American Independence Day is around the corner and here are a few apps to help celebrate. We've included a few different types of apps including a live wallpaper app and a familiar app to help you cook.
Google Maps
Many people travel around July 4th, whether it's to see family, friends or the nearest fireworks show. Google Maps helps you navigate and can show you where the congestion spots are and provide alternate routes to your destination. As you are driving, use Google Maps to help you find any unique attractions or the nearest diner when you get hungry.
Celebrate American Independence Day with exciting animated wallpaper on your phone. The app includes customizations including parallax (3D/4D) effects, emojis, frames (golden, wood, red hearts, bows, emojis, roses, flowers) and magic touch (beautiful animations with colorful particles and sounds when you touch the screen). Additionally, you can add one of a variety of clocks to your home screen along with any custom text created using the various fonts and colors available. Customized animated stars that fall across the screen can be added to give you a more dynamic look to your wallpaper.
Cooking on the girl is another common event on July 4th and Grill Recipes Free is a material-design recipes app to help you find the perfect recipe to wow your family and friends for your July 4th BBQ. Healthy recipes are available for those trying to stay on track with their diets. If you look in your kitchen and realize you only have a few ingredients, no problem! Grill Recipes Free will take the ingredients you enter and search for recipes with those ingredients and in your preferred cuisine type. Grill Recipes Free is available in over 20 major languages.
Good weather can crucial to a successful July 4th celebration and the Accuweather app is a great way to stay informed of any upcoming inclement weather. Accuweather provides up to the minute weather information wherever and whenever you need them. Accuweather's RealFeel Temperature® technology tells you the difference between how the weather looks and how it actually feels. Looking for the long-range forecast? Accuweather provides you a 15-day advanced weather outlook. You can also customize weather notifications that do not apply to your current location.
Photos can be a little more fun when you add stickers and frames. The 4th of July Independence Day Photo Maker app gives you a plethora of options to give your photos a more patriotic theme. Take your picture, choose from a variety of Independence Day frames, and add stickers to make your patriotic photo. Once you are satisfied with the picture, use the sharing option to share your photo with family and friends via WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social app or media.
Phandroid has partnered up with Huawei to give away a MateBook 13 laptop! The MateBook 13 is an amazing travel machine, sporting an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and an NVIDIA GeForce MX150 (the 25W TDP model to boot). You get both efficiency thanks to the ultra low power processor and raw power thanks to the dedicated GPU.
Other specs include a 13-inch 2160×1440 IPS touch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, Dolby Atmos speakers, a 41.8 watt hour battery, a 65W USB-PC charger via a USB-C port, a fingerprint reader, and a lot more goodies. The keyboard is fantastic, the trackpad is up there with the best, and the display is just gorgeous. Plus with the power, it'll handle anything from lightweight gaming to Photoshop to video editing. All in a 2.86 pound package.
To win this awesome laptop, check out the widget below!
Local multiplayer games are a dying breed in the world of gaming. Most multiplayer games nowadays can only work if you're connected to the internet. Sure, it's fun to pwn noobs from across the world, but sometimes you want to pwn the person sitting right next to you.
Local multiplayer games are perfect for passing time with your friends, boring plane rides while waiting for food at a restaurant, hospital waiting rooms, and tons of other situations. It can be hard to find a good Android game with local multiplayer, but we've done all the work for you. Also, you might want to pick up the Moga Hero Power controller for your Android phone if you really want the upper hand when challenging your friends. Check out these great games for two (or more) players!
BombSquad supports up to 8 players in local multiplayer mode. The idea of the game is to blow up your friends. It's that simple. You can use other devices as controllers to play together on one screen. It's a lot of fun and great for parties.
Glow Hockey is one of the original 2-player games for mobile devices. The concept is exactly the same as air hockey. You and another player use opposite sides of the device. Slide your finger to move the paddle and shoot the puck into the goal of your opponent.
Spaceteam is a cooperative party game for 2 to 8 players. You'll be assigned a random control panel with buttons, switches, sliders, and dials. You need to follow time-sensitive instructions. However, the instructions are being sent to your teammates, so you have to coordinate before the time runs out.
6 Takes is a card game that you can play with your friends. The goal of the game is to avoid getting cards. Each card you have to pick up costs you points for each bullhead on it. The player with the fewest bullheads at the end of the game is the winner. You can play locally against up to four players.
Battle Slimes is a fun local multiplayer game. Control speedy and bouncy slime blobs as you compete with friends and family. Score by stomping or hitting rivals with colorful bubbles. This platformer/shooter game features simple one-button jump controls. Play against the computer or up to four friends in matches. Choose from two different game modes and four different battle arenas.
NBA Jam is one of the best basketball games ever made. You can play this arcade-style basketball game against your friends locally. The game uses WiFi or Bluetooth to connect to your friends devices. You can play together without sharing a small display. NBA Jam is fast-paced, full of dunking, and tons of fun.
Evil Apples is like Cards Against humanity on your phone. The idea is to pick a white card that goes best with the red card. Most of the time it's a fill-in-the-blank situation. The judge will then choose their favorite and that person gets a point. First one to 7 wins. You can play against friends around the table or across the globe.
Heads Up is an awesome party game. It's like charades reinvented for the modern age. One person holds the phone against their forehead. Everyone else in the room can see the card shown on the phone. Friends give clues to help the person guess what's on the card. The goal is to see how many they can guess in the allotted time.
This game is an adaptation of Days of Wonder's best-selling train board game. It supports pass-and-play for up to four players. The goal of the game is to collect cards of various types of train cars and use them to claim railway routes that connect cities in various countries around the world.
Gentlemen! is a Victorian era-themed head-to-head arcade battle. You and a friend duel on the same screen with knives, bombs, homing pigeons, and much more. The controls are on opposite sides so you can sit across from a buddy and compete. Gentlemen! works best on a tablet that is 7-inches or bigger. Many of the games on this list include local multiplayer, but this game was built for it. It's a little pricey at $4.67, but you can split it with your friend.
2 Player Reactor is a classic game. It starts with you and a friend take opposite sides of a device. The game consists of 18 random mini games that cycle quickly. One second you're being asked to find a sad face in a crowd of smiles, next you're being asked to solve a simple math equation. Each mini game requires fast reaction time in order to earn points. But you can't just mash the button, wrong answers result in negative points. It's a hectic and exciting game that is perfect to play with friends, plus it's free.
If you've never played UNO before I have serious doubts about whether you're really a human. This timeless card game is tons of fun, and you can play it on Android too. The basic idea is to get rid of cards by discarding ones with the appropriate numbers or colors. The player who discards all of their cards first is the winner. UNO & Friends utilizes the "pass & play" mechanic so your friends can't spy on your cards. UNO is fun for all ages and completely free.
BADLAND is an epic side-scrolling adventure platformer. It's rare to see multiplayer platformers on mobile because of the screen real estate for controls, but BADLAND pulls it off. The local multiplayer in BADLAND is pure chaotic fun. The goal is to survive as long as possible through the many obstacles, but you can sabotage your friends and improve your odds. There is also a co-op mode if you're feeling nice. BADLAND is available for free.
There was a time when people thought the world was flat. They actually feared going off the edge in a ship. Nowadays we don't worry about such things, but in Edge of the World it's the name of the game. You and a friend take turns launching ships to see who can get closest to the edge. Of course you can also just knock your friends ships off the edge to win. It's a lot like shuffle board. There are five different captains to choose from which come with different powers. This game is available for free.
One of the original "Pass & Play" games was Worms. In this classic game you control a team of worms. At your disposal is a long list of weapons and actions that you can use to defeat your opponents' team of worms. Players take turns attacking each other until only one team remains. Some weapons do more damage than others, and some can only be used once, or after so many turns. If you've never played Worms you are really missing out. Worms 2 costs $4.99, but it's worth every penny.
If you've never played Battleship you are seriously missing out. This classic two-player board game has been recreated for Android dozens of times, but the best version is Sea Battle. In this version there are tons of new options that aren't available in the board game. They have added bombers, mines, anti-aircraft defense, radars, and more. It's tons of fun, and of course it can be played with two people on the same device. Sea Battle is available for free in the Play Store.
"Action for 2 Players" may be the most aptly named app in the Play Store. It is what it is: action for two people at once. There are three games to choose from: tablet soccer, tank fight, car race. Tablet soccer is a lot like air hockey. Tank fight is the classic game where you drive around and shoot at each other. Car race is a simple top-down racing game. All of these games can be played with 2-4 players at one time. Use a tablet for best results. This game is available for free.
Connect Four is a classic strategy game for two players. The goal of the game is to get 4 discs in a row, which is where this Android version of the game gets its name. The game consists of an upright board with 42 holes. Players take turns dropping colored discs from the top. The goal is to get four of your discs in a row. Think of it like tic-tac-toe, but gravity pulls all of the X's and O's to the bottom. To win you need to strategically plan out your moves. It's a lot of fun and can be yours for free.
2 Player Touch is similar to 2 Player Reactor. It consists of 12 mini game stages with an emphasis on being first to react. The mini games are completely different from 2 Player Reactor, and instead of having just one button to press you get three or more. The graphics are bright, colorful, and fun. If you're looking to show off your reaction time this is another game to check out. It's completely free from the Play Store.
Everyone has played Hangman at least once in their life. This game requires no introduction, but I will give one just in case we have any rookies out there. One player picks a word for the other player to guess. For every incorrect letter the man gets closer to being hung. It's a little gruesome if you think about it, but it's fun nonetheless. We love the cute graphics of this particular version, and it's free.
If numbers and equations are things that you enjoy we have the perfect game for you. Math Duel is a fun two-player game for people who can do quick calculations in their head. Players use opposite sides of the display to solve math problems. For each correct answer you get a point, and for each incorrect answer you lose one. It's a fun and competitive way to pass the time and learn a thing or two in the process. Kids 7 years old and up should be able to do the math, and it's free to download.
Sometimes all you want to do is play some good old-fashioned tic tac toe. Of course there are plenty of tic tac toe apps in the Play Store, but we like this one the best. For those of you who shockingly don't know how to play tic tac toe: players take turns making marks in a 3×3 grid in attempt to get 3 in a row. That's it. It's the most basic time killing game on the face of the Earth, and of course it's free.
Another super simple and classic time killing game is Dots and Boxes. This game is popular among elementary school kids because it's the perfect use for graphing paper. In this version of Dots and Boxes the grid is made up of 49 dots. Players take turns connecting dots with horizontal or vertical lines. If your line is the fourth side of a box it fills in with your color and you get another turn. The player to make the most boxes wins. It's easy, it's fun, and it's free.
In this game you and a friend take to the skies and control fighter jets. Each player gets their own controls on opposite side of the device. The goal of the game is to maneuver your jet so you can shoot the other player. The first player to get 10 successful hits is the winner. The only buttons at your disposal are left, right, jet, and fire. Like many of the games on this list, it's super simple, but also tons of fun. It's also available for free.
Finally, a way to play Fruit Ninja with two players. Two Player Fruit Shoot substitutes ninja swords for bows and arrows, but the fruit slaying is all the same. The big bonus to this fruit-based game is that you can compete against a friend on the same device. Each player gets a side of the screen, and fruit is flung up between them. Whoever shoots the fruit first gets the points. It's that simple, and it's free. Kill some fruit!
Local multiplayer games are an under-appreciated genre. We hope this list has opened your eyes to some new games to play with your friends. Do you have any favorite games to whip out when you're bored with friends? Do you have any suggestions that didn't make our list? Let us know!
So you're about to go on a vacation, taking time off to visit a faraway land or exploring a big city. You have to make the most of it, and unless you're going to the middle of nowhere and cutting yourself off from all technology, you'll want to pack your favorite tech to capture the moments and keep you entertained.
We all agree that packing light is key. With more and more stuff one needs to pack and minimal space aboard a plane, as well as higher fees per bag, you want to get as much tech into as little space as possible. Here are a few Huawei products that will make your travels better and your memories sweeter.
Your portal to the world may be your phone, but as good as smartphones are these days, most of us still rely on a real computer to get things done. Bringing a laptop on your travels is key to doing anything more than Facebook browsing. Whether it's getting some work done, editing photos and videos, or playing some video games more advanced than Candy Crush, the versatility of a laptop is what you really need.
Most are familiar with Huawei's smartphone lineup, but with the MateBook X Pro in 2018, the company has made a big step into the laptop game as well. The MateBook 13 is their latest entry into the premium laptop market and has received great reviews from journalists and consumers alike thanks to its versatility and competitive pricing.
The Huawei MateBook 13 comes in two variants, with the higher end model featuring an 8th gen Core i7-8565U, 8GB of RAM, a roomy 512GB NVMe SSD (that's the fast kind of SSD), and a 25W TDP version of the NVIDIA GeForce MX150 GPU. The inclusion of the faster version of the MX150, the upgraded 8th gen i7, and tons of storage are big plusses for this laptop.
Performance is phenomenal, giving you enough horsepower to use Photoshop to edit photos from your DSLR, managing a Chrome session with more than four tabs, or even playing some of the latest games, the MateBook 13 doesn't skip a beat. It's a real pleasure, especially at this price point.
The display is a 13-inch touchscreen unit with an 88% screen-to-body ratio and a resolution of 2160×1440 and a 3:2 aspect ratio. This taller aspect ratio allows for much more information to fit on the screen at once since web browsing and work are far more important than watching 16:9 movies. The height really gives it more space than bigger laptops in practice. It's also bright, vivid, and the blacks are so deep you'll almost think it's an OLED panel.
When it comes to the keyboard, Huawei knocked it out of the park with a sharp, comfortable keyboard with light actuation and a muffled click. It's truly the unexpected highlight of this laptop. As a mechanical keyboard enthusiast (read: snob) laptop keyboards usually don't impress me. There's no flex to the keys or chassis and key are nicely sized and spaced. The trackpad is great as well, featuring Windows Precision, making it both responsive and very customizable.
Lastly, the laptop offers dual speakers mounted at the bottom with Dolby Atmos support. They're impressively loud and clear, and the software allows you to play with audio tuning to get the best experience. They're perfectly suited for watching movies and playing games.
For an ultrabook, the MateBook 13 offers so much. It's a pleasure to use and will run almost anything you throw at it outside of graphically intensive games. And when you're just browsing Facebook, the battery will last quite a while too. When you need a charge, top it off with any 65W+ USB-PD charger. It's a great laptop overall, but it's especially alluring at the $1,299 price point. It's hard to find anything else at the price that offers a 25W TDP GPU and so much storage.
For most, the goal of traveling is to experience new places and create memories that will last a lifetime. Whether it's an amazing dish in a hole in the wall restaurant, a gorgeous sunset over a beach in Italy, or your trips through the winding alleys of Morocco, you're going to need a camera that can capture those moments to cherish for years to come.
Now, a proper DSLR with quality lenses will outshoot any smartphone any day in perfect conditions. But on the go, in a rush, a smartphone will often take better photos, especially in low light. I often find myself putting my DSLR away on cruises and tours in favor of the Leica-branded Mate 20 Pro simply because of the consistency and the strong software behind it.
The beauty of the Mate 20 Pro is that it has four different lenses, delivering the same versatility you'd get from lugging around a 10-pound bag full of camera equipment. You have a regular 40MP sensor with amazing detail and dynamic range. In an alleyway and want to take a photo with a crazy perspective? Bust out the 20MP ultrawide camera. You also have an 8MP 3x telephoto sensor with optical image stabilization to catch those faraway moments. The ultrawide also doubles as a macro lens with a 2.5cm minimum focusing distance. You can get ridiculously close up and take incredible photos of plants, bugs, or anything imaginable.
Now, you'll need some serious juice to handle your adventures. You can bring a battery bank with you, but having a wire hooked up to your phone for hours at a time is no fun. The 4,200 mAh battery is already quite big, but the software behind it means you can take those 3 AM selfies after a late night meal without having to top up.
Otherwise, you're getting a flagship processor, 8GB of RAM, and reverse wireless charging to top off your earphones or your friend's iPhone. You also get dual SIM support which is a godsend when traveling internationally which allows you to keep your regular SIM at the same time. You may want to turn off data, but not missing those important texts can be critical. It's an awesome phone in general, but one especially suited for travel.
While we always want to experience as much as we can while traveling, sometimes you simply need some quality R & R to recharge. Just because you're halfway across the globe doesn't mean you won't want to catch up on your favorite Netflix show while in your hotel room or on that dreaded 12-hour flight. When your phone is just too small and you don't want to bust out a laptop, the Huawei MediaPad M5 Pro ticks all the boxes for media consumption.
On the front, you'll find a 10.8-inch 2560×1600 IPS display which is surprisingly bright, punchy, and gorgeous. The colors are vibrant, the resolution is high, and it has a 16:10 aspect ratio so it will fit your media better than other 4:3 tablets. It's an amazing display and big enough for two people to share a show or movie.
On the back are quad speakers tuned by Harman Kardon that put out a surprising amount of sound. They get loud, and they lack distortion too. The fact that they face rearward doesn't seem ideal, but it does create a spacious effect when watching movies.
Other specs include last year's top of the line processor, 64GB of storage and a microSD slot for all of your movies and games. The mix of high-end processor means you can play your favorite games without stuttering or lag. When you have internet, games like PUBG Mobile run at full settings and give you that huge screen advantage when you're on that train.
There's also a beefy 7,500 mAh battery that will satisfy all of your binge-watching needs. When it comes to local content from YouTube and Netflix, a trip from San Francisco to London won't put a dent in that battery. Even games don't drain it quickly so you'll have plenty of entertainment wherever you go. You also get an active stylus (rechargeable with a USB-C cable!) in the box if you're feeling artistic.
When you're out and about, you want to keep an eye on the time and notifications without constantly pulling your phone out. Take a break from fiddling with your smartphone and enjoy the scenery. The Huawei Watch GT is my go to watch for travel. It shows you only the most important notifications and doesn't need to be charged for two weeks (or more if you turn off some features) so you can leave that charger behind.
If you feel like a bit of exercise in the morning, the full suite of fitness apps have you covered. Go for a run, get on the hotel gym's stationary bike, or dive into the pool with a special mode for each exercise. And with GPS built in, you'll be sure to get accurate results. And to combat jet lag, the watch can monitor your sleeping patterns and show you statistics of the quality of your sleep to help beat the jet lag.
Thankfully, it doesn't look like a fitness watch. It looks like a normal sporty watch, slimmer than many smartwatches and with a tough ceramic bezel that will remain shiny and scratch free through the abuses of travel.
Conclusion
Together or on their own, these devices from Huawei will make your next trip more enjoyable and help you make memories that you'll cherish for a lifetime. Whether it's the fantastic triple camera setup of the Mate 20 Pro or the awesome keyboard of the Matebook 13, you're ready to take on any location you decide to explore. Just don't forget to pack the sunscreen!
2019 was supposed to be the year of the smartphone revolution. We were promised at the start of the year that foldable phones will be coming soon and we were rather optimistic about it.
We are now in the middle of the year and so we have to wonder: where the heck are our foldable phones?
Both Samsung and Huawei unveiled their foldable phones earlier this year in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X respectively, and both devices were intended for a launch around April and June.
As most of you have heard by now, both devices have since been delayed due to "extra testing" where both companies are figuring out and fixing the physical flaws in their devices. This is clearly a bad start for foldable phones because even before they got into the hands of customers, there seems to be a litany of problems already.
This seems to highlight the problem between concept versus reality, wherein concept, foldable phones seem downright revolutionary, with the idea of a phone that can be expanded into a tablet makes so much sense that we have to wonder why it was not done sooner.
The reality, as highlighted by the problems faced by Samsung who sent their devices out for early review, shows that maybe it hasn't quite matched up to the concept yet where we are seeing real-life problems that users could encounter on a daily basis. This include displays that aren't quite as sturdy as we would like, and hinge designs that could over time attract dust and debris.
The fact that these phones are ridiculously expensive probably doesn't help where it feels like a regular phone a fifth of its price could probably get the job done better.
The delays are also not doing both companies any favors because since foldable phones represent a brand new product category, the lack of real-world usage means that for the most part, people still have no idea how these devices should be used, and in turn seems to have caused interest to wane.
That being said, while it might seem like a discouraging start for foldable phones, we reckon there is still hope for these devices.
For starters, foldable phones do not benefit from the decade or so of experience when it comes to designing your typical smartphone, and as such, there will be a learning curve for companies and users alike. Even if the concept of foldable phones do not catch on, it's hard to ignore the fact that it is technological marvel that companies have created active displays that can actually be bent into half, which in turn could inspire other designs that could catch on.
Plus, more often than not, we have seen how some inventions were created for a specific purpose, only for users to find new ways to use them that have since gone on to be more popular than what it was originally created for. The fact that some of these possibilities have yet to be discovered is giving us hope.
As Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of Mario and The Legend of Zelda) once said, "A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever." So while foldable phones are off to a bad start, these setbacks and delays might not necessarily be a bad thing.
