After thousands of votes, we now have an outright winner for the best Android phone of 2024 – here are the results of our public vote.

The US Google Store is launching a Pixel Referral Rewards program: “Earn $50 in Google Store credit for each friend who buys a Pixel and they’ll get 10% off a Pixel phone.” 

There were a lot of good smartphones released in 2024, and it’s actually not easy to settle on “the best.” But, for me at least, I struggle to put the Galaxy S24 Ultra at the top of that list.

Google Photos is simplifying the bottom bar to three tabs, and another big design change tests a very prominent row of shortcuts.

A new OnePlus Watch is expected to arrive in the coming months, and according to a new leak, the “OnePlus Watch 3” will bring the rotating crown the last one didn’t. Maybe.

After crossing 150 free channels available to users earlier this year, Google TV is closing out the year with another handful of additions, many of which are right in time for the holidays.

Google is investigating ongoing issues between the Pixel 9 series and Android Auto, as well as confirming a fix for 5GHz Wi-Fi issues that’s been ongoing for a while.

In addition to other remedies, the Justice Department in November shared that it wants Google to sell Chrome. Google today shared its own remedies proposal. 

Google has adjusted how the Pixel can be customized for those with color blindness. The color correction tool lets you choose a range of colors and intensity on Google’s Pixel devices, fully fine-tuning the Pixel’s display to your preference.

Earlier this month, Google started testing Gemini in Google Assistant on the Nest Mini and Audio, and here are the new voices. 

Android XR will support several input methods, with Google even building a “Gesture navigation” system that uses the familiar 3-button layout.

Google announced nearly two years ago that weather apps would be coming to Android Auto and Android Automotive, but one of the biggest examples, The Weather Channel, is still missing.

Welcome to episode 35 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we talk about Gemini 2.0 and the 2 Android beta/preview releases.

Subscribe

• YouTube Podcasts
• Pocket Casts
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Overcast

For the Pixel 9 series, Google introduced a “Swirling petals” collection, and a subset of those wallpapers are now available for the Pixel Tablet.

The Samsung Galaxy Ring is getting a couple of larger sizes in the near future, as rumors and, now, some listings have confirmed that’s the case.

The collection of holiday deals on Android games and apps is growing significantly here today after seeing a giant list go live yesterday. Our fresh batch of holiday offers on the Google Play store also join a host of hardware deals including this $240 price drop on Acer’s Chromebook 315 notebook at $109 as well as up to $400 in savings on ASUS’ Vivobook S 15 OLED Snapdragon X Elite laptop and this sweet deal on LG’s wonderful 77-inch C3 OLED smart TV at up to $800 off. As for the apps, just some of today’s additions include titles like Inked, My Child Lebensborn, Homo Machina, Sentinels of Earth-Prime, BOKURA, Door Kickers: Action Squad, and more. Head below for a closer look. 

The Qi2 standard is slowly coming, and the big appeal has always been that is brings magnets that work the same as Apple’s MagSafe to other products, including Android phones. And yes, magnets are indeed required to have something say that is has “Qi2.”

A nice quality-of-life improvement to Google Photos for Android (and the web) shows “Albums” status in the Info panel.

EU regulation has led to Apple being forced to open up iOS in ways that many never expected, but it’s not done just yet. In an effort to ensure “effective interoperability” with other platforms, the EU wants Apple to make native features of iOS being compatible with Android, including the likes of AirDrop and more.

Joining the early bird promotion on the new OnePlus 13 with $50 in savings and a FREE $300 OnePlus Watch 2, we have a new batch of deals to close out the work week today. Firstly we have the first price drop on Insta360’s brand-new Link 2 4K Webcam alongside the regularly $299 DJI Action 2 Dual-Screen Combo at the $159 all-time low. These offers join up to $400 in savings off the sticker price on ASUS’ Vivobook S 15 OLED Snapdragon X Elite laptop and up to $800 off LG’s wonderful 77-inch C3 OLED smart TV as part of Best Buy’s Doorbusters. Everything else awaits down below in Friday’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break.