This week in Android: Best of Android 2019, 60Hz vs 90Hz screens, and more!

This week we released our Best of Android 2019 Awards, which are based on our objective testing. The scores this year were closer than ever (sometimes a 1% difference was a deciding factor), and the winner might surprise you. Numbers aren’t everything though, so we also have an Editor’s Choice award for the phone we are most comfortable recommending to people.

In less uplifting news, a report from the New York Times revealed just how badly location tracking can be abused. It’s supposed to be anonymous, but it’s simple to identify people using publicly available information, whether they be celebrities, military generals, or normal everyday people.

On the review side, we got a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus Star Wars Edition, and published our reviews of the mid-range realme X2 and QWERTY keyboard-sporting Fxtec Pro1.

Here are the top 10 Android stories of the week

• realme X2 review: Beating Xiaomi at its own game — Could this be the best mid-range phone of 2019?
• The Galaxy Note 10 Plus Star Wars Edition is seriously out of this galaxy — Now I REALLY can’t wait to see The Rise of Skywalker.
• Best of Android Awards 2019: The best phone of 2019 is… — We’ve run this year’s top smartphones through our testing suite to determine find the best of the best.
• What is an SoC? Everything you need to know about smartphone chipsets — Essentially, an SoC is the brain of your smartphone, but how does it work?
• 2014 was the best year this decade for smartphones — 2014 was one of our favorite years ever for smartphone launches. We got the HTCOne M8, OnePlus One, and more!
• Six years of OnePlus: The biggest hits (and misses) in its short history — Happy sixth birthday, OnePlus. Here’s a collection of some its the biggest hits (and misses).
• Finally! Snapdragon 865’s CPU beats the Apple A13 — Early indicators are that the Snapdragon 865 is an Apple-beating processor.
• Pixel Feature Drops: Google making old phones new again is great news for us all — Our phones should be exciting well beyond launch. Thankfully, Google wants to make that a reality.
• Google should really offer a Pixel upgrade program — Why doesn’t this exist yet?
• 90Hz smartphone display test: Can users really feel the difference? — Can smartphone users really tell the difference between 90Hz and 60Hz refresh rate displays?

Learn more on the Android Authority Podcast

This week on the podcast we discussed the cool new Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus Star Wars Edition, Motorola Razr delays, Snapdragon 865 performance, and more!

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Who wants to win a OnePlus 7T Pro?

This week, we’re giving away a brand new OnePlus 7T Pro smartphone. Enter this week’s Sunday giveaway for your chance to win!

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