The Pixel 11 Pro XL is a full $250 off right now. The Pixel 11 Pro is $200 off.

These discounts are just shy of the ones we saw last week, but they are likely the best we’ll see until Black Friday hits.

At $250 off, you can get a Pixel 11 Pro XL with 256GB storage for $1,049. Also, Amazon is running a trade-in special that gets you up to $865 off – that includes a boosted $275 extra. That’s certainly worth exploring.

At $200 off, the Pixel 11 Pro would start at just $899, plus Amazon is running that same trade-in promo, although the top value tops out at $850 off. Again, look into that.

AMAZON DEAL LINKS:
PIXEL 11 PRO | PIXEL 11 PRO XL

• READ: Pixel 11 Pro & Pixel 11 Pro XL Review

PREVIOUS DEAL (October 6, 2026) – For Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, we saw the Pixel 11 Pro XL top out at $300 off and the Pixel 11 Pro hit $250 off.

VERIZON DEAL (September 28, 2026) – The best deal to date was through Verizon, where you could save up to $620 off the Pixel 11 Pro and $580 off the Pixel 11 Pro XL with almost no strings attached. All you had to do was buy the phone at full retail to receive that discount and sign-up for at least a month of the Simplicity plan.

Read the original post: What’s the Current Best Pixel 11 Pro Deal?

However, while OnePlus will keep updating their devices, they no longer want to provide OxygenOS and are switching everything over to ColorOS. For those not familiar, ColorOS is the software that ships on OPPO phones (and OnePlus in China), which is the parent company of OnePlus.

ColorOS is certainly different, but maybe not that different in the end. As the years progressed up until the end, OxygenOS slowly changed from the skin we knew it into something close to the heavy-handed skins often found in China, like ColorOS.

OnePlus ColorOS 17 and Android 17 update release date

Today, as a part of their ColorOS 17 and Android 17 reveal, OPPO (and OnePlus) announced when OnePlus device owners can expect the big update to come across and remove OxygenOS from them.

If you own a newer device like the OnePlus 15 or OnePlus 13, the switch is happening toward the end of this month. After that, the floodgates will open and a good majority of newish OnePlus devices will make the switch in November. The plan is for rollout to everything else to continue through December and Q1 of 2027.

We are still diving into the ColorOS 17 update news and all of the changes. We’ll have more on what you can expect here shortly.

Just know that the update is quite large. If you want to dive in yourself, you can find all of the details at OPPO’s site.

// OnePlus

Read the original post: Here’s When Your OnePlus Phone Gets Android 17 and Switches to ColorOS

The update to Google Play services is hitting devices as v26.40 and it includes changes to device connectivity, system management, and Wallet. The Google Play Store update brings it to v53.6 with changes to Ask Play, AI summaries in community posts, and more.

I wouldn’t call these major updates by any means. Google updates these two services multiple times per month on occasion, but they do still bring meaningful changes at times. For example, being able to scan receipts and then add those in Wallet is pretty cool. There’s also some sort of in-app message center being added to Wallet.

The full changelog for each update is below and you’ll want to take a look.

// Google

Read the original post: New Google Play Services Update Brings New Wallet Features, More

As always, the rollout of an update this large is staged and won’t hit all Phone (3) units today. The availability will also vary by region, but you might as well start looking for it in hopes that you are in the early rounds.

To update Nothing phones, head into Settings > System > System update.

What’s new in Nothing OS 5.0 and Android 17?

We put together a huge list of changes at this post. I encourage you to take your time and read through that. You could also just keep scrolling and find a pasted version of that same list below.

• Geist typeface: Nothing is introducing Geist as the new typeface for Nothing OS that they claim brings a clearer and more distinctive visual character. They are also refreshing icons, spacing, materials, and motion across several areas, bringing a big visual refresh.
• Faster and smoother: Nothing says it has improved the interactions that you repeat throughout a day to make everything feel faster. Things like app launches, scrolling, touch response, multitasking, and background app behavior are all quicker thanks to smarter system background management.
• Redesigned home screen: Nothing is bringing a new theme to Nothing OS 5.0 with transparent details across widgets and Search, adding depth and layering. Icons also have subtle colors tints now (based on wallpapers), as do widgets and the 1×1 Quick Settings. This new theme is coming with the general release of OS 5.0 and is in addition to the existing Nothing OS style, not a replacement.
• Easier home screen editing: Batch editing has come to the home screen, letting you move multiple items together to different screens.
• Away Time widget: This is a potentially useful new widget that tracks the periods of time that you put your phone down, showing you just how often you touch your damn phone in a day.
• Lock screen personalization: The lock screen is getting two new clocks called Gooey and Micrographics (above). Gooey is bold and playful, while Micrographics brings ever-changing information about your day in a compact layout. The lock screen also now offers color options from your wallpaper.
• Redesigned settings: In settings, we’re getting new icons, corner shapes, and more consistent layouts. Information is also grouped more clearly, so you can scan and navigate throughout more easily.
• Cleaner status bar: The status bar is getting some attention with custom-design system icons and more expressive animations. Look for these changes in icons for WiFi, battery, signal, etc.
• Camera updates: The visual refresh continues in the camera with updated icons and controls. Nothing is also adding easier to use QR code scanning.
• Glyph app: The Glyph Interface lighting system from Nothing finally has its own dedicated app to give you easier access to controls.
• Glyph Timer widget: Maybe even more useful, we have a Glyph Timer widget that can set Glyph Timers from a home screen.
• Faster Bluetooth controls: Nothing redesigned Bluetooth controls to make nearby devices easier to find and let you connect or disconnect with a single tap.
• Separate Notifications and Quick Settings: If you want, you can now separate the notification pulldown to dedicated panels for notifications and Quick Settings. I won’t do this, but feel free to!
• Live updates in status bar: Because this is Android 17, Nothing OS 5.0 will take advantage of Live Updates and show those ongoing notifications in the status bar.
• Noto 3D Emoji: The new Noto 3D emoji are here!
• Expanded Dark Theme: The dark theme can now be expanded on an app-by-app basis, another Android 17 feature they are taking advantage of.

// Nothing

Read the original post: Nothing OS 5.0 and Android 17 Arrive on Phone (3)

We initially gave you a Google Health comparison when it first launched in May, but this is a significant enough update that we wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Now that things like Health Guardian are in the equation, you might want to consider paying to get the more robust set of Google Health features.

Google Health Premium: Which features aren’t free?

When Google Health first launched, the “Base” or free set of features that you get had 4 items listed. Those were activity tracking, sleep tracking, health tracking (like heart rate, HRV, breathing rate, SpO2, etc.) and health and wellness logging. On the flip side, the “Premium” or paid Google Health features list was 7 items long. Today, Google has essentially given each list more items and made them look like they have similar sets.

Below, you’ll see that they have 9 items listed on each side of the Google Health features list. While it’s not all necessarily new stuff, the addition of Health Guardian on there is. They’ve also pointed out that leaderboards and progress sharing are here, as are cycle and symptom tracking.

On the Premium side, Google has noted the “Personalized daily guidance” feature that is guidance based off your sleep, activity, and wellness metrics. They also point out metabolic coaching, actionable medical records, cycle-aware coaching, advanced Health Guardian features as being new.

As you can see there, the free or “Base” Google Health experience is still quite good. You do not need to pay for Google Health Premium to get a lot of health and fitness tracking. The reason you would pay is for access to the personal health coach, the additional insights from your sleep and fitness, the personal guidance, and the new Health Guardian features.

The big difference here is the base level of tracking vs. Google utilizing the power of its AI to take that base level of tracking and give you more information that may be helpful. Some of it, like the advanced Health Guardian features, could be life-saving.

Google Health Premium still costs $9.99 per month. Google will often give you a multi-month free trial with purchase of new devices, like the new Fitbit Edge. If you subscribe to Google AI Pro plan, you also get it for free.

Have you subscribed to Google Health Premium? If so, have you found it to be worth it?

Sign-up for Google Health Premium

Read the original post: Google Health Premium vs. Free Features: List Gets a Big Update

Today, that fee increase has gone live, so on your next bill, assuming you don’t have one of those plans with fees baked into the price, you’ll pay more. How much more? At least $1.00 per line more.

New T-Mobile fee increase – October 2026

T-Mobile has a fee called the “Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee” that sounds like some official fee that is imposed by the government, but it is not that at all. Instead, it sounds super official, yet is simply a fee that T-Mobile takes to “help recover certain costs [they] have already incurred and continue to incur.”

This fee saw an increase from $3.49 to $3.99 in April 2025, another one in January 2026 from $3.99 to $4.49, and now this new one for October 2026. The new increase is $1.00 per line, which brings our total increases in 18 months to $2.00 per month for each line on your account.

In addition to the increase on your standard voice lines, if you have mobile internet lines, the fee is increasing there as well by $0.50 per line per month. The fee for mobile internet lines is jumping from $2.10 to $2.60.

Is there any way out of these fee increases? No. Again, if you have some older plan with fees baked into the cost, none of this affects you. However, T-Mobile removed that perk from their plans some time ago, so almost anyone remaining with T-Mobile on any plan introduced from April 2025 forward is impacted.

If you asked, “Why is my T-Mobile bill more expensive this month?” – now you know.

Read the original post: T-Mobile Bill is Increasing Because of Fees

There’s actually more to dive into than you are probably expecting, so let’s just get straight to it.

Upgraded automatic workout detection

Google has brought major improvements to automatic activity detection on Fitbit Air, Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, as well as the new Fitbit Edge. This upgrade should start rolling out later this month.

The improvements include an expansion of the number of activities your devices can detect from just 10 to more than 100. This includes strength training, swimming, and racket and team sports.

This upgraded automatic tracking will also use more contextual reasoning to give you 2x more accurate detections and cut missed workouts by more than half. As a Fitbit Air user from day 1, this is really great to hear, as it has been borderline horrible at automatic detection and often misses workouts.

Logs will start happening automatically too, as long as workouts meet your minimum duration threshold (15 minutes is the default). If you have a sustained heart rate that triggers a log, you should also get a summary sent to your mobile app within about 30 minutes.

And finally, the automatic detection will try to learn from your patterns. This could mean improvements based on you confirming or editing activities.

Health Guardian features on Fitbit Air

Google began rolling out its new suite of Health Guardian features to the Pixel Watch at the end of September and told us it would soon come to the Fitbit Air, as long as users were subscribed to Google Health Premium. That rollout will begin later this month.

Health Guardian, for those who missed the news, includes insulin resistance trends, blood pressure trends, sleep breathing quality trends, and breathing emergency detection.

New partners, like MyFitnessPal

To continue to make Google Health a robust fitness and health tracking platform, Google announced several new partnerships that will work with the app.

For MyFitnessPal users, you’ll be able to sync your nutrition (meal and nutrition logs) between MyFitnessPal and Google Health.

Google is also letting users connect cycle data with Flo Health, see glucose trends in one view with Abbott, and get lab insights with Function Health.

Metal Mesh band for Fitbit Air

Last, Google is introducing a Metal Mesh band for Fitbit Air that is made of stainless steel and comes in champagne gold or polished silver. It costs $69.99 on its own, plus you can now buy one that is paired with an Obsidian Fitbit Air for $149.99.

Read the original post: Google Health and Fitbit Air are Getting So Many Huge Upgrades

Google is pitching the new Fitbit Edge as a device that is super comfortable to wear all day, will give you glanceable information at all times, and will last for an entire week on a single charge. It’ll also track all of the advanced health metrics you would hope for.

Google Fitbit Edge: Specs, features, pricing, release date

From a hardware standpoint, the Fitbit Edge features an aluminum case in matte black, polished silver, satin pyrite, or champagne gold. It comes with an Active Band in the box, but Google has plenty of alternative bands that might better fit your workout types or should you want to dress it up. Some of the band options include the Performance Loop band, Magnet band, and a Metal Links band.

The device measures in at 39.22 x 25.56 x 11.58mm and weighs just 17.7g. It sports a 1.34-inch always-on AMOLED color display, with adjustable brightness. It has Bluetooth 5.4 for connectivity to your phone (Android and iOS), GPS, 7 days of battery life (65mAh), a mechanical side button, 64MB of flash memory, and 5ATM / IP68 water and dust resistance ratings.

For health sensors, you’ll find red and infrared sensors for SpO2, multipurpose electrical sensors for use with the ECG app, PPG optical heart rate sensor, and a far field skin temperature sensor.

As a fitness tracking device, the Fitbit Edge lets you track more than 50 exercise modes from your wrist, with real-time guidance/coaching, pace targets, heart rate zones, and splits. It does have built-in GPS with improved tracking accuracy, letting you take it on outdoor runs and other workouts. It can also automatically recognize activity for up to 100 workout types.

As a health tracking device, Google says that Fitbit Edge has the following:

• Health Guardian features: Quietly tracks important shifts in your health and wellness in the background — including blood pressure trends, insulin resistance trends, and high/low heart rate alerts — to help you stay ahead of changes. With Google Health Premium, your Coach can help you translate shifts in patterns, give you personalized lifestyle and wellness guidance, adapt your fitness plan, give you context for conversations with your doctor.
• State-of-the-art sensing: Take heart rhythm assessments anytime using the on-wrist ECG app, while continuous optical heart rate monitoring tracks rest and recovery trends around the clock.
• Holistic overnight insights: The dedicated skin temperature sensor tracks nightly fluctuations, complementing sleep stage analysis and HRV metrics to deliver comprehensive recovery scoring each morning.

Since this is a Google Fitbit device, everything it tracks will be available through the Google Health app, which is on both Android and iOS. If the basic Google Health features aren’t enough for you (premium vs. free comparison), you do get 3 months of Google Health Premium if you buy a Fitbit Edge.

Finally, because this device has a screen and pairs with your phone, it can show you turn-by-turn directions from Google Maps, phone notifications for messages (with quick replies), and music controls.

The Fitbit Edge is up for pre-order today and arrives in stores on October 27. It costs $179.99, but Google is also selling a Stephen Curry Edition Fitbit Edge that costs $219.99.

PRE-ORDER GOOGLE FITBIT EDGE
Best Buy | Amazon

• READ: Google Health and Fitbit Air get major upgrades

Read the original post: Google Fitbit Edge: Official at $179.99, Here’s Everything Else New

If you own a Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, or Galaxy S26 Ultra, the update should be live for you, at least on Verizon. This should be hitting Unlocked units before long too, if it hasn’t already.

This update “provides the most up to date Android security patches for your device.”

The new update for the Galaxy S26 series is as follows:

• Galaxy S26 Ultra: S948USQS4BZIG
• Galaxy S26+: S947USQS4BZIG
• Galaxy S26: S942USQS4BZIG

To check for Samsung updates on your Galaxy smartphone, head into Settings>Software update>Download and install.

• Samsung One UI Update Schedule: September 2026

Read the original post: Samsung October Updates: Galaxy S26 Series is Next

It then came as a surprise to Samsung phone owners who were missing some critical Googlebook features out of the box. Google had to acknowledge pretty quickly that they were indeed missing those features, but that they should be rolling out soon. That rollout has now begun.

Googlebook and Samsun get “Better Together” features

The “Better Together” features on Googlebooks are those like Continue On, Cast My Apps, Quick Access, and Notification Sync. Most of those are pretty self-explanatory in nature by name, but the idea is those features help you continue from one device to the next, to open apps from your phone, and keep up with notifications between the two without any work. They are a big part of the selling point of a Googlebook if you own an Android phone.

These features are apparently only accessible on Android phones with Android 17, but they were missing on Samsung’s devices that are all already on Android 17. This is where Google confirmed that they were finishing off updates to make them accessible to Samsung’s devices, like the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Today, Google says that Google Play updates and background service updates will automatically rollout “over the next few days” with support for Better Together and a smoother first-time setup process for Samsung devices with Googlebooks.

Not having Samsung support out of the gate was so odd, but at least they were quick enough at bringing them to the latest Galaxy devices on Android 17.

Read the original post: Googlebook and Samsung Features: Better Together Support Arrives

But because we’ve reached the 2-year mark and Google handed the streamer a substantial price increase without any upgrades, there may be other options to explore before settling on Google’s box. You could also wait for a new model, which is reportedly in the works and has a handful of decent upgrades.

New Google TV Streamer: upgrades, specs, release info

According to a report from 9to5Google, Google is working on the next-generation Google TV Streamer with several key improvements.

For one, the box will remain with a similar design, but Google is going to add microphones to it and also presence sensing. This should allow you to talk to it like a Google Home unit, but the presence sensing could aid in noticing your arrival in a room to showcase something like a Google Photos screensaver.

The new Google TV Streamer will reportedly gain a faster processor too, as well as more storage than the original, which only has 32GB.

Finally, we should see a new remote that will be similar yet include a couple of new shortcut buttons. The mini remote from the original Chromecast with Google TV was clearly not everyone’s favorite. While I’m not asking for a large remote, a few extra buttons and some additional length can go a long way in in-hand feel improvement.

What will the new Google TV Streamer cost and when might it launch? The report isn’t sure. That said, we do have some history to look at.

The Chromecast with Google TV 4K launched in 2020. Google then gave us the HD version in 2022 before the Google TV Streamer hit store shelves in 2024. Google was on a 2-year TV product release cadence, but there are no signs of a new model launching before the end of 2026. I’d guess that 2027 could be the earliest we’ll see an updated Google TV Streamer.

Read the original post: New Google TV Streamer: Big Upgrades are Coming

This is Google Health 5.10 and it’s rolling out now on both iOS and Android.

In the update, we’re seeing an expansion of Irregular Rhythm Notifications to Japan. This feature analyzes heart rhythm data in the background as you sit still or sleep to check for AFib (atrial fibrillation).

The other two features include an update to Readiness Score, which will now use additional signals from your sleep to get you a more personalized experience. And finally, the third change is a way to delete logs by chatting with your Google Health Coach. Now, you can just ask your coach to delete a run or food log or something.

The update should be live as early as today. You can grab it for your device at the links below.

Google Health Apps: Google Play | App Store

// Google

Read the original post: Google Health Update Includes 3 Sweet Changes

For those not familiar with Fitbit Edge, this is expected to be Google’s new fitness tracker that lands somewhere between the new Fitbit Air and Pixel Watch 5. It’ll have a small display, yet not run the full Wear OS experience. It should be very much like a Fitbit Charge, only modernized for this new Fitbit.

The teaser, which you can see below, says, “Get an Edge on your health. 10.12.26.” In that single line of text, they’ve confirmed the name as “Edge” and that October 12 will be the device’s reveal.

Google Fitbit Edge launch info

In recent weeks, the name Fitbit Edge first emerged alongside some specs, images of the device, and potential pricing. We mostly know the story of the Fitbit Edge even as it mostly came out of nowhere.

Following that weird appearance at the Pixel 11 launch and then a brief stop-through at the FCC, the Fitbit Edge went from mystery to reality in a hurry.

Read the original post: Google Fitbit Edge: Official Teaser, Launch Date Arrives

The new update only has a couple of bug fixes, so it does appear to be minor. This would be Google fine-tuning everything as we approach a stable release that should arrive in December alongside the next Pixel Drop.

The update is available to the Pixel 6a up through the new Pixel 11 series. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have reached end of life, so they will not see Android 17 QPR2.

Android 17 QPR2 Beta 7 bug fixes and changes

• Excessive battery drain during idle states when Flip to Shh prevents the device from entering deep sleep. (Issue #560036427, Issue #569079944)
• HTTPS downloads fail immediately when initiated through the system DownloadManager. (Issue #562833711)

The best way to get this update is through the Android Beta Program (sign-up). If you are into flashing images, there are OTA images available (here) too.

// Google

PREVIOUS RELEASE: Android 17 QPR2 Beta 6

Read the original post: Android 17 QPR2 Beta 7 Update Released for Pixel Phones

But since the world can’t stop infusing everything with AI, the Google Pixel camera experience continues to adopt new AI-powered features that Google has cooked up. Unfortunately, those AI features can do some odd sh*t and you may not always like the results they come up with.

Just within the past week, I’ve seen a couple of really awful creations from the AI that happened through the Pixel Camera and Google Photos. One showed a group of young kids on a couch and the AI took one of their heads and placed it inside of an iPad. Another one completely invented new tattoos on a person.

Thankfully, you can turn most of them off and get (sort of) back to the basics.

How to turn off Pixel AI camera features

There’s enough processing going on with your Pixel phone’s camera that you likely won’t be able to eliminate all of the unwanted auto-editing that is done, but there are a couple of options that should wipe most of it out.

The first is Auto Best Take, which is available to the Pixel 10 and newer phones. Auto Best Take uses Google AI to automatically combine multiple photos into one image. The idea here is that you may take a group photo where not everyone is smiling or with their eyes open at the same time, but if there are multiple images available, AI can find enough that have everyone just right and then combine them.

The Pixel 9 has a similar feature just called Best Take.

To turn this off, you’ll do the following:

1. Open the Pixel Camera app
2. Tap Settings in the bottom left corner
3. Tap the 3-dot button
4. Scroll to the “Photos” section to find “Auto Best Take” – toggle it OFF

The next option to consider turning off would be Top Shot. Top Shot, when activated, takes a burst of photos and then automatically chooses what it believes is the best shot. This has to be on in order for Auto Best Take to work, so to end both, you could just turn Top Shot off.

To do so, do the following:

1. Open the Pixel Camera app
2. Tap Settings in the bottom left corner
3. On the pop-up menu, look for Top Shot and turn off by selecting the circle icon with the slash through it

Finally, if you have a Pixel 11 series phone, there is a setting within Magic Capture settings called Auto Edit. This feature is described as being able to “Automatically improve your best moments.” I’m not sure we should ever have AI do whatever it thinks is an automatic improvement to our moments.

To turn it off, do the following:

1. Open the Pixel Camera app
2. Tap Settings in the bottom left corner
3. Tap the 3-dot button
4. Scroll to the “Magic Capture” section to find “Auto Edit” – toggle it OFF

All of these features can be seen in the image above, with arrows pointing to each.

Read the original post: Google Pixel Cameras: How to Turn Off the AI Features