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Spigen's Style Ring is a multipurpose minimalist phone accessory you may just fall in love with.

So many smartphone accessories claim themselves to be a must-have accessory, but rarely do they actually live up to the advertised hype. More often than not, they end up in some drawer after a month or two for one reason or another — you've upgraded to a new phone that's not compatible with it, or you just got bored with using it.

The Spigen Style Ring may just be able to buck that trend. By incorporating so many handy features into one universal smartphone accessory, it basically become more and more essential the longer you use it.

And if you're also among the millions of folks swept up in Pokémon Go mania, you've spent countless hours running through your city trying to catch 'em all. During our own hunting adventures, we've come to realize the Style Ring is also the perfect Pokémon Go accessory.

No more death-gripping your phone

If you've own a smartphone for long enough, drop damage is inevitable. If you're lucky, it falls the "right way" and doesn't cause any permanent scuffs or cracks. With the Style Ring, you get an added layer of security when your phone is in hand. Slip your finger in the ring and you really don't have to worry about dropping your phone.

For Pokémon, the idea of not having to death grip your phone as you weave your way down streets and through parks tracking an elusive Pokémon is pretty novel. The Style Ring gives you the confidence and freedom to take off running when you hear someone yell about a wild Vaporeon — without ever having to worry about dropping your phone.

Perfectly car compatible

Another simple accessory included with every Style Ring is the Hook Mount, a little rubberized-plastic nub with mounting tape on the back. Wipe down a spot on your car's dashboard, adhere the Hook Mount, and you just installed one of the most minimalist car mounts for your phone on the market.

To mount your phone, you simply extend the ring, hook it on the mount, and push until you feel it pop into place. BAM! Your phone is secure and accessible to you as you drive. Perfect for controlling your music on the go, following along with turn-by-turn directions from Google Maps, or a quick swipe if you're near a PokéStop at a red light.

For Pokémon players who love to play while being driven around, the Style Ring lets you confidently lean out the window like a dog and really stretch your phone to get into range of distant PokéStop. As long as you've got the Style Ring on your finger, your phone is secure. We're definitely not recommending such behavior, we've just seen people doing it and it's only a matter of time before someone's phone slips and shatters on the pavement below.

Also works great on bike

If you're more of a Pokémon purist, maybe you prefer to bike around as you hatch and catch. With the Style Ring, you're able to maintain much better control of your bike while still managing to keep your phone literally on hand. This allows you to conveniently swipe PokéStops as you bike past, or pop off your bike at a moment's notice when you feel that vibration informing you a Pokémon is around.

This goes without saying, but as the game warns on load up, always be careful and alert when you're out and about. Heed the words of Professor Oak who frequently scolded you — there are time and places where you simply shouldn't be on your bike. Be considerate to your fellow trainers!

Better range for one-handed Pokéball throws

So we've talked about how the Style Ring can help you keep a better grip on your phone, but let's talk about how the Style Ring might help with some Pokémon Go fundamentals: catching Pokémon!

Spigen highlights how the Style Ring grants you a wider reach across larger smartphones. This added range will give you more control over your Poké Ball throws.

Once you're on that XP grind to to level up your trainer, every little addition helps. That means maximizing every Pokémon catch with a throw bonus. One of the coolest (and often frustrating) techniques is the curveball throw. It nets you an extra 10 XP, which should become automatic when you get the curveball down pat.

If you need to work on your curveball throws, we've got a guide for that!

And it's got other uses beyond Pokémon Go, too

On top of everything previously mentioned, the Style Ring also doubles as a kickstand, which is awesome. With the ability to tilt and swivel the ring 180 and 360 degrees respectively, you have the freedom to set up your phone any which way you want. Prop it up in portrait orientation on your work desk, or flip it to landscape for watching YouTube videos or Netflix.

There are many other clever uses for the Style Ring — you just need to use your imagination. Mobile Nation's own Kevin Michaluk is a huge fan of the Style Ring. On top of all the awesome functionality of the Style Ring mentioned above, he enjoys using it as a spin-the-phone game for determining who's going to pick up the cheque when out for dinner with friends.

Because of how the Style Ring secures to the back of your phone, removing it does takes some elbow grease. Best practise is to wedge something thin such as a guitar pick under a corner then slowly peel it back. But you can swap the Style Ring to another phone, which is great. Take care of your Style Ring and it may just outlive your device.

Oh, and if you're wondering, it doesn't quite work as a beer bottle opener. We tried.

Get it to match your phone

Spigen offers the Style Ring in five familiar colors — Space grey, Champagne Gold, Black, and White — so you should be able to find the right color to match your phone.

If only they came in Valor red, Mystic blue and Instinct yellow. (Psst! Spigen, you listening?)

An essential accessory, for average phone user, or the ultimate Pokémon Go fan!

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Want to pay for stuff in the UK using Android Pay? Great! Here's what you need to know.

Android Pay is Google's mobile payments service, and it's now live in the UK. Much like Apple Pay, this means that if you have a supported handset and your bank allows it, you can securely pay for things in the real world without fumbling around for cards or cash.

Where can I use Android Pay in the UK?

Because the underlying technology is so similar, Android Pay should work anywhere contactless credit and debit cards are supported. That includes many of the big supermarkets and coffee shop chains, and the London Underground.

Is Android Pay the same as Samsung Pay?

No. Samsung Pay is Samsung's own payment service which uses slightly different technology, allowing it to work regardless of whether a contactless terminal is present. When Samsung Pay launches in the UK, Samsung phone owners with supported handsets will be able to use this, or Android Pay, to make payments on their phones.

Which phones are supported?

You'll need a phone running at least Android 4.4 KitKat with NFC support (near-field communication — that's the hardware that lets your phone securely transmit data to payment terminals). Most high-end Android phones sold in the past couple of years support NFC, as do many mid-range handsets. If you're not sure, try looking for NFC in Settings > Wireless and networks, or searching for it in the Settings app.

You don't need a fingerprint scanner to authenticate — you can use a pattern or PIN lock instead — but using Android Pay will be quicker and easier if your phone has one.

Which UK banks support Android Pay?

At the time of writing the following UK banks support Android Pay:

• Bank of Scotland
• First Direct
• Halifax
• HSBC
• Lloyds Bank
• M&S Bank
• MBNA
• Nationwide Building Society
• Santander
• Natwest
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Ulster Bank
• TSB

More local banks are likely to be added in the coming months, just as more banks have been joining Apple Pay since that service launched.

Notably absent from the list is Barclays. Barclays is currently pushing its own mobile payments app for Android, and the bank says it has "no plans" to join Android Pay at this time. So Barclays (and Barclaycard) customers might be left out in the cold if they don't want to use the bank's first-party app.

How do I get started?

Simply install the Android Pay app from Google Play and follow the instructions. If you already have a credit or debit card associated with your Google account, and your bank supports it, you'll be up and running in a few minutes.

Is there a limit to Android Pay in the UK?

For payments of £30 or less, you can pay with your phone by unlocking it and holding it over the payment terminal, just as you would a contactless credit card. For payments over £30 — assuming they're supported by your bank and the merchant — you'll need to authenticate using your fingerprint, PIN or pattern.

Is Android Pay secure to use?

Android Pay — and other phone-based payment methods — is arguably more secure than using a card alone, since your card details are never sent to the merchant. Instead a secure token, generated by Google in the cloud, is sent over NFC and used to authenticate your transaction.

Whether any electronic payment can ever be 100 percent secure is debatable, but there's nothing inherently more risky about using your phone to pay, assuming you take sensible security precautions to protect it from theft and misuse.

Are you using Android Pay in the UK? How are you finding the service so far? Shout out in the comments and let us know!

What are the different types of phone photography lenses available?

Let's cut to the chase: your Android phone's camera is a powerful little tool. With it you can capture vivid video, professional portraits, trippy time-lapses, and so much more, all without any extra bells and whistles weighing you down.

Phone photography lenses are incredibly quick, practical, and convenient tools to have in your back pocket, and the four most common kinds you'll come across are wide-angle, fisheye, macro, and telephoto lenses. They can take your Instagram posts to the next level, transform a get-together with friends into a memorable photo moment, and make your Snapchat stories all the more compelling to watch.

With phone photography blossoming online and amongst real-life pro photographers, having a few phone lenses ready to go can be a great way to switch things up in your shooting routine.

Here are the different, most common types of phone photography lenses to check out if you're looking to get creative and break the mold on basic, boring phone photography!

• Wide-angle
• Fisheye
• Macro
• Telephoto

Wide-angle

Wide-angle lenses are a really great, straightforward way to add a bit of a different perspective to your Android photos and videos without making them look too terribly cluttered and over the top.

As a phone photographer shooting with a wide-angle, external lens, you'll be able to allow more of the background image to be captured in your photograph or video. If you want to get more technical with things like focal length, that's totally a-okay, but to keep things simple, it's key to essentially remember that the shorter the focal length is, the wide the field of view is, and therefore, more stuff can fit into your image.

Wide-angle lenses are fantastic because they can be used in a plethora of shooting styles, including portraiture, nature shots, food pics, large group shots, selfies, and so much more! By expanding and changing the way your Android phone sees things, you can really up the overall quality and look of your photos.

Remember, a wide-angle lens is used more to shift your perspective and make you get a creative, not warp your photo completely like other phone photography lenses.

Fisheye

If you've ever watched a GoPro video, you've probably noticed the familiar look of the camera lens: it's less intense than looking through a peephole, but more intense than a typical wide-angle lens. This look is called a fisheye effect, and it's an incredibly popular shooting tool amongst phone and professional photographers!

First used in the 1920s for meteorology and cloud formation, fisheye lenses have recently made a comeback (after a spike in popularity in the 60s) in everything from action photography, wedding photography, underwater photography, food photography, music videos, horror movies, portraiture, and so, so much more. A fisheye lens can be appropriate to use in almost any situation, giving the viewer a bit more of a 'I'm actually there in the photo!!!' perspective.

You can use a fisheye lens with your Android phone to add a super unique perspective and feel to your photos. Depending on how the lens is secured to your phone – via adhesive, magnets, a clip-on, or case – you can even imitate bigger-ticket video items like a GoPro camera with just your phone.

All you need is a little fisheye perspective, and a lot of creativity.

Macro

Sometimes, details are the most important things in a photo or a video. Capturing crisp, clear little flecks of dust, or the fine, hypnotic grain of wood, or even the sharp, jagged edges of fragmented, shattered glass goes the complete opposite of a fisheye or wide-angle lens, but with a macro lens attachment, you can really get up-close and personal with your subject.

Macro lenses are a pretty difficult tool to get used to, but they're relatively easy to shoot with once you get familiar with them. Depending on the strength of the lens – 10x to 20x is typically normal – you can capture intense detail that your Android phone's camera would gloss over completely.

With macro phone lenses, you want a lens that secures as close as possible to your phone's camera, making clip-on or even some magnetized lenses a bit unreliable. Using a macro lens that works with a rubber band assures that the lens is producing the clearest images and video without or with very little distortion.

Macro lenses are typically not a day-to-day shooting tool (unless you love how hyper-detailed and beautiful macro shots can be!), but depending on the quality of the piece you pick up, you can even find some macro lenses that capture images at a microscopic level.

Telephoto

Telephoto lenses are used for giving you that zoomed-in look on a photo without actually zooming in manually.

You're probably thinking, "Why can't I just zoom with my phone? This seems unnecessary." But when you use your Android device's zoom, you start to sacrifice the quality of the photo, the look of a video, or the overall detail of a picture. It's frustrating, but having a telephoto lens in your back pocket can do a lot of interesting things for your phone photography.

There are plenty of different strengths of telephoto lens you can buy, including 4x, 8x, 12x, and more. Of course phone lenses aren't as expensive as lenses for DSLR cameras, so you can pick up a few different types to play around with them and experiment creatively.

While most other external lenses for phones are quite small, telephoto lenses can get a bit bulkier. You can't always just attach a telephoto lens and start shooting because some may be too large for your phone to attach via magnet or clip (so a strap or case needs to be involved), while others need to be used with a stand or a mounting piece.

Telephoto lenses can bring some different looks to your phone photography and video without ruining your picture quality or sacrificing your creative vision.

What do you shoot with?

Is there a not-so-common phone photography lens that you can't get enough of? Let us know what you love shooting with in the comments below so we can check it out!

Your smartphone-based VR has another trick.

There's already a lot you can experience with Google Cardboard. Quick horror experiences to make your friends jump, exciting trips on roller coaster you may never go on yourself, and concerts to watch as though you're in the audience top a surprisingly long list of possibilities. There are hundreds of Google Cardboard apps available for anyone to try, but if you're looking for something to try that is just a step above your average app the folks behind VRidge want you to see what desktop-class VR is like without relying on Oculus or Valve for anything.

Read more at VR Heads!

Exchange program hits its stride in the UK starting today — but no new Note 7 sales yet.

Update: We've updated this post with confirmation from Samsung on the update to cap "unsafe" Notes at 60% battery, and show a green battery icon in replacement units.

From today, Samsung will start swapping out potentially dangerous Galaxy Note 7s with new, safe units in the UK. In line with the company's announcement a couple of weeks back today's the day anyone with an early Note 7 unit in the UK can get a new replacement.

Samsung halted sales of the Galaxy Note 7 right before the official UK street date of September 2, so the only people with UK devices will have been pre-order customers who took advantage of Samsung's offer to get the phone three days early. (A significant number, but far fewer than would be out there had the retail launch gone ahead as planned.)

Samsung says customers should get in touch with the place they bought their Note from in order to arrange an exchange, if they haven't already been contacted.

UK customers will be contacted by the provider or operator from which they purchased the product in order to arrange their device exchange. If customers have not been contacted before 19 September they should contact the provider or operator themselves to arrange the exchange.

Samsung has also confirmed earlier reports that it'll issue a software update to limit potentially unsafe Note 7s to 60% battery charge, and make new "safe" handsets show a green battery icon. Both updates (presumably as part of the same firmware package) will land on British Note 7s from tomorrow.

Samsung will issue new software to all pre-ordered Note7 devices in Europe that will limit the battery charge to 60%. This software will begin rolling out to existing customers' devices this week (from September 20th in UK and Ireland). By actively limiting the ability of the device to charge to full capacity, Samsung aims to reduce the risk of incidents and simultaneously reinforce the message to customers that they should immediately replace their existing device with a new Note7.

Customers who exchange their existing device for a new Note7 can be fully confident that their replacement device is not affected by the battery cell issue, courtesy of a new UX update to the battery icon. Any Note7 device that shows a 'green' battery icon (previous software version is white) on the device notification bar, the 'Power Off' prompt screen or the Always-On Display can be assured that the device is safe for charging. This UX update will be rolled out from tomorrow in UK and Ireland.

There's still no word on exactly when new sales of the Note 7 will begin; a Samsung told AC "Our first priority is to support current Note7 owners who are participating in the Product Exchange Program. We will confirm new in store dates shortly."

Independent retailer Clove says stock has been delayed until "early October," while Carphone Warehouse is more pessimistic, saying October 21.