We've compiled a top 10 list of our favorite iOS apps to hit the App Store in March 2018. The apps highlighted in this video include Fortnite, PUBG Mobile, 'Sodes, Focos, RoboKiller, Paste 2, Resize 2x, Froggipedia, Unfold, and Kingpin Bowling. Which app is your favorite?
We've compiled a top 10 list of our favorite Android apps to hit the Play Store in March 2018. The apps highlighted in this video include PUBG Mobile, Sip Stories, Stories Diary, Jungle Monkey Run2 , Textto, Readably, Vimage, The Sims Mobile, Beacon, and Edge Action. Which app is your favorite?
The new Apple iPad 6th Generation is here with the same low $329 price tag and improved specs! Does this budget iPad deserve a place in your home?
LifeLock is a popular American identity theft protection company now owned by Symantec.
The service combines multiple techniques and technologies to keep you safe. It looks out for your identity being used to obtain loans, credit and services. It checks court and criminal records to warn you of others using your name. Change of address records are monitored, detecting attempts to redirect your mail, and the service is always scanning the dark web for any sign of your personal or financial details.
Mobile apps and near real-time alerts keep you in touch with what's going on. If LifeLock detects an auto loan application in your name, for instance, you'll get a notification asking if this was a legitimate request. Say no and the LifeLock support team will investigate.
LifeLock isn't another me-too company using a standard data feed to access this information. It's coming from Symantec's own ID Analytics network, a comprehensive data consortium which takes input from multiple lending, service and other industries, and now receives more than 100 million new identity elements every day (read more about it here).
If you've been hit by fraud, LifeLock's team of ID specialists are on hand to help fix the problems and restore your identity. This isn't just about giving advice – they take on all the main admin tasks on your behalf, making phone calls, filling in paperwork and more.
That can be an expensive process, especially with legal fees, but LifeLock helps here, too, with up to $1 million worth of reimbursement for losses and expenses due to identity fraud.
LifeLock is available as three products.
LifeLock Standard gives you social security number and credit alerts, as well as up to $25,000 coverage for identity fraud-related losses. It's reasonable value at $9.99 a month on the annual plan.
The $19.99 a month LifeLock Advantage plan raises cover for ID theft losses to $100,000, while adding alerts about bank and credit card activity, and monitoring for crimes recorded in your name.
Spending $29.99 a month on the top-of-the-range LifeLock Ultimate Plus gets you up to $1 million reimbursement for stolen funds, alerts for 401(k) and investment activities, and adds three bureau credit reports and score monitoring. That's more expensive than some of the competition, with IdentityForce UltraSecure+Credit available from $19.99 a month paid annually, and ID Watchdog's similar Platinum plan priced from $18.25.
You can optionally add Norton Security Online to each of these plans, maybe blocking malware before it can steal any of your personal information. This enables securing up to five Windows, Android or Mac devices and is free for the first year, then an additional $3 a month with LifeLock Standard, and an extra $5 with LifeLock Advantage and Ultimate Plus.
Norton Security Online isn't as powerful as the full Norton Security suite, but it does give you strong protection against online threats (Symantec ranked sixth in AV-Comparatives' Real-World Protection tests for July - November 2017, comparable with F-Secure and Kaspersky). If you'll use it to cover multiple devices then it's decent value, particularly at LifeLock Standard's $3 a month price.
LifeLock doesn't offer a free trial, but it's still more generous than you might expect. IdentityForce gives you 14 days for free, then charges you and doesn't provide refunds as standard. LifeLock takes your money upfront, but gives it back in full if you cancel within 60 days, and even if you cancel after that, you'll still be refunded for unused months.
Opening your LifeLock account works much the same as with competing products: hand over your name, email, physical address, birth date and social security number, and you're given access to the basic service right away.
Credit-related features (reports and scores) require a separate validation process before you can access them, and the website says LifeLock Ultimate Plus 'three bureau credit monitoring' could take several days to begin. Still, this doesn't necessitate any further intervention from you, and there are plenty of other options to explore while you're waiting.
LifeLock's web dashboard looks good and is thoughtfully designed. The main part of the screen highlights all the details you're likely to need right now – recent transactions, new alerts, your current credit score – and a sidebar gives speedy access to the other areas of the service: Alerts, Credit, Transactions, ID Restoration, Support and more.
LifeLock's iOS and Android apps enable receiving near real-time alerts on credit events, wherever you are. If the company's ID Analytics network spots a new credit card application, a wireless account opening (Verizon, AT&T), a new loan (auto, payday and others) then you're notified right away, and asked to confirm that this is a legitimate action. Click Yes, and all is fine. Click No and LifeLock's member services team will look into it. There’s no need for you to do anything: the company gets back to you when it has found out more.
LifeLock Advantage and Ultimate Plus can also monitor and raise alerts for bank and credit card transactions. You're able to set per-account thresholds for transactions you might consider unusual, and if that threshold is exceeded you'll be alerted.
For this system to work, you must provide LifeLock with your login credentials for each account. That may not appeal to everyone, and it also means you'll have to update LifeLock whenever you change your password in a monitored account. But if you can live with that, it's a useful system which effectively allows you to build a personalized financial portal where you can track multiple accounts and providers in one place.
Just like most of the competition, LifeLock says it monitors the dark web for signs that your personal details are being sold. We're generally skeptical of these claims as most providers give you no information on what this involves, but LifeLock is a little different. The company at least provides an idea of the scale of what it's doing by claiming to check more than 10,000 dubious websites, and with Symantec's security expertise to call on, we're more confident LifeLock will deliver more in this area than we are with most of the competition.
No service can guarantee 100% protection from ID theft, so LifeLock also provides a 1,000-strong team of US-based restoration specialists to help you recover if the worst happens. This isn't just a matter of having someone advise you what to do. LifeLock handles many major tasks itself: collecting details, investigating facts, preparing for and remediating the case, settling insurance claims, retaining legal representation, and more.
If you need help or have any general questions, LifeLock's support team is available 24/7/365. The website explains that 'priority live member support' is reserved for Ultimate Plus users only, which leaves us wondering what lesser customers might experience.
Smart design decisions elsewhere – including the ability to call support directly from LifeLock's mobile apps – suggest LifeLock is working on providing decent support for everyone, though, and the generous 60-day money-back refund gives you plenty of time to test the service for yourself.
LifeLock is a very comprehensive identity theft protection service with strong detection, alerting and recovery features. The option to include Norton Security Online is a welcome plus, and it'll be very interesting to see what more Symantec can bring to the service in the future.
This has been a good week for Galaxy Note 8 owners, as the AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon versions of the device have all been updated to Android 8.0. Now it looks like T-Mobile Note 8 users won't have to wait long for their own Oreo treat.
T-Mobile has approved the Android Oreo update for its version of the Galaxy Note 8, says T-Mo product guy Des Smith. The update will begin rolling out over the air as early as the night of Sunday, April 1.
THIS JUST IN! @TMobile #GalaxyNote8 #Android #Oreo update approved! Will start hitting customers phones as early as Sunday night!!! (No April Fool's here) - Des pic.twitter.com/r1yEl2myMW
— Des (@askdes) March 30, 2018
Getting bumped up to Android Oreo brings new features like picture-in-picture, which will let you watch video from one app while using another app, and autofill. Oreo also includes notification dots so that you can glance at your home screen and see which apps have alerts for you.
We're sure to learn more about T-Mobile's Galaxy Note 8 Oreo update when it begins rolling out. Until then, you T-Mo Note 8 owners can rest easy knowing that it won't be long before you get to sink your teeth into an Oreo treat.
We've seen quite a few deals on the Galaxy S9 and S9+ since the two flagships launched two weeks ago, and now another offer has launched.
T-Mobile is now offering a Buy One, Get One deal on the Samsung Galaxy S9. Specifically, customers who buy a Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, or Galaxy S8 Active can get $720 in bill credits when they buy a second Galaxy S9, S9+, or S8 Active. Those bill credits would cover the cost of a second Galaxy S9, but customers who choose an S9+ ($840) or S8 Active ($850) would still owe some money for their second device after the credits.
This deal is open to new and existing T-Mobile customers, but you do need to activate at least one new line of service to get it. You also need to purchase both phones on a 24-month Equipment Installment Plan and pay the down payment ($120 for the S9+, $130 for the S8 Active) and any applicable tax for your devices at the time of purchase.
T-Mo's Galaxy S9 deal will be available for a limited time and is valid only for purchases made starting today, March 30. It may be combined with other active offers, but two offers that it cannot be combined with are Carrier Freedom and Get Out of the Red.
This looks like a pretty nice deal for anyone interested, as the Galaxy S9 is a brand new flagship phone that looks to be pretty solid. The requirement of a new line may turn some people off, but if you know someone who wants to join you on T-Mobile or you and a friend want to switch together, this is definitely a deal to consider.
The Asus ZenFone Max Plus M1 is a budget smartphone wearing a premium flagship phone’s skin. It has a smooth metal chassis and rounded 2.5D glass over a display that fills most of the phone’s front side. Without CDMA support, it unfortunately can’t connect to Sprint or Verizon, but it will work for just about anyone else, since it’s compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile and any other carriers using GSM networks.
For an unlocked model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, Asus is only charging $229, which puts it well into the low-cost tier of smartphones, where it will compete with Motorola’s Moto G5S Plus, the upcoming Moto G6 and the others in our list of the best cheap phones.
At first glance, the ZenFone Max Plus M1 looks like it might be worth it, with its design, big display, facial recognition and dual-lens camera, but not everything is as great as it sounds.
From the get-go, the ZenFone Max Plus M1 comes across as a much more premium device than its price would suggest. It has the elegant build of a flagship smartphone. The back is a smooth aluminum, with shiny antenna bands recessed at the top and bottom. The power button and volume rocker on the right side are also metal. Dual-cameras grace the back, and a fingerprint scanner is situated on its the middle, similar to the Google Pixel 2.
The front of the phone is largely filled with the screen, which measures 5.7 inches at a resolution of 2,160 x 1,080 and accounts for an 80% screen-to-body ratio. If the ZenFone Max Plus M1 had managed to go truly bezelless, it would be easy to confuse for a top-tier phone.
Unfortunately, that display isn’t OLED, so the picture isn’t always as good as it could be, especially while viewing videos that don’t fill up the 18:9 aspect ratio, as the black bars on either side of the image let a little light bleed through. Video can stretch to fit the screen, but in our opinion, the stretching looks even worse than the black bars.
It feels nice in the hand as well, though that smoothness comes with the risk of dropping the device, especially while wearing gloves. The now-antiquated micro USB port at the bottom and perhaps the small image sensors are the only visual hints that this isn’t a more premium device.
Still, there are more positives to the design than negatives. A dual-SIM card slot offers support for multiple network connections, and the tray also includes a microSD card slot for up to 256GB of extra storage.
The ZenFone Max Plus M1 stays lean, measuring 152.6 x 73 x 8.8mm and weighing 160 grams. It’s very pocket-friendly, unless it becomes warm during use, but we’ll get into that shortly.
It’s a bit disappointing that no ingress protection rating is offered on this phone. Speaking more to its durability, we heard creaking while giving it a bit of flex, and Asus doesn’t say anything about the screen strength, so the functional structure of this phone is a bit dubious, even if the aesthetic structure is lovely.
Asus seems to be a bit shifty about disclosing the MediaTek chipset powering the ZenFone Max Plus M1. MediaTek doesn’t have the reputation that Qualcomm has with the Snapdragon chipset powering so many smartphones.
In the phone’s settings, the CPU details simply say, 1.5GHz,” and on the tech specs page for the device, Asus just lists, “Octa-core Processor.” But, the ZenFone Max Plus M1 is powered by an 8-core MediaTek MT6750T processor with 4 cores at 1.5GHz and 4 cores at 1.0GHz. That was paired with 3GB in the model we tested. The device runs Android 7.0 Nougat with Asus’s ZenUI, which is generally nice, though maybe a tad too cutesy for some and pre-loaded with a few more apps than is necessary.
We were impressed by the fluidity of most applications, since we had expected more performance tradeoffs to balance the nice design and screen. Doing one thing at a time is more or less perfectly smooth. Switching between multiple apps quickly does see the phone stumble a bit, but never to the point of being dreadful.
Gaming performance isn’t stunning, but that’s to be expected at this point. Booting up PUBG Mobile, the game automatically picked the lowest settings, and even then there were some hiccups during gameplay. Nonetheless, we managed to play through a full game and land second place with 13 kills. Not bad if we say so. The ZenFone Max Plus M1 may hold back on the quality aspect of performance, but it won’t slow you down terribly.
Video playback is smooth, whether it’s streamed or played locally, and the screen gets plenty bright when needed. The 4,130mAh battery does a good job of supporting video as well. In our 90-minute, 1080p video playback test, the phone drained from 100% to 83%. That was with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and mobile network on the screen set to full brightness. With a few settings dialed down, like adaptive brightness, the ZenFone Max Plus M1 can keep you watching all day. Using this phone for two days without recharging isn’t out of the question, but don’t expect to do so while using it heavily both days.
With such a big battery, Asus even includes a special dongle so you can plug another phone in and use the ZenFone Max Plus M1 as a battery bank. We tested it with our OnePlus 5, and it charged it, but slowly.
While you can spend a long time watching videos on the ZenFone Max Plus M1, you’ll want headphones, because at high volumes the single speaker gets crackly (yes, despite having two grilles at the bottom, there is only one speaker).
The dual-cameras on the back are interesting. The main 16MP shooter is decent, capturing color well in well-lit environments, but fine detail is more miss than hit, and low-light performance is poor, despite its f/2.0 aperture. The secondary camera has a nice 120-degree field of view, but the default setting is to shoot in 18:9 at 5MP, which was glaringly low resolution. It can bump up to 8MP, which is fine when you just want to get everything into one shot.
Even at its best, the camera software is a tad annoying. We went into settings multiple times, and changed them, then went back to the camera only to find that the settings had immediately reverted themselves. Asus’s product page says the front-facing camera is 16MP, but we couldn’t get it to shoot above 8MP, unless we activate the wonky selfie-panorama or SuperResolution modes. Fans of Japanese photo booths may enjoy the Beauty Mode, but the ZenFone Max Plus M1 has sadly lost a lot of the fun filters that were available on the ZenFone V. And, Asus’s advertised “Instant camera switching” takes more like a second.
More tedious than the camera switching is the biometrics. The fingerprint scanner often fails to recognize our finger enough times in a row that we’re forced to use a standard unlock pattern. The ZenFone Max Plus M1 also features facial recognition, but the lock screen doesn’t show you what the camera sees, so it’s hard to be sure you’ve got the camera lined up. And, even if the camera seems perfectly lined up, the recognition fails more times than not.
Perhaps the most concerning issue was that the phone often got very warm during our testing. Even if it was just hanging out in our pocket, we could feel it getting a bit toasty. The included PowerMaster app displays the phone’s temperature, and on several occasions the phone was above 90 degrees while we weren’t even running anything.
The ZenFone Max Plus M1 does a decent job of balancing features, performance and design on a budget. It has the looks and feel of a flagship phone, even if it lacks the breakneck performance of one.
Unfortunately, in its effort to masquerade as a high-end phone, it forgot about some essentials to allow it to better compete in the mid-range market.. The 18:9 IPS display is nice, but would have been better as a standard 16:9 OLED display. The premium aluminum build would have been better if it had any kind of waterproofing, and it still feels breakable. Heat is also a big concern.
Still, for the right customer, this is a nice pick. At such a low cost, it’s a well-performing, sharp looking smartphone that can easily get through the day on its massive battery. It’s just a shame Asus’s superior ZenFone V is still tied exclusively to Verizon. For anyone that can wait and spare a few extra bucks, the Moto G6 lineup looks to be a more impressive budget option.
Huawei has had a pretty rough few months, with AT&T and Verizon reportedly deciding not to sell the Mate 10 Pro due to pressure from the U.S. government and then Best Buy allegedly opting to stop offering all Huawei products. Despite all of this, though, the company isn't giving up its U.S. ambitions.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, says that Huawei will continue working to establish itself in the U.S. and earn consumers' trust. Yu's statement to CNET:
"We are committed to the US market and to earning the trust of US consumers by staying focused on delivering world-class products and innovation. We would never compromise that trust."
Yu went on to say that the security concerns that the U.S. government has about Huawei are "based on groundless suspicions and are quite frankly unfair." He added that Huawei is open having a discussion with the heads of the CIA, FBI, and NSA so long as it is based on facts.
While Huawei has a significant international presence, the company hasn't been able to gain much traction in the U.S. That's because to date, it's only ever sold it's best phones unlocked, while most U.S. consumers buy their phones through their carrier. It's good to hear that Huawei is going to keep plugging along in the U.S. because products like the Mate 10 Pro and P20 Pro look like solid smartphones, but it's going to be difficult for the company to gain a significant foothold in the U.S. unless it can convince carriers to sell those products.
Our phones have improved so much over the years that it might be easy to think that we don't have to really deal with any settling as far as features are concerned. We might not have to make many sacrifices, to put it another way. At least that seems to be the case with high-end phones. We expect our flagship phones to be the best possible hardware in every single category, especially if we're forking over so much money.
That's a bit of a blessing and a curse, though.
Just look at the Pixel 2 XL last year. That's a smartphone that Google pegged as one of the best-of-the-best, especially in terms of the camera and build quality. Software, too, of course. But it didn't take long before the Pixel 2 XL was embroiled in a pretty big controversy related to its display. A lot of folks were unhappy with the screen's overall quality, and many were running into hardware defects.
Some of those issues were pretty big, and definitely needed Google's response. Some, though, were pretty minor, and probably would have gone under the radar if those other problems weren't cropping up at the same time. But it just goes to show how we all expect these devices to be worth the money, and if we're seeing distinct defects or we're made aware that the screen might not be as good as what else is out there, well, that can rub buyers the wrong way.
Google did right and improved the elements of the display it could. And I imagine, or hope, that they don't run into the same issues this year with the successor to the Pixel 2 XL.
I've been thinking about displays lately. I think it's one of the more interesting parts of a new phone's release, even if it's also pretty straightforward. We know that when Samsung launches a new phone it's going to have the best display on the market. But that's where devices from LG, Motorola, HTC, Essential, OnePlus, and others can be exciting. Maybe we'll finally see one of these other companies surprise us and launch a phone with an even better panel.
That's what Apple did last year with the iPhone X. We knew they were going to adopt OLED (finally), but the results were outstanding. The blue shift when the phone's tilted is pretty harsh, but that's just a byproduct of the technology. Even with that notch, the iPhone X's display is fantastic.
And then we've got the Galaxy S9 which managed to oust the iPhone X as the best display and we're neck-deep in the cycle all over again. Which is great! But I want to see other companies start to make a run for the crown, too. Can't always be a head-to-head race with Samsung and Apple.
That being said, I'm curious how important the screen on your smartphone is. After all, it's the window to all of our content on our most important device in our daily routine! Looking at a sub-par panel isn't any fun. But I can also understand why it might not be the most important part of your phone's many different aspects.
So how important is the display to you? Let me know!
The first Android Go phone is now available for purchase.
The ZTE Tempo Go is now in stock on ZTE's web store. Pricing is set at $79.99, and the device includs free standard shipping.
ZTE's Tempo Go runs Android Go, a version of Android Oreo that's optimized for devices with 1GB of RAM or less. Android Go comes Google apps that are designed to used less memory and storage, including special versions of Google Maps and Gmail.
When it comes to hardware specs, the ZTE Tempo Go is packing a 5-inch 854x480 display, 5MP rear and 2MP front cameras, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. Also included is a quad-core Snapdragon 210 processor, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 2,200mAh battery.
The ZTE Tempo Go is designed to be an affordable Android device for customers on a budget. Its features aren't going to blow anyone's hair back with raw performance, but for shoppers on a budget, the Tempo Go and its optimized Android Go software should be worth a look.
A few days after AT&T began updating its Galaxy Note 8 to Android 8.0 Oreo, two other major U.S. carriers have starting doing the same thing.
Android 8.0 Oreo is now arriving for the Verizon and Sprint versions of the Galaxy Note 8. PhoneDog readers Steve and Travis began getting their updates early this morning, and several Note 8 owners on Reddit have received their updates as well.
The update to Android 8.0 Oreo brings with it new features like picture-in-picture, autofill, and notification dots. Also included is the March 1, 2018 Android security patch and some Samsung-specific improvements.
These updates are now rolling out over the air, so if you've got a Galaxy Note 8 on Verizon or Sprint, you should see it over the coming days. You can also check for it manually by going into your Settings app.
Now we wait to see when T-Mobile will push out its own Galaxy Note 8 Oreo update.
Thanks, Steve and Travis!
The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is the watch that’s designed to fix the brand’s biggest flaw with its running trackers: the lack of entertainment.
If you’ve been exercising for any amount of time, you’ll know that Garmin offers some of the best running watches around - but they’ve been largely functional, just showing you performance numbers.
But with the likes of the Apple Watch 3 and Samsung Gear Sport encroaching on this space, bringing both GPS tracking and the ability to stream music to a Bluetooth headset, Garmin needed to catch up.
And finally, it’s begun that journey, adding in the capability to listen to tunes, audiobooks or podcasts on the go, as well as being able to pay contactlessly from your wrist (although that feature's not supported by a huge number of banks yet). But it’s not going to be cheap...
Here’s the thing that will probably stop many in their tracks: the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is going to cost around £399 / $399 (around AU$520) - which is a lot of any kind of running watch.
You can get a model without music for £350 / $350 (around AU$440) - but that would really strip it of the main USP.
While you’re paying for some impressive features, it’s also worth noting that TomTom has been offering running watches with music playback capabilities for years, and for a much lower price. However, with these likely to be slowly coming off sale in the coming months, there’s an opportunity for Garmin to jump in.
The Forerunner 645 Music is already available, with the release date landing in February 2018.
Right, let’s get into the groove here - music is the main reason Garmin fans will be buying this watch. And we’re here to tell you that the experience is disappointing for a running watch in 2018.
The Forerunner 645 Music got the right bits to be a great little entertainer on the go: 4GB of internal storage should carry 500 songs with you, and deals with iHeartRadio and Deezer will give you access to reams of tunes.
But those two services don’t yet have the requisite apps on the Garmin ConnectIQ store, which means you can’t transfer any streamed music onto your watch. Which is pretty terrible given the main reason you’d buy this device is to have access to millions of songs - and Garmin doesn't know when it's coming.
So you’re left with putting your own MP3s on there, and if you’re still someone that’s got a vast digital music collection, you’ll be fine.
The downside comes when you find out what you’ve got to do to actually get them on there - fire up your computer, open up Garmin Express (which most won’t have ever done, given they’ll have only ever paired with the app) and then search for the songs on your machine, before getting them sent to the watch.
While audiobooks and podcasts are supported, there’s no way that most people would bother putting them on the watch through the PC. It’s just so, so much easier to listen to them from the phone that we would rather just bring our handset with us - and to be honest, we feel the same about listening to streamed music... it's just so much easier on the phone.
But if you do go down the route of putting music on your Garmin Forerunner 645, the experience is fine. It’s nothing special, and precisely the same as you’re used to on something like the TomTom Runner or most smartwatches on the market - choose from albums, playlists or shuffling all songs.
It’s quite tough to get used to the nuances of the interface by moving up and down and pressing enter, but it’s understandable enough after a while. The main thing is being able to easily change your tracks while running, and that’s possible here.
If you want to change album or playlist on the go it’s quite a few presses, but actually having a physical button is easier than trying to do this with a touchscreen when sprinting around.
The music playback is supposed to be a massive feature of this watch, but not having Spotify was already a hindrance… not having any music streaming services ready at launch is terrible.
One of the most striking things about the Forerunner 645 Music is the way it’s designed - apart from some of the hyper-expensive fashion-led Fenix models, it’s the most attractive Garmin watch out there.
The impressive feature is the metal rim around the edge of the 1.2-inch display - it not only protects the Gorilla Glass 3 that covers the display, but adds a more industrial, yet stylish, look to the watch.
The other thing is that feels really light in the hand and on the wrist - at 42.2g it’s much lighter than the Garmin Forerunner 935, for instance, and puts it more in line with the Forerunner 735XT.
That loss of weight is partly to do with the smaller battery though, and as you’ll see later that comes at a cost to the function of the watch.
The strap is silicone and also pretty lightweight - it feels comfortable on the wrist, although those with sensitive skin might need to swap it out. Thankfully you can use any 20mm strap here, thanks to the standard lugs.
The screen, like many Garmin running watches, is transflective technology, which makes it clear and bright in most scenarios when light is shining directly on it, meaning it catches even a small amount of photons pretty well to help you see what’s on the display.
If you’re in the dark there’s an illuminating light, and Garmin has done pretty well with the accelerometer to make the watch light up whenever you raise your wrist - to do this on a run is pretty advanced.
The screen itself is very clear, and a had a nice degree of sharpness. It’s not in the same league as many modern smartwatches, granted, but it’s more than good enough in day to day use and we never were unable to see the numbers when out on a run.
And really, that’s all that matters. The rounded display can make things a bit congested when you’ve got four different bits of data on one screen, but even then it’s easy to make out what’s being shown.
The only slight downside is that colors are a little muted, but that’s the price paid for the transflective technology.
Take away the (admittedly useful) gimmick of music playback and you’re still left with a Garmin sports tracking watch - and like the other members of this family, it’s excellent in this regard.
Once again eschewing the touchscreen, everything you do with the Forerunner 645 is through the buttons around the watch, and it means it’s very easy to start, stop and flick through exercise data at any point.
The heart rate monitor on your wrist is one of the more accurate we’ve tested… so much so that we didn’t ever feel the need to use a strap on our chest when out testing.
When testing the Forerunner 645 in extremely cold weather, we did find that it struggled to pick up our pulse, so if that’s going to be a regular for you then we suggest you invest in a chest strap.
This also unlocks some more of the running dynamics that some might like, such as ground contact time and vertical oscillation. Honestly, we rarely use this feature despite it being rather interesting to see your actual metrics, like which foot impacts harder each stride.
Unless you’re training very specifically and have a coach, we’d say you can skip buying the heart rate monitor or foot pod you need to enable this.
One thing you will like with the Forerunner 645… the GPS is rapid to lock. Seriously, one of the best we’ve seen and even without being constantly connected to your smartphone.
If you’ve not had your phone synced for a while it can take a little longer (in a new built up area with no phone connection it took nearly two minutes, but the next time was instant), so if you’re in a recognisable or open area we’re talking a few seconds before you’re off and running. It’s excellent.
You can also create interval sessions right from the watch too, which is nice if you’re in the mood for something a little more advanced - and there are little beeps that count down when you’re about to move into the next phase.
Sadly these don’t translate to audio in connected headphones, but you do get your laptimes if you’ve got the feature enabled - on a twenty mile run it’s nice to have someone soothingly telling you your last mile time, although it can get a bit mixed up and robotic.
If you want something a bit more technical in your workout, you can set a session directly from your phone and sync it right to the watch - perfect if you want to do sprint repeats followed by a long run, or switch between power and pace on the bike.
The main thing we used the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music for during our testing is the running capabilities - and it’s pretty darn good for them.
It’s not a lot different in look or function to the Forerunner 935 or the Fenix 5X, with the ability to see your heart rate, distance, pace, time, averages of all the above and even the time the sun is going to rise and set.
In short, there’s very little that can’t be shown on this watch when you’re running, and customising your screens to what you like to see can be done in seconds, as we found just before beginning and realizing that we’d put in actual pace rather than average pace a data field.
The accuracy of the GPS was pretty good - perhaps a little generous over a longer run, with two long runs of 18 and 20 miles showed us running 1% further than the measured distance.
It’s not big deal, but in a marathon that 0.2 extra bit of a mile can be a bit disconcerting if you’re trying to run to a specific pace, although we didn’t find it a tremendous problem.
Over shorter distances it was fine, and treadmill running proved pretty accurate too - after your first session you’ll ‘teach’ the watch how far you’ve gone and it’ll offer better distances form that.
One of the nice things about Garmin watches is their compatibility - while there’s still too much reliance on Ant+ sensors (the old version of connectivity before Bluetooth), the fact both Bluetooth and Ant+ are supported means pretty much any cycling accessory can be connected.
That means power meters, turbo trainers, bike lights and even cameras can be operated from your watch on the go, and that’s pretty easy given the large screen and simple-to-press buttons.
Just like the running mode, there’s not a lot to really say here other than it worked fine, the screen is bright and legible and having that audio feedback on a cycle is even better than on a run, as you can less easily glance at the display when cycling along.
The heart rate monitor also stayed pretty true during our pedalling, reacting well to changes in effort and helping us push harder in the interval sessions we set up from the Forerunner 645.
It’s really great that so many watch manufacturers are trying to track gym efforts, and Garmin recently introduced the same thing.
The idea is that the watch uses the accelerometer to read the motion of each exercise, something called its ‘fitness envelope’, and then count how many of those motions you’ve done.
You can then set how heavy the weight is afterwards, thus giving an accurate measure of how hard you’ve worked.
It’s a nice idea....it doesn’t work. The rep counting is so often off unless you’re doing the motion very slowly and to the exact parameters each time, which many can’t manage nor want to do.
In order to preserve the fitness envelope Garmin recommends you don’t look at the watch during the set, so the motion is consistent - so you can’t even check how many reps you’ve done.
It’s also a little irritating having to enter the weight using the up / down keys every time, so in the end we just stopped using the feature.
The rest timer on there is pretty good though, allowing you to make sure you’re allowing enough time between each action - and you can see each element after.
You can even pre-prepare your workout on your phone, coding in the exact exercise you want to do (and there are loads listed on the Garmin database) and it’s nice to just plug in and go.
However, you’ll need to be quick to spot which exercise is coming up, as it doesn’t stay on the screen long and there’s no way to call it back up.
The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is only any good for strength training if you’re willing to correct the number of reps and weight after each set - and it’s just too much hassle.
That said, it’s nice not to have to carry your phone around to listen to music.
It’s rather impressive what other exercises the 645 Music can track, thanks to the accelerometer and altimeter being able to assess motion and elevation.
You can ski and snowboard, or swim in a pool and have the lengths and distance tracked. However, open water swimmingg isn’t allowed for some reason, despite all the right sensors being in there, and inexplicably there’s no triathlon mode.
Given that last mode is just being able to stitch together a swim, run and cycle into one activity, with transition timers in between, it’s very strange Garmin hasn’t added it in.
Paddle boarding, yoga, step / elliptical / rowing machines in the gym are all supported too - while not perfect thanks to some weird omissions listed above, the Forerunner 645 is generally a very good sports tracker.
Here’s the biggest issue we’ve got with the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music: it’s got poor battery life for a watch from this brand, when its watches are usually sterling at lasting.
Given it’s got the same screen size and operating system as the Forerunner 935, which can last for up to 10 days with daily activity, it’s maddening that the 645 can only manage 3-4 days.
What’s weird is it’s not the GPS tracking that munches the battery, nor the music playback. It’s just in general use that the issues come, with it falling to 8% after 16 miles run and a Bluetooth connection to a phone over four days.
Some more stats: we charged the watch to 100%, and took it on a 20 mile training run with music playback the entire time.
By the end of the run it was down to 65%, after 154 minutes of running. That’s not a bad stat at all, meaning even seven hour marathon runners should be able to track their race and have music the entire time. A good result.
But by the next day, we’d lost another 20% of the battery without any more GPS tracking or music playback… just having the heart rate and step tracking on.
It means you can’t feel confident in always having battery ready for a run like you do with other watches in the Garmin range… and it’s a shame.
Garmin is quoting five hours battery life in GPS mode, which is a lot shorter than many others in its watch line-up, so it knows that this is going to be one of the poorer options when it comes to holding charge.
If you’re going to exclusively use the Forerunner 645 for running with tunes, then you can expect a drop of 10-12% every hour of running, dropping to around 6-8% if you’re not using the Bluetooth streaming - with a similar result from cycling, as you’d expect.
So as only a running watch, it’s pretty good. But as a top-end all-day fitness tracker, as the Garmin watches often are, it’s quite poor.
One of the more irritating things about the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is that the interface is really, really slow at times.
We’re talking pressing a button to start a run and waiting two to three seconds just for the screen to change - even just taking a quick peek at your heart rate by pressing the down button will take a second.
It’s a long way from the snappy interface of the Apple Watch 3, and seems quite poor for a watch of this cost.
However, what the Forerunner 645 Music does do well is fitness tracking - like most of the high-end Garmin watches.
Sleep, step, heart rate and even stress tracking are all very well presented on the watch, meaning there are few devices that offer a more complete experience in terms of showing your overall fitness level.
The stress testing is among the most impressive, with the ability to read your heart rate variance (the difference in shape of each heart beat) and from that discern your stress levels.
It’s very accurate, and provides great insight - like how when you’re on a long-haul flight you’ll have a higher level of background stress than if you’re just sitting quietly at work or at home, which explains why long flights are always so much more stressful.
That heart rate variance can also pinpoint accurately your lactate threshold, meaning the Forerunner 645 can tell you with good accuracy when you’re going to start tiring in a race. It’s not a new feature to Garmin watches, but it’s really advanced and useful.
There’s also the ability to use the Forerunner 645 Music as a smartwatch, with the Bluetooth connection firing messages and phone calls to your wrist so you can respond or dismiss them accordingly.
If you’re using an Android smartphone you can even like certain social media posts or archive email - while rudimentary, we didn’t find we really wanted a lot more from a connected screen on our wrist, making the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music one of the better smartwatches around.
On top of all that, you’ve got the Garmin Connect app, which not only gives insight and advice on your fitness streaks (useful, if not a little rudimentary) but also gives long-range looks at your fitness levels.
Being able to see how your resting heart rate has improved, see how your daily stress level has moved or how well you’ve been sleeping is really cool, and all covered pretty accurately.
It would be nice to see this information used in a more cohesive way, fusing all three together with your effort levels in a run to give tailored information on how best to exercise, but that will surely come in the future.
From this app you can also download new watch faces or ‘apps’ from the ConnectIQ store, but these are little programs that add a small amount of functionality to the mix and aren’t super professional in the way they look - although you can get some nifty watch faces.
The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is a disappointing fitness watch in a number of ways. There are lot of features on here that should make it one of the best running / sport-tracking watches around...but it misses out.
With a contactless payment on board, access to millions of songs and a new stylish design, it should have leapt to the head of the Garmin pack as the poster child of the next generation of sports watches from the brand.
But instead it feels like a halfway house that doesn’t quite manage to sit well in either camp and is out-performed by other watches in the range.
Those people that don’t like to run in silence but hate having a bulky phone strapped about their body - they’ll love the convenience here.
Also, if you’re looking for a smart fitness watch that looks good on the wrist, then you’ll probably like the metallic rim around the bright and visible screen… it certainly looks the part.
It’s also smaller and lightweight, so those with more delicate wrists would probably gravitate towards this watch.
Unless you’re precisely the person described above, then no… don’t buy this watch, at least not right now.
It’s too expensive for what it offers, which is poorer battery life than other Garmin models, and it’s shorn of its headline features.
Without music streaming services added in, it feels like the 645 Music is unfinished, and while it can to contactless payments a lot of locations and banks aren’t set up for it yet.
The slow interface irks, and while the GPS lock is brilliant (seriously, we’re so impressed, as you can probably guess from the rest of this review) there aren’t enough unique, redeeming features of the 645, as all the good bits are available on other watches.
If the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music actually came with something like Spotify and the contactless payment was as widely supported as Apple Pay, maybe the buying advice would be different… but combined with the high price and poor battery, it’s a tough sell.
Not convinced by the Garmin Forerunner 645? Try these on your wrist instead.
The Garmin Forerunner 935 is roughly the same price as the 645 Music, but can track more activities, has a longer-lasting battery and more rugged casing.
In short, unless you’re desperate to have music and a more stylish-looking watch on your wrist, we’d thoroughly recommend this model, as it does all the 645 does and more.
Read the hands on Garmin Forerunner 935 review
If you’re not sold on the 645 Music and don’t want to spend as much, then the 735XT is your next best bet.
It’s shorn of the music, doesn’t look as premium and lacks things like strength tracking and stress monitoring, but it’s a slick and lightweight watch for less, and is brilliant for triathletes in particular.
Read the full Garmin Forerunner 735XT review
The latest watch from Suunto packs an excellent heart rate monitor, a smart route finder in the app and a clean and usable interface.
It’s not as fully-featured as the Garmin, but is more rugged and offers better navigation capabilities from the wrist too.
Read the full Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR review
While solid-state drives are all the rage and have displaced spinning hard disk drives from most end-user devices bar entry-level products and the data center, there are ways in which HDDs still rule the roost.
While SSDs boast low power consumption, faster performance and shock resistance, they have yet to catch up with hard drives in terms of cost per unit storage – especially for multi-terabyte capacities.
The G-Technology G-Drive for example costs as little as £153 (around $215) for the 4TB model with the 6TB model available for only £20 more. You will be hard pressed to find a 1TB external SSD for less than £300 (G-Tech’s very own G-Drive being the exception at less than £200).
Designed to match the Apple product range, the G-Technology G-Drive external hard disk features an all-aluminum enclosure with an illuminated ‘G’ logo and air vents (to cool the drive) on the front. A large ‘G’ adorns the top of the device and there’s a power switch, a USB Type-C connector (Gen 1 so only up to 5Gbps) and a power socket at the back.
It is a relatively large piece of kit at 196 x 128.5 x 35.3mm with a weight of just over 1kg, and that’s because of the 3.5-inch hard disk drive that’s inside.
In addition, a wieldy 19V, 3.42A (65W) power supply unit accompanies the device, which is at odds with the minimalist design of the drive. Four rubber feet plus the usual details (serial number, barcode) are located on the base of the device.
The drive can even charge your MacBook or MacBook Pro (or indeed any recent laptops that support Power Delivery).
The G-Drive external drive is plug-and-play on Apple Mac and can be easily reformatted for Windows. It is also Time Machine ready so you will be able to quickly backup all your files.
Pry open this drive and you will find a Western Digital WD40EMRX-82UZ0N0, otherwise known as the WD Red. This is a 4TB hard disk drive spinning at 5400RPM with 64MB cache – a storage device that has been fine-tuned to deliver cooler temperatures in use and targets NAS users.
There is a 10TB model – with a staggering 256MB cache – available directly from G-Technology in the US for $370 (around £260) but it is not yet available in the UK.
WD says that its Red range has features such as NAS compatibility, increased reliability, error recovery controls as well as noise and vibration protection that make it a great choice for use cases that require better reliability than your run-of-the-mill hard disk drive.
Not surprisingly, the drive comes with a three-year limited warranty, plus a pair of USB Type-C cables and extra plugs for mainland Europe territories.
The drive achieved some great numbers on CrystalDiskMark hitting 180MBps and 152.6MBps on sequential read/write benchmarks respectively, while reaching 182MBps and 184MBps with sequential read/write speeds on the popular ATTO disk benchmark. That’s not far from the ‘up to’ transfer rates of 195MBps claimed by the manufacturer.
As expected the drive warmed up a bit during our testing, but this represented nothing alarming for a storage device that is expected to be powered on 24/7.
There’s plenty of competition out there both from Western Digital – the parent company of G-Technology – and from others, although few can match the level of reliability set by the G-Drive.
There are, for example, plenty of 2.5-inch external hard disk drives that cost about £100 (around $140). However, leaving those to run 24/7 is not advisable because they were not designed from the ground up to work that way.
Western Digital has a 4TB Elements drive for around £100 ($140) and a 4TB WD My Book desktop hard drive, while Seagate-owned LaCie sells a 4TB Porsche Design USB-C drive – that targets the same audience as the G-Drive – and a high performance drive called the D2 that is surprisingly inexpensive.
The G-Drive external HDD shows that spinning hard drives still have their place in an increasingly SSD-centric marketplace. This product hits a good balance between being relatively affordable and suitably capacious.
Although it was launched more than a year ago, the G-Drive is still very much competitive with rivals launched in 2017. It is fast, reasonably well built, compatible with Apple products and has a faster implementation of USB Type-C.
It would be great if G-Technology decided to produce a mini version of this drive (or even simply shrink the current device for a new 2018 offering), and also introduced a 2TB version to compete with Samsung. Making it waterproof would be the icing on the cake but that’s unlikely to happen, mainly because that would put it in direct competition with SanDisk products, another sub-brand of Western Digital.
Love the T-Mobile Sidekick? If so, then the T-Mobile Sidekicks may be just what you need.
T-Mobile today announced the Sidekicks, the first ever Smartshoephone. These smart Converse Chuck Taylors include features like a touchscreen on the bottom of the shoe and a bonus slide-out screen built into the sole, retractable smart laces that double as earbuds and charging cables, a fitness tracker, and sole speakers.
The Sidekicks also have a built-in "No BS Assistant" that's voiced by T-Mobile CEO John Legere. Just say the phrase "Hey Sidekicks" and you can have T-Mo's CEO place calls, give you directions, and more.
Excited for the Sidekicks? Unfortunately, these Smartshoephones are an April Fools' Day joke, like last year's T-Mobile Onesie. Also like the T-Mobile Onesie, though, T-Mo is selling a version of the Sidekicks that are not smart.
You can pre-order your own pair of T-Mobile Sidekicks right now. These magenta Coverse Chuck Taylor sneakers have T-Mobile Sidekicks branding and are available in women's and men's sizing. Pricing is set at $65 per pair and pre-orders will be open until April 15. T-Mobile estimates that Sidekicks orders will begin shipping on April 15.
The T-Mobile Sidekick is one of the more beloved phones in recent history, and while T-Mo isn't bringing back the device quite yet, these Sidekicks could make be nice for fans of the flip-out phone. Are you going to buy a pair of T-Mobile Sidekicks?
A couple of months after launching audiobooks on Google Play, Google is adding new features for folks that like to listen to their books.
Google says that it's got a handful of improvements for audiobooks, including some that integrate with Google Assistant and Google Home. They are:
These new features are rolling out today, and they're available on Android, iOS, and devices with Google Assistant.
