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Amazon’s latest cheap-as-chips Fire 7 tablet is, once again, a slate designed almost solely for the consumption of Amazon content. Books, TV shows or audiobooks – the Fire 7 gives you a direct line to all that Prime has to offer.

If you want a tablet for the basics and aren’t willing to spend a penny than possible then the Fire 7 should get the job done. 

Design – The Amazon Fire 7 is a rugged, plastic tablet that can take a beating

The Amazon Fire 7 is about as far away from the iPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 as it’s possible to get. Considering this tablet costs a penny under £50 (and one cent under $50 in the States), this should hardly come as a surprise, but you might be shocked at just how budget this slate feels the first time you pick it up. 

It’s built completely out of plastic, with buttons that feel a bit mushy and a rear casing that seems like it should pop off completely. It’s basic, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You won’t worry about this tablet getting scratched in your bag, or about giving to your kids.

Because of its plastic construction, it’s also very light and can be comfortably held in one hand for reading.

 As the name suggests, the Amazon Fire 7 has a 7-inch display. This makes it Amazon’s smallest tablet and among the dinkiest we’ve reviewed. With its slim 16:9 display, it’s a lot narrower than the 7.9-inch iPad Mini and it was small enough to slip into the pocket of one of my larger coats.

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 All the ports and physical controls are on the top – which is a bit odd until you get used to it – and comprise a 3.5mm headphone jack, micro USB port for charging, volume rocker and lock switch. As USB-C is so common now, it irks me that Amazon is sticking with the tired older style. However, if you’re someone with a bunch of micro USB cables lying around, you probably won’t find it so much of a nuisance.

Screen – If there’s a clear weakness with the Amazon Fire 7 it’s the fairly poor display

Sacrifices are always going to be made to sell a tablet at £50/$50, and it’s obvious where corners have been cut here: the display. The 7-inch IPS (In Plane Switching) panel is colourful and bright, but the low 1024 x 600 resolution is very obvious and it makes everything from watching films to browsing the web a bit of a chore. Pixels are always noticeable and text is very jagged – not ideal for a device that’s marketed as an e-reader. 

How much this bothers you will depend on how much you value a clean, crisp image. If, like me, you prefer pixels to blend into each other, I would suggest spending a bit more and going for one of the Fire HD tablets instead.

Software and Alexa – If you’re big into Amazon Prime, the Fire 7 will bring all your media and books together

The software that runs on Amazon’s Fire line is the definition of love it or hate it. Every aspect is designed to funnel you towards some sort of content supplied by Amazon, whether it’s a Prime video or a piece of clothing you looked at two weeks ago.

If you’re not a Prime member then I don’t think this is the tablet for you – even at such a low price. Other apps, like Netflix, are available, but the home screens are designed to push Amazon’s own stuff right to the front. At times, it can feel like you’re in a constant advert.

There are also adverts (or Special Offers, as Amazon likes to call them) on the lock screen. These mainly comprise book suggestions, which are fine and can be disabled by paying an extra £10/$15.

If you are deeply entrenched in the Amazon ecosystem then the overall software UI is great at quickly delivering content. Prime Video, Kindle books, Audible audiobooks and apps from Amazon’s well-stocked Appstore are all easily available, alongside other handy features, like X-Ray in video playback and the ability to flip between a Kindle book and an audiobook. 

I’m a fan of the For You home screen panel in particular. This is an area where you’ll get quick access to your recently read books and watched films, all combined into a handy, scrollable list. 

As with previous Amazon tablets, the Fire 7 runs a forked version of Google’s Android. Android remains the basis of the OS, but there’s no visible mention of this and there’s no support for popular services like YouTube, Gmail or the Google Play Store. Instead, Amazon has its own app store and native apps for email and web browsing, which are far from Google’s level – if you’re a big user of the search engine giant’s services, you’d be better off with a tablet that runs a proper version of Android.

One feature the Fire 7 has over other Android tablets is deep integration of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. While previous versions of the Fire 7 had Alexa, this is the first to go hands-free, meaning you don’t need to press a button to bring Alexa to life. Instead, just say “Alexa” in the same way you would with an Echo or Echo Dot. 

You can use Alexa to control your smart home (“Alexa, turn off the bedroom lights”), play music and just about everything else you can do on the Echo Show. 

Performance – The Fire 7’s performance is acceptable, even if the cameras are forgettable 

The Amazon Fire 7 isn’t the tablet for intense gaming sessions or picture editing, and nothing makes that clearer than the fairly low-end internals. There’s a mere 1GB RAM, paired with a 1.3Ghz processor. That amount of RAM stands out as being particularly low and you’ll notice it when jumping between apps.

There’s a lag and judder when opening apps that you don’t get with pricier tablets. However, and again I come back to the price, I can forgive that when it’s only £50.

You’ll notice lag when gaming, too, but basic things like browsing and email are a lot smoother. 

There are two cameras on the Fire 7: one on the front, which caps out at 720p video, and another on the back, which is 2 megapixels. Neither are very good and, to be completely honest, I would be all for ditching the cameras completely (or at least the rear one) if it allowed Amazon to add a bit more RAM. The camera is slow to focus and shoot, it struggles when the light isn’t bright and generally will be beaten by any phone you’ve got in your pocket.

Battery life – A decent performer

Amazon states that you should expect seven hours of reading, browsing and media watching. From my weeks using the device on a daily basis, I feel these claims are correct and I tended to charge the tablet every couple of days. If you only use it for, say, half an hour of reading every day, you’ll probably get a week between charges.

Charging the tablet fully takes roughly two hours with the included power brick. However, it’ll take much longer if you plug it into a laptop to charge (this is something you might be familiar with doing if you’re a Kindle owner). Amazon has also stuck with the micro USB port, rather than switching to the newer USB-C alternative.

Should I buy the Amazon Fire 7?

The Fire 7 remains a budget tablet that, while far from perfect, is hard to really criticise for the £50/$50 price. If you want a cheap slate to watch movies on long flights or give to the kids without worrying about it getting damaged, this is a strong pick.

There are shortcoming and sacrifices, of course: the display is poor, cameras terrible and the meagre 1GB RAM makes itself known a little too often. But when you consider that the cheapest iPad costs over six times the price of the Fire 7, these negatives are a little easier to swallow.

If you’re a Prime subscriber who wants a cheap way to access that goodness, this is a good choice. If you care even slightly about display or performance, however, pay a little more and get the Fire HD 8.

The post Amazon Fire 7 (2019) appeared first on Trusted Reviews.

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What is the Honor 9X?

Huawei’s sub-brand has established a strong reputation for hard-hitting budget devices that punch above their weight, such as the Honor 8X and Honor 10.

It has sought to reproduce this form with the Honor 9X, which boasts three cameras and a notchless screen. But how does it perform?

Honor 9X design – The USB-C port is a welcome addition

The Honor 9X has a shimmering tiled diamond design across the rear panel, dancing in the light to form the shape of an X. It’s certainly a distinctive look, although some might find it gaudy rather than beguiling.

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Taken in the hand, it feels quite chunky, and there’s a reason for that: it’s a full millimetre thicker than its predecessor (8.8mm vs 7.8mm). In addition, the rear panel feels like glossy plastic to the touch; no cool-to-the-touch metal sides of the Honor 8X that lent that phone a touch of class.

As for the more practical parts of the design, the USB-C port is a welcome upgrade – and, fortunately the 3.5mm headphone jack ensures flexibility between wired and wireless listening options. You can unlock the device quickly via the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.

Overall the look and physical feel of the Honor 8X was preferable, but the addition of USB-C is a clear upgrade in favour of the 9X.

Honor 9X camera – Images display decent colours and clarity

The headlining 48-megapixel sensor has won this handset plenty of attention, and the hype is pretty well justified.

The high-resolution sensor does deliver a good amount of detail and, fortunately, it doesn’t go down the route of the over-saturated images seen from some budget phones looking to overcompensate for their deficiencies.

We’d reported some difficulty with the focus of the camera on the Honor 8X. Luckily, there have been no such issues with this device so far.

The camera app easily switches between the main camera lens and the 8-megapixel, 120-degree wide-angle lens. This promises a good level of versatility, similar in conception to the iPhone 11‘s combination of main camera and wide-angle lens — although, of course, it’s unreasonable to expect it to reach the same standards of quality.

Wide Angle Camera (left) / Main Camera (right)

These wide-angle images also look good, with clear colours and a decent amount of detail. When you’re actually taking the pictures, the on-screen viewfinder shows hideous distortion at the edges comparable to a fish-eye effect, which is a little off-putting. Fortunately, this warping isn’t evident in the final image.

The third lens on the rear of the device is a 2-megapixel-depth sensor entirely dedicated to improving portrait images. However, faces can still be a little blurred around the edges rather than cut cleanly from the background.

The effect still works passably for the most part and, for instance, the detail in hair is well represented. Importantly, it accurately rejects other faces in the background of the shot, rather than applying the same effect to them.

Honor 9X Night Mode: Off (left) / On (right)

The Honor 9X has a Night mode that, unlike rivals, doesn’t require a long waiting-time for results. It does reduce noise and increase the sharpness of images, although definitely not to the extent of its Pixel 3a mid-range rival.

Selfies aren’t all that sharp when compared to the main rear cameras. Plus, there’s an audible mechanical sound when the pop-up snapper is summoned. Nevertheless, the images remain presentable.

Honor 9X screen – A notch-free display, with a high screen-to-body ratio

This device offers a Full HD+ display and boasts a 91% screen-to-body ratio – two specifications that are impressive enough on their own. But the clinching factor for many buyers is likely to be the notch-free display, which means the screen is uninterrupted by intrusive selfie cameras and full-screen content such as videos and games are unblemished.

The pop-up camera solution isn’t new, having been shown off by the OnePlus 7T Pro, but it’s somewhat of a novelty to find it in the budget section of the mobiles market.

At 1080p, the resolution is unchanged from the Honor 8X. There’s no “wow” factor that hits you when the display first lights up, but it’s a decent enough, clear screen on which to watch videos.

You’ll only notice the downgrade if you’re used to a higher resolution screen. Otherwise, you probably won’t feel the difference. Being an LCD, it doesn’t offer quite the same deep contrast of the best OLED displays.

The screen quality itself isn’t a key selling point, but the notchless design with a high screen-to-body ratio will no doubt attract people who want a genuine full-screen experience on their phone.

Honor 9X battery life – Enough stamina to easily last a full day

The battery packed inside the Honor 9X is a 4000mAh unit, which will keep you going for quite some time. After half an hour of watching YouTube videos, I was amazed to see that the battery still remained at 100%. The battery will easily last you through the day, and then some. This is a great result for any handset; essentially it has a flagship battery capacity but with a processor and screen that are less demanding, so you can squeeze even more life from it.

Honor 9X performance – Powerful for the price

The Kirin 710 chipset also performs well. Whether powering through day-to-day tasks or running more intensely demanding games, we found no hint of lag or sluggishness.

This might well be due to the GPU Turbo 3.0 feature, which augments performance whilst gaming. It should be able to handle most tasks you throw at it, and is accompanied by 6GB of RAM – which should be capable of effective multi-tasking.

Each of the benchmark tests below assess a different aspect of the phone’s performance, with Geekbench focused on the CPU, 3-D Mark on the GPU, and Antutu putting the whole system through its paces. These scores pale in comparison to the best flagship phones around, but everyday performance on the 9X nonetheless was found to be good.

Benchmark Scores

• Geekbench 5 Single Core: 322
• Geekbench 5 Multi-Core: 1342
• Antutu Score: 176,298
• 3-D Mark Slingshot Score: 1,127

Honor 9X software – Google apps still present, but for how long?

The Honor 9X does still have Google apps, despite the recent Android ban for parent company Huawei. In fact, it may be the very last device from the company to do so, since it just managed to get certified by Google before the shutters came down firmly. However, the ongoing saga means it’s harder to recommend this phone.

It still has the familiar Google suite of apps such as Maps, YouTube, and Chrome, but since it’s a Huawei phone, it’s also pre-installed with fistfuls of bloatware – such as the Booking.com app and the Honor Store – that you’d probably be better off without.

What’s even more disappointing is the lack of NFC, so you won’t be able to use remote pay apps such as Google Pay.

We’re not great fans of Huawei’s EMUI software, and the Android One phones in the same price bracket have a cleaner, more attractive interface. This is unlikely to be a dealbreaker for many consumers, though.

Should you buy the Honor 9X?

The Honor 9X offers strong all-round performance, with particular highlights the camera, the enduring battery life, and the strong performance.

We’re still awaiting the official UK price, but if it is in a similar bracket to its predecessor, then it’s a good bargain.

However, the elephant in the room is the lingering uncertainty over the relationship between parent company Huawei, and Google, which provides the Android software. In light of these ongoing issues, we cannot recommend Honor phones.

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A threequel nearly two decades in the making, Shenmue 3 once seemed like an impossible dream. Now it’s here… well, nightmare would be hyperbolic, but it’s certainly a disappointment. If you’ve had your nostalgia goggles surgically implanted into your face and you’re just looking for a continuation of the story, then Shenmue 3 will scratch that 18-year itch. But if you’re looking for a good video game then I’ve got bad news for you.

The story picks up right where Shenmue 2 left off, with Ryo and Shenhua in Bailu village. From here, you must investigate the kidnapping of Shenhua’s father and seek out clues to his whereabouts. As with previous titles, the story advances at an utterly glacial pace thanks to its constant goal-post moving. It’s not so much that your princess is in another castle, and more that she’s been to about 400 castles on the way and left you a breadcrumb trail to follow.

This leads into the classic Shenmue experience of talking to random NPCs until you find the one who will advance the plot. This is where Shenmue 3 falls at the first hurdle. The series’ almost legendarily terrible voice acting has been supplanted with something much worse – merely below-average voice acting. Ryo and Shenhua’s returning voice actors are the worst, while the rest of the cast offer spirited attempts to save the material they’re working with. At least in previous titles the voice acting was entertainingly awful, here it’s just sub-par.

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But even the best voice actors in the world couldn’t save the atrocious dialogue in play. It’s a Japanese game, made by a small Japanese team, so you have to allow some leeway for imperfect translations and cultural differences, but, even so, the writing is shocking. Characters take forever to say nothing – there are entire conversations that could be condensed into a single sentence. Ryo himself is the worst culprit – 90% of his dialogue is just repeating what someone else just said back at them with a question mark on the end.

NPC: “The monks have trained here for centuries.”

Ryo: “Did you say centuries?”

NPC: “Yes, centuries.”

It’s just so bloody tedious and leads to a phenomenally slow pace as you trudge through endless streams of poorly written and woefully delivered dialogue. But that’s not even the worst thing about the dialogue. You see, every line of dialogue – every single line – takes place within a cutscene. So, if Ryo and Shenhua are walking down the path towards the village and someone needs to say something, you get warped into the cutscene dimension. Every. Single. Time. Did I mention that this game is 90% people talking? It’s infuriating.

When you’re not talking to NPCs and being pulled into the shadow realm, Shenmue 3’s other main draw is the combat. Ryo is often tasked with defeating thugs or sparring with kung fu masters to advance the plot. It’s a basic but functional combat system based on combos learned from skill books. You can input combos manually or cycle through moves to be automatically triggered by the R2 button, rendering the entire system pointless but making it more accessible. Fights usually come down to spamming the same combo at foes and hoping they aren’t blocking. You can also train at the dojo to increase Ryo’s health and to improve his damage output. 

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Training takes the form of incredibly basic mini games such as Horse Stance, which is basically a slow, easy, upside-down Flappy Bird. Incidentally, I tried doing Horse Stance in real life and managed about 10 seconds, so fair play to Ryo on some incredible thigh strength. Training can be a little tedious, but you get the sense that’s the point – you’re taking the slow path through the montage and when you’ve levelled up enough to beat whichever goon was giving you trouble, the victory will feel all the sweeter for your effort.

All the usual trappings that Shenmue made its name with are here too. The inexorable advance of time returns, and you’re often forced to wait until the next day to progress the story, which means heading home to bed. You also need to eat to keep your health up as it drains throughout the day, though Shenmue 3 takes the Skyrim approach to food and you’ll need to eat about 40 raw carrots before Ryo is sated. Your health is tied to your stamina too, so you can’t sprint if your health is too low – this can be rage-inducing when you get stuck hobbling your way to the nearest food stand to find a cabbage to scarf down so you can run home.

You’ll also need to pick up a part-time job if you’re going to be able to afford all those raw carrots. There are a variety of activities to choose from, from chopping wood to collecting herbs and fishing. All of these take the form of simple mini games which you’ll need to grind through if you want to buy new moves, food, and even pay your hotel fees later in the game. The iconic forklift driving job also makes a return in the second area in what is probably the highlight of Shenmue 3’s offerings. There’s just something bizarrely cathartic about moving boxes around a warehouse.

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Quick-time events are also scattered throughout your playthrough and they manage to be both infuriatingly difficult and stupidly easy all at once. Call me a crotchety old man with the reflexes of a dead sloth if you want, but I found it almost impossible to hit the QTEs in the brief window before they disappeared. But there’s no consequence for failing them, since the sequence immediately resets and the QTE prompts never change, so you just learn the sequence rather than reacting unless you have the reactions of the Karate Kid. To be fair to Shenmue 3, failing all its QTEs did provide some fantastic slapstick humour and seeing Ryo get beaned with a fire extinguisher gave me a laughing fit.

The story itself advances at an absolute snail’s pace – it took me over 20hrs to finish Shenmue 3 and maybe three things of note happened during that entire time. Every task is so circuitous, so drawn out and padded. You need to find something, so you ask around and someone directs you to someone else that knows about it. Repeat in a chain for another four or five people before you finally find the person who can help you. Also, half of the people in this chain won’t help until you do some tiresome task for them.

As a result of this excessive padding, Shenmue 3’s pacing is a shambles. At one point I had to rescue some dude who was being held hostage by a bunch of thugs, but since I couldn’t beat their leader, I had to learn a new technique from a martial arts master. Of course, the old grouch wouldn’t teach it to me until I did a bunch of nonsense for him to prove my worth. That’s fine, proving yourself to grumpy old masters is martial arts story 101. But the kidnapped dude who was ostensibly in mortal danger was stuck there for like a week in game time while I ran around catching chickens. 

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All of these issues, every single thing I’ve just moaned about, were present in the original Shenmue. The difference is that we forgave Shenmue its failings back then because it was an innovator. Shenmue broke new ground and laid the foundations for a lot of gaming’s current staples, so we didn’t mind that it had horrendous dialogue, shoddy voice acting, and a plot that went nowhere. Shenmue 3 is not an innovator; it wallows in nostalgia.

Shenmue 3 hasn’t advanced a single inch from the original game. And the truth is that this review is largely pointless: if you’re at all interested in Shenmue 3, it’s because you played the originals and, in that case, nostalgia will probably carry you through the way it carried me through. I’m glad I played it, I’m happy to see the story of Ryo Hazuki continue and I’ll probably play the planned Shenmue 4, 5 and 6 if series director Yu Suzuki gets his way. But Shenmue 3 is a bad video game and it’s important we recognise that. It’s OK to like bad things sometimes.

Should you buy Shenmue 3?

Shenmue 3 would have been well received in 2003, but we’re 18 years on from the last entry and Shenmue hasn’t budged an inch. If you weld your nostalgia goggles to your face, you’ll be able to slog through the story, but it really is a chore. Poor game design and a complete lack of innovation are the killers, but even the continuation of the story is a meagre offering thanks to ludicrous levels of padding.

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What is the Razer Basilisk Ultimate?

The Razer Basilisk Ultimate represents Razer’s newest flagship wireless mouse, ditching the ties for more electronic freedom.

With an RRP of £169.99, the latest addition to Razer’s family of mice is by no means cheap – and being designed to compete with the likes of the Logitech G502 means it has to pack a punch. So, does it deliver? Let’s find out.

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Razer Basilisk Ultimate design – Sleek form and premium feel

Like much of the competition, the Basilisk Ultimate is made predominately of plastic that’s nicely offset by patterned rubber grips occupying both sides of the mouse. Rest assured, it’s comfortable in-hand. There’s a premium feel to the overall construction of the Basilisk Ultimate, although that’s to be expected given the price.

There are a whole host of programmable buttons, 11 to be exact. These range from normal mouse buttons to two that sit atop the mouse to control the DPI level, from 800 to the dizzy heights of 20,000; this is the highest I’ve ever used. It smashes Logitech’s Hero sensor out of the park by a whole 4000.

Much like the Basilisk Ultimate’s smaller brother, the Basilisk X Hyperspeed, there’s no additional weights or side panels – which, in my opinion, are a must have in the modern market. Indeed, lower price competitors such as the Logitech G502 and models that are a third of the price such as the Alienware AW959 include these features, so it’s abnormal not to see them here.

The Basilisk Ultimate is also compatible with Razer’s micro-USB powered charging dock, but you’ll need to buy that separately. But considering the micro-USB port contained on the mouse itself, the role of the dock seems somewhat void.

Razer Basilisk Ultimate performance – Focus+ and Hyperspeed tech ensure latency isn’t an issue

When testing the Basilisk Ultimate, it was ultimately a case of seeing if Razer’s Focus+ sensor and Hyperspeed wireless technology works better than that of its competitors. We’re talking here in comparison to Logitech’s renowned Hero sensor and Lightspeed technology.

For day-to-day use, the sheer sensitivity of 20,000 DPI took some getting used to, although once accustomed to it, you can tune your movements to suit perfectly. You also have the ability to change the resistance of the scroll wheel, thanks to a small roller on the bottom of the mouse, which adds yet another element of customisation.

The Basilisk Ultimate’s sensor works on pretty much any surface including glass, which sets it apart from some of the competition. Indeed, it’s also plug-and-play, ensuring it’s painless to use and comes charged out of the box. Its battery life eclipses Logitech’s offerings, offering to up to 100 hours of gaming, without lighting.

The Basilisk Ultimate doesn’t make use of the typical 2.4GHz channel used by most devices and instead uses a 4GHz channel. This means there’s practically no interference from any other devices, making the connection when gaming utterly seamless.

The 20,000 DPI sensor proved rather fabulous, packing a significant punch when moving round corners and quickly spinning round to kill enemies in CS:GO. In addition, the optical switches under the main mouse buttons were also rather clicky, compared to some mushy ones I’ve used in the past.

It’s certainly a satisfying gaming experience when using the Basilisk Ultimate, and the Hyperspeed connection more than makes up for the lack of wires. In addition, the Focus+ sensor has to be one of the industry’s best.

Razer Basilisk Ultimate software and lighting – Glow-up gaming

As is always the case with Razer products, they have the ability to blow you away with lighting and software. I’d go as far to say this combination of Synapse 3 and the Basilisk Ultimate is the best on the market today.

The mouse’s backlighting, even on its own, looks fantastic. Featuring 14 different zones of backlighting makes it more vivid than ever before. Razer’s products certainly have the ability to catch your eye, thanks to crisp and clear lighting, smashing a lot of other competitors out of the water.

Within Synapse, there are 11 programmable buttons allowing you to customise until your heart’s content. From remapping to individual system commands to programming macros, Synapse does it all. Razer’s Hypershift function also unlocks a new layer, which only furthers this mouse’s programmability.

The backlighting options are fabulous, and the Chroma lighting engine is really what sets this mouse apart from the crowd. The typical presets of breathing or scrolling through a rainbow of colour are present, but the Basilisk Ultimate also features an audio visualiser, much like Logitech’s G502, which works rather well. It’s song dependent, but on Ringo Starr’s drum solo on The End from Abbey Road, it picks it up pretty much perfectly. That being said, even having the option for the visualiser is pretty quirky.

The Chroma system allows for connection to other devices such as the Phillips Hue home lights, meaning that you can build your RGB kingdom beyond your office or bedroom. The ability to tie the lighting with a whole host of other devices does seem like a cool idea.

Should I buy the Razer Basilisk Ultimate?

Razer’s newest wireless mouse packs a punch, delivering a lot of blows to the opposition. With its 20,000 DPI sensor and latency-free connection, it works an absolute charm; I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. However, with such a hefty price, this is only a worthwhile purchase for serious PC gamers

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The Samsung Galaxy Fold has had a tough year. Issues with the foldable screen marred the launch and it wasn’t until six months after its glitzy unveiling, alongside the Galaxy S10, that you could actually walk into a store, lay down nearly £2000 and own the first commercially available foldable phone.

Ever since I first held the Fold many months ago I have been eager to properly use it. To see if that tiny outer display was a waste; to see if the obvious crease down the middle would be off-putting and just generally to understand whether the hype around these devices is worthy.

After a week of feeling very self-conscious about unfolding a £2000 piece of kit on a rammed London Underground Tube and feeling both impressed and disappointed in equal measure, I can see why foldables will, eventually, be the future. 

The Samsung Galaxy Fold, however, is clearly a first-gen product that just makes me more excited about what is going to come next.

Screen and Design – An impressive achievement, even with the issues

The Galaxy Fold suffered numerous issues when it first launched. Early US-based reviewers struggled with debris getting caught under the panel and some even peeled off the outer layer of the foldable panel mistakenly thinking it was a screen protector. Not a great start.

Fast-forward six months and the Fold I am using is actually different to that original device. Not enough for Samsung to call it the Galaxy Fold 2, but enough to make it feel slightly different to use. The screen now runs right under the bezel (you couldn’t even attempt to peel it off) and there are thicker caps at the top and bottom to try and avoid stuff getting caught under the panel.

These fixes, for me anyway, seem to have worked and during my time with Fold it hasn’t broken. Which is, of course, good news.

Look past those initial issues and it’s hard not to get a feeling of excitement when you unbox the Fold. The phone consists of two screens: an outer 4.6-inch (1680 x 720) and an inner display that folds out into a 7.3-inch (2152 x 1536) almost square screen. That outer screen immediately looks odd, as there’s a (very) hefty bezel around it. Why this display doesn’t run edge-to-edge seems like an obvious design flaw and one that’ll hopefully be addressed in the followup.

Due to its small size, I mainly found myself using this 4.6-inch screen to answer calls, check incoming notifications and the time. Beyond that, it’s simply too small. Trying to type an email on the dinky keyboard is an unhappy task and while you’ve got full access to Android and all your apps, you won’t really want to game or watch Netflix on it. To be honest, I think Samsung knows this, but there really needs to be more to this outer display than just being a glorified notification panel. 

It’s when you unfurl the Fold that the fun really starts. This turns an oddly-shaped phone (someone in the office said it resembled a landline phone) into an almost mini-tablet that you can slip in your pocket. Thanks to some clever software continuity, if you have a WhatsApp message open on the outer display and unfold the Fold it’ll show up instantly on the bigger screen. For the apps that support it, this is great, and even for the ones don’t it only requires the app to restart, and that just takes a couple of extra seconds.

The squared-off nature of the inner screen doesn’t immediately suit video – you’ll have hefty black bars on the top and bottom – but I still absolutely love watching YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video on this thing. Flip it open on the train and you’ve got a tiny tablet that doesn’t require you to delve into your bag to reach. Quality-wise the screen is good: It’s OLED (both panels here use Samsung’s Super AMOLED tech) so you’ve got inky blacks and vivid colours, supports HDR10+ and gets very bright.

The screen isn’t perfect though, and I think the limitations are more obvious because of how good it could be. The biggest irritant is that the screen is covered in plastic, rather the usual glass. This is obviously required for the whole folding thing to work, but it makes for a panel that’s overly reflective, has an almost dimpled look and gets greasy and fingerprint covered very quickly. I feel like I am wiping this display down every time I want to use it. Plastic is also less durable than glass, so even a strong press with the tip of your thumb could cause damage. You’ll need to really treat this display with care.

Another issue is the crease. Which, again, feels like something that’s going to be a problem with foldables for the next few years. You can clearly see the line down the middle of the screen where it folds and it’s a distraction – especially when you’re looking at it from an angle or in bright sun. It’s there, it’s annoying and it’s hard to get over. There’s also a notch on the right-hand side which houses two front cameras – again, getting in the way.

Even with all these issues, the idea of the Fold is fantastic. Having a large view of Google Maps in your hand is fantastic and it works well as an (admittedly wildly expensive) e-book reader. I was sold on the future of foldable after a few days of using the Fold.

Away from the screen the Fold remains a mixture of great and annoying. There’s absolutely no water-resistance rating, for example, and I felt like it was constantly babying the phone whenever there was a slight drizzle. For a phone in 2019 that feels backwards. It’s also heavy (263g) and very thick. It basically feels like two phones stacked on top of each other and that makes it hard to stuff into your pocket.

There’s plenty of good stuff, too. The side-mounted fingerprint sensor is fast (though I do wish it acted as the home button too) and the hinge mechanism feels like a work of art. It clamps firmly into place when the phone is shut and there’s a satisfying thud when it opens and clicks into place.

Software – Tweaks for the unique form-factor are mostly a success

Foldables as a category is brand-new, so there’s not yet a definitive software experience we expect to see. The tweaked One UI software – built upon Android 9 – used here feels like a mixture of Android’s tablet and phone interface, with some apps showing more than you’d normally see on a typical phone screen.

Of course, having a bigger canvas to play with means there’s more space to have multiple apps open at once. With the Fold you can have three: a main one and two almost secondary apps. These can be resized and all interacted with at the same time. There’s also a handy ‘dock’ that slides out from the sides to show other apps you can jump to.

Open an app on the outside screen and when you flip the phone open, that app (if it’s properly supported) will instantly jump to the bigger screen. It works in reverse too, though this is switched off by default but can be altered on a per-app basis. 

All these additions are nice, however the biggest issues come from something completely out of Samsung’s hands: app compatibility. Open Instagram on the folded out display and everything feels off. Nothing scales properly, some elements are too small and a single post takes up the entire screen. The same goes for other apps I use a lot, like The Athletic and Monzo. Others fare better, with BBC Sport, video apps like Netflix and Google Maps all displaying well.

Oddly, I’ve probably had the most issues with a lot of Google’s apps and it feels like they’re often defaulting to the tablet view but then having to squash everything onto the Fold’s screen. Both YouTube and Gmail suffer from this, with the latter sometimes displaying fine and other times not.

Performance and 5G – Loads of RAM and storage

Unlike European versions of the S10 and Note 10 series, the Galaxy Fold only has one chipset option: the Snapdragon 855. There’s no Exynos version of the Fold and for us living outside of the USA that’s good news – I have always felt Samsung’s own chipsets struggle with battery life when compared to Qualcomm’s.

There’s 12GB RAM too – that’s plenty and more than enough for keeping many apps open and using apps side-by-side – and an impressive 512GB storage. There’s no expandable card slot but given the ample internal space you won’t need it anyway. This is a stacked phone spec-wise and that’s hardly a surprise for the price-tag.

You’ll also find the 5G model is only available in the UK (a regular 4G LTE version is being sold elsewhere and was originally slated for the UK) which, again, makes sense for a phone that’s being touted as a slice of the future.

The Fold is, of course, a fast phone. It scores impressively in Geekbench 5, outperforming the OnePlus 7T Pro in both single and multi-core tests. There’s not much of a jump from the 855-toting S10 series though, which is to be expected as there’s no new chip here. Games play without a hitch and, if they’re probably optimised for the display like Asphalt 9, are especially fun to play on the larger screen.

The speakers are good too: punchy and loud. However, the positioning on the sides does mean they can easily get blocked by your hands when the phone is unfolded.

While the phone lacks a headphone jack, Samsung has included a pair of its truly-wireless Galaxy Buds in the box. This is a nice touch and they’re a decent set of earphones if you’re not fussed about any ANC skills. These buds can also charge themselves upon the Fold thanks to the nifty Wireless Powershare feature.

Camera – Six sensors, but not top-of-the-class

There’s pretty much a camera everywhere you look on the Samsung Galaxy Fold. A 10-megapixel sensor sits on the front (or the Cover, as Samsung calls it), there are two inside (10MP f/2.2 26mm and 8MP f/1.9 24mm) and another three on the back. 

These rear cameras mirror those on the Galaxy S10 and, while they take generally very good pictures, they’re comfortably below the standards set by the Pixel 4, iPhone 11 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro. I’d even say the £399 Pixel 3a takes better general pictures, even if it does lack the versatility of the Fold’s array.

The three rear cameras include a 12-megapixel main sensor with an aperture that’ll shift between f/1.5 and f/2.4, another 12-megapixel sensor for 2x zooming and a 16-megapixel ultra wide angle camera. It’s a versatile array that takes reliably good pictures in various situations with nice, typically saturated colours. Detail is strong to the point of looking slightly over-sharpened in some instances though, but is the look Samsung goes for and I know a lot of people really like it – and it does lead to very good Instagram pictures.

Where the Samsung Galaxy Fold’s main camera struggles, especially when compared to the Pixel 4 and iPhone 11, is dynamic range. The lightest and darkest points are often muddy and not as obvious as I would like. It comes out better with its ultra wide camera though, which consistently turns out sharper snaps than the iPhone 11. Of course the Pixel 4 lacks the ultra wide camera altogether.

You can take pictures with the Fold both open and closed. However, I didn’t particularly enjoy either option. Shooting with it closed is my preferred method as it doesn’t feel like you’re taking photos with a tablet, but it can be hard to get a proper view of what you’re shooting.

Where the folding nature does help is with selfies. The two internal sensors combine to snap really good pictures of yourself and the screen is big enough to get a great idea of what the final result will look like.

Video capture is impressive, with stable footage recorded and a versatile selection of shooting options.

Battery life – Far from a worry

I was originally very skeptical about the battery life here, even though the 4380mAh cell sounds sizable enough. There are those two screens to power, one of which is larger than other phones on the market

Thankfully during the two week review period I have been consistently impressed with the phone’s endurance. An hour of Netflix streaming on the larger display only took the battery down 9% and I was usually ending the day with 20-30% left. That would then get me through a decent portion of the next day before I would need to plug it in. In terms of the rudimentary screen-on time method, it got over six hours use on a few occasions.

This strong battery life is likely in part to my slightly different usage of the Fold when compared to other flagships. With the outer display showing notifications – and using less juice – you’re not always unfolding the display.

Wireless charging remains, as does the Wireless Powershare feature that enables you to place other Qi-enabled devices on the Fold’s back and juice them up. This is very handy for charging AirPods, for example, or a Galaxy Watch Active.

Related: Best phone

In the box there’s 15w fast charger which will take the Fold from 0-100% in roughly one hour and 50 minutes. I managed to get from 0-40% in 40 minutes. These aren’t the fastest speeds on the market and this is one area the Fold already feels somewhat outdated. I’d expect the Fold 2 to come with much faster charging.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Fold?

As much as the Galaxy Fold is a look at what the next wave of smartphones might be, at this stage it’s hard to recommend that anyone, aside from those who simply must have the first-gen of everything, actually spend nearly £2000 on it.

It’s impressive in a number of areas: great battery life, nice and productive software that actually makes some use of the bigger display and there are certain situations where having a tablet in smaller form-factor work. 

But overall, it just feels like something that needs a lot of work. It’s far too delicate, has too many issues with the plastic inner display and doesn’t have a class-leading camera.

I have loved using the Galaxy Fold, and for Samsung to release something as genuinely new and exciting as this at a time when the majority of phones all feel very samey deserves plenty of appreciation. This is clearly a very innovative product that shows Samsung is going to be at the forefront of mobile innovation as we enter the next decade.

Verdict

More of a foldable tablet than a foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold excels in some areas and disappoints in others. 

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The Oppo A9 2020 stands out among phones around £200 when you actually live with it, more than it does on paper. To accept its strengths you need to come to terms with one key weakness.

It has a 720p screen, and I usually expect to see a 1080p display at the price. However, the effect is less pronounced than I expected, and is offset by the size of the display. I’d rather watch a 15-minute YouTube video on the Oppo A9 2020 than a phone with a more advanced 5.5-inch screen.

Some of you may still be put off, and that’s fine when there are several very strong alternatives, but everyone can appreciate the Oppo A9 2020’s battery life, which is sensational. This alone makes it one of the lowest-maintenance phones I’ve used in the last five years.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this phone, even though there is a stack of little complaints to note. Read on to find out if one might really get on your nerves.

Related: Best phone 2019

Oppo A9 2020 Design

The Oppo A9 2020 is a lower-end cousin of the Oppo Reno 2Z. Both have large screens and curved rears, but this phone has a plastic back instead of a glass one.

This is an unfortunate trend around this price. A couple of years ago you had several great glassy options hovering around £200. But nowadays more Huawei, Honor and Motorola phones use plastic, to lower production costs and create a greater separation between cheap and mid-range models.

I’ve used the Oppo A9 2020 for a few weeks now, and the Reno 2 I tried earlier this year has been sat on my sofa at home. Every now and then I’ve picked it up, and it’s a reminder the A9 really doesn’t feel like a high-end phone.

The rear plastic doesn’t have the cool and hard touch of glass, and the phone itself seems less dense as a result. However, when not accidentally comparing the Oppo A9 2020 to its twice-the-price sibling, it’s not a major issue.

This phone looks good, with a blue-purple light reactive finish and the kind of scale you’d associate with a top-end phone. Its back has picked up a few nicks already, so you may want to use a case. Oppo includes one, but it’s not great. It handles the protection part just fine, but makes the side buttons feels spongy.

To clean up some of the Oppo A9 2020 build basics: this phone is not water resistant, and while it is mostly plastic, the side buttons are metal and have a satisfying click. This may sound like a minuscule point, but does help make it feel less cheap than some bottom-rung plastic phones.

Oppo also fits a screen protector in the factory. There are no bubbles, and no sign of it lifting off at the sides, several weeks in.

Do bear the Oppo A9 2020’s size in mind. This is fairly large phone. A big screen demands a bigger footprint and it’s relatively thick, as Oppo prioritised battery life over minimising thickness.

I’ve had zero issues with the size but don’t buy this if you’ve used and disliked large phones. Oppo has added a “one-handed” feature in the software, which lets you load favourite apps from the side of the screen with a thumb. But I find it fiddly rather than particularly useful.

The Oppo A9 2020’s hardware extras are solid. It has a fast rear fingerprint scanner rather than an in-screen one like the Reno phones and stereo speakers. These are better than I expected, with good volume, decent stereo projection and tone that holds up just fine even at maximum volume.

I used the Pixel 4XL before this phone, and there’s usually a huge drop in sound quality when switching “leagues” like this. However, the Oppo A9 2020 holds up just fine, but predictably has less bass and mid-range richness than some pricier phones.

Oppo A9 2020 Screen

The screen is the thorniest part of the Oppo A9 2020. It is the part that appears to let the phone down, with a relatively low-resolution 1600 x 720 pixel panel in what is a very large 6.5-inch screen.

We’d all prefer a 1080p screen here, just like many would prefer a glass back. But I am flat-out surprised by how little the image seems compromised, particularly as someone who complained about larger-screen 720p phones regularly half a decade ago.

These panels seem to have reached the point at which you can’t really see the pixel structure, despite the relatively low pixel density. One of the most grating signs of a lower pixels-per-inch is seeing a very fine black grid, the gaps between the sub-pixel clusters.

There’s none of that in the Oppo A9 2020, and Google’s scaling of fonts and other objects in screens like this is radically better than it used to be. As a professionally techie, I feel I should dislike this screen. But I simply don’t.

The text scaling quality does vary a bit by app, though. In the ColorOS UI and Chrome it’s excellent. Twitter’s is not as strong, and makes the lower pixel density more obvious.

Its generous size is also great for video streaming, particularly when you consider the majority of Android phones only stream Netflix at 720p anyway (and some are limited to 540p).

YouTube is better at exposing its limits. The Oppo A9 2020 doesn’t support HDR, and naturally cannot play videos at resolutions beyond 720p. Motorola’s Moto G8 Plus can, for a little more money, as can the slightly cheaper Xiaomi Redmi Note 7. That’s a phone of such ridiculously good value it’s almost unfair to the competition.

I’d give the Oppo A9 2020’s colour reproduction a solid “B” grade. There’s the slight undersaturation common to budget LCD screens, and fresh out of the box the colour temperature was too cool. You can change the temperature in Settings, but not the saturation. My guess is the default mode already makes use of the panel’s capabilities.

The screen also has a swooping notch, with less severe lines than the Moto G8 Plus or Xiaomi Remi Note 7. There’s no option to block it off, potentially because the notifications bar actually dips a handful of pixels below the notch itself. Or, to go with the Occam’s Razor approach, cheaper phones tend to have fewer tweaks like this and customisable colour modes.

Oppo A9 2020 Software

Oppo’s A9 2020 runs Android 9 with ColorOS 6.1 interface on top. Its square icons were the first thing I noticed when I started using Oppo phones regularly again, with the Oppo Reno 2 and Reno 2Z.

I wasn’t a fan and initially found the look stiff. You may be able to change this in outside the EU too, as some other territories’ versions have a “themes store” app. In the UK you just get five preinstalled themes that barely change anything but the wallpaper and the look of a few core app icons.

However, a few weeks in I’m perfectly happy living with ColorOS. You can choose the number of rows and columns of icons in both the app drawer and homescrens, handy for a large-screen phone. And the app drawer itself is optional.

It also has a one-handed feature, mentioned earlier, but I don’t find this particular useful. The Oppo A9 2020 adds a homescreen too, Smart Assistant. This is a page of widget-like panels, home to info like the weather, a calendar view and a pane of app shortcuts. I’ve only found it useful as a way to quickly check my step count for the day, but then I have never found any of these home screen feeds particularly desirable. You can turn Smart Assistant off if you like.

I can’t recall bumping into any ColorOS related bugs in my time with the Oppo A9 2020. This phone doesn’t have the best software in the Android universe, but at this point I’d pick ColorOS over the LG G8X ThinQ’s UI.

Oppo A9 2020 Performance

The Oppo A9 2020 has a Snapdragon 665 processor. It has eight cores. Four are Kryo 260 Gold cores, comparable to Cortex-A73s. The other four are Kryo 260 Silvers, similar to Cortex-A53s.

This is the same CPU used in the Moto G8 Plus. The rival Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 has the older Snapdragon 660, but it’s not the wholesale upgrade the model numbers suggest.

The Snapdragon 660 has better fast charge standard support (QuickCharge 4.0 vs 3.0) and in some tests its Adreno 512 graphics chipset seems to outperform the Oppo A9 2020’s Adreno 610. There’s little to separate the two in terms of what will affect you day-to-day. And that’s a win for the cheaper Redmi Note 7.

Games run exactly as I’d expect for a phone in this class. The Oppo A9 2020 can play anything, and supports the Vulkan API required for a few high-end titles. However, you will need to cut back the graphics a little in some to see smooth results.

ARK: Survival Evolved is too choppy at “Epic” graphics with the resolution slider maxed-out. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. If you want peak performance in games, look for one of the affordable phones with an 8-series Snapdragon CPU, like the Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro or the older Pocofone F1, again from Xiaomi.

This tells you a lot about Xiaomi’s strategy. Its expansion into the West is fuelled by high-spec, low price phones. Oppo’s approach is more measured.

Oppo A9 2020 Camera

Did we say measured? That doesn’t quite apply to the cameras. The Oppo A9 2020 has four rear cameras. Two of them are useful, two seem to be almost entirely useless based on my testing. It’s hard enough to even track down what Oppo seems to think the other two do.

These extra cams have 2-megapixel sensors and have a hand in background blurred Portrait images and black and white photography.

My main issue is you can use the B&W mode and the Portrait mode with both the 2-megapixel cameras covered, with no obvious hit to image quality or the subject extraction in portraits. At best these extra cameras may speed up these modes slightly, but their main role is clearly to bulk up the spec list and make the Oppo A9 2020 seem more advanced than it actually is.

I have the same issues with the Portrait mode as those I saw in the Reno 2. Its cut-out algorithms are excellent, better than the iPhone 11’s or Pixel 4’s, but it’s so picky about the distance between the phone and your subject the blurring simply doesn’t kick in a lot of the time.

It’s a shame a mode this solid should see so little use.

The B&W mode is also fluff. It’s simply one of the filters in the app that most people ignore, choosing instead to add such processing when they upload to Instagram.

This is not a good quad camera array. But the number of cameras in a phone has become the new depressing way phones compete with each other, often without much substance to back them up.

Thankfully, there’s a lot to like about the Oppo A9 2020’s two primary cameras. One offers a standard view, and reportedly uses the 48-megapixel Samsung GM1 sensor. It’s likely cheaper than the more popular Sony IMX586, but still has solid credentials including 1/2-inch sensor size and the usual pixel binning to create “virtual” 1.6 micron sensor pixels.

The Oppo A9 2020’s second camera is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide.

Let’s start with the good parts. The choice of two fields of view is always welcome, and it makes street photography more fun. You can also zoom in to 2x and 5x views, but as there’s no actual zoom camera only the 2x is worth using. 5x images look horrible.

Detail of the main camera’s images is very good for a £200-ish phone, shutter lag is a consistent and not-too-annoying (roughly) 1/3 of a second. And there’s solid dynamic range enhancement in virtually all of your photos when you use the Auto HDR mode, enabled as standard.

If you find your shots look dull, you can also turn on Dazzle Color. This offers the kind of poppy-looking effect the first waves of “AI photography” offered, completely with seriously hyped colour, but sometimes great British afternoons need drastic measures.

I’m most impressed by the Oppo A9 2020’s night mode. This uses the same kinds of techniques as today’s high-end phones, taking several seconds and several exposures to improve night images.

It takes seven seconds, which now seems uncomfortably long, but radically improves detail and clarity in very low-lit scenes. What looks like mush in Auto mode is reasonably sharp in Night mode. It’s one of the biggest leaps in straight detail I’ve seen in such a mode recently.

However, the Oppo A9 2020’s night mode images aren’t as detailed or clean as the Pixel 3A’s or Huawei Mate 30 Pro, but both of those are in different classes price-wise.

Ready for the gripes? Part of the review process involves looking through all the photos I take with a phone and seeing which ones I should include or analyse. Far too many of the pics I was drawn to were taken with the wide camera. Part of this is about composition. Wide shots tend to look more unusual, and therefore more interesting.

However, the Oppo A9 2020’s wide camera also takes warmer-looking images and, bizarrely, the Auto HDR mode lifts the shadows more than it does in the main camera.

You can tweak these parts in the edit, and the primary camera’s photos stand up to scrutiny much better. Wide shots in tricky conditions can look a little milky in the shadows, for example. However, it seems unusual the Oppo A9 2020’s secondary camera takes images with more immediate charm.

The Oppo A9 2020 camera also refuses to take a photo if you are touching another part of the screen. It can get seriously annoying if you’re holding the phone at an awkward angle and your palm ends up touching part of it. The shutter button just refuses to fire.

It’s best to think of the Oppo A9 2020 as a dual rear camera phone, as the other two do not appear to add much at all. However, I’m still very happy with the performance here. This is a surprisingly flexible camera. Here are some photos taken with the phone:

 

Video is perhaps less impressive. You can shoot at up to 4K, 30 frames per seconds, but electronic stabilisation is only available at up to 1080p. This makes motion look much less shaky, and is a must if you take video doing anything but standing still.

The Oppo A9 2020’s front camera has a 16-megapixel sensor, a fairly good one too. It can capture a lot of fine detail in indoors lighting. And if there’s a bit too much detail for your tastes you can use Oppo’s “AI beautification”. This offers eight sliders that give you virtual plastic surgery. They might as well be called botox, rhinoplasty, chin chiselling, lipsuction and so on. But in bad lighting, we can all do with a bit of face smoothing.

Oppo A9 2020 Battery Life

The Oppo A9 2020 has terrific battery life. It’s easily my favourite part of the phone. And there’s a real difference between big battery 4000mAh phones and this one, which has a 5000mAh battery.

All those moments of battery anxiety that make you consider the battery level before you leave the house are gone. On many days I’m left with more than 50% by midnight. I’ve gone to bed with over 60% on a few occasions.

Not once have I had to give the phone a quick top-up, even on days when I’ve given in to distraction and ended up watching some YouTube on my phone when I should really have been working.

This is one of the longest-lasting phones I’ve used in years, and it easily eclipses all the £800-1000 models I’ve tried recently. Top-end phones have to prioritise design in a way Oppo hasn’t here. The difference is only a millimetre or so of thickness, but the Oppo A9 2020 shows what you can get when you give that up.

The phone is not particularly fast to charge, though. It takes three hours using the standard charger.

Should you buy the Oppo A9 2020?

The Oppo A9 2020 is not the most impressive phone around on paper. It has a 720p screen and costs more than the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, which has a 1080p display.

Only two of its four rear cameras are useful too, but two solid cameras at £220 isn’t bad.

There’s a good chance you’ll fall in love with the Oppo A9 2020’s battery life, though. I did. In a few days I’m going to have to switch to a phone that won’t last nearly as long.

Reviewing phones, you rarely end up missing them after they’re gone. But I’ll miss the Oppo A9 2020, primarily for its ultra-marathon style battery life, but also its solid speakers and large, surprisingly decent-looking screen.

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