It can be quite infuriating to find out that you can't access some episodes and movies you thought you were able to download on your device after settling in for a long flight. Now Netflix has launched a new feature that can prevent the scenario from happening. Starting today, the streaming giant will let you begin watching shows and movies even if they never finished downloading while you were connected to the internet, as long as you're on an Android phone or tablet.
Netflix originally introduced the ability to download content way back in 2016 to give you a way to watch whatever you want even if you don't have constant access to an internet connection. It's an incredibly useful feature, especially if you commute regularly and live in places where mobile internet isn't reliable.
The company has rolled out a number of other improvements to the downloads experience since then, including the ability to automatically delete stored episodes you've already seen and replace it with the next one in the series. Earlier this year, the service also introduced a new feature that automatically saves shows and movies its algorithm thinks you'll like.
With partial downloads, Netflix will prompt you to download the rest of the title you've already started watching once you get back online. You'll also be able to find the show or movie in the "download" or the "continue watching" tabs. While the capability is only available for Android users right now, Netflix will start testing it for iOS in the coming months.
TCL may have raised eyebrows with its wearable display, but that doesn't mean it's forgotten about affordable phones. Today, the company revealed US release dates for the 20-series handsets it debuted in Europe in the spring. Alongside the phones, TCL is launching the $100 MoveAudio S600 true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation.
The headliner here is the $500 TCL 20 Pro 5G (pictured above), which features a Snapdragon 750G chipset with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage, expandable to 1TB with a microSD. It offers a 6.67-inch, 20:9 curved AMOLED display with a full HD resolution, while the camera has the same 48-megapixel Sony IMX582 sensor found in the TCL 10 Plus. That's accompanied by a 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera, a 5-megapixel macro, and a 2-megapixel depth-sensor, with a 32-megapixel camera at the front. TCL says the phone will work with most GSM networks at launch, and Verizon low-band 5G and 4G in the coming weeks.
TCL
Next in line based on price is the $250 TCL 20S (pictured above), essentially a variant of the 20L+ from April. The cheaper handset packs a similar 6.67-inch display, but comes with 128GB of storage (also expandable to 1TB) and 4GB RAM. The Snapdragon 665 chipset here is also not as powerful as the 20 Pro's 750G. Still, the handset boasts some interesting deviations from its pricier sibling. Chiefly, TCL says this is its first phone with a circular polarized screen, which apparently reduces eye strain by 85 percent and appears natural even when viewed through sunglasses. The 64-megapixel sensor also sounds superior than its sibling's on paper.
TCL
Finally, the $190 TCL 20 SE (which won't win any awards in the title department) understandably has the lowest-specs of the bunch. While it does feature a larger 6.82-inch display, it pairs that with a sub-par 720p resolution. Keeping with the no-frills approach, inside is a Snapdragon 460 chipset, along with 4GB RAM combined with 128GB of storage (which can only be upgraded to 256GB). It also has a 5,000 mAh battery, though you won't get the same fast-charging tech as on its pricier counterparts. The camera includes a 48-megapixel main snapper, a 5-megapixel wide-angle, a 2-megapixel macro and 2-megapixel depth cam. There's also a 13-megapixel selfie taker on the front.
Companies will never stop trying new things when it comes to our tablets and laptops. While Apple might be going bigger on iPad sizes — see below — Lenovo added a hanger to its new Yoga Tab. It might also be a kickstand, but the idea of hanging your tablet is what’s new. We’ve seen kickstands in other tablets, the Nintendo Switch or, lest we forget, the terribly designed HTC Thunderbolt, where the charging port was placed so you couldn’t charge the thing when using the kickstand.
Lenovo’s 13-inch tablet shouldn’t have such issues, but the idea of suspending it has some cool use cases if you use your imagination. (Hard on a Monday, I know.) I could see people using it for cooking guidance, with the tablet hanging off utensil hooks. It also means your electronics won’t take up counter space and tomato sauce and the like will be less likely to be hit it.
You could also, possibly, hook it to the coat hooks or tray table latches on trains or planes — depending on dimensions. Further still, the tablet can double as a secondary display: You could hang it from the wall in your tiny work-from-home setup. The use cases are there, but the device is expensive for an Android tablet at $680. I’m intrigued by the prospect, though — and that’s something I’ve never uttered about Lenovo before.
Bigger than 12.9 inches? Your next iPad might be. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claimed Apple was exploring iPads with even larger displays. Any potential products might take at least a "couple of years" to ship if they go ahead, but still — Apple hasn’t gone bigger since 2015’s iPad Pro. Continue reading.
YouTube is facing criticism for cracking down on videos documenting China's alleged abuses against Uyghur Muslims in the country's Xinjiang province. Reuters reported that YouTube took down a dozen videos from Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, and at one point removed the channel itself, for supposedly violating the site's anti-harassment policy. The takedowns followed reports from unnamed parties.
YouTube told Engadget that videos documenting human rights abuses were allowed on the site, and it was aware that Atajurt didn't have sinister intent when showing the ID cards. However, it argued the rights group didn't have enough "educational, documentary, scientific and artistic content" to allow an exception to its policies, primarily showing ID cards, which broke a rule against showing sensitive personal information. Continue reading.
China has released early clips of video and audio from the Zhurong rover's first forays on the Red Planet. They cover the landing as well as the deployment and initial movement. There's also a panorama revealing just how far Zhurong has traveled from its landing platform. Continue reading.
In this week's podcast, Cherlynn and Devindra came straight from live Windows 11 coverage to run through this week’s biggest tech news, including McCaffee, Snapchat in the Supreme Court and a chat with developers from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
Microsoft will switch to a four-week release cycle for stable builds of Edge later this year. It plans to move to that schedule starting with Edge 94, which should arrive in September.
Earlier this month, Google announced that Chrome would move to that cycle with Chrome 94 (which should drop in the third quarter) as part of an effort to release new features faster. At the moment, stable Chrome builds emerge every six weeks or so. Chrome and Edge are both based on Chromium, so it makes sense for Microsoft to adopt the same schedule.
Microsoft noted that the four-week cycle might not be ideal for everyone. Enterprise customers will have an Extended Stable option, through which Microsoft will roll out major Edge updates every eight weeks. It will still provide bi-weekly security updates to those who choose that option. Google will offer a similar Extended Stable option to its enterprise customers.
The upcoming schedule change will bring Edge and Chrome in line with Firefox. That browser adopted a four-week release cycle in early 2020.
As of today, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (with free upgrades from PS4 and Xbox One), as well as Nintendo Switch. Although Activision Blizzard said the game would arrive on PC later this year, you actually won't have to wait long at all for that.
According to a launch trailer for the new console versions, Crash 4 will land on Blizzard's Battle.net launcher on March 26th. The game costs $40 on PC, the same price as on Switch. It's more expensive on PS5 and Series X/S ($60), but you can expect native 4K and 60 FPS gameplay on PS5 and Xbox Series X, and upscaled 4K/60 FPS on Series S. The PS5 version also offers haptic feedback through the DualSense controller.
This week brought a number of sales on tech accessories, plus solid discounts on Nintendo Switch games in celebration of 'Mar10 Day.' The 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard for iPad is down to its lowest price yet, and you can still grab the 11-inch version for less as well. Nintendo knocked 35 percent off many Mario games this week — the sales last through March 13, so there's still time to save money while adding to your games collection. Plus, the latest smartphones from OnePlus remain hundreds of dollars off. Here are the best tech deals we found this week that you can still get today.
Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad
Engadget
The 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard is down to $250 at Amazon thanks to a coupon that knocks $79 off the $329 sale price. This is the lowest price we've seen for the larger model, but you can grab the 11-inch version for $199 right now as well. We gave the Magic Keyboard a score of 84 for its great typing experience, excellent trackpad and its ability to charge your iPad while it's magnetically connected.
While those are the main highlights, Amazon has a bunch of other Switch games for less right now, including Super Mario Odyssey for $39, Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe for $39 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for $49. Plus, there's a new Square Enix sale going on at Nintendo's eShop right now, too. It runs through March 24 and it discounts titles including Collection of Mana, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy IX.
The Apple Watch SE has fallen to $259 on Amazon, which is $20 off its normal price. While not the lowest it's ever been ($230), this is a good deal if you missed the steep sales during the holiday shopping season last year. We gave the SE a score of 88 for its solid performance, comprehensive features with watchOS and comfortable design.
Apple's 512GB Mac mini M1 is down to $829 at B&H Photo and Amazon, which is a good sale price if you want the desktop PC with extra storage. But you're also able to get the 256GB Mac mini M1 for $649 which, while not an all-time low, is an even better sale price considering its specs. If you choose the 256GB Mac mini, you could buy an external drive with more than 256GB of storage for less than the $180 you'd be paying for the first model.
Ahead of the Series 9 launch, OnePlus discounted its 8T and 8 Pro smartphones by 30 and 20 percent, respectively. That drops the price of the 8 Pro to $700 and the 8T to $600, which are some of the best prices we've seen. If you don't want to wait for the Series 9 handset from OnePlus (which should be debuting soon), these sales are good ones to consider when looking for your next smartphone.
Sony's stellar WH-1000XM3 wireless headphones are down to $200 at Focus Photo & Video when you use the code BDTHANKS at checkout. While the XM4 are the newest version of these, the XM3 remain fantastic headphones thanks to their comfortable design, solid noise cancellation and 30-hour battery life.
Sony's budget WH-CH710N wireless headphones are down to $98 — while not the lowest they've ever been, it's a great deal considering these cans are usually $200. These are some of the best bang-for-your-buck headphones Sony makes thanks to their good noise cancellation, comfortable design and 35-hour battery life.
Ecovac's Deebot T8 is on sale for $450 when you clip the on-age coupon and use the code ECOVACST8 at checkout. That's the best price we've seen on this high-end model that's both a robot vacuum and a mop in one. It also has three different levels of suction, multi-floor map saving, anti-drop and collision features and a 180-minute battery life when used in standard mode.
The unique Mate X electric bike is $250 off at Wellbots when you use the code 250ENGADGET at checkout. That brings it down to $2,049 which, while still expensive, is a decent discount on a bike that doesn't often go on sale. While you're better off going for a more affordable scooter if you simply want a more efficient way to get around your city, the Mate X is a solid choice for thrill-seekers and those who don't mind to splurge on an e-bike.
If you’ve spent any portion of the last year’s mandated downtime mastering a musical instrument, then congratulations on being more productive than most. Expressing yourself creatively is a great way to maintain your sanity, and if you’re actually writing your own music, all the better.
But if you want to actually turn any of your hooks and riffs into songs, you’re going to need more than confidence and a recorder app on your smartphone — you need quality sound mixing software. Luckily, the Complete Ableton Live 11 Music Production Essentials Bundle will bring you up to speed.
These eight courses will take you through everything you need to know about the intricacies of Ableton, with some ancillary information about music theory and songwriting thrown in for good measure. The three introduction classes kick off the bundle to give you an overview of how the software works, while the Warping & Automation and Essential Features guides show you how to execute more advanced tricks. Finally, the two-part Music Theory & Songwriting lectures help you hone your musical masterpiece with technical and structural guidance to help your work really pop.
What’s most exciting about this bundle is that it’s just as useful for seasoned musicians as it is for beginners. If you already know your way around the keyboard (or fretboard, or woodwind), this is your opportunity to immortalize the skill you’ve dedicated years to perfect. On the other hand, if you’re simply learning a few early chords on the ukulele, these classes will give you the foundational knowledge you need to achieve true expertise.
Engadget is teaming up with StackSocial to bring you deals on the latest headphones, gadgets, tech toys, and tutorials. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement, and we earn a portion of all sales. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackSocial support here.
Welcome to Friday morning. As some email subscribers may have noticed, the daily newsletter has been on hiatus for several weeks as we contended with a persistent technical issue. We’ve now figured out a fix, so we’re back to our regularly scheduled newsletter.
Today, it includes a smartphone with a ‘microscope’ camera, Tenet on a Game Boy Advance, an explanation of exactly what NFTs are and how to digitally organize your Mac, as our Spring Cleaning series goes beyond simply cleaning your keyboard. That’s where my spring cleaning typically ends.
We’d like to apologize for the newsletter blackout and thank all the readers who got in touch to ask where TMA went. Thanks for your patience and if you have any more feedback, you can get in touch with us at themorningafter(at)engadget.com.
And if you’re reading this on the site, click the subscribe button above!
Proving old devices never really die, some enterprising crafters keep squeezing functionality out of yesteryear’s gadgets. That includes a horrifically compressed version of Tenet for Game Boy Advance, and a wildly unnecessary Twitter client for the Handspring Visor.Continue reading.
Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, are the cryptocurrency off-shoot that has, all of a sudden, burst into the mainstream. They’re essentially a way of tying a certificate of authenticity to a digital file, among other things, like a contract, video clip or even a still image. The possibilities for NFTs are still to be explored, but they’re booming right now like Bitcoin did through much of 2020. Yesterday, a digital artwork by Beeple and associated NFT sold at auction for nearly $70 million. For what essentially amounted to a copy of a still image someone could have printed at home for free and a signed receipt.
If you’re wondering what exactly all of this means, and what’s going on, then Dan Cooper has written a lengthy explainer to get you up to speed on what this is, even if you still have trouble understanding why someone would spend so much money on it. Continue reading.
Oppo’s new flagship phone, the Find X3 Pro is entirely focused on photography — the giant sensor array on the back kind of gives that away. The headline feature has to be its "microscope" camera. The 3-megapixel f/3.0 microscopic camera delivers 30x magnification natively and can handle 1080p video recording. As you have to get close — the focal distance is between only 1mm and 3mm — this camera even has a small ring light to illuminate your subject.
The results make for a unique camera phone. It’s an Oppo device, so there’s also lightning-fast charging with the bundled 65W SuperVOOC charger and speedier wireless charging with compatible docks, which can fully charge your phone in 80 minutes. Given past form, chances are the Find X3 Pro won't head to the US, but the company has announced it'll be available in the UK on April 14th, starting at £1,099, which is around $1,250. Continue reading.
It aims to have a high-capacity pre-production battery by 2023.
GM is elaborating on its next-generation Ultium batteries, which sound like something from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but are not. The company plans to use lithium-metal (Li-metal) technology to boost performance and energy density. Li-metal batteries replace carbon anodes with lithium metal, allowing for lighter and more powerful cells. The challenge with the technology is increased resistance and "dendrite" filaments that tend to form on the anodes, making batteries short-circuit and heat up. “With this next-generation Ultium chemistry, we believe we’re on the cusp of a once-in-a-generation improvement in energy density and cost," said GM President Mark Reuss, adding that there was also “still room for improvement”. Continue reading.
Once you’ve dusted the cookie crumbs from your MacBook keyboard, it’s time for a digital clean. Associate Editor Igor Bonifacic reveals his fastidious Mac cleaning techniques, encompassing hard-drive organization, keeping your desktop clean going forward and even how to purloin the best organization features from Windows 10 for your Mac. Continue reading.
For years, Netflix has looked the other way on people sharing passwords to their streaming accounts with folks that may not quite meet the definition of a “member of the household.” As its streaming audience has grown into the hundreds of millions, allowing easy access has been more important than triple-checking credentials.
But those days may be coming to an end. The company confirmed a test it’s running that prompts suspected freeloaders to get their own accounts and then asks to verify their access with a code sent to the registered account holder’s phone number or email address. Now that Netflix has hiked its prices for several years in a row, and growth in some countries is slowing, it looks like this is a way to find a few more paying customers. Continue reading.
Nearly every addition is coming to play on Xbox, PC and mobile.
Now the deal is done, Microsoft-owned game publisher Bethesda has announced 20 of its games are xton Xbox Game Pass, starting today. In all, Microsoft is adding 12 new titles, including Fallout 4, Morrowind and The Evil Within, for people to check out. They'll join eight other Bethesda games, like Dishonored 2, Fallout 76 and Doom Eternal, that were already available through the service, making a total of 20 titles. Check the full list of titles here.
If you want Apple's latest M1 processor technology (and already have a display and keyboard), there's no cheaper way to get it than the Mac mini M1. Now, it's possible to pick up the 512GB model with 8GB of RAM at a price that matches the best we've seen yet, $829 — or $70 off.
This is a great deal for a compact desktop PC that punches well above its weight, so to speak. The M1 chip delivers similar performance to high-end desktop processors, even in demanding multimedia applications like Final Cut Pro X and Photoshop. At the same time, the Mac mini M1 will take up hardly any space on your desktop and while it does have a fan (unlike the MacBook Air M1), it's still a very quiet machine. If you're planning to run some games or large apps, the 512GB option is a good choice.
However, both B&H and Amazon are also offering the Mac mini M1 for $649 with 256GB and 8GB of RAM, the second-lowest price we've seen. That $180 difference is a lot, so you could actually get more storage for less money by buying an external drive. The Mac Mini has two high-speed Thunderbolt/USB-C ports at the rear which could provide a couple of terabytes of storage and leave you with money left over. For either device, keep in mind that the 8GB of RAM might limit the software you can run (and it's not upgradeable), but the M1 processor gets far more out of less RAM than x86 Macs or PCs.
Verizon (owner of Engadget's parent company Verizon Media) has expanded its 5G Home Internet service's availability, launching it in 10 new cities this month. Starting on March 18th, the service will roll out to parts of Cleveland, OH; Las Vegas, NV; Louisville, KY; Omaha, NE and San Diego, CA. A few days after that, on March 25th, the service will also be available in parts of Charlotte, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Hartford, CT; Kansas City, MO and Salt Lake City, UT.
The carrier launched its 5G Home internet service back in 2018, promising typical download speeds of around 300 Mbps and max speeds of up to 1 Gbps with no data caps. As the name implies, it doesn't need a cable or fiber hookup, just the company's "Internet Gateway" device that customers can set up on their own. It was only available in five cities for quite some time, because Verizon pushed back its broader rollout to wait for more powerful equipment to come in. The service costs $50 a month for current customers with eligible mobile plans or $70 a month for non-Verizon customers.
Verizon has also recently announced winning between 140 and 200 megahertz of C-Band spectrum in every available market from the latest FCC auction. That'll allow the company to expand its 5G Ultra Wideband's availability, though only those with premium unlimited plans will be able to access C-Band's faster speeds.
