Table of contents for Issue 23 in Android Advisor

In the UK, we typically pay around 10p per kWh of electricity. This is the standard measurement of how much energy you use. Your monthly electricity bill shows how much you’ve used, and you can keep tabs on usage by looking at your electricity meter. If you want to measure how many watts a device draws when charging (or in use) you can buy a power meter for around £10, which plugs into the mains socket and has a passthrough socket for the device in question. Its readout will tell you the current power draw, but it should also have a mode where it monitors power over time and offers an average power draw – useful in the case of laser printers and other products that don’t draw a constant…

It was reported toward the end of last year that Google would update its Gmail for Android app and introduce ‘Block’ and ‘Unsubscribe’ options to the Settings menu for individual emails. This is great news, and should make it much easier to block an email or unsubscribe from an email in a couple of taps, but we’ve yet to see the update filter through to the app. In the meantime, we’ll show you how to block or unsubscribe from email on an Android phone or tablet. If you’re looking for a way to block spam messages from Gmail for Android, it’s important to first differentiate between spam messages and those emails from companies you have perhaps unwittingly authorised to send you marketing information at some point in the past. When…

With the release of Chromecast streaming devices in that past few years, Google has opened up the ability for Android users to have their smartphone and tablet screens displayed wirelessly on pretty much any screen which has an HDMI input - typically your TV. If you want to use a cable so you don’t have to buy a Chromecast, many Android devices let you use their Micro-USB port as a video output. This feature is particularly useful if you want to show family and friends photographs or videos you have on your phone without everyone having to crowd around a five-inch device. You can also turn your television into a fully featured internet browser. The process is simple, and we’ll show you how to get up and running in no…

£144 inc VAT • mi.com/en Xiaomi products aren’t easily come by in the UK but the firm is making a name for itself by making top-spec devices at budget prices. With Apple setting the standard for many, the Chinese firm’s latest tablet is its answer for the iPad mini. Here’s our Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 review. To whet your appetite, the Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 is a 7.9in high resolution tablet with a metal design, Intel Atom processor and runs Android or Windows. It may mirror the iPad mini in many ways but it’s much more affordable, starting at just £144. But can Xiaomi really offer a decent alternative to Apple at such a low price? Price As you are probably well aware, it’s not possible to buy Xiaomi products…

There’s a huge number of smartphones out there, each offering a different hardware configuration. The same applies to audio chips: they vary between manufacturer, with some opting to utilise the audio codec found within the phone’s chipset, while others prefer to use dedicated chip manufacturers. To make this a fair test, we took all the phones into an isolated room, and tested them using a range of different head- and earphones at various price ranges. The majority of our testing was based mainly on the Harschacoustic SH-2 custom in-ear models and the modified Denon AH-D2000 headphones. When it comes to listening to audio, it doesn’t take an audiophile to hear the differences between smartphones. The only advantage an audiophile has over the average consumer is that they know what to…

Time was when the Wingdings font (remember that?) was the only option if you wanted to use ‘special’ characters, but these days emojis – or emoticons – litter our messages, Facebook posts and – sometimes – tweets. But how do you enable emojis on Android, and how do you add them to tweets? Here’s everything you need to know about using emojis on Android. Because of its open source nature, just about every Android phone is different. Yours may already have an emoji button on the keyboard, but the chances are you’re reading this precisely because it doesn’t – or because the emoji button is missing when you fire up Twitter and try to tweet with a smiley. Well, we have the answer: it’s all in the keyboard you use.…

Gmail It might seem odd to look for your contacts in Gmail rather than on your phone, but as the services are intertwined there’s a good chance you’ll find what you’re looking for here. When you add contacts into your Android phone using a Google service they are synched up with the online servers to hold a record. You can restore any contact that you’ve deleted in the past 30 days and Chat contacts from the previous 24 hours. To recover the missing details you’ll need to log on to the web version of Gmail, then in the top lefthand corner where you see the word Gmail. A drop-down menu will appear, from which you should select Contacts. You’ll now see all of the contacts that Google has attached to…

£399 inc VAT • google.co.uk Google announced the Pixel C along with the Nexus 5X and 6P, but rather than partnering with LG, Huawei or one of its previous tablet partners, the Pixel C is designed entirely by Google, and manufactured by an unknown company in China. It’s an Android tablet – not a Chromebook with Chrome OS – but you can buy an optional keyboard to turn it into a device that everyone from Apple to Lenovo is falling over themselves to produce: the two-in-one convertible. Price Many people will buy the Pixel C because they want a top-end Android tablet instead of an iPad. And they’ll pay the same price: the base model costs £399, but instead of the Air 2’s paltry 16GB of storage, the Pixel C…

£TBC • consumer.huawei.com Some might say that the Mate 8 is the follow up to the Mate S, but while that’s true in chronological terms, in reality is the successor to the Mate 7. Here’s our Huawei Mate 8 review. Huawei is churning out phones at an amazing pace at the moment, especially so when you consider the company is also behind the Honor brand. It was the first to launch a ‘force touch’ screen ahead of the iPhone 6s, although even if you want a Mate S Press Touch in the UK it’s still virtually impossible to buy one nearly four months later. The Mate 8 goes down a different route, pairing a 6in Full HD screen with Huawei’s latest HiSilicon Kirin 950 processor and a huge battery to…

It’s freezing cold outside, and it’s important that you keep those closest to you warm and dry. No, not your partner, your child or your pet – you need to look after your smartphone. With some worrying that their phones are going to die as a result of the cold weather, we look at the effects of extreme temperatures on smartphone batteries. Can cold weather kill your phone? We often see car batteries dying and needing a jump start to get them going again. Does this same principle apply for smartphones? Is there even a smartphone- defibrillator that exists? Let’s delve into the problematic dilemma. Which battery do I have? First of all, you need to know what type of battery is inside your phone. You’ll find specifications listed on…

Snapchat is a hugely popular photo-sharing service that allows users to send pictures and videos to friends and family that expire after a maximum of 10 seconds. While this means that users could send ugly/funny/sometimes inappropriate photos without any ramification (or so they thought), Snapchat can’t stop people taking a screenshot of photos on their smartphones. However, it seems that the developers planned for that eventuality and built a system that notifies the sender whenever their snaps have been saved. Here, we show you how to screenshot a Snapchat without the sender knowing. Standard screenshots So, how can you screenshot a Snapchat without the sender knowing you’ve done so? While Snapchat alerts the sender whenever a screenshot is taken of a snap (with good reason) there is one lesser-known way…

To get started, you’ll need to launch the Google Play app on your phone and search for, download and install the Google Now Launcher. Open the Google Now Launcher and you’ll be prompted to decide whether you want to use it Just once or Always. You can choose Just once if you’re not sure you’ll like it, but it’s easy to revert to the way you had things by uninstalling the Google Now Launcher if you opt for Always instead. You’ll notice a change to your app tray, whereby all your apps are listed alphabetically and on a clean white background. But this isn’t quite Android Marshmallow-style just yet. You’ll need to download and install the latest Google App by sideloading its APK file. You can do so by plugging…

£129 inc VAT • amazon.co.uk Launched in late 2015, the Fire HD 8 is from Amazon’s fifth-generation tablet range. It shares much with the other two models launched at the same time: the £49 Fire and the 10.1in HD 10, but is notable as it’s the first 8in tablet from the company. Previously, there was just one ‘large’ option: the HDX 8.9. We’re reviewing the HD 8 and HD 10 together here because they’re so similar, but our comments on performance, screen quality and battery life are based on the HD 8. Price You can buy a Fire for £129 from Amazon. For some people, an 8in tablet for under £130 represents good value. An iPad mini 4, which also has an 8in screen, costs £319. There are reasons for…

£118 inc VAT • mi.com/en Xiaomi’s phones aren’t officially sold in the UK, but while the brand may not be well known to us Brits, it’s bigger than Apple and Samsung in China. Redmi is the company’s budget smartphone line-up, and the Note 3 sits at the top of the series as an all-metal Android phablet with a fantastic design and decent performance. Our review sample came from GearBest, and is the gold model with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. This Note 3 costs £118.27 with free worldwide shipping, although you may have to pay import duty. Design Wow. That’s what every member of the Android Advisor team said when we took the Redmi Note 3 out of its box. We’ve been waiting to get our hands on…