The fast tempo at which innovative smartphones and tablets are launched onto the consumer market is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, you have a lot of great new products, with the latest hardware and software to fulfill your tech dreams, but on the other, your recently bought device quickly becomes outdated. This is the reason why we’ve created a series of articles called ‘make your device awesome again’ where our AndroidPIT editor Sterling has featured all the popular devices that our readers are using, and ways to spruce them up. Here they are again if you have missed yours.
The third generation Samsung Galaxy smartphone has known an amazing success and even now, after four years, is still loved by many. The 8MP camera and many smart features are some of its asset, not to mention that the Galaxy S3 of various regions has received the Android 4.4. KitKat update.
After the S3 came the S4, and with it a lot of innovation. Samsung packed it full of features, but you either love or hate (or tolerate) the built-in software (otherwise known as bloatware). The Galaxy S4can also receive a fixer-up, as it is just over one year old.
The Nexus 4 is covered completely by glass, and is still quite fast with a Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, which ain’t bad for something that came out in 2012. The Nexus 4 may be old, but it’s still kicking. Here are some ways to spruce it up as well.
I really love the LG G3, but the LG G2 isn’t bad either. It was the first smartphone to come with back-facing buttons and the Knock On feature to activate the display by tapping. There are many ways to make the best of your LG G2 and we’ve got them here for you.
Google’s tablet, the Nexus 10, may very well be the last of its kind, so it is a good idea to preserve it. Also a 2012 device, the 10-inch tablet has a good resolution on its Gorilla Glass 2-protected display. The ways to make your Nexus 10 awesome again are easy, as explained in the article.
Whether you have the Nexus 7 2012 or Nexus 7 2013, there are many ways to improve the Google tablet, which we have highlighted in the article. Give it some spring cleaning and make the best of one of the greatest tablets on the Android market.
The Galaxy Note 2, predecessor to the Note 3, is still a popular device, thanks to its S Pen and productivity features that make life easier for busy people. There are ways to improve even this great Android phablet.
At the time of its launch, the Galaxy S2 was considered innovative. Though the same can’t be said now, it still is a decent phone if you need something useful for calling, texting and other low-resource apps. Here are some great ways to make it awesome again.
The HTC One (M7) was HTC’s claim to fame with its metal chassis, a truly beautiful design. Though it isn’t very old, there are a lot of ways to make this device the best that it can be. Here are some cool things to do with the HTC One (M7).
It’s easy to capture screenshots on mobile devices but let’s do a quick recap. If you have an iPhone, press the Home & Sleep buttons and the screenshot image will be saved instantly. On an Android device, press the Volume Down & Power button simultaneously to capture whatever is currently on your screen. And in the case of Windows Phone 8, press and hold the Start and Power buttons at the same time to take a screenshot.
That’s a raw screenshot saved in your camera roll but you also need to add the hardware frame around your screenshots so that the captured images appear more realistic and provides better context to the viewer.
Why is that important? A 768 pixels wide screenshot of a mobile app in portrait mode could have been captured on an Android device or an old iPad – now wrap that same image inside the Google Nexus frame and everyone is saved from playing a guessing game.
A layered photo editing tool like Adobe Photoshop makes it really easy for you to add hardware device frames to any screenshot image. Go to Dribbble and search for “freebies PSD <mobile name>” and you’ll find beautiful mockups for that mobile device.
Download and import the PSD file into Photoshop and then use the File -> Place command to place the screenshot image as a new layer over the mockup. Use the Save for Web option to export the screen capture in JPEG format.
[*] Dribbble users usually add the tag “freebies” or “free” to indicate that others can reuse their design(s) for personal and commercial use. Other than Dribbble, Deviant Art and Behance are also good places to discover high-quality mobile mockups.
If you aren’t well-versed in Photoshop, you can make use of a web app like PlaceIt that will automatically add device frames to your mobile screenshots.
The tool offers a collection of professional-quality photographs of mobile phones and tablets placed in realistic settings. You need to drag your screenshot image onto a photograph and it will automatically get placed in the screen area of the mobile device perfectly aligned with the hardware frame.
PlaceIt can handle screenshots of your iPhone, iPad, Nokia Lumia, Macbook, Microsoft Surface, iMac, Amazon Kindle, Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus phones.
The Device Art Generator, available here and here, is provided by Google for anyone to quickly add device frames around screenshots of Android phones and tablets.
Drag the mobile screenshot image on to a device frame and it will quickly wrap that frame around your image. You also have the option to add screen glare and depth (for perspective) to the generated screenshots.
Device Art Generator includes templates for HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Google Nexus 10 devices.
MockuPhone is another useful web app for adding device frames to your mobile screenshots with a unique feature. You pick a device frame, upload the mobile screenshot image and the tool will generate multiple screenshot images of the same device but at different angles.
The tool produces very high-resolution screenshots and they offer device frames for the iPhone 5, iPad & iPad Mini, Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy S4.
You can also add realistic device frames to your mobile screenshots via email. Just send the raw screenshot image as an email attachment to smartphones@mailchimp.com and, within in a minute or two, they will send you the processed screenshot with the device frame. You can also send multiple screenshots in the same message.
The service will automatically detects the mobile device name and the image orientation (portrait or landscape) using the EXIF data in the image and adds the appropriate hardware frame. It supports iPhone, iPad, Galaxy Tab, Nexus and a bunch of mobile device – send an email with the subject “help” to the same address for a complete list.
