Best Android video player: 5 you should check out

There are a number of very good Android video players available, with a variety of functions. If you’re looking for a better experience than the stock Android video player, here are my top 5...

For the pleasure-seeker: MX Player 

MX Player is a master of the Android video player scene – it just works. It plays tons of file types, has subtitle integration, and the best on-screen gesture controls you’re likely to find in an Android video player. You can pinch-to-zoom and control the volume and brightness levels just by sliding your finger up and down the screen. You can also intuitively scroll forwards or backwards through the video you are watching. The advertisements are unintrusive – they’re only apparent on the pause menu – but the downside of MX Player is that you sometimes may need to manually download codecs for certain videos, which can be annoying. 

For the optimist: VLC for Android Beta

VLC player has long since been a hit on PC, and for good reason. It has great functionality and an impressive range of features – its one of those video players that can just play anything. VLC integrates similar on-screen controls to MX Player, but it is maybe not quite as smooth. VLC for Android Beta is, naturally, still in its beta stage, meaning it might be more buggy than some of the other video players available, but it also means it’s being updated regularly with an eye on optimization for users, so it might be worth sticking with.

For the paranoid: RealPlayer Cloud

RealPlayer Cloud, described on the Play Store as “like Dropbox for videos”, offers a great video suite with online video search and cloud storage. Stepping away from the all-in-one video audio picture viewer RealPlayer once was, RealPlayer Cloud makes use of online storage and cloud syncing, to share videos between multiple devices. It does require you to make an account, which can be a pain for some people (like me), so it’s not as easy to get started with as some other players, but this is of course because of its cloud functionality.

RealPlayer Cloud offers 2 GB of cloud storage space when you install it, and has a beautiful interface. It includes a useful web video search function that gives you recommended videos of the day, too. It did take some of the online videos a while to start, but the ability to share clips between devices and upload them to the cloud was great. It’s a fantastic free app.

For the multi-tasker: MoboPlayer

MoboPlayer’s interface isn’t all that pretty, but it has some nifty features that make it stand out. Mobo Player supports a “floating windows” mode for users who quickly need to shrink their video to access something else on their device. The videos do need to be decoded before you can do this in some cases, but it’s a neat feature nonetheless. It also scans your storage folders to find all of your video files when you first load it up. The actual video player itself maybe isn’t quite as nice as some of the others on the list, but it’s strong in other areas, and also contains an online video search feature, which is useful. The initially ugly interface can be customized, too.

For the modder: BSPlayer 

One thing BSPlayer is not, is total BS. BSPlayer comes with a very intuitive interface, making searching for your videos a breeze. It features all of the classic facets of good video players: hardware and software encoding, a huge amount of supported video formats, and built-in subtitle tracks. To add to this there are a number of themes and skins available for customization to spruce it up too. Another handy option is the ability to choose whether playback always begins at the start of your video or the last played part. It’s a really nice video player which uses on-screen gestures for navigation – download it if you’re interested.

Why is my Android phone running slow? Here’s how to speed up your phone !!!

When you first got your shiny new Android handset you were probably blown away by how fast it was. But over time you may well have noticed that your phone is starting to run slow. Don’t worry – it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with your smartphone, and there’s a lot you and do to help. Here are some top tips you can use to help speed up your Android phone and get things running quickly again.

What is Minecraft and why did Microsoft just spend $2.5 billion on it ??????

Tips to charge your Android phone battery faster

What’s worse than a dead phone? One that takes too long to charge! This has certainly happened to most of us before: you’re rushing out of the door and you happen to see there’s just 5% left of battery! Here are some tips on how you can get your Android phone to charge faster!

Here’s how to charge your phone faster!

How to find a lost Android phone

The more we do on our phones, the more lost we are without them – but dropping, mislaying or losing your phone needn’t be the end of the world. There are several ways to find a lost Android phone, and if the worst happens it’s possible to lock it and / or wipe it too.

If it’s on, Android Device Manager can help you find it anywhere in the world.

What to do with your old Android phone before selling it: 5 easy steps

Are you wanting to give away or sell your old smartphone or tablet that you no longer use? Did you just get a new Galaxy Note 4 or Nexus 6 and suddenly don’t need your old HTC One? Do you know what you have to do beforehand so as not to pass on your details to someone else? Today we’ll explain how to clean up your device as if it was brand new before it changes hands! We’ll also suggest some places to offload that baby if you do decide to sell an old Android phone.

If you’ve got an old phone you no longer use, why not sell it? Here’s how.

Google Nexus 5 In Review: 5 More Battery Life Tips And Tricks For The LG Android KitKat Flagship

The Nexus 5 is a great value, but some users are having battery problems. Here are a few ways to get the most out of your battery. Google

The Nexus 5 from Google and hardware partner LG Electronics is a great value, with a starting price of $349 for 16GB, and with a 4.95-inch full HD display. Unfortunately, that 1080p display and quad-core processor can sometimes result in less-than-stellar battery life.

If your Nexus 5 is having battery problems, here are a few more ways to help it last longer. But first, make sure to check out our first list of ways to improve your Nexus 5’s battery life.

Then, make sure you have determined the culprit. Go to Settings > About Phone > Battery Use to see what apps or services are causing the problem.

1.) Enable Android Runtime (ART)

As one helpful reader pointed out in our first list of Nexus 5 battery fixes, enabling Android Runtime will improve battery life. This is because ART fundamentally changes the process of how apps are opened.

ART will cause apps to take up 10 to 20 percent more space on your on-board storage, but allow them to open faster. Also, thanks to the diminished processing power it requires to open app, enabling ART will increase your battery life as well.

Remember that Google does not consider the Android Runtime as ready for the masses, which is why it is not enabled by default on the Nexus 5. Also, please note that the International Business Times is not responsible for any damage that tinkering with your phone may cause.

To enable ART on your Nexus 5: Settings > About Phone, then tap “Build Number” 7 times. Then back out and go into the new settings sub-menu that appears, Developer Options, and select ART instead of the Dalvik Runtime.

2.) Reduce The Time Before The Screen Goes To Sleep

Most Nexus 5 users have found that the main feature affecting battery life on the Nexus 5 is its big, beautiful display. Go into Settings > Display > Sleep and reduce the time before your display automatically dims to as low as you are comfortable with – 30 seconds for best results. It is also a good practice to press the power button when you are not using your Nexus 5, instead of waiting for the phone to sleep automatically.

3.) Updated to Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)? Do A Factory Restore

As much of a hassle as it can be on a phone you have adjusted perfectly to your liking, if you received an over-the-air update from Google that bumped your Nexus 5 to Android 4.4 KitKat or 4.4.1 to the newest build of Android 4.4.2, it might be a good idea to do a factory restore.

Taking the OTA update caused bugs for some users, and may cause your Nexus 5 to incorrectly report how much battery life it has remaining. Be forewarned that a factory restore will erase everything on your phone, including the on-board storage, so make sure your photos have been backed up with Google Plus beforehand.

To do a factory restore, navigate to Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset to restore your Nexus 5 to factory-shipped freshness. Some users have also reported that a Nexus 5 factory reset fixed GPS issues and other bugs in addition to improving battery life.

4.) Turn Location Reporting And History Off

In addition to using your GPS, Android collects location data from nearby Wi-Fi routers. Scanning for Wi-Fi this way uses up battery life on your Nexus 5 (or any Android device), but allows Google to charge more money for advertising based on your location.

To turn off location reporting, go into Settings > Location > Google Location Reporting and turn both Location Reporting and Location History off. Please note that this will also cause Find My Android to no longer be able to track your Nexus 5 should it be stolen or misplaced, so use this tip at your own discretion.

5.) Use ‘Airplane Mode’ In Poor Coverage Areas

When a smartphone is in a bad coverage area, it uses up a lot of battery power as it attempts to scan the area for signal. If you are in an area where you get poor or no connection anyways, like traveling underground on a subway, put your Nexus 5 in Airplane Mode to save your battery.

Some other good ways to improve battery life include turning off your Nexus 5’s haptic feedback. It uses up battery to run the haptic motor every time you tap, so turn this feature off for longer life.

Let the author know on Twitter @sumationofknowledge or in the comments below if you have a battery tip of your own, and make sure to check out the first 5 Battery Tips for the Nexus 5.

11 Things Android Phones Can Do That The iPhone Still Can’t

With its iPhone 6 and iOS 8, Apple has introduced a few features that have been available on Android smartphones for quite some time.

For example, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be the company’s first smartphones to come with near field communication (NFC) — a technology that lets phones talk to one another via a short-range radio.

This means you can exchange data and make payments by simply tapping your iPhone against another compatible device.

Still, you can still do a lot of things with Android phones that you can’t with the iPhone.

You can add a bigger battery to most Android phones. The iPhone’s back isn’t removable.

Many Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and LG G3, come with a removeable back — which means you can take out the battery. This is especially helpful if you find your phone dying quicker than expected. With some Android phones, you can simply pop off the back, take out the battery, and put a new one in when your phone is dead. The iPhone relies on a single rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which can be removed or replaced only by Apple technicians.

With some Android phones, you can open multiple apps at once.

Several Android manufacturers layer their software over the plain version of Android, often adding their own features. On Samsung and LG phones, for example, you can open more than one app at a time and run them alongside one another. On LG phones, you can even move these apps around in separate windows, change the transparency of those windows, and resize them, as shown in the screenshot to the right.

Nikon D610 vs Canon 6D: best full frame DSLR on a budget

A full frame DSLR is the dream camera for most photography enthusiasts. You get double the sensor size of a regular APS-C DSLR and this gives super-smooth tonality, low noise and great depth of field effects.

You can get all the latest camera reviews and news on the Techradar Camera Channel home page, but you might have missed the Nikon D610 review and the Canon 6D review because the Nikon was launched a year ago and the Canon is two years old. This means both are well into their product life cycle, but this is often the best time to buy expensive technology – as the prices prove, because both cameras are now 30% cheaper than when they were launched.

How to set up an Android phone for the first time

If you got a shiny new smartphone or tablet (perhaps you treated yourself or received it as a gift), you probably want to start playing with it immediately. But first of all it must be set up, and not everyone knows how with Android. In this beginners article, we’ll explain step-by-step how to set up your new smartphone. You’ll see: it’s easy!