A holiday is a great time to start getting more creative with your photography, and the good news is that you don't need a bulky DSLR and a bag of lenses to do so – your smartphone is the perfect holiday snaps partner. 

We don't suggest that you walk around with your eyes glued to the camera app, but proactive photography can make you appreciate a location's sights much more than just a stroll around them would. 

The Grand Canyon, Paris and Agra's Taj Mahal are all favorites for Instagram-ready pics – but what about the best spots in the UK?

Below we've listed some of the kinds of locations that are enduringly popular with photographers, and some specific UK examples, with tips on how you can use your phone's camera to do them justice.

The big city

The obvious UK choice for street photo opportunities is a big city somewhere with the most famous sights, and the most things to do. 

A city is a great place to squeeze the most out of a multi-camera phone, particularly if it has a wide-angle lens, as the Mate 20 Pro and LG V40 do. The lines of tall buildings show off the geometric distortion of one of these 'larger than life' lenses, which can make buildings appear to loom over you in photos.

A 2x or 3x zoom lens is also perfect for avoiding the typical London shots that have been posted a thousand times on Instagram already. These lenses let you use non-typical framing, which you can turbo-charge by pointing your camera up or down rather than just looking for shots at eye level. 

Street photography with real people often results in the most memorable, most 'specific' images, though. You need a bit of confidence to start pointing your camera at total strangers, but if you can summon the courage, consider using your phone's manual mode to maintain a fairly fast shutter speed to keep their faces looking sharp. 

Top photo tip: When shooting in an urban environment, try a long exposure if you have a way to keep your camera still – you can turn passing people into ghostly blurs.

Travel tip: In London in particular, you can get great results by searching for examples of the juxtaposition of new and old – you'll find lots of examples of buildings that are hundreds of years old next to gleaming new ones. 

If you're visiting London you can save money on accommodation by settling on a spot just out of the center, such as Shepherd's Bush or Fulham. And if only a bargain will do, check out hotels in Croydon – it's 10 miles from central London, but fast train connections will get you to the sights in no time. 

Scenic cities

One of the great things about the UK is that the cities within it are varied in their style - venture further afield and you can get some really pretty places to get snapping.

For cloudy and stormy weather, make sure your phone's HDR mode is engaged – this avoids the whiter parts of clouds becoming blown out, and retains more detail in the moody dark parts. 

To get the most dramatic look from such images, you can then increase contrast in your phone's photo editor, or with an app like Snapseed – try to avoid letting any areas of cloud appear overexposed for pro-looking images.

If you find somewhere with a relatively large peak in the vicinity, you'll often see people walking up at the summit, looking like tiny stick figures, and this is a great opportunity to experiment with an effect called tilt-shift, where the image is blurred apart from, usually, a single horizontal band of sharpness. It makes grand nature and city scenes look almost toy-like.

If your phone's camera app doesn't have a tilt-shift option built in, you'll find it in a photo editor app like Pixlr.

Top photo tip: Make sure your phone camera's HDR mode is selected, otherwise you may end up with overexposed or dull images on those cloudy days.

Travel tip: Edinburgh is arguably the UK’s most scenic large city. It's dominated by the spectacular Edinburgh Castle, which towers 80 meters above the surrounding terrain, while just a short walk from the city center you'll find yourself surrounded by beautiful nature.

However, you can also experience about three seasons' worth of weather in half an hour in the city.

Just outside the center, Holyrood Park is home to Arthur’s Seat, a dramatic-looking mini mountain that offers a short, and not-too-sharp, climb, and from where you'll be treated to great views of the city. It’s an extinct volcano that last erupted 350 million years ago and perfect for the tip above.

Book in the right month and an Edinburgh stay will be fairly affordable, if you weigh up the options from Airbnb and a good hotel search site. However, prices rocket in August, the month of the Edinburgh festival.

Coastal scenes

A south-eastern coastal town offers the perfect combo of easy access by train and coach, reasonable hotel prices for much of the year and some fantastic nearby nature and scenery. 

This is a great opportunity to experiment with color, and to see how close your phone's own color reproduction is to what your own eyes see. On a bright, sunny day, a mid-range phone or higher should perform pretty well. 

Around sunset or sunrise is the real test, as phones tend to struggle to recreate the rich reds, orange and yellow tones present, in part because of their limited native dynamic range. Just as when shooting stormy or cloudy skies, the first step is to switch HDR on. 

This helps your phone's camera retain color information at the horizon, to avoid the brightest parts appearing too close to white. You can then try post-shoot editing your photos or videos while the scene is still in front of you, altering the color tone and saturation sliders in your phone's image editor to get the most realistic results.

Posting to Instagram? You may want to be a little less rigorous with the realism, and whack up the contrast and color further.  

Coastal locations also offer great opportunities to shoot a timelapse, if your camera has this mode – you can capture the setting sun sinking into the ocean on the horizon, or clouds moving dramatically over cliffs.

Top photo tip: A tilt-shift app can make your cliff photos look more dynamic.

Travel tip: Eastbourne is a perfect example of all the conditions above , and you’ll find basic rooms in the center of town for around £40 / $50 a night. If the weather’s nice you can then walk through Eastbourne and up along the coast, past the dramatic cliffs of Beachy Head and Seven Sisters. 

Natural wonders

One of the great things about the UK is that it's chock-full of ragged-yet-insipiring rock formations, natural wonders that cry out to be experimented on photographically.

They're a great place to experiment with black and white photography, as many are  naturally grey, and removing color puts the focus on the sharpness and crazy-looking natural geometry on show. 

There's always more than one way to shoot a scene, though, and are often a great opportunity to test out your phone's shallow depth of field capabilities. This mode may be called Portrait, Aperture or something similar, and is found in all but the cheapest new models. 

Find a spot where you can compose a scene where there's a clear foreground of the rocky towers, and a background of the sea lapping away behind. Select the rocks as your focal point and you'll be able to blur out the sea behind, bringing the rock into sharper relief. 

Top photo tip: Increasing sharpness in your images can highlight the natural granularity of stone.

Travel tip: The Giant’s Causeway, located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, is one of the most Instagrammable sites in the UK. 

It’s a natural phenomenon, but looks man-made, with thousands of hexagonal columns of rock linked together creating what looks like a gigantic art installation. It was formed as a 'lake' of exposed volcanic basalt cooled somewhere between 50 and 60 million years ago, and is just perfect for the above.

If you're traveling by bus, check what time the last one back to your hotel leaves, so that you don't end up sleeping on the stones and under the stars.

Amazing topography

If you’re looking for sprawling nature scenes rather than urban attractions, there are dozens and dozens to choose from. 

When shooting great vistas like this, you at the mercy of the light conditions, and some landscape photography enthusiasts will sit on a hill-top for hours waiting for sunlight to hit the right spot.

Let's assume, for now, that you won't want to go that far. Big, dramatic scenes like this are a good fit for dynamic framing of a scene. Remember panoramas? We were all obsessed with them briefly about six years ago, and now everyone seems to have forgotten the mode exists. It's still there, though. 

You can go further too. Download Google Cardboard and you can capture 360-degree images, which should appear seamless in a landscape scene like this. You can then let friends and family check out your holiday shots on a VR headset, rather than just posting to Instagram. 

Top photo tip: Use the rule of thirds to make your landscapes better. Split the vertical and horizontal into three zones, and compose so the points of interest sit where their borders cross.

Travel tip: For a great nature scene, Llandudno in Wales has an elevated experience of its own. A limestone headland known as the Great Orme sits above the town, and you can take a cable tramway up to the top. The views may not be as dramatic as those from Snowdon, but it's another great Instagram op, and the 20-minute tramway journey is a lot easier on the feet.

For the intrepid outdoors type, the northern tip of Snowdonia National Park is right on the edge of the town, with the foot of Mount Snowdon itself around an hour’s drive away. 

Hit the beach (yes, in the UK)

You might not think you can do amazing beach scenes in the UK, but it's totally possible. It’s all about finding the huge expanse of sand between the seafront and the sea, and this makes for dramatic-looking beach images – but you do need to get creative.

Compose your shot right and you can make a sea view look like a minimalist painting, with the sand, sea and sky as three distinct yet unified parts.

Alternatively, try shooting a black and white image across the waterfront, then increasing contrast post-shoot to add drama to the spray. Have someone you can use as a subject? Try using the reflectivity of the film of water ahead of the waves to capture a friend's refection, with their back facing the camera.

This is also an opportunity to experiment with color pop effects, if they're wearing any colorful clothing. 

Color pop desaturates an image aside from one tone, and while most camera apps don't have this option many editing apps do, including Snapseed.

Top photo tip: Experiment with color saturation and white balance to add punch to beach scenes.

Travel tip: It's one of the least likely-sounding Instagram hits, but Cleethorpes in north-eastern England is home to some of the UK’s most impressive beaches. 

If you’ve never even heard of Cleethorpes, let alone thought of visiting, you may be wondering why these beaches have such a reputation. 

Cleethorpes also offers a light railway, country park and boating lake – although if you’re not going there for the beach you’re probably doing it wrong. You can find decent hotel and guest house rooms in Cleethorpes from £35 / $45 a night, depending on the season. 

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Do you have Christmas present anxiety? Can you visualize the moment a loved one opens up your gift, their face sinking as they quietly say "do you even know me at all?" 

The dog lies down in the corner with a whimper. And you are sure it means "you've ruined Christmas again" in doggie dialect.

Let's avoid those Christmas nightmares with some solid gold present picks for anyone who owns and loves an Android phone or tablet.

There's more on offer than just silicone cases and screen protectors. They may do the job for a stocking filler, but we're on the hunt for something a little more exciting.

Here are our top 10 present ideas for Android fans.

Samsung Wireless Fast Charge Qi Pad

People sometimes get upset when a phone doesn't have wireless charging. But do all those people end up buying and using a wireless charger? We'd bet not.

Free your friends from nerdy hypocrisy with the Samsung Fast Charge Qi pad. It's made by Samsung, but you don't have to use it with a Samsung phone. Just make sure the phone in question definitely supports Qi.

It outputs up to 9W for faster charging. And while some no-brand makes do claim higher output, when you buy a Samsung product your loved one won't quietly think you bought it for peanuts on eBay.

Jam Heavy Metal

This bar speaker has been on our recommended list for affordable present ideas for a couple of years. But it's aluminium, sounds great and the price is low. 

Like just about every model in this class, it's a Bluetooth speaker, and will connect with any phone. Or you can use the aux input if your phone still has a headphone socket. At this price, you can't go wrong.

If you want something a bit newer, smaller and cheaper, consider the Anker SoundCore. It's a tiny (coat) pocket rocket with surprisingly deep bass, up to 15 hour battery life and an almost stocking-filler-style price.

OnePlus Bullets Wireless

There are many, many pairs of wireless earphones to consider. The OnePlus Bullets Wireless are a great all-rounder. 

They have fast charging, good sound and great comfort. They also work well as gym and running earphones, as they don't wobble about as you move.

We found battery life isn't quite up to the promised eight hours in real-world use if you like to crank up the volume. But these are otherwise top performers for the money. The earpieces also stick together magnetically. You can happily wear them around your neck when not listening.

Google Home Mini

Google got a lot of things right with the Home Mini. So right, in fact, the latest Amazon Echo Dot "borrowed" its basic styling, and improved its sound to compete.

It's a fabric-topped puck of smart speaker that is affordable, and doesn't look too much like a techy gadget. Google Home also has the smartest speech recognition of all the smart home systems. As such, it feels the most natural to use.

And, like any smart speaker, it can be used to control other connected equipment as well as a music control box, and general trivia and reminders machine.

Gamesir G4

We are beyond relieved Nintendo has managed to prove that there's life left in traditional portable-style games consoles, with the Switch. However, you can get a bit closer to the handheld console experience with your phone too. 

You just need a pad like the Gamesir G4. This is a Bluetooth gamepad for Android phones that has a flip-out holder to keep your phone in place. Neat, right?

Yes, not every Android game is better with a gamepad, but hundreds do work with one. Top picks include Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Dead Trigger 2, Minecraft PE and Asphalt 9. You can also use the Gamesir G4 with a PC, Gear VR or Oculus.

Anker PowerCore Speed 20000

Anker makes many great, keenly priced external batteries for your phone and tablet.

However, only a few offer support for QuickCharge 3.0, the tech that lets you get charging speeds similar to those of the power plug if you have a higher-end phone. The Anker PowerCore Speed 20000 does.

Capacity is huge too. 20,000mAh is more than six times that of the Samsung Galaxy S9’s own battery. You lose some of that power through heat and other inefficiencies, but you’ll still be able to charge most phones 5-6 times, and a tablet twice.

This battery is 166mm long: make sure that won't be too large. Anker offers plenty of smaller capacity alternatives if you’re after something easier to stash. 

Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT

If you have all the money in the world to spend on gifts, sure, you could buy the Sony WH-1000XM3. They are brilliant headphones with killer active noise cancellation.

However, if you'd like to split that spend in half, check out the Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT. This is the new wireless version of one of our favorite pairs of reasonably priced full-size cans, based on an original pair intended for DJs and studio engineers.

And that, folks, is why they sound so good. You get a massive sound stage and clear imaging, a clear step above most at the price.

Nanoleaf Rhythm

The Nanoleaf Rhythm is one of the coolest-looking pieces of smart home tech in existence. It's a modular smart light system that links up triangular LED panels to create an arty installation across your wall. Who needs canvases of people strolling across a beach in their living room?

Its app lets you choose color profiles, from chilled out scenes and serene ones to the smart light equivalent of a club. The Rhythm version also has an extra module that slots in, and lets the Nanoleaf panels react to any music played in the room. You get nine light panels with the starter kit, and can link up to 30.

If you want something a bit more "normal", to let a loved one dip their toe in smart home waters, consider a LIFX bulb. They are brighter than Philips Hue models, and don't need a hub.

Google Daydream View

WARNING: the Google Daydream View is a great way to make a boring Christmas day much less dull. But don't blame us if it's left gathering dust for much of the rest of the year.

This is the fate of many VR kit. And it's a shame, because there's absolutely loads of fun to be had with the Google Daydream View, the "official" Android VR headset. You put your phone in the front, and then use the controller to play games and interact with apps.

If your phone has a good screen, the experience isn't light years away from that of an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. And, well, it's much cheaper. Top experiences to try out include Netflix and YouTube VR, the BBC's charming The Turning Forest, Blade Runner: Revelations and multiplayer favorite Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

Google Play Voucher (and more)

Welcome to the land of boring Christmas gifts: vouchers and subscriptions. Yes, there are no jaw-dropping reveals here, but if your gift-ee is a bit of a mobile gaming nut, some store credit may be the best possible present.

Other good options include a voucher for Netflix or Spotify. Or perhaps one of the more left-field streaming choices. How about a MUBI subscription for the cineastes? There are only 30 films to stream at any one time on MUBI, but they’re all carefully curated and a new one is added each day.

Horror fans shouldn’t miss Shudder either. It's a Netflix-a-like just for scary movies, and deserves more attention.

Google's core apps are almost designed to be taken for granted by owners of Android smartphones – Gmail, Maps and Photos are always there, delivering some of the core functions we use our handsets for. 

But dig deeper into what these apps can do, rather than just using them on autopilot, and you'll discover a bunch of handy features you may never have known existed. 

So let's take a look at some of the Google app features you may not have used before – we're confident that a few of these will make it into your daily routine. 

The features below are designed for Android phones, but most of them are equally applicable to iPhone users - we'll highlight where that might not be the case.

Google Maps

How to cache map areas in Maps

Google Maps lets you save huge chunks of map data, and this can be very handy. A phone doesn’t need mobile data to track your location, as it can use satellite-based GPS – but without downloaded or 'streamed' maps, it’ll look like your location is being tracked on a blank page. 

If you have the storage capacity on your phone you can download a rectangle hundreds of miles wide, and even more in the north-south axis. However, just saving a few square miles that you navigate around regularly should make Google Maps feel seamless. 

To select an area to download, tap Offline Maps in the Google Maps menu, then Select Your Own Map. You’ll see a map that you can pinch and drag to fit the cached area window, along with how much storage space it'll take up.

How to use Street View on your phone

You can do a lot in Google Maps, but parts that Google doesn’t think you’ll want to use every day aren’t always the easiest to find. Street View is a good example. 

The app doesn't let you zoom into Street View when you're in Satellite view, as you can in a browser, but in any of the view modes you can tap and hold on a point on the map to bring up a red map marker, and you'll then see a thumbnail image at the bottom-left of the screen – tap on this and Street View will launch from that point on the map. 

Log where you park your car

There are whole apps dedicated to letting you log where you've parked your car, but Google Maps can do it for you too. 

Just tap on the blue dot that identifies your location and menu will pop up that lets you find nearby spots and share your location – and also save that spot as your car’s parking location. 

This logs it as a saved point on the map, making it really easy to find – you'll want to remember this tip next time you're visiting an out-of-town shopping mall or parking at an airport.

Gmail

Creating a signature

Many of us use signatures for our work email, but few of us do so for our own accounts. 

You can add you own with just a few taps, and this will only apply to emails sent from your phone. In Gmail, tap the three-line icon to open the menu, scroll down to Settings and then select the account you want to add a signature to. 

Scroll down the Settings screen and you’ll see the Mobile Signature option. This lets you type in a message that’ll appear at the bottom of your mails – it might be the perfect place to apologize in advance for any egregious autocorrect errors you your phone makes. 

Gestures

If you want to change how Gmail feels to use, you can customize its gestures. As standard, when you flick left or right on an email it gets archived. However, you can change this, and make left and right swipes do different things – your options are delete, mark as read, move to a folder, snooze or no action at all. 

This is one of the clearest ways to make the Gmail interface work smarter for you – although if this all seems like overkill then it probably means you’re a 'no action' kind of gesture user. 

You’ll find these controls in the General Settings sub-menu in Settings, under Swipe Actions, although this tip doesn't work with the iOS version of the app.

Shortcut search commands

Ready to get nerdy? Gmail offers a search feature that, we’d bet, 99% of people don't know about. But if you have an inbox crammed with 10-plus years of emails and you need to find one, or you want to have a clear-out, Gmail's 'search operators' are invaluable. 

These are codes that you type into the search bar, and here are some examples:

Size:0000000 – Change those zeroes to a number and Gmail looks for emails that are larger than that number, in bytes. So 1000000 will look for emails that are roughly larger than a megabyte. 

Older_than:1y – No surprises here: this command brings up all emails received more than a year ago. 

Has:attachment – This filters emails that include an attachment

Has:YouTube – Handy if you want to see emails that include a YouTube video 

If those don’t sound especially useful for your needs you can check out the full list of commands at the Google website.

Make your emails look more interesting

Start adding color and formatting to your emails and you quickly risk entering Comic Sans territory in terms of taste; however, if you’re emailing your friends, rather than your boss, maybe it doesn’t matter. 

You won’t see formatting options as standard when composing an email on your phone. To bring them up, long-press some text to select it and then select Format from the pop-up menu to bring up a bar of options. 

Among other things you can use italics, underline phrases, change font colors and add highlighting to text.

If you're using an iPhone, you're limited to only italics, bold and underlining - perhaps Google thinks iOS users don't have time for such frippery (or it was just too hard to implement).

Google Photos

How to free up space on your phone

If you've had your phone for any length of time, no end of storage will be taken up with photos of your kids, your lunch, and the occasional accidental snap of the inside of your pocket. 

Google Photos offers the best way to quickly free up a lot of storage space, short of deleting those 4GB games you only played once. 

In the Settings menu there’s an option called Free Up Space. This removes from your phone shots that have already been uploaded to Google servers, assuming that you've turned on photo backups. 

The one thing to note is that if you use Google’s free 'unlimited' online storage you’ll then permanently lose the photos at their original quality. To get around this you'll want to back up your favorite shots to your laptop or desktop computer, if you still have one. 

On a Windows computer, plug the phone into a USB port and enable USB file transfers in the phone’s drop-down menu – you can then drag and drop photos in Explorer as if your phone was a USB stick. The process is similar on a Mac, but you need to download the Android File Transfer app, available direct from Google. 

Using search

Search is perhaps the most sneakily powerful part of Photos, making full use of the clever software Google always has working behind the scenes. 

You can probably guess some of the kinds of searches you can make – type in a place name, for example, and Google Photos uses the geocaching tag on the image find suitable matches. Search for a particular month and, sure enough, photos from that month will show up.

However, you can also search for all kinds of objects, because Google automatically AI-scans your images as part of the process. Want pics of puppies, cheese, pizza, castles, rocks or faces? Just type in that term and Google Photos works its magic to find what you’re after. 

Settings images as your wallpaper

Google Photos lets you set your phone wallpaper right from the app (if you're not on an iPhone, that is), and many of you may have done so already; however, the whole point of this article is that we're not assuming everyone’s an Google whiz kid.

To set one of your photos as your wallpaper, find the image in the Photos app itself. Now tap the three-pip Settings menu button in the top-right of the screen and select Use As. 

This will bring up a sub-menu of options, such as setting it as a WhatsApp profile picture (if you have that app installed), as well as making it your Android wallpaper. 

Making your images more social-friendly

Google Photos Assistant offers many ways to tweak your photos before sharing them online – and the less capable your phone's camera, the more important editing becomes. 

There are two parts of this to explore. First, just open up a picture and select the button that looks like a column of sliders. This opens up the editing menu. Photos keeps this part simpler than most image-editing apps, with a just a row of presets and Light, Color and Pop sliders. 

For a natural look just apply the Auto preset, which adds a little more oomph to your shots without altering their character too much. 

All done? The next top pick is Collage, found in the Assistant tab. This fits multiple shots into a single image, for a fetching 'lifestyle' look. 

• For more app suggestions, check out our list of the best Android apps

Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Augmented reality (AR) is one of the newest and fastest-developing areas in smartphone tech – and, no, it’s not just about pointing your phone’s camera at products in the supermarket to find out whether they're cheaper online.

AR can be fun, and educational, too. It will let the little ones draw sculptures in 3D like a preschool Rodin, make Lego creations without you having to spend any money on sets, and learn about ancient Egypt. 

All you’ll need are either an iPhone of the 6S generation (2015) or newer, or a phone that runs Android 7.0 or newer. Got that sorted? Here are five AR apps you should try. 

Lego BrickHeadz Builder AR

Download: Android

Have you seen how expensive Lego sets are? Letting your kids loose on the AR alternative may only cement their love for these pricey colorful bricks, but it’s one way to stop them asking for a new real-life set right now. 

Lego has made a bunch of game-like apps that let you build creations brick-by-brick, and then bring them to life with animations and movement. BrickHeadz Builder AR is the most ambitious, as it transposes the process of making Lego creations onto the real world. 

This initially sounds incredibly fiddly, but your kids are eased into it, and it's a great demonstration of the fidelity of augmented reality hardware. 

If your children find it too tricky, you might want to install one of Lego’s non-AR apps. Lego Duplo Train is perfect for young children. Too simple? Juniors Create & Cruise is a little less simplistic, and Lego Creator Islands is another step up in the level of interaction. 

Civilisations AR

Download: iOS / Android

The traditionally tech-cautious BBC has already experimented with augmented reality, producing Civilisations AR. It turns your phone into a mini museum, letting you discover real-life exhibits by dropping them AR-style onto your kitchen table. 

Your kids can then explore them, using a virtual flashlight to highlight parts, and read more about them in the written guide. All of the exhibits are real-life objects, and Civilisations AR tells you the museum in which they're housed. 

Planning a visit to the British Museum during the school holidays or on a trip to the UK? Civilisations AR is a neat way to get them to engage before you even get there. This is probably an app only older children will enjoy, though, as while the text is easy to read, it hasn’t been watered down to suit a very young audience. 

Crayola Color Blaster

Download: iOS / Android

Had enough of our educational picks? Crayola Color Blaster (it's Color Blast AR at the App Store) is pure silly fun. It’s an augmented reality game in which you blast zombies and dragons with paint, and have to move around your home to avoid them. 

This isn’t a violent game, so it's perfect for kids, but you do lose paint bucket 'lives' if the waves of enemies catch up with you. 

There’s a story mode that teases the most entertainment out of a simple AR action style, and an arcade mode that does the trick for a quick five-minute splatter-fest. Both of these modes are free to play in Crayola Color Blaster.

Star Walk 2

Download: iOS / Android

The star map was one of the original uses for augmented reality. Google released its Sky Map astronomy chart in 2007, and a phone app version appeared not long after Android was born. 

You can still download and try that app on an Android phone – it’s called Sky Map. However, there are now much more advanced and visually appealing takes on the same idea, and Star Walk 2 is one of the best. 

Point your phone at the sky and you can use it to identify constellations, and zoom in to see information on planets and star clusters. 

The amount of information packed into Star Walk 2 when you dig a little deeper is sensational. The only issue is that the app is a little heavy-handed with ads; however the ad-free version is well worth the $2.99 (£2.99, AU$4.49) price if it sparks your kids’ imaginations.

Just a Line

Download: iOS / Android

This is an official Google AR app, and it’s brilliant. 

On paper, Just a Line sounds almost too simplistic: it lets you draw in AR, with a white line of one of three thicknesses. There’s no color, and no textures or brush styles. 

However, in practice it’s spellbinding. Just a Line doesn’t feel like drawing – it’s closer to creating a sculpture in 3D space, or virtual 3D printing, with the movement of your phone teasing out the line in all directions rather than just on a flat plane. You can then pan around your creation in seamless 3D.

Just a Line even lets you draw with another person in the same 3D environment, using another phone or tablet that supports ARCore, Google’s augmented reality standard. 

You can also record a video of your painting sculpture in action. This is most definitely not 'just a line'.

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

When you find yourself in a new city, whether it's on holiday with family or friends or on a work trip, the last thing you want is to buy dinner from 'that place the locals avoid because they all know the person who calls themselves a chef reheats prawns in the microwave'.

The good news is there’s a small army of free smartphone apps that will help you find the best eateries in any town, big or small. Whether you want a blow-out three-course meal, or just want to find the best on-the-go falafel wrap, there’s an app for the job. 

Our guide includes apps you may have heard of, and a few you probably won't have, offering user reviews, pro reviews and app-based table booking, and even speciality apps to help you track down the places vegans can eat without worrying if there’s meat in the noodle broth.

Dojo

Download: iOS / Android

There are curated food apps, and those that rely on user reviews. Dojo is a fully-curated app, and it doesn’t offer any random family restaurants, or bargain eateries. 

Dojo is about what’s hot, and what’s cool: the places where the people who wear trends that haven't even appeared in Vogue yet can be found. 

Don’t skip this one if you have an aversion to hipsters, though. Dojo offers some genuinely interesting and worthwhile food suggestions that would never bob to the surface in an app like TripAdvisor. 

It posts reviews of restaurants too, with write-ups just a couple of paragraphs long to keep things snappy.

Time Out

Download: iOS / Android

An institution when it comes to advice on great nights out, Time Out has been around for 50 years now. It covers major cities across the world, and publishes review scores by its own critics and customers. That’s people like us. 

Time Out lets you find new and interesting spots without feeling that you’re in danger of becoming a slave to the latest trends. You can also book tables from within the app. 

It's not just for restaurants and cafes, though – Time Out is also one of the best resources if you're looking for something to do before or after dining. 

HappyCow

Download: iOS / Android

HappyCow is dedicated to vegans out there who still struggle to find somewhere that actually serves good vegan food, not just pasta with tomato paste with non-vegetarian parmesan on top. 

HappyCow does have quite a ramshackle design, and a basic layout that won’t win any awards. However, the content is invaluable.

You can search for vegan and vegetarian restaurants, as well as those with veggie options, although if you’re after the latter you might as well use one of the bigger apps. 

The best part is how HappyCow has been embraced by the veggie and vegan community, so you’ll find plenty of user reviews for most locations – just because a restaurant is 'vegan' doesn’t mean it’s any good. 

Zomato

Download: iOS / Android

Formerly known as Urbanspoon, Zomato is the 'other' big restaurant-finder app, alongside TripAdvisor and Yelp. It’s the least popular of the three, although it has quite a following in India, where the main Zomato team is based. 

Should you use Yelp, Zomato or TripAdvisor? All have very large databases, and while Zomato has the smallest userbase, there’s still enough to fill most restaurant listings with reviews. 

Menus are where Zomato puts in extra effort. Yelp often offers a link to the restaurant’s menu webpage, but Zomato is chock full of actual photos of menus. This is handy for smaller places that may not have a website, or one that hasn't been updated in the last two years. 

Google Assistant

Many don’t think of this as an app at all, but Google Assistant is one of the best ways to find somewhere nearby to eat – if you have an Android phone, anyway. 

Just typing (or speaking) “pizza”, “Thai” or “curry” into the Assistant interface is enough to get you a whole bunch of nearby suggestions from the great Google database in the sky. 

Listings appear based roughly on the same criteria as TripAdvisor. A closer location and better user reviews will mean you’re more likely to see a restaurant appear. 

Google Assistant wins the prize for sheer quick-fix results. Right at the top you’ll see just a few suggestions rather than the endless lists Yelp and TripAdvisor offer. You’ll see similar results from searching in Chrome or Google Maps, mind – as ever with Google, they’re all linked. 

TripAdvisor

Download: iOS / Android

You probably already know about TripAdvisor. It collates millions of reviews of restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels and attractions from around the world. 

Even if you don’t trust totally user-based review systems, there’s fun to be had here reading about the terrible experiences some patrons have had. 

If you'll need to find nearby restaurants in another country while on holiday, don’t forget that you can download listings for many big cities, which saves you having to risk racking up high roaming charges.

To download a city, type its name into the app search bar and then scroll down its page. You have to flick through a lot of thumbnail images, but you should see a download link with an indication of how much room the city will take up – London, for example, is only 111MB without photos, which is a data bargain.

Yelp

Download: iOS / Android

The major alternative to TripAdvisor, Yelp focuses on locals looking for places to go rather than travelers. The core concept is the same, though, with Yelp powered by user reviews. 

These determine a restaurant’s rating, and written reviews let you look into whether there have been recent rodent sightings, or reports of the “worst service ever” – although a lot of places seem to have that, according to the app's users. 

A blog-style section makes Yelp feel a little different to TripAdvisor, though. There aren’t Time Out-style articles based on staff picks, but more fast-moving weekly rankings based on the recent reviews of 'Elite' Yelp-ers. 

Just Eat

Download: iOS / Android

This UK app is known for its delivery service – it’s perfect for finding local takeaways which don't have the money or time to create an inviting, professionally-made website. 

You can order for collection from Just Eat too – just select Collection instead of Delivery at checkout. You can even pay with cash, meaning you pay no money through Just Eat at all. This is an established company, though, so don’t shy away from paying with a card. 

Just Eat is a great app for lower-cost, classic takeaway meals, particularly curries, pizza, and Thai and Chinese food.

OpenTable

Download: iOS / Android

This is the premier app for booking tables at restaurants, because so many eateries actually use OpenTable’s system to manage their bookings. 

In TripAdvisor you might search for nearby pizza restaurants, but with OpenTable you can look for places with a table for four available at 7pm. Thanks to that tight integration with the establishment itself, you can often look through the whole menu as you browse too. 

This isn’t quite the best app to get the nitty-gritty on restaurants, though. There is a reviews section, but you don’t get to see 'candid' reviews of the food, as seen on TripAdvisor.

Still, if you want to organize an evening without having to worry about finding the restaurant of your choice fully booked, download OpenTable right away. 

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Planning to exercise is easy. Actually doing it can be trickier, as your good intentions collide with real life. But 10 minutes is more than enough time to cram in some cardio, whether you go for a run, try some yoga or just loosen up with some stretches.

And your phone can help you max out your use of time rather than just wasting it. Have 10 minutes to spare? Here are some ways to use that sliver of your day to slide in a workout that'll make you fitter – and maybe even happier.

All these apps are free to download, but some have 'premium' unlocks, and we'll tell you how much they cost.

Seven – 7 Minute Workout

There are many 7-minute workout apps, but Perigee’s Seven is perhaps the most polished. The concept of the 7-minute workout is simple: it only uses basic equipment that you’ll have around the house like (drum roll)… a chair. 

And, you guessed it, the workouts only take seven minutes. 

The obvious question: why seven minutes? This number was cemented as the most effective duration, for maximum results with the least effort. After all, seven minutes may not sound like a lot, but it feels like a lot longer when your heart rate is at 80% of its maximum rate. 

Exercises you’ll find in a 7-minute workout include crunches, squats and the side plank.

• Download Seven for iOS
• Download Seven for Android

Down Dog

Yoga can be intimidating. You often won't know how 'spiritual' a particular class will be, while if you’re completely new to yoga exercises then you may feel out of your depth – and yoga memberships can be pricey. 

Down Dog is a good way to easy yourself into yoga. It offers lessons in video form, complete with a soundtrack – and yes, you can mute the music if you just want to hear the instructions. 

The app lets you choose the length of your session, to the minute if you only have a short stretch to spare – seven minutes is the shortest session on offer. You can try Down Dog for free, and after that the best-value approach is to buy a year’s access. 

At the time of writing this costs $29.99 / £29.49 / AU$45.99. The trial version isn't packed with ads either, unlike many exercise apps.

• Download Down Dog for Android
• Download Down Dog for iOS

Nike Training Club

Nike’s training app covers a wide range of disciplines, from yoga and no-equipment core strength workouts to ones that require a near-full gym setup. Go to the Workouts section, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and you’ll find the 'Short Workouts' section. 

Many are still around the 15-20 mark, but there are a handful of sub-10 minute exercises too, including Run Ready Yoga, led by singer Ellie Goulding no less – several videos feature celebs, which you won’t find in many exercise apps. 

Nike Training is completely free – as ever, you pay with your data if you're not using it over Wi-fi, and Nike wants to keep its brand in the forefront of your mind when you’re in the market for some sports equipment. 

However, this is a brilliant freebie, particularly if you can squeeze in a 15-minute workout rather than a 10-minute one, which will enable you to choose from lots more options. 

• Download Nike+ Training Club for Android
• Download Nike+ Training Club for iOS

Google Fit – 10-minute run

A 10-minute daily run is one of the best ways to up your cardio game – and it’s a kind of exercise that won’t disturb the neighbors below if you live in a flat. 

Use Google Fit to GPS-track your run and you’ll get an accurate read on how far you make it – you should be able to reach a mile at a moderate pace if you’re not a running novice. 

Just bear in mind that you may want to tack on a few minutes of walking to warm-up, and stretching after you’re done is also a good idea, to avoid injury. If you want to try a non-Google tracker app, consider Strava, Runkeeper, Nike+ Run Club or Map My Run.

• Download Google Fit for Android

Stretching Exercises

Leap Fitness has made many health and fitness apps, from ovulation trackers and blue light filters to the 'six-pack in 30 days' challenge. However, its Stretching Exercises app is the one for quick everyday tone-ups. 

It’s easy to dismiss stretches as a sort of pre-exercise tool, but the ones you're taken through here incorporate yoga poses and crunches. They’re real mini-workouts, and all but the longer Back Stretching plan take less than 10 minutes. 

Try the morning and 'sleepy time stretching' plans and you should be able to work out some of those shoulder kinks – those exercises combined only take up 10 minutes. 

• Download Stretching Exercises for Android

Kettlebell

A kettlebell is the ultimate one-piece workout tool. They're the trendy alternative to dumbbells, with kettlebell exercises working a wider array of muscle groups than traditional weight maneuvers. 

The Kettlebell app lets you choose the length of your workout to the minute, and which muscle groups to include. An on-screen guide then shows you what to do at each step. 

This is a solid app to help improve your functional strength, for benefits you’re more likely to notice in your day-to-day life, rather than ones that are only apparent when you're striking a pose in front the mirror in your swimming costume.

You can use an ad-supported version of Kettlebell for free, while the premium version is just $2.99 / £2.89 / AU$4.49.

• Download Kettlebell for Android
• Download Kettlebell for iOS

HIIT & Cardio Workout by Fitify

This app is a simplified version of what’s on offer in the full Fitify, an expansive workout app that’s worth a try if you can find more than 10 minutes a day to spare. It’s also a sister app to Kettlebell, with roughly the same interface, and exercises designed for those without any equipment to hand. 

It’s great if you want to get your heart rate up in the 70-80% of max range quickly, and there’s also a category for joint-friendly exercises if your knees are a little dodgy. 

Like Kettlebell, you can use this app for free, or pay a small one-off fee for ad-free access. 

• Download HIIT & Cardio Workout for Android
• Download HIIT & Cardio Workout for iOS

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into almost every aspect of our lives. It’s our phones, while many of us have let it into our homes in the form of voice assistants in smart speakers.

Those are just the most visible implementations of AI, and over the coming years it will be increasingly used behind the scenes, in the cogs that will keep our increasingly smart cities running. 

However, it’s in imaging and photography that you get to see AI working its magic most clearly. Let's look at some of the best examples of this new technology actively enhancing photography. 

Thin AI camera

The most frequently marketed version of photographic AI today is in smartphones. Many new and recent models have AI-assisted features that use various kinds of scene and object recognition to enhance your photos. 

Different phone-makers have differing approaches and distinct features, though – with some interesting deviations in the approaches.

Huawei AI

Few companies shout as loud about AI in phones as Huawei – it's a top-billing bullet point if you're looking to buy a handset like the Huawei P20 Pro. 

There’s a separate AI shooting mode in the camera app that, in the Mate 20 Pro, can recognize 1,500 different scenes and situations. The processing then applies a color and contrast profile to suit, to make your images really pop.

An ultra-natural look is not the aim here. Huawei AI photography maxes-out color saturation for greater impact, not maximum fidelity. The results go down well on social media, though. 

Apple Portrait Lighting

Portrait Lighting is one of Apple’s AI-assisted photography features, and emulates the effect of various kinds of studio lighting. A few other phones, like the Huawei P20 Pro, have also had a crack at this concept, but Apple has delivered the best implementation to date. 

So why is it AI? Portrait Lighting involves creating a 3D depth map of the subject’s face, then applying a 3D filter to add lighting effects that follow the contours of their features, as if they were being lit by a studio lighting setup. 

Apple calls it a “studio in your pocket”. It won’t replace a studio, of course, but the results can be surprisingly effective.

Google Lens

Google is the most prolific developer of AI technologies, and several of the camera modes on its phones flirt with AI-like processing. 

The Pixel 3's Top Shot, for example, is a burst mode that captures a series of images and then chooses the ones it thinks are the best. Photobooth does the same sort of thing, but for photos of you and your friends pulling faces. Or smiling. 

Google Lens is a more dynamic demo of AI, though. It’s a camera mode that taps into Google’s image and text recognition, putting them into a real-world context. You can point your phone at products, landmarks and even wallpaper patterns, and Lens will try to find them online and provide relevant information. 

Google Photos

There’s a more practical, and almost hidden use for the neural network that goes into Google’s image recognition – Google Photos, and in particular its search function. 

At the top of the Google Photos app you’ll now see a search bar. You can type objects or themes into it and Google’s AI algorithms kick in to find you relevant images. Try it out. 'Dogs', 'Christmas', and even 'cheese' will return relevant photos, if they're in your photo library. 

Photos also plays curator, choosing images to turn into animated GIFs, to enhance with filters and stitch into panoramas. All of this is based on an advanced kind of image recognition that is, in some circles, considered AI. 

Nvidia image restoration 

Some implementations of AI can feel ordinary almost instantly, but there are some applications in the works the feel genuinely futuristic. 

Nvidia’s image enhancement techniques are some of the most impressive real-world visual demonstrations of contextualized AI, and there are three ways in which it's implementing the tech that promise great things. 

The first is 'de-noising' of images. It uses a deep learning-based method for restoring image data obscured by noise, or even text. This is actually a pure, and very advanced, version of what phone cameras do when removing image noise from a photo. 

However, it’s informed by a neural network trained by exposure to masses of other images, which helps it to recognize patterns, and interpolate data missing from the source image. 

There’s a more dramatic demonstration of the power of Nvidia’s neural network too, in the form of AI in-painting. In the demo, parts of a source image are removed and re-drawn, the missing information interpolated through, again, the image-trained neural network. 

Finally, Nvidia can turn 30fps or 60fps video into slow-mo 480fps footage, 16 times slower than standard. As with the in-painting technique, AI is used to create image data that's simply not there in the source footage.

TVs actually have comparable interpolated frame modes. However, Nvidia's AI can handle, for example, the flow of fabric much better, for more natural-looking results. 

Iconem

Current AI is largely a lot of small, not hugely 'intelligent', calculations that, when applied on a large scale, produce amazing results

This description is certainly true of Iconem too, a heritage startup that uses Microsoft-developed AI. 

Iconem’s goal is to record images of important historical sites under threat from war, erosion or other kinds of damage, creating a life-like record of their current state. 

The AI’s job here is to map tens of thousands of photos onto a scanned 3D model of a heritage site, using drones to capture the required images. Iconem visits sites that are difficult to access or dangerous, such as the Great Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo in war-torn Syria.

You can see some of Iconem’s scans in action on YouTube, and its scans of Aleppo have been made into an app, available from Google Play. 

Google BigGAN

You may know Google for its search engine and Android mobile operating system, but it's also developing mountains of innovative new technologies through its Labs programs and offshoots.

DeepMind is Google parent company Alphabet’s AI division, and BigGAN is one of its latest projects – devised by an intern, no less. This is a piece of AI software that generates images using algorithms. 

First, an image is generated algorithmically from a random number. The image is then compared to a 'real' image to analyze how close it is. A new version of the image is then created, in an attempt to make its characteristics closer to that real-world reference. 

You can check out some of BigGAN’s results online. It can create some amazingly realistic natural textures, such as grass and tree lines. However, BigGAN-generated human faces still look like the stuff of Francis Bacon’s nightmares. 

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Call it a portrait mode, bokeh mode or background blur: almost every big-name smartphone has a camera feature that blurs out the background of your images. It makes portraits pop and nature images look arty, and can even make photos of everyday objects seem larger than life.

But how does it work?

These modes emulate the effects you can get with a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In these cameras, the two main factors that dictate the strength of the blur effect are the size of the sensor and the size of the aperture, or lens opening.

The latest phones, like the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Pixel 3 XL, have incredible cameras that can produce great shots in almost all conditions. 

Even these have far smaller sensors than full-sized cameras though, which limits their ability to blur backgrounds in images, so that’s why they need a little help.

The two lens effect

Most phone cameras with a blur mode use two rear cameras to create the effect, and the idea behind this is simple.

The two cameras see depth as our eyes do. The two lenses are slightly offset, which gives them a different view of the world, a different perspective. The closer an object, the greater the disparity in their position and appearance to the two 'eyeballs'. 

This difference is then analyzed by the phone’s processor, just as our brains process data from our eyes, to create a depth map of the scene.

You won’t see this as you shoot, but you can think of it as a rudimentary 3D model, or like a map where the terrain is represented as a series of contour rings. An algorithm then goes to work, blurring out the parts further away from your subject.

These algorithms have improved hugely since dual-lens cameras with blur modes started to appear on phones in 2014, with the HTC One M8 being the early front-runner.

You’ll now see convincing progressive blurring, with objects slightly behind or in front of your subject only a little out of focus, while those further away get the true 'bokeh' effect, taking on a lovely smooth blur – this is also known as a 'shallow depth of field'.

When used correctly, the term bokeh refers to the quality of the blur effect created by a camera lens. All sorts of adjectives can be attached, so you'll hear talk of beautiful bokeh, creamy bokeh and so on – and thankfully the best phones are starting to edge towards the bokeh effects of cameras.

If you want to talk about this to a friend and make it sound like you know your stuff, be sure to use the term 'crop factor'

Some phones, including the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note 9, also let you choose the level of the blur – this is the equivalent of adjusting the aperture on a camera lens, while the new iPhone range are capable of letting you do this once the snap is taken.

As yet only a few phones have had cameras with genuinely variable apertures – where the hole through which light is captured by the sensor can be made wider or narrower, including the Galaxy Note 9 and the Nokia N86 from 2009.

However, the idea on those phones is to narrow the aperture, to let it handle ultra-bright conditions better by letting in less light, rather than widen it, which creates more blur. 

Even the widest-aperture phones, like the f/1.5 Samsung Galaxy S9, only have the lens chops to capture natural-looking shallow depth of field blur close-up. 

If you want to talk about this to a friend and make it sound like you know your stuff, be sure to use the term 'crop factor'. 

This refers to the sensor size relative to the size of standard 35mm film, and is a solid indicator of both how well a camera can natively deal with low-light conditions without software aid, and how pronounced a blur effect you’ll see at a given f-stop rating, again without software.

These days, every type of smartphone shooting is enhanced by software, but you can appreciate just how clever the background blur effect of some phones is when you ask them to deal with small points of light. 

These aren’t just blurred – they bloom into artsy-looking balls of light. Get a few of these into your bokeh images, as in the shot above, and you’re onto a winner. 

This sort of light treatment demonstrates that phones like the iPhone XS don’t just emulate a lens, but the elements inside a lens. 

A camera lens is not a single piece of glass, but a whole series of them that direct light from the wider opening onto the smaller sensor. The arrangement, and quality, of these elements affects the character of the out-of-focus parts of an image. 

As you can see, software bokeh blurring is much more than just a simple Instagram-style filter. 

Tracing outlines

All phones with a background blur mode tend to struggle when dealing with scenes in which the subject’s outline is very complicated, though. Most phones have depth sensors of a lower resolution than the main camera, meaning the depth map created is somewhat rudimentary. 

And even with the best depth systems, you’ll often see a slightly rough outline where the in-focus subjects meet the blurred background. As the effect isn't optical, background blurring is always, to some extent, an informed guess which leads to the weird 'cut-out' edges you might sometimes see.

Other methods

There are other background blur methods that don’t rely on a dual-camera setup, which puts greater emphasis on this clever guesswork. Google's is the best implementation of a single-camera blur mode. 

This doesn’t just use object and outline recognition, though. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 rear cameras use their dual-pixel autofocus to work out which areas of an image are part of the subject, and which are further away. This is based on the principle of phase detection.

Each pixel in the phone’s camera sensor is made of two photodiodes, the elements that detect light. This lets each pixel separate light received from the left and right sides of the lens. 

When a pixel can tell whether the light it's capturing is in focus or not, it can tell whether that area of the image is part of the subject or not, and subsequently how far removed its is from the focal point.

Google also packs blurring into the Pixel 3’s front camera, though, and that doesn’t have dual-pixel AF.

Here we get the pure software effect, developed using a neural network designed to recognize people and pets. 

This is a pure version of the 'informed guesswork' mentioned earlier, and that it works about as well as the dual-camera version for portraits shows how clever Google’s software is. 

There’s another method too, one that has thankfully fallen out of favor. Some older single-camera phones with blur cycle through their lens’s focus range, capturing exposures throughout to analyze which parts of the image lose sharpness as the focal point retreats from your position. It's a lot slower than a good dual-camera setup, and the results are often not as good. 

• Some of the best phones for background blur effects: the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here.

Controlling a camera – even the one on your phone – like the professionals is easier than you think. Cut through the crust of intimidating terms and you can start using your camera's manual mode to get a degree of control over your shots you might have thought you'd need a high-end DSLR for. 

Give us just 10 minutes of your time and we can explain everything you need to know in order to sound, and shoot, like a pro. 

We’ll be looking at these terms through the lens, so to speak, of a phone camera. However, this is all foundational knowledge that applies to any kind of camera, even up to something  far more powerful like the Canon EOS R. 

Shutter speed

This is the most useful control for manual shooting. Shutter speed is the duration for which the camera's shutter is open, enabling light to hit the sensor; although, unlike cameras, phones don't actually have physical shutters these days – instead the sensor is simply activated for the required length of time. 

A shutter speed of, for example, 1/30 means the scene is recorded for one thirtieth of a second. Many phones let you stretch this out to an ultra-long 30 seconds, and cut it down to a fast 1/3200 of a second. 

The pros and cons of different shutter speeds are fairly simple to grasp. A very fast speed lets you shoot fast-moving objects without motion blur, but unless the shooting environment is very bright the camera will need to use a higher ISO to compensate for the limited amount of light the sensor receives. 

A very slow shutter speed means the sensor will receive more light – and on a bright day you’ll only be able to slow it down so much before the image will look too bright, or overexposed. This is where parts of the sensor are effectively 'maxed out' with light, turning the corresponding areas of the photo into blocks of white.

Slow shutter speed or long exposure photography is one of the best reasons to buy a phone tripod like the Gorillapod. Keep the phone still and you’ll be able to take very high-quality night images, or blur motion in a scene for creative effect – an exposure of several seconds turns cars into streaks of light, crowds into ghostly semi-transparent figures and moving water into a milky blur. 

No tripod? You can still get great results if your phone has OIS. This is optical image stabilization, with a tiny motor in the camera moving the lens to compensate for the 'shake' that can occur when you hand-hold your phone. 

Using OIS you can take exposures of up to half a second and still get sharp photos, as long as your hands aren't overly shaky.

Have a play with shutter speed to see how long you can make an exposure without causing blur, then take the phone out at night, and use this slowed-down exposure to see how much it improves your shots.

Don’t have OIS? Shutter speed control in your bare hands is much less useful, as slowing it down beyond 1/10 of a second will often cause blur. 

Aperture

The aperture value is the size of the opening that lets light into a camera lens, and onto the sensor, and it's one of the most important shooting settings when you use a DSLR or compact system camera. 

However, it doesn’t really come into play when you're taking photos with your phone, as all current phones bar some top Samsung models have fixed apertures, and the Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9 Plus and Galaxy Note 9 can only switch between two settings – f/1.5 and f/2.4.

A value like the S9’s f/1.5 is the f-stop rating. Divide the focal length of the lens by the f-stop rating and you get the width in millimeters of the lens opening. As the actual focal length of the S9 camera is 4.3mm, we can calculate the width at f/1.5 as 2.86mm, and that drops to 1.79mm when using the f/2.4 mode. 

So why, you may be wondering, is the Galaxy S9's lens described as 26mm? That's because its view of a scene is equivalent to that of a full-frame (or film) camera with a 26mm lens.

ISO

ISO is perhaps the most alien-sounding of all the basic camera settings. Fortunately, it's also often the one you have to worry about the least when taking photos. 

It refers to the sensitivity of a camera's imaging sensor to light. The higher the ISO value, the less light the sensor needs to create a well-exposed image. 

For photos that contain the least noise (that unsightly speckling you see in low-light shots) and the most detail, you want to keep the ISO as low as possible. Each camera has a 'base' ISO, which is the lowest sensitivity setting it can use. This is usually ISO50 or ISO100. 

Some photographers deliberately use high ISO settings to get a grungy, grainy look, for example in documentary images. However, thanks to the amount of processing applied to images taken with phone cameras, doing the same with your phone rarely produces good-looking results.

However, manually increasing ISO gives you more scope to use very fast shutter speeds when capturing fast action, or in very low light. ISO800 and above are considered high settings, and phones generally let you push the ISO up to around 2000-3200. 

Most of the time we recommend shooting with ISO set to Auto, as the correct setting to use is generally as low as possible, but high enough to render bright images at your chosen shutter speed. 

The exception is if the phone’s auto mode isn’t actually clever or flexible enough to make that decision, which you can tell if the preview image looks too bright or dark when ISO is set to Auto. 

White balance

Photography isn’t really about capturing images, but light instead. All light has a color 'temperature', which varies from cool blue hues to warm yellows, and this can manifest itself as a color 'cast', or tint, in your photos.

When you shoot in Auto mode, the camera compensates for color temperature by adjusting the white balance, which works on the principle that if the white tones in an image look truly white then the other colors will fall into line and look 'right'.

Auto settings don't always get it right though, and some phone manual modes enable you to select white balance presets for typical conditions, such as Cloudy, Daylight and so on.

On some cameras you'll see white balance represented by values on the Kelvin scale, a measure of temperature. Kelvin values such as 2700K are more warm, while those around 5000-7000K are cool, and look blue-ish.

Changing the white balance and color temperature can radically alter the character of a photo; however, by forcing the 'wrong' white balance you can come up with some interesting creative results.

Exposure compensation

Exposure compensation is such a useful control that many phones even pack it into their Auto modes. It’s expressed as an EV (exposure value), for example 0, -1 or +2, which is a measure of relative brightness. 

Adjusting exposure compensation is very handy if you find the image preview looks too dark, or too light. A camera's exposure metering is often a compromise to take account of both light and dark areas, so if the camera’s judgement doesn’t match your own, you can intervene.

If an image is too bright you can add 'negative' exposure compensation (minus values); if an image looks too bright you can add 'positive' exposure compensation (plus values). The camera will adjust the aperture or shutter speed accordingly to let in more or less light.

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you to make more of your smartphone. You can learn more about the new Nokia 7.1 here, and you'll find more great advice on getting the most from your phone here. 

Most of us use our phones far more often than our laptops – but where we used to obsess about laptop security, when it comes to our our Android handsets… not so much.

This is partly because many of the security basics have been patched away and firmed up. However, there are still ways to make sure your phone isn't compromised, along with all your passwords and sensitive data. 

So here are our top 10 security tips that will help you to enjoy a smooth, secure and worry-free experience on your Android phone. 

1. Consider using a password manager

Isn’t it strange that a disembodied, almost-conscious voice can control our homes, but we’re still using clunky old passwords to get into our devices? And many of us still use the same handful of simple but easy-to-remember passwords for multiple logins. This is bad.

A password manager like Lastpass is the solution. It 'hides' your passwords behind a master password, and this is the only one you actually need to remember. 

Password managers can usually also generate ultra-strong passwords, so you don’t have to put the effort in yourself. And once installed, these apps will auto-fill your logins. 

Some security experts say you should disable autofill on your phone and laptop, but the less we have to think about and interact with passwords the better, we say.

If you want some more variety in your choice, then apps like  Dashlane, 1Password and Enpass are a good alternative.

• Check out our list of the best password managers

2. Don't sideload apps

Flexibility is one of the attractions of Android over iOS. However, this flexibility also gives you the opportunity to do some serious damage to your phone, by way of side-loading. 

Android lets you install apps from their raw installer files, just as you might do on a Windows computer – this is side-loading. You can download 'apk' app files directly from your browser, or from a third-party app store like Getjar or SlideMe. 

This is dead handy for distributing work-in-progress apps, or ones that, for whatever reason, would not be allowed on Google Play. However, there’s no easy way to tell if the files have been infected with malware – so stick to Google Play unless you know the origins of those app files.

3. Don't use 1234 as your PIN

There are arguments for and against using a fingerprint scanner as your main security measure. It’s not as secure as a strong password or PIN, but you can’t beat the convenience of a fast scanner.

If you do use your phone's digit scanner, however, it's important that your back-up PIN isn't one that's easy for others to guess – 1111, 0000 or 1234 are not suitable passwords, and if you use them there’s really not much point having any security on your phone at all.

The same is true of 'pattern' unlocks: if it’s simple, it’s not good enough. Balancing complexity with ease of typing and memorability is the key here – as you end up using these logins all the time, you should find they work their way into your muscle memory pretty quickly. 

4. Don't send sensitive data over public Wi-Fi

If you live in a city, it’s pretty hard to avoid using public Wi-Fi – these networks are everywhere, and many of them are offered by the same handful of providers. Most security experts advise treating public Wi-Fi with suspicion, if not avoiding it altogether.

Several different kinds of attack can mean that data stored on your phone, and information you type into in, falls into the hands of an opportunist hacker – and you really don’t have to be an IT genius to mount an attack. 

The best policy is to only browse sites with an 'https' URL, as this means they're secured. And never input your card details or use online banking while on public Wi-Fi – all bank websites may be secured, but that security will do nothing to prevent a so-called 'man in the middle' attack, where the hacker intercepts information being sent from your phone to a banking or other website.

5. Consider using a VPN

A VPN, or virtual private network, acts like an extra layer of protection for your browsing, as all your data is passed through an encrypted connection between your phone and the VPN provider’s servers. 

It sounds rather technical, but using a VPN is quite simple. Many of the most popular VPN services have Android apps, and you simply run these, choose the location of the server you want and then you’re away – your phone can 'pretend' it’s halfway across the world if you like. 

Top VPN services include Tunnelbear, NordVPN and ExpressVPN, among many others.

• Want to watch your home TV abroad? Stay safer online? Or just enjoy pretending to be in Thailand? Check our TechRadar's best VPNs

6. Check for security patches

The least fun kind of updates are often the most important. Brand-new features in a fresh version of Android are exciting, but it’s security updates that keep your phone safe. 

Google releases these once a month, and they tackle any new threats and vulnerabilities uncovered since the previous update. You can see the last time your phone received a security update by going to Settings > Security & Lock Screen > Security Update. 

If the date under this entry is from months ago, or even a year or more, your phone is not particularly safe. Unfortunately there’s no fix for this, as you can’t make your own security updates.

Frequency of security updates should be a consideration when you're buying a phone. Google Pixel phones such as the Google Pixel 3 get security updates first, and Android One phones guarantee at least three years of security updates. 

7. Update your apps

It’s not only your phone’s core software that needs regular updates – apps do as well. Even simple app updates can, on occasion, patch up security problems. 

To check for app updates, go to Google Play, select My Apps & Games, and then the Updates tab. 

Turn on Auto updates and you can avoid ending up with an old, potentially vulnerable, version of one of your favorite apps. You’ll find the Auto update option in Settings > Auto-update Apps. 

8. Turn on 2-step verification

The best way to avoid your Google account being hijacked is to use two-step verification. When you enable this a code will be sent to your phone whenever you try to log in to your Google account on another device.

It may sound like an inconvenience – a pain even – but it dramatically improves your security. Even if your password is compromised, others still can’t get access to your information. 

You can sign up for Google’s free two-step verification feature at Google's dedicated website. Whenever you log in you can choose to be sent an SMS verification code, be called with the code, or use the Google app to confirm the login. 

9. Enable remote lock and wipe

It’s important to know where you stand when your phone is lost or stolen. Android actually gives you some fantastic controls if your phone goes missing. 

A Find My Phone dashboard enables you to play an alert sound through the phone's speaker, remotely wipe the entire phone, or sign out of your accounts and lock the handset. This may not help you get your phone back, but it does let you rest easier about the threat of having your identity stolen.

To make sure you can access these controls, turn on Location access on your phone, found in Security & Lock Screen, and enable Find My Phone in the same menu. 

10. Be careful about following links in SMS messages

We know many people who are relatively savvy in most areas of life, but who have fallen foul of SMS scams. Classic examples include texts that purport to be from your bank, and ask you to log in to your account, and the WhatsApp scam, which asks you to pay a small sum in order to continue using the service, and then promptly nicks your card details.

The best way to deal with these scams isn't a security option on your phone or a piece of software – you simply need to use common sense, and be very suspicious of any unsolicited messages you receive. 

However, certain security apps will scan your texts for ones that look like phishing scams, including Kaspersky Internet Security.

• Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you to make more of your smartphone – learn more here

There’s a holiday nightmare worse than finding strange marks on the hotel bedspread or something... odd in the swimming pool: returning home to a phone bill that costs more than not just the holiday, but your first car and iPhone XS too. 

If you are going on holiday in the EU, you have no worries. EU directives put a stop to sky high roaming charges in 2017 (Brexit may change all that, but hasn’t done so yet). 

Head further across the globe, though, and getting tooled-up on some roaming knowledge is essential. How much do networks charge for roaming across the world, and which gets you the best deal? Let’s find out.  

Three

Three has perhaps the simplest approach to roaming, one that makes mobile phone use while travelling completely painless. As long as you go to a Go Roam location anyway. 

There are 71 Go Roam areas, mostly countries aside from the odd principality. Travel to one of these and you can use your usual contract data allowance just as you would at home.

Three only adds a couple of limitations. There’s a 15GB data use limit in contracts, and 12GB on PAYG. However, that’s an awful lot to use even over a month, so will only be an issue if you start streaming a lot of video. Go over that limit in Europe and you’ll pay 0.5p a megabyte. 

Texts are free to receive. Calls back to the UK or between the European Go Roam locations come out of your call allowance as usual. 

The real benefit of Three’s Go Roam is lots of locations outside of Europe are included, such as the USA, Australia and Brazil. You can check your next holiday destination for Go Roam coverage at the Three website.

The downside? In some countries, such as Japan, you have no option other than the sky-high roaming charges of old.  There it's £3 per megabyte of data, £2 per minute for calls.

Vodafone

Thanks to EU directives, you can now roam in the 48 European states without incurring any roaming charges. You just use your allowance as normal, and you won’t be stung with a huge bill at the end of the month. 

Outside of these countries, Vodafone offers a very comprehensive, but not hugely cheap, way to roam. It’s called Roam Further. This covers 104 destinations, and we can’t find a single remotely popular holiday destination not covered by either Europe or these Roam Further spots. 

When you use your phone in one of these locations, to send a text, make a call or access mobile internet, you’ll be charged £6 a day. This lets you use your standard UK allowance abroad, and lasts until 23:59pm that day. 

Use your phone every day over a two-week break and those £6 charges really add up. However, they are still nothing like the charges caused by £3-a-megabyte roaming. 

Those who recently signed up to a Red Entertainment plan from 15 August 2018 get an even better deal. Vodafone's “free” roaming is expanded to include 29 of the most popular Roam Further spots, including the USA and Canada. 

This brings it much closer to Three’s Go Roam deal, although you don’t get it on cheap or old contracts

All this only applies to contract users. If you’re a PAYG customer, you won’t pay more in Europe, but charges do change elsewhere. However, they tend to be far lower than Three’s. In most locations, including the USA, Japan and Canada, you’ll pay 12p a megabyte, 60p per minute for calls and 8p per text. 

O2

If you travel across the world, not just in Europe, O2 may not be the best network for you. As usual, there are no extra charges when in the EU. Your allowance is used as standard. 

For use in 27 other countries you can buy O2’s Travel bolt-on. Check them out at the O2 website. For £4.99 a day you get 120 minutes, 120 texts and uncapped data. However, speeds are throttled after 150MB of general use and 50MB of streamed video, so this bolt-on won’t be much use for Netflix streaming. 

If you forget to opt in for O2 Travel, or go over your allocations, though, the standard roaming rates get scary. Use standard rates in the USA, which is what you have to do if you’re a PAYG customer, and you’ll pay £7.20 for a megabyte of roamed data, or £2 per minute to receive or make calls.

An hour of streamed Netflix video that takes up 1GB data will cost £7200. A costly mistake. 

EE

EE sits between Vodafone and EE in its approach to roaming, and all the associated costs. You can roam for free in Europe. That’s a given, as we've seen above. 

However, with most contracts you have to buy a bolt-on to use data elsewhere. These do not tend to be comprehensive like Vodafone’s. 

In the USA, for example, there’s a £4.80 bundle for 500MB data that lasts 24 hours. For unlimited calls and texts it’s £6, again for the day. 

Costs ramp-up significantly in other countries. Head to Chad and you’ll pay £10 for 10MB data, or £10 for an hour of calls. Vodafone’s £6-a-day deals are a radically superior deal. However, you also avoid the kind of £6-7.20 per megabyte charges Three and O2 leave you with. 

GiffGaff

There are no bundles or bolt-ons with budget favourite GiffGaff, no special plans that offer amazing roaming rates. You simply head to the GiffGaff roaming page, type in the country you will visit, and it spits out the prices. 

The good news: data rates usually aren’t too bad for emergency use. In the USA, Japan, Canada and Australia you’ll pay 20p a megabyte. Streaming video at that rate is terrifying, but a quick email check won’t destroy your savings. 

Calls are very expensive in more exotic locales, though, with rates to make and receive calls at £1 a minute. 

The charges come from your top-up credit. If you usually just purchase a Goodybag each month, you’ll have to add some money before you head off. To check out your next holiday destination's charges, go to the GiffGaff website. 

Which is the best network for roaming?

There are two obvious winners here. Three offers the best free' roaming features. Go Roam comes with all monthly contracts, and even PAYG deals bar the totally free SIM option. 

However, in countries outside the generous 71-area Go Roam map, charges increase dramatically. If you have the life of a David Attenborough wannabe, flying across the globe every other week to countries way out of EasyJet’s usual remit, Vodafone is almost certainly the best choice. 

Not only does its Roam Further cover almost the entire world, standard roaming charges are far lower than those of the other networks.  

Brought to you in association with Nokia and Android One, helping you make more of your smartphone - learn more here! 

• Holiday plans sorted? Now check out the best phone deals

Android One is the feature to look for if you want a phone with Android designed exactly as Google intended, but don’t want to spend money on a Google Pixel 3. 

Android One is a version of the Android platform which uses a largely unmodified core interface, but with room to support a few little hardware extras. You could call it the best of both the so-called 'stock' and 'custom' approaches. 

As well as a cohesive approach to user interface design, Android One promises better performance thanks to well-optimized software, no superfluous apps and a longer period of software support too, with timely security updates. 

There are a few attractive Android One smartphones available right now, including the Nokia 7.1 and the Motorola One.

How long has Android One been around?

Android One was introduced in 2014. It was originally designed as a way to increase adoption of Android in developing countries where cheaper feature phones were still popular. 

The first wave of Android One phones was aimed squarely at the Indian market and designed to run on low-end hardware. For years there wasn’t even a sniff of such a phone being destined for the US or the UK. 

That has changed, though. Android One is no longer a platform for low-end phones. Android Go, introduced in 2017, takes up that role. 

Android One is now available on all kinds of phones, from entry-level models with just enough RAM to handle full-fat Android, to some of the more powerful devices. 

The key appeal is that it offers a clean look and feel, for people who like the software purity and timely updates of a Google Pixel, but either want to spend less, or prefer the hardware of another brand.

Which phones use Android One?

As of 2018, there are three main backers of Android One. HMD Global, using the Nokia name is by far the most prominent, with a whole range of phones that suit a variety of budgets.

The phones it has launched already include the Nokia 3.1, Nokia 7.1 Nokia 7 Plus and the Nokia 8 Sirocco, with more likely to follow.

More recently, Motorola unveiled the Motorola One, which pairs Android One with the company’s famously robust hardware designs.

Neither company were the first to release an Android One smartphone in Europe, though. The HTC U11 Life, a mid-range smartphone, came out towards the end of 2017, though the US got an Android One version of the Moto X4 marginally before then.

Three years of security updates, two of upgrades

Android One promises to be the most secure version of Android around, outside of the version on the Pixel at least. You get three years of security updates - which actually arrive in the month they’re released, not several months later as is so often the case with Android phones - which keeps you guarded against the latest software vulnerabilities. 

This is an extremely important, but often ignored, factor when purchasing a smartphone, particularly in a time when personal data is extremely valuable and constantly under attack.

You can see when your current Android phone was last inoculated against threats in the About Phone section of Settings, under the Android Security Patch Level field. If it was a year ago, that’s very bad indeed.

Current Android One phones are also released with the promise of up to two years’ worth of operating system updates. These often introduce a whole swathe of new features, meaning you don’t have to rush out and buy new hardware to get a fresh smartphone experience.

Quicker updates

Android One makes it easier for software updates to be released in a timely manner. While not necessarily on day one of release like Pixel devices, Android One phones should, in theory, receive updates quicker than alternatives, thanks to using a stock Android interface that requires little customization. 

Manufacturers still need to make sure new versions of Android One work with their own hardware and software, such as Motorola’s Active Display or HTC’s Edge Sense. However, there isn’t an entire interface worth of software to be tweaked and quality-assured.

What apps do Android One phones have?

Android One offers clean-looking software, although the odd manufacturer tweak or two is allowed. The Nokia 7.1, for example, has a custom camera app complete with the enhanced Pro mode. 

These extras are designed to be subtle and not interfere with the look and feel of the core interface. The rest of the app roster is made up of Google’s app suite.

All of these core apps are built using Google’s Material Design style, introduced in 2014 with Android 5.0. You get a pleasant, consistent look across almost all the apps in an Android One phone.

Android One vs. Pixel UI vs. Android Go

Want to dig a little deeper? Android One is a mostly-unadulterated version of Android, but it’s not the only one Google produces. 

There’s also Android Go, 'stock' Android and the Pixel UI seen in Pixel phones. All are native versions of Android, but there are slight differences between them. 

As of October 2018, only Pixel UI uses Android 9.0 as standard, which uses gesture controls to reach the multitasking app switching screen. It also places a universal search bar just above the dock.

Android One and 'stock' Android are very similar. You see some slight differences in the design of the soft keys and the transparency level of the apps menu, but to most eyes they are virtually the same. 

The version intended for low-power phones, Android Go, ships with cut-down versions of core Google apps, including YouTube, Maps, Assistant and Files. These take up much less space and are designed to work better with limited system RAM.

Android Go works just fine with 512MB of RAM, just a quarter of what normal Android needs to run acceptably.  

If your budget stretches to an Android One phone, we recommend the upgrade. If you want to try Go versions of Google suite apps, you can simply download them from the Play Store.

• Android 9 Pie vs Android 8 Oreo: what's new and what's changed?

Technology is a wonderful thing. But sometimes, particularly in the case of young children, it pays to keep an eye on how much influence that technology has on their lives. 

Recent research suggests the need for a better balance of screen time, which is why many companies, including heavy hitters Apple and Google, have introduced numerous ways to monitor how much time you or your loved ones are spending on smartphones.

Google’s solution is Family Link, which gives you great insights into how your children are using their devices and potentially the content they see on them too. 

At a basic level, Family Link offers usage controls similar to those that Google added to Android in Android 9.0 Pie. You can set a 'bedtime', limit the time per day spent on the phone, and remotely lock devices when it’s time to take a break.

If you’re a parent with young kids that use Android phones or tablets, we recommend giving Family Link a go, especially if you’ve struggled with managing multiple family devices in the past.

How to use Android Family Link

There are two sides to Family Link: an app for the parents’ devices and another for the kids’. You can’t miss them on Google Play: they’re called Family Link for Parents and Family Link for Children & Teenagers.

Run the Link for Parents app and follow the setup wizard to create a virtual family structure in your Google account that you can later add your kids to.

First, they need Google accounts. An account is needed to sign into an Android phone or tablet anyway, but they can no longer piggy-back off your own login. Once this is set up, log them into the Children & Teenagers Family Link app on their device.

The big caveat is that Google Family Link can only exert control over accounts of children aged under 13 (or the applicable age of consent in your country). Once they reach that age, children are given agency over their own accounts. If they want to reject Family Link control, they can.

Google says setup the process doesn’t take more than 15 minutes, but it will likely take less if you’re tech-savvy. After that you can open Android Family Link and find out what your kids are up to. 

What does Family Link do?

Google Family Link offers lots of controls over your kids’ phones. Perhaps the most important, is that you can approve and block application installs from Google Play. If they try to download the PEGI 18-rated Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, for instance, you can put a stop to it.

There are two ways to do that. For the hands-off approach, you can simply view all the apps installed on the child’s phone and then block any you don’t want used. Google says the apps will be blocked within five minutes. If the kid is using the app or game at the time, they get a one-minute warning before they’re booted out. 

That delay has about an 11% chance of avoiding a tantrum.

However, this feature is also very useful for young kids that probably shouldn’t have access to baked-in Google apps like Chrome just yet.

The other approach is more hands-on. In your Google Account settings you can change app approvals so that every download needs to be signed off, including free app and game downloads and in-app purchases. When the kids try to initiate an install, you receive a notification, prompting you to either block or allow the action.

Advanced control

Android Family Link also shows you how much time your children are spending on their devices and in which apps. You can set a daily limit for screen-on time in an effort to create healthy digital habits before they enter the increasingly regimented school system.

Different time limits can be set for different days too, which is handy if you want to be a little more lenient during the weekend, for example. Once the allotted time has run out, the phone locks them out of apps, although they’re still be able to call you.

By setting a 'bedtime', you can also put a hard limit on how late into the night they use their phone. After this the phone locks so they can’t carry on using it. Again, they can still call you, which is handy for any sleepover emergencies.

Remote control

Family Link will probably largely be used for passive monitoring. However, you can also remotely lock the phone. Are they meant to be doing homework? Just head into the Google Family Link app to check they’re not browsing games on Google Play or scrolling through Instagram.

Family Link also functions as a safety tool, as you can use it to see the phone’s location. This uses the GPS of the phone and Google’s mapping technology to show you exactly where they are. You can spend serious money on dedicated kid trackers, which also tend to come with monthly costs, but here all the costs are included with your phone bill.

Long-term monitoring

Family Link radically improves how child- and family-friendly Android phones are. It may be tempting to be a little too heavy-handed, but it gives you the kind of control you might exert over, for example, a games console. You could even use access to new games as positive reinforcement for good behavior.

The parents’ Family Link app includes 'teacher recommended' educational apps and games and they can be remotely installed on your kids’ devices through Family Link. It also lets you monitor your child’s phone use over longer periods, with usage stats over the weeks and months.

Android Family Link requirements

One of the best parts of Family Link is that it doesn’t require the Android 9.0 software that introduced similar features as part of its digital wellbeing suite. 

You can use it with a surprisingly old phone. The parent’s phone, the one controlling the show, only needs Android 4.4 KitKat or newer. Google says the child’s one ideally needs to run Android 7.0 or newer, but that some with Android 5.0 or 6.0 software will also work.

• Read about the best phones for kids

Should software be clean, simple and stripped back? Or should it be feature-packed, so users aren’t left wanting? This is the tricky line Android phone makers have to tread. 

Google, which develops the Android operating system and licences it out to third-parties like Huawei, typically plays the conservative. Samsung Galaxy owners are often baffled when they hear a feature their phone had years ago has finally made it to Android proper. 

There’s a good reason for that. It’s taken a long time for Android to reach the level of cohesiveness required to make it a real alternative to Apple’s iOS in terms of slick performance. 

Google’s Material Design guidelines, which third-parties are encouraged to use, are designed so that each app has a consistent layout, look and feel. When the likes of Samsung break those guidelines, the user experience is affected (in Google's eyes).

It’s common for Android phones to be praised for the features they pack in, but critiqued for how they’re implemented. After all, there’s no point having those options if they’re too difficult to use. 

Inconsistent, bloated interfaces are the bane of many an Android user, which is why Google and partners like Nokia have been busy launching phones with Android One. 

Similar to the stock version of Android that Google uses on its Pixel devices, Android One promises to be both a streamlined, bloat free version of the operating system, as well the most secure thanks to regularly security updates. 

But do those benefits outweigh the loss of features and customisation that go hand-in-hand with custom interfaces? 

The best bits of Android 

Security updates for at least three years

Google releases monthly security updates for Android. If you have an older, non first-party Android phone, you probably don’t get them. 

Or at least, not on time, at any rate. Security updates on non-Pixel or Android One devices are often delayed by months as they roll through testing, which isn’t ideal at a time when taking care of personal data is a top priority.

Google’s “Project Treble” has gone some way towards streamlining security updates by separating the Android OS code from vendor specific (e.g Samsung) hardware code. 

This allows device manufacturers and networks (which still insist on adding in their own wacky apps to Android) to focus on updating their custom skins and OEM apps, rather than the underlying update code.

Project Treble has made updates smoother, but there’s still a layer of customisation and carrier approval to work though. Android One phones are much more like Pixel devices, marking a closer collaboration between Google and a phone-maker. 

There are no fancy skins or OEM apps to update, since Android One uses the stock Android interface. Device makers still need to update apps they’ve tweaked, but updates are much quicker to arrive.

Android One also one guarantees a certain level of security maintenance. “Monthly security updates [are] to be supported for at least three years after initial phone release,” according to Google, which is a vast improvement over many Android phones. 

Monthly security updates help protect your phone from the vulnerabilities that arise as hackers devise ever more intricate ways to steal your data. This doesn’t mean you can sideload any app you like and tap on weird links texted to you without risking malware, though.

Using Android One means you’re as secure as a Pixel phone, without having to pay the Pixel’s ever-increasing price tag.

Quick software updates

Similarly, Android One phones receive full OS updates in a more timely fashion. While not necessarily on day one of release like Pixel devices, Android One phones like the Nokia 7.1 and Motorola Moto One should, in theory, receive updates quicker than alternatives thanks to using a stock Android interface that requires little customisation. 

When a new version of Android arrives, manufacturers have to make it work with their customisations. In software development, when one thing changes, another thing usually breaks. 

Android One phones have largely stock software, although they are allowed slight tweaks that add to, rather than fundamentally change, the system. For example, a Moto One has Active Display, which makes a clock and notifications display pop up when you pick the phone up while in standby, as well as shortcut gestures.

Motorola needs to make sure these bits still work before sending any Android updates over the airwaves. Other brands that customise the interface, on the other hand, needs to test and tweak entire interfaces before releasing it. 

Ever had an Android update and found it made the phone worse? That’s what happens when this process is not thorough enough. 

(Almost) guaranteed performance

Some custom Android interfaces put extra strain on a phone’s processor and RAM, because they simply aren’t as well-optimised as stock Android. Ever noticed jittery scrolling even when using a powerful flagship phone? That’s poor software optimization at work. 

It gets worse with entry-level phones, which don’t have a great deal of processing power or memory to drive bloated custom interfaces. Since Google has 'baked in' much of the heavy lifting with Android One, theoretically you get a smooth, reliable experience, even with low-end hardware.

If you’re looking for an ultra-affordable phone, it’s also worth considering Android Go. This is a cut-down version of Android optimised for phones with extremely limited RAM and storage. 

A clean look and an intuitive experience

Android One is designed with cohesive look and feel that makes for a intuitive experience. Google doesn’t always get it right, of course, but compared to some of the more onerous user interfaces from brands like Huawei or Sony, it’s a vast improvement.

Google’s Material Design guidelines favour a clean, stark look with little in the way of superfluous visual flourishes. There are no conflicting design elements and no need to look through an app for a theme you like (Android One doesn’t even support themes by default. Wallpapers are the main way to alter the look to your liking).

Not used a stock Android phone before? Android One has an opaque apps page, arranged as a single vertical scroll. 

App icons are round and the overall look is very neutral. It’s friendly but not cutesy, making it almost impossible to be offended by the look of Android, though naturally such things are a matter of taste.

No bloat 

Android One phones don’t come with many unwanted preinstalled apps, commonly called bloatware. There are no installs from third-party developers like Amazon or Gameloft, which are often sneaked on as the app equivalent of an advert. 

However, extra apps aren’t banned entirely. The Nokia offers a custom camera app and “help” apps on the 7.1. The Motorola Moto One has its own camera app too, as well as a Moto app that lets you customise Motorola’s added features. 

You get the neat parts of manufacturer customisation, without the superfluous parts loaded on top. The rest is simply Google’s own app suite. 

At least two years of OS updates

Android One guarantees not just three years of security updates, but two years of operating system updates too. This effectively means that you get two major functionality upgrades from the point at which the phone was originally released. 

Notably, that time period is not from the time you purchase the phone, which is something to bear in mind if you’re seeking out a bargain towards the end of a phone’s shelf life.

Android One phones will get Android 9 Pie and whatever comes after that (best guesses on a postcard). 

Android naming convention suggests it’ll be something sweet beginning with Q: quince jam, quottab, quindim? It all gets a bit niche once when you have to start with a Q. 

Why might I want a Custom UI?

You usually get more customisation options

Custom interfaces offer lots of visual customisations. Android One only lets you alter wallpapers, and a few other minor elements. However, virtually every other custom UI is more flexible. 

Sony lets you disable (hide) apps that you don’t want to appear in the apps menu. Huawei lets you choose between a home screen-only look like iOS, or the more common Android home screen with an app drawer. 

Lots of custom UIs have themes platforms, too, for a one-tap reskins of the software. It's best to do your research on these though to make sure they're decent the whole way through, rather than just a fancy wallpaper.

There’s also currently no way to hide display notches in Android One, which is a common feature in custom UIs. LG even lets you choose different gradients for the notch drapes.

There are often additional features

Third-party interfaces are a way for manufacturers to separate their phones from rivals', which means adding additional features. Some of these are often experiments so you can get smart new ideas ahead of the widespread unveiling.

Custom UIs also inspire features that Google has integrated into Android, with split screen multitasking being a great example (Samsung’s Note range was one of the first to implement the feature). 

If you want clues as to what will be in Android’s future, look at what companies like Samsung are playing about with in their phones.

Samsung’s game center is an example of a software tweak that’s genuinely useful. It lets you block notifications and other disturbances while you play and record footage, which is pretty handy if you’re chasing a high score or want to try your luck as a mobile gaming YouTuber.

Not all pre-installed apps are bloatware

You may miss some extra apps if you migrate to Android One, since not all of them are bloatware.

Sony’s Remote Play is the obvious one to mention. It lets you stream games to your Sony Xperia XZ3 or XZ2 series phone from your PS3 or PS4. It’s a free feature. 

The console and phone simply have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. You can’t get Remote Play for Android One phones or any outside the Xperia family. 

The Samsung Galaxy S9 also offers DeX, which turns Galaxy phones into desktop PCs—complete with keyboard, mouse and multitasking support—when attached to an external display via DeX dock. 

Again, this kind of application is Samsung-specific. You don’t get something similar in Android One without installing a separate app that’s far less integrated. 

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You've probably seen it mentioned, but never really understood what you're seeing: HDR is a thing in your smartphone's camera, but it's coming to screens as well. 

It's also being bandied about on high-end TVs as well, so it's clearly a good thing... but what does that actually mean for you and the next phone you might buy?

What is HDR?

HDR stands for high dynamic range. You may have seen this term in your phone’s camera app, where it’s used to bring out more detail in a photo’s shadows. It also helps avoid overexposure, which turns parts of an image into blocks of white. 

High dynamic range movies and TV shows work slightly differently. HDR video widens the distance between the darkest parts of the image and the brightest. This increased contrast brings out the detail in both the dark and brights of the image, making for more cinematic video.

For the best results, HDR content requires a display with a high contrast ratio and a high peak brightness. The image is always constrained by how bright and dark a display actually appears.

HDR 10 Support

HDR content has its own formats: it’s not just a filter applied to normal footage. 

The HDR standard seen most often in mobiles today is HDR10. It’s also the most common in TVs. Because HDR10 is an open source format, there are no licensing fees attached to it, meaning device manufacturers can freely support it.

HDR10 supports content mastering up to 4000 nits (a measure of brightness), 10-bit colour and the REC.2020 colour gamut. 

If this all sounds like tech jargon, it simply means that HDR footage can be mastered with more colour and highlight more details to give a better quality picture.

HDR videos also come with attached metadata. This lets a screen, whether it’s a phone or TV, tailor that footage to suit the capabilities of that actual display. No consumer TV or phone can actually display the full depth of colour in the REC.2020 format HDR10 can use, for example, but it can get as close as it can with that info.

Some phones - like iPhone XS Max - also support Dolby Vision, a higher-spec HDR standard that accommodates even brighter screens that display 12-bit colour. It also has variable metadata, which means content creators can adjust how a movie interacts with a display on a scene-by-scene basis.

Where can I get HDR video?

Lots of your streaming apps already support HDR. YouTube is a good first stop. 

There are already numerous channels dedicated to HDR video, including The HDR Channel and Future Etc. A playlist posted by the YouTube Developers channel has also collated a series of pretty HDR clips to support the launch of HDR on YouTube.

To check if you’re watching an HDR clip, tap the three-pip icon in the YouTube app to bring up the settings menu, then the Quality menu item. This shows the resolution of the current stream, and is followed by “HDR” if it’s a high dynamic range clip. 

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video can also stream to compatible phones and TVs in HDR. 

Highly-regarded HDR movies and TV shows on Netflix include Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Black Mirror, Ozark and Ojka. On Amazon, check out Sneaky Pete, The Man in the High Castle, Batman vs. Superman and Inception. 

Netflix publishes a list of phones and tablets that currently support HDR streaming. 

What is Mobile HDR Premium?

If you’re on the hunt for a HDR-capable phone, you may encounter the term Mobile HDR Premium. This is a certification, promoted by the UHD Alliance, a body that works on behalf of tech, content and TV companies to promote things like HDR and 4K UHD.

Only a handful of Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S9 and S9+, have adopted this branding, and it’s no longer promoted on the Samsung website. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium can do the same but isn't the flagship phone from the brand. 

However, it effectively means the phone’s hardware is good enough to do justice to HDR content, indicative of a bright, high-contrast display.

You may also hear about the DisplayHDR standard (e.g. DisplayHDR 4000). This is currently being rolled out to PC monitors, indicating how adept they are at displaying HDR content (the higher the number the better the performance). 

It’s not a standard that’s not currently applicable to smartphones, but something to be aware of in case it’s ever picked up by manufacturers. 

SDR-to-HDR conversion

You don’t have to make do with official HDR streams to enjoy HDR. Phones are starting to use tech that upscales standard dynamic range (SDR) content to HDR in real time. 

The Nokia 7.1 is the first phone to reach the UK with it, which is impressive considering it’s £299 price tag.

The Nokia 7.1 uses a Pixelworks Iris PX8418 chipset, which converts SDR to HDR while using very little power. Pixelworks claims you see an up to 10x improvement in colour accuracy, while the conversion also boosts colour depth to make movies, TV and plain video clips look more engaging. 

This chipset also boosts dynamic contrast to 1,000,000:1 which should help HDR footage look even better on an LCD display, though how well it works in practice remains to be seen.

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