Will Sattelberg

Ayaneo is one of the biggest players in the booming retro gaming handheld scene, but if you prefer to keep your hobbies under a certain budget, you probably wouldn’t know it. While the company makes some of the finest gaming-focused hardware on the market, it doesn’t come cheap — most of the brand’s devices start around the $400 or $500 mark, and only go up from there. But with the Pocket AIR Mini, Ayaneo is finally expanding into the budget gaming space, and depending on what you prefer to play, it could be the handheld to beat.

Earlier this week, Samsung began internally testing its first builds of One UI 8.5, the software that will first ship on next year’s Galaxy S26 trio before eventually expanding to older smartphones. A new leak is now giving us our first look at what’s next for Samsung’s visual design language, and — surprise — it’s looking just a little bit like Apple’s Liquid Glass.

It’s been a busy year for Samsung’s software team. After launching a pretty massive overhaul with One UI 7 earlier this year — an update that took far longer to reach older devices than most expected — the company has seemingly found its footing again with One UI 8. As Samsung’s latest software upgrade begins rolling out, we’re also getting some insight into software plans for the Galaxy S26.

It’s iPhone 17 review week, and word on the street is the base model is the one to buy this year. Pitting platforms against each other, Apple has a pretty distinct advantage over the Pixel 10 from the jump, with the iPhone 17 arriving with 256GB in its base $800 configuration, while Google delivers just 128GB for the same price. It’s easy enough to see this as a miscalculation on Google’s part — one it can rectify with next year’s Pixel 11 — but the Pixel 10’s status as a device “designed for AI” really feels at odds with this single decision.

Nothing OS 4.0 is right around the corner, but the company isn’t bringing its Android 16 upgrade to every smartphone. Following Carl Pei’s confirmation on social media that the Nothing Phone (1) won’t receive another major upgrade, the company is offering an exclusive deal to Nothing Phone (1) and (2) owners to upgrade to the brand’s latest smartphone.

The Galaxy S26 series is just a few months away from its inevitable unveiling, and so far, it’s feeling like a bigger shake-up than usual for Samsung. Unfortunately, not every aspect of the company’s upcoming trio is getting an upgrade, with charging speeds sounding like one space where the S26 lineup might fall short compared to the competition.

Last month brought our first look at Android 16 QPR2, with Google delivering its first beta just hours after the Pixel 10 launch event. Alongside other changes, the company is tweaking its monochrome icon settings first launched with Android 12, renaming the setting and finally auto-tinting icons that don’t follow Google’s Material You (and now, Material 3 Expressive) design recommendations. Nearly a month after this setting first changed, developers are getting some insight into the company’s plans for themed icons.

Welcome to episode 4 of The Sideload, a podcast by NewGeekGuide. This week, Will is joined by 9to5’s own Andrew Romero, hot off a recent review of Honor’s new Magic V5 foldable. Together, Andrew walks Will through what makes Honor’s latest device so enticing, where the software falls short, and what draws him to foldables in the first place. The two also explore the future of folding phones following Samsung’s excellent Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the ever-evolving rumor of a folding iPhone.

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In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new design trend spreading throughout the entire smartphone industry. No, it’s not titanium — not anymore, at least — and premium flagships are still mostly arriving on store shelves in their usual drab colors. No, it’s the camera bar, a fresh method of styling the prerequisite lens bump you’ll find on every flagship smartphone, and in this case, it’s Google that can claim the credit for influencing its rivals.

Welcome to episode 69 of Pixelated, a podcast by NewGeekGuide. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will kick off by talking about Pixel sales growth, with a recent Counterpoint report suggest 105% YoY growth for Google’s smartphone lineup. After analyzing just what it means for the future of both Pixel and Android, the crew hops over to the other side of the fence to share their thoughts on Apple’s latest iPhone lineup. Don’t worry, loyal listener — they also make sure to wrap-up with some extended thoughts on the Pixel 10’s battery and camera performance, with a promise of much more to come.

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The OnePlus 15 is starting to look like a radical departure from the status quo for OnePlus, thanks in large part to the dissolution of its camera partnership with Hasselblad. Today, we’ve learned a little more about what to expect from the display on its next flagship, and it’s come as part of a social media dig towards Apple.

It’s been a while since Qualcomm launched an upgrade for Quick Charge, but ahead of the company’s annual Snapdragon refresh, it’s back with some big changes for its proprietary charging standard.

While the Galaxy S26 Edge — and its unabashedly iPhone 17 Pro-esque camera bump — is bound to soak up plenty of the attention at next year’s Galaxy Unpacked event, it’s just one of the three new smartphones we expect Samsung to launch. Now we’re getting a fresh look at the Galaxy S26 Pro set to overtake the usual standard model, but despite the refreshed branding, the overall design is anything but.

As promised, Nvidia is launching its Blackwell upgrade today for GeForce Now, bringing RTX 5080-based machines to the cloud service alongside a whole slew of other upgrades.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 might be an impressive piece of design, but with one obvious shortcoming: its massive camera bump. With next year’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, Samsung could be bringing that design to its standard phablet, without any noticeable changes to its sensor lineup.

Spotify might be centered around a lot more than music these days, but it’s still delivering new sorting features on a semi-regular basis. In addition to a handful of new customization options, the music streamer is also bringing new filters to sort your library by more than just genre.

Welcome to episode 3 of The Sideload, a podcast by NewGeekGuide. This week, Will is joined by Joe Maring, Trending Editor at Android Authority, to discuss their respective experiences with the Pixel 10 series. With Joe back from a recent trip to visit Will in Buffalo, the two discuss how Google’s latest smartphones hold up under the stress of traveling, including whether the battery life is good enough to survive the airport, how the camera performed at Niagara Falls, and the utter mess that is Daily Hub.

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It’s been a busy 2025 for Nothing, having launched a trio of smartphones alongside the brand’s first-ever over-the-ear headphones, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the year is quieting down.

There’s a lot to love about the Pixel 10. Through four generations of Tensor, we’ve waited for a chipset that could match the thermal performance of Qualcomm’s best, and my experience so far suggests Google’s nailed it. The 5x telephoto lens, while far from the best on the market, helps the camera feel far flexible than non-Pro Pixels in the past, and helps the device stand out from entry-level flagships from Samsung and Apple. It’s sort of the Pixel I’ve wanted for ages, even if it’s not an out-and-out perfect smartphone.

Welcome to episode 68 of Pixelated, a podcast by NewGeekGuide. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will break down their feelings towards Material 3 Expressive now that Android 16 QPR1 is finally out in the wild. Is this the best Android has ever looked? Will Samsung follow Google’s Material 3 Expressive rather than rushing towards a Liquid Glass-esque reality? Do we spend a large chunk of this episode breaking down how we’ve laid out our quick settings menus? That last one has an easy answer: you bet we do.

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