All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand | Android Central

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All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand

What do all those networking terms mean? Network nerdery for dummies

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 29 Apr 2017 7:06 pm
Making sense of those acronyms and abbreviations. "Hey, man. Did you hear that Qualcomm's new X20 modem is rated for cat 18 LTE, carries 12 spatial streams and is 4x4 MIMO capable? Isn't that cool?" Maybe that's cool, but really how is a regular person with a regular job or who goes to regular school and has regular hobbies supposed to know? It sounds like a secret code with all the...

You can start planning your Google I/O 2017 schedule now and reserve yourself a seat

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 28 Apr 2017 5:01 pm
Some changes mean you'll want to sort out your schedule right away. Google has filled in most of the details for the Google I/O 2017 schedule of events and you can start selecting and planning out which ones you want to attend. At the I/O 2017 website, you can see all the talks and presentations for all three days of the event and choose the ones you're interested in attending. You can track...

How the Galaxy S8 is holding up after a week [Roundtable]

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 28 Apr 2017 12:00 pm
See what the AC staff thinks after using the Galaxy S8 for a week. It's been a week since the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ were released. You've read the reviews, watched the videos and no doubt had some thoughts of your own by now. Chances are you came away from it all thinking that this is a pretty great phone. A week later, and everyone has time to settle down and take a breath or two after...

The Galaxy S8 is water resistant, not liquid resistant

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 28 Apr 2017 9:00 am
Your phone has no fear when it comes to water but be careful with other liquids. One of the features you'll find in most top-end phones in 2017 is water resistance. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ from Samsung are no exception. Raining outside? No problem. The Galaxy S8's IP68 rating means the rain has no effect. The same goes for a splash at the sink, a dip in the pool, and maybe even a spilled...

Samsung Chromebook Plus vs. Pro: The differences, and which should you buy?

20 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 27 Apr 2017 11:00 am
Samsung's 2017 Chromebook lineup offers something for everyone with two equally great models. Samsung introduced a pair of great Chromebooks with the unveiling of the Pro and the Plus. In addition of the Chrome OS features we've been using like built-in security and the best web browsing experience you can get anywhere, Samsung and Google have introduced pressure sensitive drawing using a...

Google Trips gets new ways to make your next vacation better

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 5:58 pm
New features let you find and share everything easier to make a vacation stress-free like it should be. Planning your vacation can be a lot of work. And when you're done figuring it all out you need to get it organized and put somewhere that you can use it. Google Trips can help and some new features make it even easier. Keeping track of your reservations is now easier because everything is...

Your unlimited plan is probably ripping you off: How much data Americans actually use

71 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 3:00 pm
The numbers are in and you probably don't need an expensive unlimited data plan. Unlimited data plans are back. Here's some insight into why that happened as well as a look at how much data we really use every month. We've recently seen all four major U.S. carriers introduce or revamp their unlimited LTE data plans. Multiple times. For some of us, this is great news: The folks who use upwards...

Galaxy S8 security: Which unlocking method should you use?

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 1:00 pm
The Galaxy S8 comes with several different ways to lock your phone. But they aren't all equal when it comes to keeping snooping eyes out of your stuff. We think everyone should lock their phone and be sure to enable a find my phone feature that can erase it if it gets lost or stolen. This is the best way to make sure someone can't just pick it up and rifle through all your stuff. The Galaxy S8...

Hacking your Chromebook is fun and easier than you think

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 26 Apr 2017 9:05 am
It's easy to make your Chromebook more than the sum of its parts. Update April 26: This post was updated to make sure the information is current and the links were working! A Chromebook can be a great purchase even if you never step outside of Google's trusted environment. They are some of the best web machines ever built, require almost no software maintenance, and come in a myriad of...

Will somebody please make a Chromebook with LTE?

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 24 Apr 2017 9:00 am
All I want is a proper replacement for the laptop that has served me for four years. Some people have found that a Chromebook is just the best way to compute. I'm one of them and unless I need to do something that requires the big loud PC on my desk you'll find me with a Chromebook in front of me. And if I'm away from home it will be a really beat up aluminum model from early 2013 that is in...

The EFF calls out Google for privacy issues in the EDU sector but the school districts need educated, too

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 6:44 pm
Chromebooks for education is an excellent program, but it looks like the educators need a little more teaching when it comes to getting started. The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has renewed their charge against Google, Microsoft, and Apple for the way student privacy is handled in their respective educational markets. They say "Students and their families are backed into a corner...

Make the Bixby button great again: BixRemap will open Google Now instead

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 2:17 pm
If Bixby isn't your thing, here's how to replace it with Google Now. The Galaxy S8 has been mostly well received by everyone. Blogger and users who have scored their phones already are saying really good things, and even the naysayers are impressed with the hardware. It just seems like a damn good phone so far. But there is one thing a lot of folks are saying they would like to change: The...

Open up in this weekend's comments thread

44 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 22 Apr 2017 12:00 pm
Sit back, relax and chat about stuff because it's the weekend! The weekend is finally here. The five days between them sometimes feel like they take forever, but this week was pretty cool with all the Galaxy S8 stuff. Flo and Daniel have to be especially grateful that the calendar says Saturday this week. Be sure to have a look at the reviews (some things need more than one) they wrote for the...

How much does security factor into your buying decisions? [Roundtable]

56 Comments
Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 21 Apr 2017 1:00 pm
How the AC staff thinks about security when they're buying cool stuff. There are plenty of reasons to want a new phone or cool tech gadget, and everyone has different reasons. And of course, there are plenty of phones and cool tech gadgets to buy. We find the right gadget for the right reasons and lighten our wallets. In the midst of all the talk about specs and software and updates and...

Best tips for extending the life of your phone's battery

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 21 Apr 2017 8:00 am
How do I make sure my phone's battery lasts as long as possible? Most of us never think about the battery in our phone until it dies. When everything is working properly the battery should not be a part of the Android experience, other than not lasting long enough because we never put our phones down. The only time we ever think about the battery is when we have to charge it. How you do that...

Best Android apps for your Chromebook

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 20 Apr 2017 4:00 pm
An injection of over 1,000,000 Android apps does a great job filling in the holes in Chrome. Updated April 2017: This post was updated to make sure it's full of awesome apps for your Chromebook. A few Chromebooks already have Android apps through Google Play. More are scheduled to get them, and most new Chromebooks will ship with the Play store working from day one. Android app support has...

US Cellular: Everything you need to know

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 20 Apr 2017 10:00 am
What you need to know about America's fifth largest network provider. When people talk about post-paid nationwide cell phone networks in the U.S. they usually mean the Big Four: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. But there is a fifth company who offers full-service nationwide contract plans that are as good or better than the bigger corporations: US Cellular. It stands to reason. As of...

Google, an ad company, will soon block 'bad ads' in Chrome

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 9:53 pm
Android's native browser could block "bad ads" in a coming update and that's good for everyone. While ad-blockers may be the most popular extensions for Chrome on the desktop or your Chromebook, the Android app has been left out of the picture. That might be changing according to the Wall Street Journal. Alphabet Inc.'s Google is planning to introduce an ad-blocking feature in the mobile and...

Microsoft introduces its new task manager app To-Do in beta

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 6:10 pm
If you're looking for yet another task manager application and use Microsoft's Office 365 you might want to check out the new To-Do beta app. Think of it as a Wunderlist replacement that also makes suggestions for you. It actually comes from the developers of Wunderlist and uses a sorting algorithm to determine what's important for you to do today or what you missed yesterday. A video is worth...

Five important things iOS does better than Android

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Posted by Jerry Hildenbrand on 19 Apr 2017 9:00 am
Android and iOS have plenty of differences. Here are five places we think Apple is doing better than Google. The internet is filled with words about Android and iOS and why one is better than the other. It makes for fun writing and reading because everyone likes to hear about why the thing they prefer is better than the thing they don't. but there are some important things each operating...

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