MakeUseOf

My old Pixel has a battery setting Google won't let newer owners turn off

Brady Snyder — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 22:00:17 GMT

Android is all about choice and customization, but to some, that identity is fading away. Every version of Android that ships with a commercial phone is a far cry from the basic Android Open Source Project release, complete with custom manufacturer tweaks — and restrictions. Pixel phones arrive with Google's vision for Android, sometimes mistakenly referred to as "stock Android." In many ways, it's more limited than the Android skins you get from Samsung or Motorola.

I found 4 places to install solar panels that aren’t the roof

Michael Bizzaco — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 21:00:18 GMT

Residential and commercial solar relies on solar panels to collect energy, so you’ll often see panels mounted on the roofs of homes and businesses. For many installations, this is an ideal location for harnessing UV rays, as the sun is always overhead, where it’s the least likely to be blocked by trees, nearby structures, and other types of obstacles. Unfortunately, roof-mounted panels aren’t always an option when you’re considering going solar.

Windows has 5 built-in safety nets eating your SSD, and only some of them earn the space

Yadullah Abidi — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 20:30:17 GMT

Windows is notorious for eating away space on your SSD that you could use for more useful things like your photo backups or your favorite game. A lot of that space holds Windows itself, but a surprisingly big amount belongs to recovery and reliability features designed to save your PC when something goes wrong.

I tested Qi2 charging with and without a case, and the difference surprised me

Brady Snyder — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 20:00:17 GMT

Wireless charging is a trade-off that places convenience over speed. You can drop your phone on a wireless charging pad at your desk, on your nightstand, or in your car — but it won't be as quick as a cable. Smartphones have copper coils inside that collect energy transferred by the copper coils in a wireless charger, and some of that energy is lost as heat in the process. It's why wireless charging is inefficient compared to wired charging, even if your phone and wireless charger support modern standards like Qi2.2 25W.

Your old Fire TV Stick can do something the new one never will

Suman Biswas — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 19:30:18 GMT

Using an old Fire TV Stick, without any manual tweaking, feels like using one of those old "productivity" laptops with 4GB of memory. Yes, it works, but with a ton of caveats and, well, "clunkiness." I own a third-generation Fire TV Stick that I got for my entertainment setup back in 2019. It gave me hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of entertainment over the years, but lately it's finally started showing its age.

I decided my 10-year-old mini PC hadn’t suffered enough, so I made it run a local LLM

Gregory Gibson — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 19:00:17 GMT

I’ve wanted to try local AI in my homelab, but the expense of setting it all up has unfortunately been putting me off. From what I can see, local AI would require me to spend thousands on a server with multiple GPUs, a lot of memory, and power consumption equal to that of a small supermarket.

Stephen King’s best book series is impossible to adapt, but Prime Video will get it right for this one reason

Dan Selcke — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 18:30:17 GMT

Stephen King is one of the best-known authors alive, and the first name in horror. His books have been adapted to the screen many, many times, often with spectacular results. But there are just as many terrible Stephen King adaptations. His work can be difficult to do justice.

I recovered 27GB of storage using a Samsung feature I'd been ignoring

Pankil Shah — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 18:00:17 GMT

Fixed internal storage with no SD card slot is a recipe for disaster. Sadly, though, that’s the reality on most phones now, including my Galaxy S26. But all hope is not lost. Galaxy phones do come with useful tools for freeing up storage space, so you don’t need third-party apps to help you with the storage situation.

My new phone was charging slowly, but the charger's wattage wasn't the problem

Brady Snyder — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 17:30:18 GMT

I used to religiously charge my phone overnight, and occasionally required midday top-ups to keep my phone's battery going. Now, I don't have to plan daily charges, because flagship phone batteries finally support fast charging across the iPhone, Pixel, and Galaxy lineups.

I measured what Windows services actually use at idle, and 3 cost more RAM than my browser

Manuviraj Godara — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 17:00:19 GMT

"This is the year when I finally upgrade my puny 8GB of DDR4 RAM to a higher capacity DDR5 unit," is what I thought at the start of 2025. Boy, was I naive. Thanks to the data center boom, there's a global RAM shortage, or to use the parlance of our times, a 'RAMpocalypse', that has driven up RAM prices to unprecedented levels. There are no good RAM deals in this economy.