3.79)

Super Hexagon is an endless survival game that mercilessly laughs at your incompetence. It begins with a tiny spaceship at the center of the screen, and walls rapidly closing in. All you need to do is move left and right to nip through the gaps.

Unfortunately for you, the walls keep shifting and changing, the screen pulses to the chiptune soundtrack, and the entire experience whirls and jolts like you’re inside a particularly violent washing machine. It seems impossible, but you soon start to recognize patterns in the walls.

String together some deft moves, survive a minute by the skin of your teeth, and you briefly feel like a boss as new arenas are unlocked. And although complacency is wiped from your face the instant you venture near them, Super Hexagon has an intoxicating, compelling nature to offset its mile-long sadistic streak.

Ridiculous Fishing ($2.49/£2.49/AU$3.69)

Ridiculous Fishing is appropriately named, in that it’s – vaguely – about fishing, and it’s certainly ridiculous.

The game begins with you bobbing about in your open-topped boat, casting a line into the inky depths. You then tilt your phone to guide your hook, scooping up fish, and avoiding hazards. When you reel everything in, it’s hurled into the air, whereupon – for some reason – you blast it with a shotgun.

It’s all very silly, and there’s a smart compulsion loop: over time, you buy longer lines, and higher-powered weaponry, and can therefore snag more fish. And the more you shoot, the more cash you make. Clearly, in this world there’s a big market for seafood that has been airborne and almost atomized. As we said: ridiculous!

The best platform games for Android

Our favorite Android platform games, including side-scrolling 2D efforts, exploration games and console-style adventures.

Spitkiss ($1.99/£1.99/AU$3.69)

Spitkiss is a mashup of arcade shooty larks and platforming action, where you aim to get the bodily fluids of one Spitkiss to another. That might sound a bit grim, but this is actually a sweet-natured game played primarily in cartoonish silhouette.

Even so, your emission, once it’s hurled through the air and gone splat on a platform, starts to gloop downwards. You can then make it leap again, and – several hops later – splatter on your intended love.

Especially on larger screens, Spitkiss works really nicely. The visuals are vibrant, and the basics are easy to grasp. But as you get deeper into the game’s 80 levels, the twists and turns required to win get tougher to pull off – even when you hold down the screen for much-needed Matrix-style slo-mo.

HoPiKo ($1.99/£1.49/AU$2.09)

If you've played Laser Dog's previous efforts, PUK and ALONE…, you'll know what you're in for with HoPiKo. This game takes no prisoners. If it did take them, it'd repeatedly punch them in the face before casually discarding them. HoPiKo, then, is not a game to be messed with. Instead, it feels more like a fight. In each of the dozens of hand-crafted tiny levels, you leap from platform to platform via deft drags and taps, attempting to avoid death.

Only, death is everywhere and very easy to meet. The five-stage level sets are designed to be completed in mere seconds, but also to break your brain and trouble your fingers. It's just on the right side of hellishly frustrating, meaning you'll stop short of flinging your device at the wall, emerging from your temporary red rage foolishly determined that you can in fact beat the game on your next go.

Limbo ($4.99/£3.88/AU$6.85)

The term 'masterpiece' is perhaps bandied about too often in gaming circles, but Limbo undoubtedly deserves such high praise. It features a boy picking his way through a creepy monochrome world, looking for his sister. At its core, Limbo is a fairly simple platform game with a smattering of puzzles, but its stark visuals, eerie ambience, and superb level design transforms it into something else entirely.

You'll get a chill the first time a chittering figure sneaks off in the distance, and your heart will pump when being chased by a giant arachnid, intent on spearing your tiny frame with one of its colossal spiked legs. That death is never the end — each scene can be played unlimited times until you progress — only adds to Limbo's disturbing nature.

Leo's Fortune ($4.99/£4.89/AU$7.49)

The bar's set so low in modern mobile gaming that the word 'premium' has become almost meaningless. But Leo's Fortune bucks the trend, and truly deserves the term. It's a somewhat old-school side-on platform game, featuring a gruff furball hunting down the thief who stole his gold (and then, as is always the way, dropped coins at precise, regular intervals along a lengthy, perilous pathway).

The game is visually stunning, from the protagonist's animation through to the lush, varied backdrops. The game also frequently shakes things up, varying its pace from Sonic-style loops to precise pixel-perfect leaps.

It at times perhaps pushes you a bit too far — late on, we found some sections a bit too finicky and demanding. But you can have as many cracks at a section as you please, and if you master the entire thing, there's a hardcore speedrun mode that challenges you to complete the entire journey without dying.

Rayman Fiesta Run ($2.99/£2.79/AU$4.09)

There are varied mobile takes on limbless wonder Rayman's platform gaming exploits. The 1995 original once existed on Android, but was ill-suited to touchscreens and has mercifully vanished from Google Play; and Rayman Adventures dabbles in freemium to the point it leaves a bad taste.

But Rayman Jungle Run and Rayman Fiesta Run get things right.

They rethink console-oriented platformers as auto-runners – which might sound reductive. However, this is more about distillation and focus than outright simplification.

Tight level design and an emphasis on timing regarding when to jump, rebound and attack forces you to learn layouts and the perfect moment to trigger actions, in order to get the in-game bling you need to progress.

Both titles are sublime, but Fiesta Run is marginally the better of the two - a clever take on platforming that fizzes with energy, looks fantastic, and feels like it was made for Android rather than a 20-year-old console.

Traps n' Gemstones ($4.99/£3.99/AU$4.99)

Harking back to classic side-on platformers, Traps n' Gemstones dumps an Indiana Jones wannabe into a massive pyramid, filled with mummies, spiders and traps; from here he must figure out how to steal all the bling, uncover all the secrets, and then finally escape.

Beyond having you leap about, grab diamonds, and keep indigenous explorer-killing critters at bay, Traps n' Gemstones is keen to have you explore. Work your way deeper into the pyramid and you’ll find objects that when placed somewhere specific open up new pathways.

But although this one’s happy to hurl you back to gaming’s halcyon days, it’s a mite kinder to newcomers than the games that inspired it.

Get killed and you can carry on from where you left off. More of a hardcore player? Death wipes your score, so to doff your fedora in a truly smug manner, you’ll have to complete the entire thing without falling to the game’s difficult challenges.

Chameleon Run ($1.99/£2.09/AU$3.09)

You might have played enough automatic runners to last several lifetimes, but Chameleon Run nonetheless deserves to be on your Android device. And although the basics might initially seem overly familiar (tap to jump and ensure your sprinting chap doesn’t fall down a hole), there’s in fact a lot going on here.

Each level has been meticulously designed, which elevates Chameleon Run beyond its algorithmically generated contemporaries. Like the best platform games, you must commit every platform and gap to memory to succeed. But also, color-switching and ‘head jumps’ open up new possibilities for route-finding – and failure.

In the former case, you must ensure you’re the right color before landing on colored platforms. With the latter, you can smash your head into a platform above to give you one more chance to leap forward and not tumble into the void.

Super Mario Run (free + $9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99 IAP)

Anyone who thought Nintendo would convert a standard handheld take on Mario to Android was always on a hiding to nothing. But that’s probably just as well – Nintendo’s classic platformers are reliant on tight controls, rather than you fumbling about on a slippy glass surface.

Super Mario Run tries a different tack, infusing plenty of ‘Marioness’ into an auto-runner, where you guide the mustachioed plumber by tapping the screen to have him perform actions.

You might consider this reductive; also, Super Mario Run is a touch short, and the ‘kingdom builder’ sub-game alongside the main act falls flat. Still, really smart level design wins the day, and completists will have fun replaying the world tour mode time and again to collect the many hard-to-reach coins.

iCycle ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49)

Hero of the hour Dennis finds himself unicycling naked in this gorgeous platform game best described as flat-out nuts. In iCycle, you dodder left or right, leap over obstacles, and break your fall with a handy umbrella, all the while attempting to grab ice as surreal landscapes collapse and morph around you.

The mission feels like a journey into what might happen if Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam were let loose on game design. One minute, you’re entering a top-hatted gent’s ear to find and kiss a ‘reverse mermaid’ on a levitating bike; the next you’re in a terrifying silhouette funfair that might have burst forth from a fevered mind during a particularly unpleasant nightmare.

Some of the levels are tough, and there’s a bit of grinding to unlock new outfits. But if you want something a bit more creative on your Android, you can’t do much better than iCycle.

The Big Journey ($1.99/£1.89/AU$2.69)

In platform adventure The Big Journey, fat cat Mr. Whiskers is on a mission. The chef behind his favorite dumplings has disappeared, and so the brave feline sets out to find him. The journey finds the chubby kitty rolling and leaping across – and through – all kinds of vibrant landscapes, packed with hills, tunnels, and enemies.

The game comes across a lot like PSP classic LocoRoco, in you tilting the screen to move, the protagonist’s rotundness increasing over time, and several of the landscape interactions (oddball elevators; smashing through fragile barriers).

But The Big Journey very much has its own character, not least in the knowing humor peppered throughout what might otherwise have been a saccharine child-like storyline about a gluttonous cartoon cat.

As it is, The Big Journey isn’t terribly challenging, but it is enjoyable, whether you drink the visuals in and just dodder to the end, or simultaneously try to find every collectible and beat the speed-run time limits.

Mushroom 11 ($4.99/£4.89/AU$6.49)

Mushroom 11 finds you exploring the decaying ruins of a devastated world. And you do so as a blob of green goo. Movement comes by way of you ‘erasing’ chunks of this creature with a circular ‘brush’. Over time, you learn how this can urge the blob to move in certain ways, or how you can split it in two, so half can flick a switch, while the other half moves onward.

This probably sounds a bit weird – and it is. But Mushroom 11 is perfectly suited to the touchscreen. The tactile way you interact with the protagonist feels just right, and although your surroundings are desolate, they’re also oddly beautiful, augmented by a superb ethereal soundtrack.

There are moments of frustration – the odd difficulty wall. But with regular restart points, and countless ingenious obstacles and puzzles, Mushroom 11 is a strange creature you should immediately squeeze into whatever space exists on your Android device.

Sonic Runners Adventure ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49)

Sonic Runners Adventure tries to pull the same trick as Super Mario Run, distilling the essence of a much-loved traditional console platform game into a one-thumb auto-runner. The difference with Sonic is that he blazes along at breakneck pace, resulting in a colorful effort that has more in common with Canabalt than the precision leapy nature of Nintendo’s game.

That’s not to say there’s no case for care and accuracy though. Sonic Runners Adventure features carefully designed multi-level landscapes, each with its own rhythm.

Crack the choreography and you’ll grab the rings, bonk the monsters on the head and give the evil Dr Eggman a serious kicking. If not, you can at least take solace that this game’s mobile-friendly levels aren’t terribly expansive, and so are geared towards immediately having another go.

The best puzzle games for Android

Our favorite Android logic tests, path-finding games, match puzzlers and brain-teasers.

Chuchel ($4.99/£4.49/AU$6.99)

Chuchel is an exploratory puzzler that when played comes across like you’re watching a series of a distinctly weird cartoon. The titular protagonist, a ball of fluff, wants nothing more than to get a cherry – but it’s cruelly snatched away the second he gets near. Each single-screen challenge therefore tasks you with finding the convoluted route to Chuchel’s goal.

Packed with the heart, humor, and animated smarts evident in previous Amanita Design games, Chuchel is a joy to watch as you tap hot-spots, make decisions, and watch events play out.

Some canned animations are lengthy, and logic isn’t always prized, which means it can sometimes get tedious to trudge through a section until you nail the precise sequence to finish it. Still, this is more than offset by a game that frequently surprises and delights.

Persephone ($3.90/£3.60/AU$5.95)

Persephone is a puzzle game set in tiny isometric worlds, packed with clockwork hazards, such as spikes and poison darts. Your aim in each is to reach the exit. Often, that involves triggering switches and pushing objects around. Persephone, though, has a rather unconventional take on how these things are achieved.

If you get killed, your corpse remains on the screen and you are reincarnated at the most recently accessed restart point. You can have up to three corpses available at any one time, unceremoniously using them to cross spiked pits, or shoving them into switches so to avoid being shot by a nearby projectile. It’s an amusingly dark comic twist, and one that makes Persephone stand out among a slew of ostensibly similar puzzlers.

Threes! ($5.99/£5.49/AU$8.49)

The sort of silly maths game you might've played in your head before mobile phones emerged to absorb all our thought processes, Threes! really does take less than 30 seconds to learn.

You bash numbers about until they form multiples of three and disappear. That's it. There are stacks of free clones available, but if you won't spare the price of one massive bar of chocolate to pay for a lovely little game like this that'll amuse you for week, you're part of the problem and deserve to rot in a freemium hell where it costs 50p to do a wee.

Prune ($3.99/£3.79/AU$4.99)

It's not often you see a game about the "joy of cultivation", and Prune is unlike anything you've ever played before. Apparently evolving from an experimental tree-generation script, the game has you swipe to shape and grow a plant towards sunlight by tactically cutting off specific branches.

That sounds easy, but the trees, shrubs and weeds in Prune don't hang around. When they're growing at speed and you find yourself faced with poisonous red orbs to avoid, or structures that damage fragile branches, you'll be swiping in a frantic race towards sunlight.

And all it takes is one dodgy swipe from a sausage finger to see your carefully managed plant very suddenly find itself being sliced in two.

You Must Build a Boat ($2.99/£2.39/AU$4.19)

This is one of those 'rub your stomach, pat your head' titles that has you play two games at once. At the top of the screen, it's an endless runner, with your little bloke battling all manner of monsters, and pilfering loot. The rest of the display houses what's essentially a Bejeweled-style gem-swapper. The key is in matching items so that the running bit goes well - like five swords when you want to get all stabby.

Also, there's the building a boat bit. Once a run ends, you return to your watery home, which gradually acquires new rooms and residents. Some merely power up your next sprint, but others help you amass powerful weaponry. Resolutely indie and hugely compelling, You Must Build a Boat will keep you busily swiping for hours.

A Good Snowman ($4.99/£3.99/AU$6.99)

It turns out what makes a good snowman is three very precisely rolled balls of snow stacked on top of each other. And that's the core of this adorable puzzle game, which has more than a few hints of Towers of Hanoi and Sokoban about it as your little monster goes about building icy friends to hug.

What sets A Good Snowman apart from its many puzzle-game contemporaries on Android is a truly premium nature. You feel that the developer went to great efforts to polish every aspect of the production, from the wonderful animation to puzzles that grow in complexity and deviousness, without you really noticing — until you get stuck on a particularly ferocious one several hours in.

Snakebird ($4.71/£3.74/AU$6.44)

You probably need to be a bit of a masochist to get the most out of Snakebird, which is one of the most brain-smashingly devious puzzlers we've ever set eyes on. It doesn't really look or sound the part, frankly - all vibrant colors and strange cartoon 'snakebirds' that make odd noises.

But the claustrophobic floating islands the birds must crawl through, supporting each other (often literally) in their quest for fruit, are designed very precisely to make you think you've got a way forward, only to thwart you time and time again.

The result is a surprisingly arduous game, but one that's hugely rewarding when you crack a particularly tough level, at which point you'll (probably rightly) consider yourself some kind of gaming genius.

Human Resource Machine ($4.99/£4.59/AU$6.99)

Some people argue programming is perhaps the best ‘game’ of all – and a brilliant puzzle. Those might be people you’d sooner avoid at parties, but Human Resource Machine suggests they could have a point. In this compelling and unique puzzle game, you control the actions of a worker drone by way of programming-like sequences.

The premise is to complete tasks by converting items in your inbox to whatever’s required in the outbox – for example, only sending zeroes. Like much programming, success often relies on logic, with you fashioning loops, and using actions such as ‘jump’, ‘if’ statements, and ‘copy’. These are arranged via drag and drop on a board at the right-hand side of the screen.

That might all sound impenetrable, but Human Resource Machine is in fact elegant, friendly, and approachable, not least due to developer Tomorrow Corporation’s penchant for infusing games with personality and heart.

Shadowmatic (free + $2.99/£2.99/AU$3.99 IAP)

That game where you cast a shadow on the wall and attempt to make a vaguely recognizable rabbit? That’s Shadowmatic, only instead of your hands, you manipulate all kinds of levitating detritus, spinning and twisting things until you abruptly – and magically – fashion a silhouette resembling anything from a seahorse to an old-school telephone.

The game looks gorgeous, with stunning lighting effects and objects that look genuinely real as they dangle in the air. Mostly though, this is a game about tactility and contemplation – it begs to be explored, and to make use of your digits in a way virtual D-pads could never hope to compete with.

Linelight ($1.99/£1.79/AU$2.89)

Linelight is a gorgeous, minimal puzzler that pits you against the rhythmic denizens of a network of lines levitating above a colored haze. Your aim is simply to progress, inching your way along the network, triggering gates and switches, and collecting golden gems.

Early puzzles are content to let you get to grips with the virtual stick (one of the best on Android). Soon, you’re faced with adversaries that kill with a single touch. But these foes aren’t merely to be avoided – they must also be manipulated into position to trigger switches that open pathways that enable you to continue.

Now and again, new mechanics keep things fresh, as do abrupt changes in pace, such as a memorable several-screens-long pursuit/dance with an enemy towards the end of the game’s first section. In all, Linelight’s an enchanting, vibrant, superbly designed experience – an essential purchase for your Android device.

Monument Valley 2 ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)

Monument Valley 2 is the follow-up to landscape-bending puzzler Monument Valley. As in its predecessor, you fashion impossible pathways by manipulating Escher-like constructions in order to reach goals.

This is a gorgeous game. The minimalist architecture is dotted with optical illusions. Imagination abounds throughout, and the color palette dazzles, half making you wish you could print every level out as a massive poster to stick on the wall.

The actual puzzles are slight and the game itself has been criticized for being short, but thoughts of brevity evaporate when you’re confronted by one of Monument Valley 2’s many spectacular, beautiful moments, such as a side-on level that resembles modern art and a section where trees explode from pots when bathed in sunlight. In short, this is a mobile experience to savor.

Framed 2 ($4.99/£4.49/AU$7.49)

Framed 2 follows in the footsteps of Framed – a puzzle game based around rearranging panels of an animated comic book.

The story features a mysterious ship, smuggling, and quite a lot of sneaky spies. As you play a scene, something inevitably goes horribly wrong for the protagonist and you must swap frames around to make things play out differently. Like the original, this is all wonderfully tactile, but the puzzles are better this time around, with more emphasis on reusing panels.

It’s even fun when it goes wrong. You don’t often get to be entertained when failing in a puzzle game, but here you’ll want to fail each level if you succeed first time, just to see what amusing japes Framed 2’s cast would have got into otherwise.

Zenge ($0.99/£0.59/AU$0.99)

Zenge is a sliding puzzle game whose early levels almost insult your intelligence, merely asking you to slide a few shapes into place. Don’t be fooled, though – Zenge is devious in a way that should make even the most jaded puzzle game fan grin.

At first, it’s just the cut of the shapes that thwarts efforts to shove them into place, but every now and again, new mechanics enter the mix, such as pieces that stick to each other, or buttons that flip shapes over.

All this plays out within a no-stress environment. There are no timers, move limits, shops, points or stars - it’s just you and the puzzles. Zenge’s purity alone would make it interesting, but the quality of the puzzles makes it a must-have.

Hidden Folks ($3.49/£2.99/AU$6.49)

Hidden Folks is a hidden object game with a soul. It’s reminiscent of those mass-produced posters where you scour a massive, cluttered scene, trying to find the one person with a silly hat. The difference is that everything here has been made with love and care, from the hand-drawn interactive illustrations to the amusing oral sound effects.

The basics are admittedly much as you’d expect: scour the screen to find specific objects or characters, and move on when complete.

We realize that might not sound like much, but there’s a charm and humor to Hidden Folks that sets it apart from any of its contemporaries. On a larger Android phone or a tablet, this is a particularly relaxing, absorbing game to lose yourself in for a few hours.

.projekt ($1.99/£1.59/AU$2.59)

.projekt is a relaxing and brilliantly designed minimal puzzler that twists your brain by forcing you to think in two and three dimensions simultaneously. At the center of the screen is a five-by-five grid, which you tap to build blocky structures from cubes. The aim is to have the shadows they project match patterns on two visible walls.

At first, this is simple stuff, but .projekt subtly ramps up the challenge as you move through its levels. You’re forced to spin the canvas multiple times, and often to destroy your structure and rebuild as an approach turns out to be a dead end.

Never does .projekt become a frustrating experience, however. You’re not on the clock, there are no move limits, and there are no IAP lurking. It’s just about you and the blocks, and imagining how an object looks from two points of view.

ELOH ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49)

ELOH is a puzzle game that wants you to experiment. It’s based around a strict grid that features masks, loudspeakers that emit colored blobs, and goals. The idea is to get the blobs to the goals, ensuring they’re the right color by bouncing them off of relevant masks along the way.

That might sound chaotic, but ELOH has a clockwork setup. Everything bounces at precise right angles, and shots are fired to the rhythm of a background soundtrack. But your approach to solving challenges can be like sculpting: set the blobs on their way and you can move puzzle pieces live, just to see what happens.

ELOH is therefore a pressure-free but engaging title – there’s no clock, and there are no ads. It’s just you, over 80 puzzles, and some cracking visuals and audio.

Layton: Curious Village in HD ($9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99)

Layton: Curious Village in HD (US/RoW) is a slice of gaming history. Originally released for the Nintendo DS, Curious Village was the first Layton game; it sold over 17 million copies, and launched what’s since become a beloved series.

Lesser developers would have done a straight port to mobile and be done with it, but Level-5 acknowledges technology has moved on – and the clue is in the title. All of the game’s visuals have been spruced up for modern displays, and augmented with new animations.

Of course, the puzzles remain the real draw – and even some of the early ones are proper brain-thumpers. Add to this an engaging story (despite the iffy voice work) and Curious Village is a superb update, one that you should take time with and savor.

In The Dog House ($3.99/£2.99/AU$5.49)

In The Dog House is a sweet-natured puzzler featuring a ravenous pooch and a bizarre house with moving rooms, floors, and corridors. Unfortunately for the dog, its dinner’s on the other side of said house, and you need to figure out how to get over there.

The mechanics of the game are a classic sliding puzzler, with a few twists. The house’s components can be slid and sometimes rotated, but you also need to use a bone to urge the dog toward the goal. The snag is any room the pooch is planted in cannot be moved.

In The Dog House rapidly becomes quite the brain-smasher, and it’s irritating that there’s no level-skip option when you’re stuck. Still, perseverance reaps rewards, because after the more arduous tests you’ll feel like a champ when you reach that bowl.

Dissembler ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49)

Dissembler is a match-three game with a difference. Instead of presenting you with a wall of gems that’s replenished when you make matches, Dissembler levels are akin to modern art – abstract creations comprising colored tiles.

You still swap two elements to try and match three (or more), but here matches vanish. The idea is to end up with a blank canvas. At first, this is easy, but Dissembler soon serves up challenges where you end up isolating tiles unless you’re very careful.

This shifts the game more heavily into strategic puzzling territory – and it’s all the better for it. You’ll feel like the smartest person around on figuring out the precise sequence of moves to clear the later levels. And even when you’ve finished them all, there’s a daily puzzle and endless mode to keep you occupied.

The best shooting games for Android

Our favorite Android FPS titles, twin-stick shooters, scrolling retro shoot ’em ups and artillery games.

Downwell ($2.99/£2.69/$4.19)

A young boy hurls himself down a massive well, with only his ‘gunboots’ for protection. There are so many questions there (not least: what parent would buy their kid boots that are also guns?), but it sets the scene for a superb arcade shooter with surprising smarts and depth.

At first in Downwell, you’ll probably be tempted to blast everything, but ammo soon runs out. On discovering you reload on landing, you’ll then start to jump about a lot. But further exploration of the game’s mechanics reaps all kinds of rewards, leading to you bounding on monsters, venturing into tunnels to find bonus bling, and getting huge scores once you crack the secrets behind combos.

The game might look like it’s arrived on your Android device from a ZX Spectrum, but this is a thoroughly modern and hugely engaging blaster.

Arkanoid vs Space Invaders ($4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)

In the late 1970s, Space Invaders invited you to blast rows of invaders. In the mid-1980s, Arkanoid revamped Breakout, having you use a bat-like spaceship to belt a ball at space bricks. Now, Arkanoid vs Space Invaders mashes the two titles together – and, surprisingly, it works very nicely.

Instead of a ball, you’re deflecting the invaders’ bullets back at them, to remove bricks and the invaders themselves. Now and again, Arkanoid is recalled more directly in a special attack that has you belt a ball around the place after firing it into action using a massive space bow.

Increasingly, though, the game is laced with strategy, since your real enemy is time. A couple of dozen levels in, you must carefully utilize powerful invaders’ blasts and onscreen bonuses to emerge victorious – not easy when neon is flying everywhere and the clock’s ticking down.

No Stick Shooter ($1.99/£1.99/AU$2.89)

No Stick Shooter is a single-screen shoot ’em up that marries the best of old-school retro blasters with modern touchscreen controls.

As its name suggests, there are no virtual D-pads to contend with. Instead, as the aliens menacingly descend towards your planet, you tap their general location to fling something destructive their way.

The key to victory doesn’t involve tapping the screen like a lunatic, though. Your weapons need time to recharge, and specific armaments work well against certain foes. In a sense, it all plays out like a strategy-laced precision shooter on fast-forward, with you clocking incoming hostiles, quickly switching to the best weapon, and tapping or swiping to blow them away.

There are just 30 levels in all, but only the very best arcade veterans are likely to blaze through them at any speed – and even then, getting all the achievements is a tough ask.

Death Road to Canada ($9.99/£8.99/AU$14.99)

Death Road to Canada is a zombie movie smashed into a classic retro game. Little pixelated heroes dodder about a dystopian world, bashing zombies with whatever comes to hand, looting houses, and trying to not get eaten.

The road trip is staccato in nature. The game constantly tries to derail your rhythm and momentum. In Choose Your Own Adventure-style text bits, the wrong decision may find you savaged by a moose. Elsewhere, intense ‘siege’ challenges dump you in a confined space with zombie hordes, often armed only with a stick. Handy.

These abrupt elements can grate – as can the slightly slippy controls that aren’t always quite tight enough; but otherwise this is an ambitious mash-up of RPG and arcade gaming, with generous dollops of black humor – and BRAIINNZZZ.

ATOMIK: RunGunJumpGun ($2.99/£3.19/AU$4.29)

ATOMIK: RunGunJumpGun finds a nutcase blasting his way through corridors of extremely angry, heavily armed aliens, while he himself is only armed with a really big gun. That might sound fine, until you realize the gun is also his means of staying aloft.

This means to go higher, he must blast downward, temporarily becoming vulnerable to incoming fire. If he shoots forward, he starts to plummet towards the hard, deadly ground. ATOMIK therefore becomes a manic, high-octane balancing act of finger gymnastics, with the potential to get killed very frequently.

On every death, the game rewinds the level so you can try again, and wallow in your failure to complete challenges that are a mere 20 seconds long without dying dozens of times first. But when you crack one, you really do feel like a boss.

Super Crossfighter ($0.99/89p/AU$1.49)

Super Crossfighter is essentially a neon Space Invaders played at breakneck pace. Your little craft sits at the foot of the screen, darting left and right, blasting the aliens above. But the foes you face aren’t doddering critters from 1970s gaming – they come armed to the teeth, hurling all manner of instant laser death and bullet hell your way.

Fortunately, you’re not wanting for firepower either. Your speedy craft can leap from the bottom to the top of the screen, scooping up gems that can subsequently be used to upgrade the ship in an in-game shop. There’s no IAP, note, for extra cash – this intense blaster is all about the skill you have in your thumbs, and your ability to survive wave after wave of neon-infused shooty action.

Jydge ($9.99/£8.49/AU$14.99)

Jydge riffs off of Robocop and Judge Dredd, having you control the titular cybernetic law enforcer, eradicating crime in the megacity of Edenbyrg.

The game’s no-nonsense approach is typified by the ‘Gavel’ in this case being a massive gun. Jydge’s approach to dealing with bad guys mostly involves stomping about, shooting enemies, pilfering bling, and rescuing unfortunate hostages caught in the crossfire.

Initially, something about the game’s visuals and approach may make you play as if entering a neon-soaked outing that’s escaped from stealth shooter master and X-Com creator Julian Gollop’s brain, but really Jydge mostly plays out like a frantic twin-stick shooter. Tactics only really enter the equation when you realize you can nip back to earlier missions and tackle them again with new kit or approaches, in order to meet tricky challenges. Either way, it’s ballsy fun.

Implosion - Never Lose Hope (free + $9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99)

Implosion finds Earth having been given a beating by nasty aliens, leaving humans on the brink of extinction. As this is a videogame, humans have pinned all their hopes on you and your natty battlesuit.

Fortunately, said suit can dish out serious damage. As you stomp about Implosion’s gleaming environments, you blast, slash, and dash your way through hordes of identikit alien drones. Occasional boss battles then shake things up in terms of pacing and challenge. Between levels, you customize your suit, to unlock new combos.

The game’s creators call Implosion a AAA console-style title, and it looks superb and feels the part. Even the complex controls (for a touchscreen game) work well. A sticking point for some might be the price, but you can play six missions for nothing. If you then balk at a one-off IAP for a premium title, don’t subsequently wonder why we can’t have nice things.

Lichtspeer ($3.99/£3.49/AU$5.49)

Lichtspeer is a trippy take on tower defense – like a single-lane Plants vs Zombies, only you’re fending off deranged futuristic Nordic and Germanic foes, are armed with an endless supply of glowing javelins (the titular Lichtspeer), and act under the watchful eye of an angry, demanding heavy metal god.

So, yes, this one has a veneer of weird, but the underlying mechanics are straightforward enough: aim your spear Angry Birds-style, lob and repeat. Get in some headshots, and the game rewards you. Miss too often and the god’s wrath briefly freezes you, making you temporarily vulnerable.

The main downsides to the game are repetition and brevity. However, gradually acquired special moves shake things up (and are a godsend on packed levels), and when you’re in the neon Lichtspeer zone, it has a focused, hypnotic quality – along with a pleasing dash of madness.

The best sports games for Android

Our favorite Android soccer, tennis, golf and management games.

Football Manager Touch 2019 ($19.99/£19.99/AU$30.99)

Football Manager Touch 2019 is one of the most ambitious games on Android, aiming to cram as much of the desktop PC soccer management game into your device as possible. Although a streamlined take on the original computer game, this is still fully-fledged management, enabling you to delve into all kinds of leagues, teams, tactics and set-ups.

There is a smattering of automation for people who can’t spend the equivalent of an entire soccer season playing the game; and pre-set tactical styles give you a leg-up to success. Make sure you examine the compatibility list prior to buying; if your device isn’t up to scratch, or you just prefer something simpler, be mindful the impressive Football Manager 2019 Mobile also exists. 

Touchgrind Skate 2 (free + IAP)

You might narrow your eyes at so-called 'realism' in mobile sports titles, given that this usually means 'a game that looks a bit like when you watch telly'. But Touchgrind Skate 2 somehow manages to evoke the feel of skateboarding, your fingers becoming tiny legs that urge the board about the screen.

There's a lot going on in Touchgrind Skate 2, and the control system is responsive and intricate, enabling you to perform all manner of tricks. It's not the most immediate of titles - you really need to not only run through the tutorial but fully master and memorize each step before moving on.

Get to grips with your miniature skateboard and you'll find one of the most fluid and rewarding experiences on mobile. Note that for free you get one park to scoot about in, but others are available via IAP.

Table Tennis Touch ($3.49/£2.99/AU$4.79)

Table Tennis Touch brings the glory of ping pong to your Android device. You can partake in mini-games for training, or a full career mode, where you aim to smack a tiny white ball past the usual eerily floating bats of your opponents.

Visually, the game’s a treat with its gorgeously rendered locations. Most importantly, it feels great, recreating the high-octane nature of the sport, even if you do perhaps eventually get to the point where many matches are won by smashing super-fast shots diagonally across the table.

Even so, when you do get that winning point, at the end of a game where the lead’s shifted back and forth between you and an opponent, the game’s never less than invigorating.

Desert Golfing ($1.99/£1.39/AU$2.29)

Desert Golfing is an almost brutally minimalist take on golf. You start out in a side-on landscape, featuring a ball and a hole. You drag to aim, let go to smack the ball, and hope your aim is true. One or more shots later, the hole becomes the next tee, and a new challenge is presented.

That is basically the entire game. You get a score, although when you’re 50 holes in, it’s hard to know whether the number is meaningful. But the actual playing takes golf to a strangely relaxing and zen place. If you want realism or action, this one’s perhaps not for you; but if you fancy something golf-like to chill out with, Desert Golfing is great.

Football Manager Touch 2018 ($19.99/£19.99/AU$30.99)

Football Manager Touch 2018 is an ambitious mobile title, in that it attempts to bring the full-fat Football Manager experience from PC to your Android tablet. (Sorry, phone users – you’ll have to make do with the cut-down Football Manager Mobile).

The good news is that this is a hugely detailed, feature-rich game, enabling you to delve into every aspect of your team, watch matches, and get very angry when your team blows a two-goal lead deep into stoppage time.

The bad news is that this is a game that will demand many hours of your time. After all, you’re not going to finish and win an entire league during a 30-minute bus ride. A single game in your ongoing campaign, however…

Kevin Toms Football * Manager ($3.49/£2.99/AU$4.89)

Kevin Toms Football * Manager is what happens when the man who created the original Football Manager game (the one released in 1982 for computers with 16k of RAM) brings the same pick-up-and-play ethos to Android. It’s crude. It’s simplistic. It’s also – as it turns out – an awful lot of fun.

Ultimately, the game mostly involves basic team selection/management, a smattering of tactics, and tense match highlights. It might seem prehistoric to anyone who cut their teeth on modern football management games, but it’s a delight for anyone hankering after immediacy from a management game, rather than something with so much depth it threatens to take over their life.

The best strategy games for Android

Our favorite Android real-time strategy and turn-based games, board games, card games and map-making games.

Twinfold ($3.99/£3.79/AU$5.99)

Twinfold takes the basic tile-merging mechanic of mobile puzzling classic Threes!, adds a massive dollop of dungeon crawling, and then drops the result into a procedurally generated maze. This mixture shouldn’t work, but it’s fantastic.

As you move, so do golden idols and enemies. Munch idols and they replenish your energy, but merge them and they grow in value – all the better for your XP when they’re finally eaten. But removing both in either case causes the entire maze to be redrawn.

With regularly spawning monsters and the very landscape being upended on a regular basis, Twinfold certainly keeps you on your toes. And although it can grate when the randomness leaves you in a terrible position, the potential for devising strategies – not least when you roll in regularly supplied power-ups – and longevity is immense.  

Lara Croft GO ($4.99/£3.99/AU$6.49)

Lara Croft games have landed on Android to rather variable results. The original Tomb Raider just doesn't work on touchscreens, and although Lara Croft: Relic Run is enjoyable enough, it's essentially a reskinned Temple Run.

Lara Croft GO is far more ambitious and seriously impressive. It rethinks Tomb Raider in much the same way Hitman GO reimagined the Hitman series.

Croft's adventures become turn-based puzzles, set in a world half-way between board game and gorgeous isometric minimalism. It shouldn't really work, but somehow Lara Croft GO feels like a Tomb Raider game, not least because of the wonderful sense of atmosphere, regular moments of tension, and superb level design.

Concrete Jungle ($4.99/£4.79/AU$6.49)

A massive upgrade over the developer’s own superb but broadly overlooked MegaCity, Concrete Jungle is a mash-up of puzzler, city management and deck builder.

The basics involve the strategic placement of buildings on a grid, with you aiming to rack up enough points to hit a row’s target. At that point, the row vanishes, and more building space scrolls into view.

Much of the strategy lies in clever use of cards, which affect nearby squares – a factory reduces the value of nearby land, for example, but an observatory boosts the local area. You quickly learn plonking down units without much thought messes up your future prospects.

Instead, you must plan in a chess-like manner – even more so when facing off against the computer opponent in brutally difficult head-to-head modes. But while Concrete Jungle is tough, it’s also fair – the more hours you put in, the better your chances. And it’s worth giving this modern classic plenty of your time.

Mini Metro ($4.99/£4.29/AU$7.49)

There’s a disarmingly hypnotic and almost meditative quality to the early stages of Mini Metro. You sit before a blank underground map of a major metropolis, and drag out lines between stations that periodically appear.

Little trains then cart passengers about, automatically routing them to their stop, their very movements building a pleasing plinky plonky generative soundtrack.

As your underground grows, though, so does the tension. You’re forced to choose between upgrades, balance where trains run, and make swift adjustments to your lines. Should a station become overcrowded, your entire network is closed. (So...not very like the real world, then.)

Do well enough and you unlock new cities, with unique challenges. But even failure isn’t frustrating, and nor is the game’s repetitive nature a problem, given that Mini Metro is such a joy to play.

Hitman GO ($4.99/£3.99/AU$6.99)

The original and best of the GO games, Hitman GO should never have worked. It reimagines the console stealth shooter as a dinky clockwork boardgame. Agent 47 scoots about, aiming to literally knock enemies off the board, and then reach and bump off his primary target.

Visually, it’s stunning – oddly adorable, but boasting the kind of clarity that’s essential for a game where a single wrong move could spell disaster. And the puzzles are well designed, too, with distinct objectives that often require multiple solutions to be found.

If you’re a fan of Agent 47’s exploits on consoles, you might be a bit nonplussed by Hitman GO, but despite its diorama stylings, it nonetheless manages to evoke some of the atmosphere and tension from the console titles, while also being entirely suited to mobile play.

Solitairica (free or $3.99/£3.49/AU$5.49)

In the fantasy world of Solitairica, battles are fought to the death by way of cards. The foes barring the way to your quest’s goal set up walls of cards before them, which you smash through by matching those one higher or lower than the one you hold.

Then there are spells you cast by way of collected energies. Meanwhile, the creatures strike back with their own unique attacks, from strange worm-like beings nibbling your head, to grumpy forest dwellers making your cards grow beards.

In short, then, a modicum of fantasy role-playing wrapped around an entertaining and approachable card game. And on Android, you have the advantage of the game being free – a one-off IAP only figures if you want to avoid watching adverts, and have access to alternate decks to try your luck as a different character.

Card Thief (free + $2.99/£2.99/AU$4.99 IAP)

If you never thought a solitaire-like card game was an ideal framework for a tense stealth title, you’re probably not alone. But somehow Card Thief cleverly mashes up cards and sneaking about.

The game takes place on a three-by-three grid of cards. For each move, you plan a route to avoid getting duffed up by guards (although pickpocketing them on the way past is fair game, obviously), loot a chest, and make for an exit.

Card Thief is not the easiest game to get into, with its lengthy tutorial and weird spin on cards. But this is a game with plenty of nuance and depth that becomes increasingly rewarding the more you play, gradually unlocking its secrets. It’s well worth the effort.

First Strike 1.3 ($1.99/£1.99/AU$2.69)

First Strike is an oddball combination of territory-snagging board game Risk, and classic defense arcade title Missile Command. You pick a nuclear power and set about building missiles, researching technologies, annexing adjacent states, and – when it comes to it – blowing the living daylights out of your enemies.

The high-tech interface balances speed and accessibility, although games tend to be surprisingly lengthy – and initially sedate, as you gradually increase your arsenal, and shore up your defenses.

Eventually, all hell breaks lose, including terrifying first strikes, where enemies lob their entire cache of missiles at an unlucky target. If that’s you and your defenses aren’t strong enough, prepare more for ‘the end’ than ‘game over’ as the screen shakes amid all the destruction.

It’s thoughtful and clever (and often chilling), but First Strike never forgets it’s a game – and a really good one for real-time strategy fans.

Miracle Merchant (free + $2.99/£2.99/AU$4.99 IAP)

Miracle Merchant has you mix potions for thirsty adventurers, fashioned from stacks of colored cards. Each customer asks for a specific ingredient, and mentions another they like. Across 13 rounds, you must manage your deck to ensure everyone goes away happy. Fail once and your game ends.

Decisions must be made carefully, because once cards are placed, they can’t be moved. Combinations prove vital for success: pairs of cards boost your score, as does matching cards to the colored icons found on those already in play. There are also ‘evil’ cards with negative values to overcome.

The game doesn’t feel as refined as the developer’s own Card Thief, but we enjoyed its elegance. There’s no messing about with special powers and leveling up – it’s just you, cards, and a set of rules. There’s perhaps a touch too much reliance on card counting and luck, but Miracle Merchant’s nonetheless a simple, engaging, unique stab on solitaire.

Card Crawl (free + $2.99/£2.99/AU$4.39 IAP)

Card Crawl mixes solitaire and dungeon crawling, and does an awful lot with a four-by-two grid of cards.

In each round, an armor-clad ogre deals four cards, which may include monsters, weaponry, potions, and spells. Beneath sits your adventurer’s card, two spots for items to hold, and one to stash a card for later.

To progress to the next draw, you must use three of the cards dealt to you. For example, you might grab a sword, use that to kill a demonic crow, and then quaff a potion.

Getting through the entire deck requires strategy more than luck. For example, down health potions when you don’t need to, and you may not survive later when weaponless and battling multiple enemies.

Generously, the basic game is free; but we recommend buying the one-off IAP to unlock the full set of cards and game modes.

Freeways ($3.99/£2.89/AU$4.49)

Freeways is one of those games that doesn’t look like much in stills, but proves ridiculously compelling from the moment you fire it up. In short, it’s all about designing roadways for autonomous vehicles.

It comes across a bit like a mash-up of Mini Metro and Flight Control. You link roads together, often by designing monstrous spaghetti junctions, only you’re armed with tools that make you feel like an urban planner drawing with chunky crayons while wearing boxing gloves.

The game’s crude nature is part of its charm. It’s more about speed and immediacy than precision, a feeling cemented when you realize there’s no undo. When your road system gets jammed, your only option is to start from scratch and try something new.

In truth, the inability to remove even tiny errors can irk, not least when roads don’t connect as you’d expect. Otherwise, Freeways is a blast.

Meteorfall ($2.99/£2.59/AU$4.09)

Meteorfall is a ‘roguelike’ role-playing adventure masquerading as a card game. You choose a hero, and then set out on a semi-randomized journey, which largely involves hacking your way through a horde of monsters. Only instead of swiping a trusty sword, or moving about a turn-based grid, your actions, attacks and strategy all revolve around cards.

With each card you’re dealt, you choose, Tinder-style, to swipe left or right. Each direction has its own outcome, which may involve smacking your foe in the face, or replenishing energy. Over time, you build up your deck, gradually increasing your strength and skills – until the moment you overstretch and are horribly killed.

Given the simple interface, there’s loads of depth here. And with every game being unique, Meteorfall is an Android title that should keep you playing for months.

Reigns: Game of Thrones ($3.99/£3.79/AU$5.99)

Reigns: Game of Thrones follows Reigns and Reigns: Her Majesty in marrying kingdom management with swipe-based interaction borrowed from Tinder. Only this time, there’s a massively popular TV show fused to its core.

You plonk your behind on the Iron Throne, as one of several major characters from the TV series, and set about imposing your will on the Seven Kingdoms. As you swipe left and right to make decisions, your fortunes with the people, army, church and bank fluctuate. Fill or deplete any one meter, and your reign will come to an abrupt – and likely bloody – end.

Given the basic interface, Reigns: Game of Thrones has surprising depth. It also has great writing, loads of content to find, and plenty of puzzles to solve, making it ideal mobile gaming fodder.

The best word games for Android

Our favorite Android games that involve anagrams, crosswords and doing clever things with letters.

Sidewords ($2.99/£2.89/AU$4.39)

Sidewords is a rare word game that isn’t ripping off Scrabble or crosswords. Instead, you get blank grids with words along two edges. You must use at least one letter from each edge to make new words of three or more letters. Each selected letter blasts a line across the grid; where lines meet become solid areas filled with your word. The aim is to fill the grid.

On smaller levels, this is simple, but larger grids can be challenging – especially when you realize a massive word (that on discovery made you feel like a genius) leaves spaces that are impossible to fill. Fortunately, Sidewords encourages experimentation, and so you can remove/replace words at will.

It’s clever and a bit different; and if you tire of the main game, you can fire up mini-game Quads, which marries word-building and Threes!-style sliding tiles. Two for the price of one, then – and both games alone are worth the outlay.

Dropwords 2 ($0.99/69p/AU$1.25)

Dropwords 2 mixes up well-based match games like Bejeweled and word games like Boggle. You’re faced with a grid of letters and must drag out words that snake across the board. When submitting a word, its letters disappear, and new tiles fall into the well to fill the gaps.

As ever in this kind of game, speed is of the essence. But also, you can gain extra seconds by submitting longer words – something that becomes increasingly important as you get deeper into the game.

Smartly, much of the game can be customized, including the board’s theme; and if you want to just chill, rather than be hassled by a relentless game-ending countdown, there are untimed modes too.

Blackbar ($1.99/£1.22/AU$2.23)

Blackbar is fundamentally a game about guessing words. Yet it’s also a chilling commentary on the dangers of a dystopian surveillance society.

The game begins with you receiving letters from a friend who’s started work at the Department of Communication. Anything from them considered controversial or negative is censored – a ‘blackbar’ – which you must correctly guess to continue.

Over the course of a number of communications, the story escalates in a frightening manner, and you find yourself feeling like you’re beating the system (man), despite ultimately just tapping in words to best a basic logic test.

If nothing else, this showcases the power of great storytelling; and filling in Blackbar’s blanks feels a lot more fulfilling than chucking more hours at a run-of-the-mill Scrabble clone.

Letterpress (free or $4.99/£4.59/AU$6.99)

Letterpress merges Boggle-like finding words within a pile of letters with Risk-like land grabs. You and an opponent (an online human or computer players of varying skill levels) take turns to tap out words on the five-by-five grid. Letters you use turn your color – and those you surround cannot be flipped by the other player during their next turn.

Winning therefore isn’t just about big words – not least if its letters are scattered about. Instead, you must carefully protect your territory and gradually eat into your opponent’s land. Battles can become tense and thrilling – not usually concepts associated with a word game. But then Letterpress is no ordinary word game – it’s much better than that.

Supertype ($1.99/£1.69/AU$2.79)

Supertype is a word game more concerned with the shape of letters than the words they might create. Each hand-designed level finds you staring at a setup of lines, dots, and empty spaces in which to type. Tap out some letters, press the tick mark, and everything starts to move.

The aim is to get the letters you type to the dots. In some cases, the solution may be fairly obvious – for example, placing a lowercase l on each ‘step’ towards an out of reach dot at the top of a staircase, then having a p at the start tip over to set everything in motion. More often, you’ll be scratching your head, experimenting, trying new approaches, and then grinning ear to ear on cracking a solution.

Typeshift (free + IAP)

Typeshift rethinks word searches and crosswords. You get a tactile interface of jumbled letters within draggable columns. Your aim is to change the color of every tile – and tiles only change when they’re part of a word you make in the central row.

The game occasionally heads further into traditional crossword territory, adding clues to the mix, which you must match to the words you find. Either way, it’s a brain-smashing touch-optimized word-game experience.

There are joyful animated and audio touches throughout, too, and everything feels hand-crafted, rather than you being sent endless algorithmically generated puzzles. Naturally, such polish costs money – beyond the free download, you pay for packs of puzzles. But they’re worth every penny.

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Huawei: We will be the biggest smartphone maker in the world

Huawei has said it is still aiming to become the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer – despite the fact its devices are not widely available in the US and that other countries are ramping up scrutiny of the firm’s mobile and networking products.

The Chinese mobile giant overtook Apple as the world’s second largest producer earlier this year as both Apple and Samsung struggle with the effects of market saturation.

Huawei’s feature packed but affordable devices have long been popular in its price-conscious homeland, where brand attachment is low, but advanced models like the Huawei P20 have won favour with critics and consumers in Western Europe. Sales have also been boosted by the mid-range Honor brand.

"Trust and confidence"

Huawei’s gains have come at a time when growth in the wider smartphone market has slowed and when economic growth in China is at its lowest for several decades. Despite the multiple challenges the Shenzhen-based firm is facing, the head of Huawei’s consumer division is in a bullish mood.

“Our customers have trust and confidence in us,” Richard Yu is quoted as telling the audience at a product launch in Bejing. “It’s only politics guys which are trying to put pressure on us.

“Even without the U.S. market we will be number one in the world. I believe at the earliest this year, and next year at the latest.”

Huawei is expected to launch a foldable phone at next month’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, while it is also banking on demand for 5G devices to continue its rate of growth Consumer revenues increased by 50 per cent in the past 12 months and now accounts for nearly half of total revenue.

The growing importance of the unit comes at a time when government officials and agencies in several countries have voiced concerns about the use of Huawei’s equipment in their telecommunications infrastructure.

Huawei has long been frozen out of the US market, while Australia has expressly banned the company from its 5G rollout. Agencies and government officials in other nations, including Germany, Norway and the Czech Republic, have also expressed concerns.

Senior executives at Huawei have made rare public appearances to address these issues. The most notable of these was a press roundtable attended by founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, where he stated that he and the company had never spied on behalf of the Chinese government and had no intentions of doing so.

Huawei has repeatedly denied accusations of spying, pointing out that it works with security agencies around the world and that it sells products to more than 500 operators in 170 countries without issue. This includes the UK, where BT, EE, Vodafone and Three are all customers.

 Here are the best Huawei phone deals in 2019   

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Windows Lite could have a redesigned Start Menu with no Live Tiles

It looks like Windows Lite, Microsoft‘s stripped-down version of Windows 10 that it aims to take on Google’s ChromeOS, could be getting a radically redesigned Start Menu that drops the Live Tiles features for a more minimalist look.

Live Tiles first appeared in Windows 8, and were designed to provide tablet-like buttons for touchscreen devices that gave contextual information as well. So, the Live Tile app for the Mail app would show you the latest email, while the Weather app Live Tile would give you the latest forecast.

Microsoft brought Live Tiles to Windows 10, but they always felt a little out of place in that operating system, and have ended up making the Start Menu look large and cluttered.

With Microsoft looking to make a more simple version of Windows, we can certainly see the logic behind dropping Live Tiles.

RIP Live Tiles?

While it makes sense that Live Tiles could be dropped from Windows Lite’s Start Menu, Zac Bowden over at Windows Central has noted that the Live Tile feature in the full version of Windows 10 hasn’t been updated for a while, so could its days be numbered for all versions of Windows?

As we mentioned earlier, Live Tiles were a way for Microsoft to try to tempt tablet owners to move to Windows 8. However, Windows 10 dropped most of the touchscreen-centric design choices, except for Live Tiles.

With Microsoft looking at more simple designs for upcoming Windows variants like Polaris and Andromeda, as well as Windows Lite, this may mean the end of Live Tiles as we know them.

Can you ditch a PC for a Samsung Note 9 smartphone? We find out

Via MSPowerUser

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Moto G7 and three more G7-series handsets accidentally leaked in full by Motorola

Oops... it looks like Motorola has accidentally revealed details of all four (yes, FOUR) Moto G7 handsets it's expected to launch at MWC 2019 towards the end of February.

The details of the four affordable smartphones were spotted by Cnet on Motorola's Brazilian website, but the pages in question have since been deleted.

So as well as the Moto G7, it looks like we'll also get the Moto G7 Plus, Moto G7 Play and Moto G7 Power. 

Along with the names, the full specs for all four handsets were also leaked, with the regular Moto G7 set to feature a 6.24-inch full HD (2270 x 1080) display with waterdrop notch, Snapdragon 632 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, dual rear cameras with 12MP and 5MP sensors, and an 8MP camera on the front.

The Moto G7 also has a rear fingerprint scanner and a 3,000mAh battery which supports fast charging via TurboPower.

Plus, Power and Play leaked join the party

The Moto G7 Plus is the high-end variant of the lineup with a slightly punchier Snapdragon 636 chipset and dual front facing cameras with a 16MP primary and a 5MP secondary snapper.

Other than those differences, the rest of the Moto G7 Plus specs appear to be the same as the standard Moto G7.

Coming to the budget end of the lineup, the Moto G7 Play and G7 Power have a lot of similarities.

While the Moto G7 Play has a 5.7-inch display the Moto G7 Power has a bigger 6.2-inch screen, but both have the same HD+ resolution (1512 x 720).

Both pack in a Snapdragon 632 chipset, 32GB of storage, microSD slot, 8MP front camera, rear fingerprint scanner and run Android 9 Pie.

A couple more differences include the 13MP camera on the rear of the Moto G7 Play versus the 12MP offering on the G7 Power, 2GB of RAM for the Play while the Power gets 3GB and the the Power also boasts a much bigger, 5,000mAh battery, while the G7 Play has to make do with a 3,000mAh power pack.

Everything we know so far: Moto G7 | Moto G7 Plus

 Via: Android headlines

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