Eliana Willis

Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETSamsung’s One UI 7 is my favorite Android skin right now. It is fast, responsive, and intuitive. But nothing comes fine-tuned to your experience straight out of the box. You need to personalize your smartphone to make it more appealing. I change almost a dozen settings on every Samsung Galaxy phone to best suit my needs, and I believe these will elevate your user experience, too. Also: The best Samsung phones to buyFrom setting the highest available screen resolution to more privacy-focused features, here are 10 Galaxy phone settings (plus a bonus) that I recommend changing to enhance your Galaxy phone experience. Please note that some settings might be phone-specific.1. Turn off pop-up notifications More

Maria Diaz/ZDNETApple Home is finally compatible with robot vacuums, thanks to multiple upgrades — from Apple, Matter, and robot manufacturers. Apple released iOS 18.4 last week, which includes support for robot vacuums via the Home app. Robot vacuum manufacturers, like iRobot and Roborock, have already released their firmware upgrades for their Matter-compatible robots to support Apple Home.Robot vacuum compatibility for Apple Home was delayed for months after being announced last year as a feature coming with iOS 18. With iOS 18.4, however, robot vacuums are finally welcome in Apple Home. The compatibility allows iPhone users to control their robot vacuums via the Home app instead of juggling multiple apps for different devices. Also: This Eufy robot vacuum with a built-in handheld unit is a steal at $200 offIt also makes it easier to run robot vacuums, as you can use voice control and say, “Siri, clean the kitchen,” to have your robot clean up after making dinner. You can also ask Siri to start, stop, and schedule cleaning sessions. Many robot vacuums are already compatible with Amazon Alexa, which lets you use voice control for commands, while a smaller number are compatible with Google Home. But this is the first time Siri and Apple Home are directly compatible (without using Shortcuts). More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways Lenovo’s fifth-generation ThinkPad T14s is available now for $2,119. It’s a particularly hardy laptop and boasts solid battery life. However, the Intel chipset delivers puts a cap on high-end performance. more buying choices Lenovo has seven distinct ThinkPad categories on its website, each with a unique style. The T Series, for […] More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G is a full-color, color paper, and ink paper tablet available at Verizon for $239. It’s a great entertainment tablet for daily use that also functions very well as an e-reader. Although the screen is versatile, don’t expect the graphics to compare to those on an […] More

Kerry Wan/ZDNETIf you’re a T-Mobile customer — or were back in 2021 — you might have a check showing up in your mailbox soon. In 2021, the mobile carrier suffered a massive data breach that affected around 76 million customers (this isn’t related to the 2023 breach that affected 37 million people). T-Mobile denied any wrongdoing but agreed to settle a lawsuit about the breach out of court. Four years later, affected customers are getting compensation. Also: I clicked on four sneaky online scams on purpose – to show you how they workA recent update on the settlement website indicates that all court proceedings are done, and checks are expected to go out this month. If you suffered financial loss from the incident, you might receive up to $25,000. If you didn’t suffer any loss, even if you didn’t file a claim in the suit, you can receive up to $25 (except California residents, who will receive up to $100). While those are the maximum amounts, a quick crunch of the numbers — a $350 million settlement divided between 76 million people — works out to about $4.50 a person, and that’s before attorney fees.  More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The RayNeo Air 3S is available for $269 These XR glasses provide advanced micro-OLED screens, dual speaker chamber design, and a 201-inch screen visual experience There are no light-blocking shades or electrochromic dimming capability, and productivity support is limited to native MacOS and Windows support. –> Just about every person to […] More

Kerry Wan/ZDNETOne reason why the Pixel phones are so popular is the camera. There’s a depth, a level of clarity, and brilliant/accurate colors that most phone cameras cannot match.Also: If you’re planning to upgrade your electronics, you might want to buy them now – here’s whyGoogle is always trying to one-up itself by improving the Pixel camera with every iteration. Back with the Pixel 8, Google introduced the P3 wide gamut capture feature that came along with the Ultra HDR format of Android 14. The Display P3 wide gamut capture makes photos seriously come alive with color.What is Display P3?Display P3 is a color space that combines the following:DCI-P3 color gamutD65 white pointsRGB gamma curveFor those who didn’t sit at the popular photography club table at lunch, Gamma is a nonlinear operation used to encode and decode luminance in photos and videos. An even easier-to-understand definition is that gamma defines the relationship between a pixel’s numerical value and its luminance. Without gamma, your photos wouldn’t capture color as your eyes see it.Also: I changed these 12 settings on my Android phone to instantly improve battery lifeWhite point (aka white balance) helps a camera avoid tint in colors and light. Think of it in terms of color temperature. Are you filming in daylight or warm indoor light? With an incorrect white point, your photos could come out with a blue or amber cast.Color gamut is a range of colors within a color space that can be reproduced by a device. More