9 mobile game development courses with an extra 50% off this week

Not everyone is able to turn their passion into a career. But for gamers, there are endless opportunities. While some make it as streamers, there are more solid career paths in game development. These top courses at the XDA Developers Depot could help you land a top job — and they’re now 50% off for a limited time when you use promo code LEARNIT.

The Complete HTML5 Mobile Game Development Course

Building games with HTML5 allows you to reach every platform, including Android and iOS. This course shows how, with 10 hours of tutorials focusing on the Phaser framework, coding with JavaScript, and publishing via the Intel XDK.

Get The Complete HTML5 Mobile Game Development Course for $19.50 (reg. $199) with promo code LEARNIT. 

The Complete Unity Game Developer Bundle

Unity is a very popular framework with indie game developers. This collection of seven courses helps you craft your own titles, with over 200 lessons from a certified Unity expert. The training covers everything from animation to monetization.

Get The Complete Unity Game Developer Bundle for $39 (reg. $1,399) with promo code LEARNIT. 

Zero to Hero HTML5 Game Developer Bundle

Want to take your HTML5 skills to the next level? Featuring eight top courses, this bundle combines concise tutorials and hands-on projects. You discover how to code games in various genres, with extra features written in Python and JavaScript.

Get the Zero to Hero HTML5 Game Developer Bundle for $12.50 (reg. $1,182) with promo code LEARNIT. 

The Ultimate Unity Game Development Bundle

Featuring 44 hours of content, this bundle feels like a degree in Unity. The beginner-friendly lessons look at best practices for C# programming, helping you go from simple concepts to advanced features. You also learn about the visual aspect, with a full-length course on cinematography.

Get The Ultimate Unity Game Development Bundle for $12.50 (reg. $800) with promo code LEARNIT.  

The Learn Game Design Certification Bundle

Creating games isn’t only about coding. This bundle focuses on the creative side, showing you how to design beautiful in-game environments and interfaces from scratch. It includes seven courses in total, covering a range of skills.

Get The Learn Game Design Certification Bundle for $9.49 (reg. $1,097) with promo code LEARNIT. 

School of Game Design: Lifetime Membership

If you intend to turn pro, joining the School of Game Design is a smart move. This online training library offers 120 hours of tutorials, delivered by instructors with more than 16 years of experience. The videos cover 2D and 3D development, from coding to animation and digital artistry.

Get a School of Game Design lifetime membership for $24.50 (reg. $5,990) with promo code LEARNIT. 

The Comprehensive Game Development Bundle

From virtual reality to live multiplayer, this bundle of ten courses helps you build games with compelling features. You learn how to build shooter, RPG, and puzzle titles through hands-on training, with other courses looking at augmented reality and Unreal Engine.

Get The Comprehensive Game Development Bundle for $20 (reg. $1,990) with promo code LEARNIT. 

The Unity 2D Game Developer Bundle

Ideal for first-time developers, this bundle helps you create great 2D titles using the popular Unity framework. The line-up includes 11 courses in total, each covering new skills through a project. This means you earn real-world experience and build up a nice portfolio.

Get The Unity 2D Game Developer Bundle for $20 (reg. $2,189) with promo code LEARNIT. 

Unity Android Game Development: Build 7 2D & 3D Games

If your focus is Android, this 30-hour Unity course is a great learning resource. The training covers all the fundamentals, showing you how to use the Java Development Kit and Android SDK. You then pick up more advanced skills through seven project titles.

Get Unity Android Game Development for $9.99 (reg. $180) with promo code LEARNIT. 

Prices subject to change 

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The Honor Band 6 brings along a big screen and accurate sleep tracking for a low price

The first thing that caught my attention as I unboxed and set up the Honor Band 6 wasn’t the fitness tracker’s design or build quality. They’re both nice, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Instead, the thing that made me do a double-take is that the Honor Band 6 still requires the app Huawei Health to work.

Honor, as most readers already know, is no longer a part of Huawei; the brand was sold last November as part of an attempt by the Chinese tech giant to keep its consumer business afloat despite mounting sanctions by the US government. So why is it that the Honor Band 6 is still tethered to a Huawei software service?

It turns out, the Honor Band 6 is a “transitional product,” at least that was what a representative from Honor told me. As this band was designed, manufactured, and even launched (in China) before the Honor brand sales were finalized, it remains a Huawei product. Moving forward, the representative told me, Honor products will be self-developed and will use their own ecosystem.

This makes the Band 6 one of the last of its kind — future Honor products will no longer share this Huawei lineage. This alone makes the band sort of notable, but how does it perform?

About this review: Honor sent us the Honor Band 6 for review. This review is after using the device for more than a week. Honor had no inputs in the contents of this review.

Honor Band 6: Design

The biggest improvement over the Honor Band 5 from 2019 is an increase in screen size from 0.95″ to 1.45″. This 194 x 368 AMOLED panel is sharp, vibrant, and easily visible even under direct sunlight. The screen fills up roughly 85% of the device’s face, so bezels are relatively slim; there’s a single physical button on the right side, and the left side has Honor’s logo etched onto the plastic frame. The actual tracker measures about half an inch in thickness so it’s thin enough to not get in the way when putting on or taking off long-sleeved shirts and jackets. Around the back is the typical heart rate sensor that can continuously track your heart rate throughout the day.

The band is silicone as is the case with most fitness bands, and the fit is comfortable for me thanks to a higher-than-usual number of notches that are closer together — which allows for more incremental adjustments.

While my band is in an understated black, there are two other color options to add some splashes of color to the aesthetic.

Software and Features

As mentioned in the beginning of this review, pairing with the Huawei Health app is required to set up the band. I paired the band with a Huawei Mate X2 for the first two days, then switched over to the Vivo X60 Pro Plus, and both worked fine.

The Huawei Health app works well: it has an easy to navigate interface, shows me my crucial data in an easily digestible manner, and it syncs with the band far better than Fitbit’s services (I have used Fitbit products for years, and app pairing has always taken much longer than competitors). For example, if I assign a new watch face in the Huawei Health app — and there are dozens to choose from — the change is shown on the actual band within seconds. On my Fitbit Sense, this action could take 3-5 minutes.

Notifications came through in real-time, however, these are static notifications, meaning I can just read a couple of lines worth of information. I can’t expand or respond to them. This is the case with most fitness trackers, so I suppose I can’t complain too much, but I’m used to wearing either the Fitbit Sense or Apple Watch 6 and both allow me to respond to WhatsApp or Telegram messages directly on the wrist.

Honor Band 6: Health Tracking

The Honor Band 6 can track just about all the activities one would expect from a fitness tracker: it can obviously track steps, heart rate, stairs climbed, various exercises including weightlifting and cycling, but it also adds women’s cycle tracking this year. I couldn’t track the latter, but the other metrics were all accurate.

The excellent sleep tracking seen in previous Huawei/Honor devices returns here too. The Honor Band 6 can track my sleep automatically without needing me to manually prompt the device. I tend to toss around in bed a lot during sleep, and less intelligent trackers can sometimes mistake a middle-of-the-night movement as waking up — but the Honor Band 6 passes the test. All the data seems accurate to me, as far as I can tell. The sleep data doesn’t just tell me how long I’ve slept, but how well I slept, including a percentage of time spent in REM, or light sleep, etc.

There’s also an SpO2 sensor for blood-oxygen tracking. I tested it along with an Apple Watch 6 and the results are similar, which should imply they’re accurate.

Honor Band 6: Battery Life

As is usually the case with Huawei/Honor products, battery life is very good. The Band 6 advertises 14-day battery life on a single charge; while I haven’t used the band for that long yet, I can say that after a full week of use, I still see 61% battery left on my band right now — so the band can surely last 14 days, if not 15. Keep in mind, throughout the week I wore the band over 23 hours a day, only taking it off for showers and cooking. The band is rated 5 ATM by the way, so even if I were to wear it in the shower, it would have no issues.

Pricing and Availability

The Honor Band 6 has a suggested retail price of €50 ($58) but it’s on sale at AliExpress — which is open to US consumers too — at just $36. At this price, I can’t really complain about the Honor Band 6, even if I wish I could interact with notifications.

The Honor Band 6 is a sleek fitness tracker with a large screen and two-week battery life.

View at AliExpress

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Microsoft is shutting down the Cortana app on Android and iOS

The Cortana mobile app for Android and iOS is officially being axed by Microsoft today, March 31, 2021. Originally launched in November 2018, the voice assistant app was removed from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in January last year. While it was still functional, starting today, Microsoft has confirmed that it will no longer offer support for the app.

As per a support page spotted by 9to5Mac, Microsoft says that reminders and lists will no longer be available to users within the app. however one can still have access to them through Cortana on Windows. Additionally, Cortana reminders, lists, and tasks are automatically synced to the Microsoft To-Do app which is available for both Android and iOS.

As we announced in July, we will soon be ending support for the Cortana app on Android and iOS, as Cortana continues its evolution as a productivity assistant.

As of March 31, 2021, the Cortana content you created–such as reminders and lists–will no longer function in the Cortana mobile app, but can still be accessed through Cortana in Windows. Also, Cortana reminders, lists, and tasks are automatically synced to the Microsoft To Do app, which you can download to your phone for free.  

After March 31, 2021, the Cortana mobile app on your phone will no longer be supported. 

The reason for Microsoft killing the mobile version of the app is due to a change in strategy. Cortana is being integrated within the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps and of course, it will continue to serve as the default voice assistant for Windows 10. With the integration of Cortana with Microsoft 365, the company has introduced personalized, actionable briefs in Outlook for Exchange users, and adding Cortana to the Teams mobile app to do things like manage calendars, email, and join meetings. The dedicated mobile app no longer figures into this vision.

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Stable One UI 3.1 update goes live for the Samsung Galaxy M21 in India

Samsung’s One UI 3.1 update train is running at full steam. Over the past weeks, the company has delivered the One UI 3.1-based update to more than a dozen Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy S10 Lite, Galaxy M51, Galaxy A50, Galaxy A70, Galaxy A80, and more. Having delivered the latest version of One UI to most of its premium flagships and mid-range lineup, the company has now turned its attention towards budget-friendly smartphones. Earlier this month we saw Samsung rolling out the stable One UI 3.1 update to the Galaxy M31 and now the Galaxy M21 is getting the same treatment.

Samsung has begun rolling out the stable One UI 3.1 Core update to the Galaxy M21. Several Galaxy M21 owners in India have confirmed receiving the update. The update carries build number M215FXXU2BUC8 and is 964.16MB in size. Besides bumping the One UI version, the software package also includes March 2021 security patches. There’s no change to the underlying Android version as the Galaxy M21 already received Android 11 via One UI 3.0 update back in January.

One UI 3.1 isn’t as massive a jump the way One UI 3.0 was from One UI 2.5. Still, the Galaxy M21 owners can look forward to many useful improvements, including the new Eye comfort shield, updated camera app, new editing tools, and more. To learn more about all the new features and improvements in One UI 3.1, check out our in-depth review.

Galaxy M21 XDA Forums

If you own a Galaxy M21 and reside in India, keep an eye out for the OTA notification. As is usually the case with staged software rollouts, however, it might take several days before the update is rolled out to everyone so don’t worry if you’re not seeing any update notification on your device just yet. You can also manually check for the update by heading to Settings > Software updates. So far, the One UI 3.1 software rollout has only gone live in India, but it’s only a matter of time before we see the new software making its way to other markets.

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Realme GT Neo offers a serious hardware punch at an affordable price

After launching the Realme GT earlier this month, Realme is back again with a new, cheaper model in the lineup. The company has just launched the Realme GT Neo in China. The latest entrant in the company’s GT series offers powerful hardware and unique design at an affordable price point.

Realme GT Neo: Specifications

Specification	Realme GT Neo
Dimensions and Weight	158.5mm x 73.33mm x 8.4mm 179g
Display	6.43-inch Super AMOLED 2400 x 1080 (Full HD+) 120Hz screen refresh rate 360Hz touch sampling rate 100% DCI-P3 wide color gamut coverage
SoC	MediaTek Dimensity 1200: Octa-core (Up to 2.0GHz) 6nm ARM G77 MC9 GPU
RAM and Storage	RAM: 6GB/8GB/12GB Storage: 128GB/256GB
Battery & Charging	4,500 mAh battery 50W fast charging (a 65W charger comes inside the box)
Rear Camera	Primary: 64MP Quad Pixel f/1.79 Secondary: 8MP f/2.3 ultra-wide angle Tertiary: 2MP f/2.4 macro
Front Camera	16MP f/2.5
Ports	USB Type-C port 3.5mm headphone jack
Connectivity	5G NFC Bluetooth 5.1 Wi-Fi 6 Type-C port WiFi 802.11.b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz) Dual-band GPS
Others	In-display fingerprint scanner Dual speakers Dolby Panorama sound effects Hi-Res Audio certification
Software	Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11

The Realme GT Neo sports a 6.43-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 120Hz screen refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling rate. The phone is powered by MediaTek’s top-tier Dimensity 1200 SoC, paired with either 6GB / 8GB / 12GB RAM and 64GB/128GB UFS 3.1 flash storage. In the camera department, we have a 64MP primary shooter, an 8MP ultra-wide shooter, a 2MP macro lens, and a 16MP front camera.

The 4,500mAh battery of the Realme GT Neo is the same as its Snapdragon 888-powered sibling with support for 50W fast charging (although the company ships a 65W charger inside the box).

Similar to the standard Realme GT, the Neo model also aims to offer a superior gaming performance and comes with stainless steel and copper sheets to keep the thermals in check.

The rest of the highlights include 5G support, NFC, WiFi 6, stereo speakers, dual-band GPS, a 3.5mm audio jack, dual SIM support, and Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11.

Pricing & Availability

The Realme GT Neo will go on sale in China starting April  7 at a starting price of CNY 1,799 (~$274) for the base model. Meanwhile, the 8GB + 128GB and 12GB + 256GB models are priced CNY 1,899 (~$290) and CNY 2,399 (~$366), respectively. There’s no official word on when, if ever, the phone will make its way to global markets.

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Samsung rolls out April 2021 security patches to the Galaxy A52, Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy Tab S6

Samsung recently pushed out the April 2021 security patches to the Galaxy S21, Galazy Z Fold 2, and the Galaxy Note 10 in some regions. The 4G variant of the Galaxy A51 has also received a similar bump on the Android security patch level (SPL) through its One UI 3.1 update. Such an early security patch release is possible because of the fact that Google notifies Android Partners about the Android framework and Linux kernel issues listed in a particular Android Security Bulletin (ASB) at least 30 days before the public release. Now, four more devices from the Korean OEM’s portfolio – the Galaxy A52, the Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy S10, and the Galaxy Tab S6 – have picked up new updates with the April 2021 patchset.

Galaxy A52

As reported by SamMobile, the April 2021 security update for the Galaxy A52 4G (model number SM-A525F) with the firmware version A525FXXU1AUC5 is now rolling out in several European countries. Judging from the version number, the new build brings a handful of feature improvements alongside the obvious bump in the Android security patch level.

Samsung Galaxy A52 4G XDA Forums || Samsung Galaxy A52 5G XDA Forums

Samsung Galaxy A52 4G

The Galaxy A52 4G is the latest mid-ranger from Samsung, which packs features like a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, the Snapdragon 720G SoC, a 64MP quad camera setup, IP67 water and dust resistance, and more, in an easy-to-handle polycarbonate body.

Buy from Samsung France

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G

The Galaxy A52 5G is the latest mid-ranger from Samsung, bringing along features like a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, the Snapdragon 750G SoC, a 64MP quad camera setup, IP67 water and dust resistance, and more, in an easy-to-handle polycarbonate body.

Buy from Samsung UK

Galaxy S20 FE

Just like the Galaxy A52, the 4G variant of the Galaxy S20 FE (model number SM-780F) is also receiving the April 2021 security patch update. The new build is tagged as G780FXXS2CUC8 and it is currently available across Europe.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE XDA Forums

Galaxy S10

Last but not least, the April 2021 security update is rolling out for the Exynos-powered Galaxy S10 lineup (model number SM-G97xF) in the form of firmware version G97xxXXU9FUCD. This particular build has gone live in several regions, including countries in Europe and Asia.

XDA Forums: Galaxy S10e || Galaxy S10 || Galaxy S10 Plus

Galaxy Tab S6

Just a few weeks ago, the Galaxy Tab S6 received its Android 11 update with One UI 3.1. The LTE variant of the tablet (model number SM-T865) is now getting the April 2021 patches in the DBT region, which is Samsung’s code name for Germany.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 XDA Forums

As always, the updates are rolling out in batches. You might have to wait a couple of days before the update notification pops up on your device. However, if you are no stranger to manual flashing, you can just skip the waiting queue and download the firmware package directly from the company’s update server using tools like Samsung Firmware Downloader. There is just one caveat: You need a PC to flash the downloaded firmware on your phone.

At the time of writing this article, Samsung’s Mobile Security portal has not been updated with the details of the April 2021 security bulletin.

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Sony Bravia X80J and Bravia XR A90J are the first TVs with Google TV that you can buy right away

With the launch of the new Chromecast last year, Google introduced a special version of Android TV called Google TV. Google had stressed that it is a custom UX solution that would focus on content discovery and content aggregation that is built on top of Android TV, kind of like an alternative to PatchWall and OxygenPlay. To date, Google TV was only available with the latest Chromecast device, but it is finally expanding to television sets. As promised, Sony’s new Bravia series with Google TV are now available for purchase in the US.

The new Sony Bravia X80J comes at a starting price of $749 for the 43-inch model and goes to $1699 for the 75-inch model (via 9to5Google). There is also the high-end Bravia A90J series that comes with an OLED panel available in 55-inch, 65-inch, and 83-inch models. Pricing for these starts at $2,999 although Sony hasn’t confirmed how much the 83-inch model would cost.

The Bravia X80J series features standard LCD panels with 4K resolution, with support for HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision. They feature Sony’s 4K HDR Processor X1 along with 4K X-Reality PRO clarity enhancement. These TVs come with a standard 60Hz refresh rate and for audio, there are two 10W speakers with support for Dolby Audio and Dolby Atmos.

The Bravia A90J series on the other hand comes with OLED panels which means you can expect better contrast and punchier colors. Alongside all the enhancements available on the X80J, the A90J supports a 120Hz refresh rate along with HDMI 2.1, making it the perfect companion for the Sony PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X|S. This series also offers better audio thanks to the dual actuators and subwoofers.

Only limited models under the Bravia X80J and Bravia A90J are currently available for purchase online via Best Buy. But we are expecting more models to arrive soon. Orders are expected to start shipping as soon as April 1.

Sony Bravia X80J

The new Sony Bravia X80J series comes with a 4K LCD panel and runs on the new Google TV platform.

Buy at Best Buy

Sony Bravia A90J

The Sony Bravia X80J series features a 120Hz OLED panel and comes with the latest Google TV platform.

Buy at Best Buy

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