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Cosmic Orange envy? New dbrand skin turns your Pixel 10 iPhone-orange

2025-10-07T03:03:14+00:00
TL;DR

  • Apple’s new iPhone 17 Pro models include a “Cosmic Orange” color options that’s been hugely popular.
  • Now dbrand is giving Android users a chance to get in on the fun with a new set of skins.
  • The drband Cosmic Orange skins are available for the Pixel 10, Galaxy S25 Ultra, Switch 2, and more.

In the smartphone world, a little bit of jealousy can be a good thing. After all, we don’t want any of our favorite phone brands getting too complacent, and for as much as we might love the new model we just took home, sometimes a competitor is doing just enough right to have us wishing we couldn’t have the best of both worlds. This year’s new Pixel 10 phones arrived with some alluring color options available, including that deep-blue Indigo shade that might be our current favorite. But even that’s not stopping some Pixel fans from feeling a little iPhone envy.

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Cosmic Orange envy? New dbrand skin turns your Pixel 10 iPhone-orange2025-10-07T03:03:14+00:00

T-Mobile will soon begin phasing out LTE in favor of 5G

2025-10-07T03:03:09+00:00
Credit: Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR

  • A leaked internal document suggests T-Mobile will re-farm LTE spectrum bands for 5G use in the near future.
  • LTE service will gradually degrade, with most of it shut down by 2028 and full deactivation expected by 2035.
  • Starting January 2026, only 5G SA-compatible devices will be allowed for new activations without an exception.

Anyone who has been around the block a few times has likely seen what happens when a carrier rolls out a new wireless technology. At first, it coexists with older standards, but over time, those older standards are gradually shut down as their spectrum is re-farmed to keep the network evolving. We’ve already experienced major transitions with the shutdowns of both 2G and 3G. Things are a little different today, as LTE and 5G are quite distinct in theory but often similar in real-world performance. Still, it appears LTE’s days are numbered, at least for those on the T-Mobile network.

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T-Mobile will soon begin phasing out LTE in favor of 5G2025-10-07T03:03:09+00:00

Verizon’s new promo uses AI to allegedly give you a better deal than T-Mobile or AT&T

2025-10-07T03:03:03+00:00
Credit: Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR

  • Verizon is trying to shed its “premium-price” image by launching a new promotion aimed directly at AT&T and T-Mobile customers.
  • It’s new AI-powered “Bring your bill” tool analyzes rival bills and applies comparable pricing and promotional credits to match or beat them.
  • The matched rates are locked for 36 months, but prices will rise afterward, making it a short-term value play rather than a permanent discount.

Verizon has a well-earned reputation for solid network performance, but at a much higher price than the competition. Over the last few years, this has changed a bit as T-Mobile has become a major leader in 5G and beyond. The truth is that all three major carriers now offer fairly similar features and performance overall, though it ultimately depends on where you live. What really sets carriers the most is quickly becoming price and value. That’s not an area that Big Red usually excels at, but with its newest promotion, it’s promising to get more competitive here than ever before.

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Verizon’s new promo uses AI to allegedly give you a better deal than T-Mobile or AT&T2025-10-07T03:03:03+00:00

I didn’t realize how much I’d miss Samsung Routines until I switched to a Pixel

2025-10-07T03:03:00+00:00

I recently switched from a Galaxy S24 Ultra to a Pixel 10 Pro, and of the things I miss about One UI, Samsung Routines has ranked higher than I expected.

Pixels have “Rules” buried deep in the settings menu, and they don’t hold a candle to the flexibility and usefulness that Samsung Routines provides users. I want a phone that can do things for me without my intervention, and with features like At A Glance and Now Playing, the Pixel is one of the best phones at doing that, which only makes Pixel Rules feel more disappointing.

I didn’t realize how much I’d miss Samsung Routines until I switched to a Pixel2025-10-07T03:03:00+00:00

A major brand is teasing a ‘hybrid phone’ and we have questions

2025-10-07T03:03:00+00:00
Credit: HMD Global
TL;DR

  • HMD has teased the arrival of a so-called “hybrid phone,” called the HMD Touch 4G.
  • Leaked images and a video suggest that this is a feature phone with a touchscreen.
  • This wouldn’t be the first feature phone with a touch-enabled display, but

HMD is no stranger to feature phones, as it’s offered dirt-cheap feature phones and KaiOS-powered smart feature phones over the years. However, the company has started to tease the HMD Touch 4G, which it claims is a “hybrid phone.”

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A major brand is teasing a ‘hybrid phone’ and we have questions2025-10-07T03:03:00+00:00

I found an Android launcher that combines the best of Niagara and Nova Launcher

2025-10-07T03:02:54+00:00
Credit: Tushar Mehta / Android Authority

About 15 years ago, when I first switched from a Nokia to an Android phone, it wasn’t a mere choice; it was also a financial decision. I couldn’t afford to buy an iPhone, and its price, padded with hefty import fees, made it a dream I refused to approach. Over the years, I became more fascinated with Android’s customization. A decade and a half later, I consciously stick to Android phones.

While my attempts at heavily modding my phones or fiddling with custom ROMs have decreased significantly, there are two things I still actively do: change wallpapers routinely and switch to a new launcher every few weeks or months, actively hopping between multiple awesome launchers on Android.

I found an Android launcher that combines the best of Niagara and Nova Launcher2025-10-07T03:02:54+00:00

Samsung Galaxy S22 is getting its fourth and final major Android update

2025-10-07T03:02:51+00:00
Credit: Lanh Nguyen / Android Authority
TL;DR

  • One UI 8 has begun to roll out to Galaxy S22 series phones.
  • This is the fourth and likely final update for the Galaxy S22 series.
  • We cannot confidently say whether One UI 8.5 will arrive on the Galaxy S22 or not.

The One UI 8 update train is pushing ahead at full steam, and there’s no stopping it. In a matter of a few weeks, Samsung has rolled out the update to the last three generations of flagship bar phones and foldable devices, along with some tablets and affordable A-series phones. Now, it’s trickling down deeper and reaching the Galaxy S22 series, which started to receive its first One UI 8 update.

The stable One UI 8 update has arrived for the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, and S22 Ultra, as highlighted by noted Samsung tipster Tarun Varun on an X post. It weighs in at about 3.2GB and upgrades the Android version to 16. The update is available to a user in Turkey, so a global rollout can be expected to follow soon.

Samsung Galaxy S22 is getting its fourth and final major Android update2025-10-07T03:02:51+00:00

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring just exposed my biggest smart ring fear

2025-10-06T03:04:04+00:00
Smart rings are small, discreet, and stay out of the way while logging heart rate, sleep patterns, and more. But when something goes wrong, that convenience can quickly turn into a liability. A Galaxy Ring user recently reported that his ring’s battery swelled while on his finger, making removal impossible without hospital intervention. More than just nightmare fuel, the incident highlights a design flaw across the entire industry. Smart rings, for all their promise, lack an emergency exit.

Trapped by my own tech

Credit: Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority

Unlike watches or bands, rings don’t unbuckle (or un-Velcro) for easy removal. They only come off the way they go on: sliding past knuckles. If a finger swells, whether from heat, hydration, or a malfunctioning battery, the device can quickly become a vise. In the case of one unlucky Galaxy Ring user, battery swelling turned a well-fitting device into a finger trap, grounding his flight plans and sending him to the ER.

The fear of having a ring of any kind stuck on my finger is very real.

That’s exactly what happened to tech creator Daniel (@ZONEofTECH). According to Daniel, after his Galaxy Ring’s battery failed, soap and hand cream only made things worse. Airport staff denied him boarding, and he ended up in a hospital, where doctors used ice and medical lubricant to slide the ring free.

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring just exposed my biggest smart ring fear2025-10-06T03:04:04+00:00

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is great, but I am sticking to this instead

2025-10-06T03:03:59+00:00
Slim might be the flavor of the season, but there’s no denying that the best foldable phones are the pinnacle of modern smartphone engineering prowess and design. These smartphones push the very idea of form factors and what a phone can do, with a focus on portable productivity, and give us an obvious glimpse at where the future of computing might lead. Simply put, foldables are basically every smartphone company’s opportunity to innovate and flex. In fact, it’s the one smartphone category that still feels fresh to me despite the first foldable phone releasing almost six years ago.

Foldables are the one smartphone category that still feel fresh to me despite the first foldable phone releasing almost six years ago.

It’s also why the Pixel 10 Pro Fold matters so much, despite being relatively late to the game, Apple notwithstanding. Google controls Android, so its approach to foldables sets expectations for how the platform should evolve. While the phone is yet to be released, we’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and its clear that Google has corrected some obvious mistakes from its first attempt. Compared to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the cover display is finally wide enough to use without tiptoeing around the keyboard, the hinge is smoother, and the new IP68 rating is a genuinely useful feature to have in a daily driver. Add brighter screens and the new Tensor G5 chip, and on the surface, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold looks like the most complete Pixel foldable yet.

But here’s the problem. Even with all these improvements, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold still feels like a device riddled with tradeoffs. At a time when Google’s foldables should be setting benchmarks, Google’s entire hardware approach lags behind the competition. Some of it can be attributed to Google’s software trumps hardware mindset, but there’s more. The battery capacity falls short of expectations, the design remains bulky, and the cameras lean heavily on computational tricks rather than hardware capabilities. And for a phone that costs $1,800, I’m not sure I want to deal with the compromises. So, I’ve been using the next best, actually, scratch that, arguably the better product — the vivo X Fold 5.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is great, but I am sticking to this instead2025-10-06T03:03:59+00:00
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