Table of contents for February 2026 in Tech Advisor

Samsung has announced a new beta program that will enable Samsung Galaxy S25 owners to use One UI 8.5 early. We’re expecting to see One UI 8.5 – which is promising to be a much bigger update than its ‘X.5’ designation suggests – make its full debut alongside the Galaxy S26 in January. However, thanks to the freshly announced One UI 8.5 beta program, Galaxy S25 users will be able to get a sneak peak. FEATURES As we mentioned above, One UI 8.5 is much more than a modest bump over the existing One UI 8. Samsung says it “fundamentally rethinks how users interact with their devices”, moving away from the usual process of jumping between apps and menus on its smartphones. Photo Assist 2.0, for example, will let you…

Back in January 2025, we reported on the news that the Pebble brand was set to return with wearables. Now we know that this is going to take the form of a new smart ring as well as the classic smartwatch form factor. The Pebble Index 01 has been announced as a different kind of smart ring altogether. While the Oura Ring 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Ring and other rivals are focused on ultra-portable health insights, the Pebble Index 01 is more concerned with your memory. A DIFFERENT APPROACH Pebble has always done things differently from its rivals and that’s certainly the case with the Index 01. It’s essentially a finger-mounted dictaphone, complete with a button and a microphone. You press the button, whisper your thoughts into your finger,…

2025 has been the year of the ultra-slim phone. While Samsung, Honor and Oppo have been battling it out to make the world’s thinnest foldable, a new category of regular devices has also emerged. Samsung was first to the party in May, yet its Galaxy S25 Edge came with major camera and battery life trade-offs, despite retaining a premium price tag. September’s iPhone Air was a little more affordable, but suffered from the same hardware compromises, making it feel like a foolish buy when compared to the regular iPhone 17. Could it be third time lucky in the form of the Motorola Edge 70? Despite its name, the phone is dramatically different to its predecessor, yet retains a distinctive design, and crucially, a decent-sized battery. My first day or so…

Even though it’s more of a refined version of its predecessor than a major generational leap, there’s still plenty to like about the Apple Watch Series 11. I don’t much envy the position that Apple finds itself in with its line-up of wearables in 2025. The range finally got a major processing bump with the Apple Watch Series 9 and then a big hardware revamp that slimmed everything down for the Apple Watch Series 10, while also broadening the display. With those features in tow, there’s a case to be made that the Apple Watch has ‘peaked’, and anything beyond this point will only involve iterative updates. Well, having used the Apple Watch Series 11 for over a week now, I can definitely say that Apple is nowhere near as…

Google is finally rolling out a major new power-saving feature to users of its Pixel 10 smartphone series. The November Pixel drop brought a stack of new features to Pixel phone users, but one particular feature has proved to be a little tardy. One of the neater-sounding additions was supposed to be the ability to press the power button while navigating in Google Maps, which would then switch to a simplified layout showing only key information like your next turn. Thus, you could complete a vital route even when your phone was on its last legs. That feature wasn’t actually available when the November Pixel Drop started rolling out a couple of weeks ago. Now, however, it is. POWER SAVING MODE ROLLING OUT NOW As Android Authority points out, Google…

At Tech Advisor we live and breathe gadgets and spend all our time testing them out to tell you which ones to buy. Now it’s that time of year when we look back at the past 12 months and decide which new models deserve to be crowned the best of the year in their respective categories. These are the crème de la crème, or in other words, the tech we love the most and use – or wish we were using – ourselves on a daily basis. We’ve deliberated long and hard about the winners and awarded titles in different categories. You’ll also find honourable mentions for two runners-up. BEST NEW PHONE 2025 has been another huge year for smartphones. Artificial intelligence has continued to dominate the conversation, with almost…

While so much tech is refreshed every year, Samsung waited a little longer to launch a new generation of budget Android tablet. The Galaxy Tab A11 is here at last though, aiming to be the best value tablet money can buy. It’s worth pointing out that Samsung decided to skip the Tab A10 name, perhaps because of the two-year gap since the A9 series launched. The Galaxy Tab A9 was one of our favourite cheap tablets of all time, so the Tab A11 has big shoes to fill. While the Galaxy Tab A11 – kindly provided for review by AO – might be impossible to tell apart from the Tab A9 by simply looking at it, it does come with some upgrades and even a lower price. When you put…

Think you’ve explored everything your Android smartphone’s Settings app has to offer? Think again. Deep within Settings, you’ll find a hidden Developer menu with an extensive list of settings you can tweak to improve your overall smartphone experience. Here are some developer settings I highly recommend that every Android user enable on their device. HOW TO ENABLE THE DEVELOPER MENU ON YOUR ANDROID PHONE Since the developer settings are primarily intended for Android developers, Google keeps them hidden from general users. To access them, you first need to unlock the Developer menu, which contains all these options. The process may vary slightly across different Android smartphones, but the general rule of thumb is to open the Settings app, go to About Phone, and tap the Build Number seven times. You’ll…

The last time Apple introduced a brand new category was Vision Pro. Now rumours suggest that Apple Glasses could be next. According to Bloomberg (via 9to5Mac, tinyurl.com/54em3hs2), the glasses could be shown off as early as 2026 as a preview, although the actual launch will be delayed until 2027. That’s in line with how Apple has unveiled new product categories in the past: both the Vision Pro and Apple Watch were shown off long before they went on sale. Smart glasses are growing in popularity but remain a niche, with Ray-Ban Meta one of the few clear market leaders and Samsung is getting in on the game too, with help from Google. But history shows that Apple can make a difference: neither the iPod, iPad nor the Apple Watch were…

Outside of the company’s native China, it’s been less than a year since we were introduced to the mighty OnePlus 13, and it’s proven to be an extremely capable entry against this year’s competition. So much so, in fact, that I’d go so far as to say it’s the best-value Android flagship of 2025. In spite of the 13 having plenty of life left in it, however, OnePlus is a company that, you guessed it… “Never Settles”, and as such, its successor is already here, in the OnePlus 15. Long-time OnePlus fans will understand the company’s aversion to the number 4, but the company is also framing the numerical jump between generations here as representative of the technical strides its new flagship embodies. The OnePlus 15 does, indeed, boast a…

Samsung has been one of the most consistent producers of Android tablets over the past years, staying true to the segment while other brands dropped out – and more recently, rejoined the fun. It’s no surprise, then, that Galaxy Tab models are amongst the best-selling Android tablets, following behind Apple’s dominance with the iPad. To challenge Apple’s top tablet, the iPad Pro, Samsung went big, throwing everything it could into this device. In 2025, that’s resulted in the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra. I’m going to put it out there: it’s very much an iterative update of the model that came before. If you were expecting a surprisingly new novelty here, you might be out of luck. The question surrounding the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is as much about whether you…

Forget Christmas. Early December is officially recap season. What began with Spotify Wrapped a decade ago is now an industry-wide trend, with almost every brand trying to cash in on some of that free publicity. Some of the more bizarre examples include online bank Monzo telling you how many times you’ve logged into the app, or Nectar updating you on where you sit in the satsuma buying rankings at your local Sainsbury’s. However, there was one that I was particularly excited for when it popped up last week: Google Photos Recap. As someone who takes thousands of photos and videos every year and relies on Google Photos to sync them across all my devices, I couldn’t wait to see what fun insights it had in store for me. Sadly, I…