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gukyi · 6 years ago

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raspberry truffles | ksj

summary: how to fake date your best friend: step one: don’t fall in love with them. failed step one.

[friends to lovers!au, fake dating!au}

pairing: seokjin x female reader word count: 5k genre: fluff warnings: obscene amounts of lindor truffle consumption, holiday mischief, seokjin being lovably obnoxious, the usual. a/n: hi. i know it’s been over a month since i last posted a fic. i hope this trashy fake dating drabble makes up for my absence. based on a true story. yes, this happened to me. well, most of it. please enjoy!

“Are you sure Taehyung’s gonna like it?” You ask, holding up the shirt in your hand with a look of skepticism. Seokjin had insisted that it was right up Taehyung’s alley—an obnoxious red heart pattern covering the entire article—but you’re not sure if he’s actually being genuine or duping you into getting a terrible gift for your mutual friend for his birthday. You’re not going to say it’s not Taehyung’s style, but you’re also not going say he’ll totally love it. It’s kind of a garish, kitsch shirt.

“Believe me, he will,” Seokjin says with the confidence of a talk show host. As if he is the all-knowing god of mutual friend’s birthday gifts. You know fully well that he had completely forgotten about Taehyung’s birthday until you texted him a couple of days ago to ask if he would come out shopping with you. “He’s into shit like that.”

You hold the shirt out in front of you to inspect it. “I don’t know, Taehyung seems more like an Urban Outfitters trinkets kind of guy to me. I feel like we should get him a giant Gudetama plushie or something instead,” you say hesitantly.

“That’s Namjoon,” Seokjin informs you pointedly, and automatically you have to agree. Namjoon looks like he’s waltzed out of the Urban Outfitter’s men’s section on the daily.

You feel around for your phone. “Should I text Jungkook and ask him what he thinks?”

“What? No way,” Seokjin says, hand already going to block you from getting your phone from your back pocket. You attempt to ignore the feeling of Seokjin’s large palm on your ass, but he hasn’t seemed to notice the compromising placement of his hand. Probably for the better. “Don’t ask Jungkook. He doesn’t know Taehyung like I do.”

“They’re dating,” you remind him.

“That’s exactly my point,” Seokjin says matter-of-factly. “Jungkook sees all things Taehyung-related through love goggles. Everything about Taehyung’s perfect to him. He’d be the worst person to ask. Trust me, I’m the best one. You’re in good hands. Don’t you have faith in me?”

“I almost never have faith in you, Jin,” you say as you approach one of the many checkout stands scattered around the Macy’s. True to the holiday season, the line is a good seven other patrons long. “You better be right. Hey, gimme one.”

You reach over into the bag hanging from Seokjin’s wrist, fingers rustling around for a chocolate.

For some unknown reason, the two of you consciously, willingly, and sober-ly bought two whole pounds worth of Lindt truffles from the store in the mall, and now you’re walking around gorging on them. You spent over twenty minutes picking out each individual flavor, taking your sweet time to inspect and select which ones would be the most vital to your growing collection. It may just be the worst purchase the two of you have ever made, and once Seokjin (under your supervision) spent actual money on a bicycle without any wheels from a garage sale in your neighborhood.

“The guy checking us out at the Lindt store probably thought we were insane,” you continue, pulling out a regular milk chocolate one and stuffing the entire thing into your mouth. You crumple up the wrapper and stuff it back into the back, to be dealt with later.

“He probably thought we had excellent taste in chocolate,” Seokjin corrects you proudly over a mouthful of chocolate. There’s a smudge of brown at the corner of his lips you’re dying to wipe off but because you enjoy when your best friend walks around like a fool, you make no mention of it. “Here, try a raspberry one.”

You reach out to grab the magenta-wrapped candy but he moves it out of your grasp in the blink of an eye, dangling it above your head like a demon with a couple of inches on you. He’s not that much taller than you, he’s just insufferable.

“Hey, fuck you,” you declare indignantly, reaching up to grab it. Seokjin goes so far as to stand on his tiptoes in the middle of the checkout line at Macy’s, unwrapping the chocolate with gentle fingers as he towers over you. “Fuckin’ Christ, Seokjin.”

“Open up,” Seokjin singsongs as he returns to his normal height, moving it back and forth over your lips like a mother bird feeding her babies worms as you angrily wrestle him for it.

“I’m not a two-year-old,” you grumble, but Seokjin is relentless and you can’t really do anything except indulge him. He seems so intent on feeding you and you want the chocolate enough for you to not wish to fight him for it.

“Come on, please?” Seokjin begs, puffing out his bottom lip as he slowly begins to lower the chocolate to your mouth. You roll your eyes, make a mental note to get him back for this later, and open your mouth obediently, letting your best friend smile contentedly as he drops the truffle onto your tongue.

“I hate you,” you inform him politely over a mouthful of chocolate.

“Yeah, yeah, I hate you too,” Seokjin says with a grin, his laughter warm and bright.

You and Seokjin pass the rest of the time waiting in the checkout line by going through his camera roll. At your most recent friend gathering, Jimin and Hoseok had snatched up Seokjin’s precious iPhone X and proceeded to spam his photos with various action shots all taken in quick succession. The joke’s on them, though, because Seokjin’s phone has 512 gigabytes worth of storage and now he’s got some prime blackmail material.

Eventually you reach the front of the checkout line, a kind-looking middle-aged woman standing there with the red Macy’s nametag pinned onto her shirt. Seokjin lingers back since it’s not his purchase, a couple of steps behind you as he fingers through the two-pound bag of chocolate the two of you bought together (why did you do that).

“Did he tell you to get this?” The lady asks you, motioning to Seokjin.

You sigh. “Unfortunately, yes. But it’s for a friend’s birthday,” you clarify, still a bit unsure as to whether or not Taehyung will actually like what you’ve gotten for him. It’s too late now. “Can I get a gift receipt with that?”

She nods, pressing on the computer screen in front of her before scanning the item. Behind you, you can hear the rustle of plastic, and you turn around to find Seokjin stuffing not one, but two whole Lindor truffles into his mouth at once.

“Hey! Hands off, Kim! We paid for those together, you know,” you scold, catching your best friend red-handed. Or, red-lipped would be the better term. He smiles sheepishly before chewing the chocolates already in his mouth, quickly swallowing down the offending food with a guilty grin.

“Men,” the clerk comments. At least she understands you.

“I know, right?” You say in response as she hands you your shopping bag and sends you on your merry way. You’re busy stuffing the receipt in your hands into your coat pocket as Seokjin links arms with you, leading you towards one of the many exits in this oversized department store.

“Hey, want another?” Seokjin asks, holding out a stracciatella truffle—your personal favorite—your way. You nod, letting Seokjin unwrap the chocolate and place it on your tongue as you head outside.

King Seokjin™ (7:47PM): Y/N King Seokjin™ (7:47PM): YOU’RE NEVER GONNA BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED King Seokjin™ (7:47PM): I’M FUCKING SPEECHLESS King Seokjin™ (7:47PM): FUCK IT I’M CALLING YOU

As you pick up your phone from the table beside you, the screen already alight from notifications, the device begins to vibrate in your hands as Seokjin’s contact photo—a picture you sniped of him mid-burrito bite—appears on screen.

“Hello?”

“Y/N!” Seokjin wails into the phone, making you jump slightly. Not that you’ve never picked up one of his calls and been met with just a shriek before, because you have. They just catch you off guard. You have the loudest best friend. “You’re never gonna believe what just happened to me!”

“Let me guess,” you interrupt. “You found a stray cat and now you’ve taken it into your house and named it Guacamole. Or you bought a Fender guitar at a yard sale for like, fifteen dollars and now you’re going to become a rock star. You invented a new cake recipe. Saw a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. Got signed to a modeling agency.”

Seokjin laughs, hearty and warm into the phone. “All good things, but no. This is better! Wilder! Crazier!”

“What could be crazier than you getting signed to a modeling agency?”

“First of all, fuck you,” Seokjin declares. “Gigi Hadid wants what I have. Second of all, no. I went back to Macy’s because my mom needed me to return one of those fancy expensive coats she bought because she said that the color makes her skin look green. Which, it does, so I’m glad she returned it.”

“Can you get on with this? Jungkook wants me to play him in Mariokart at eight,” you whine, knowing how long-winded Seokjin gets with his stories. He would make a fantastic stand-up comedian.

“Tell Jungkook he owes me two dollars and seven cents for eating three of the Lindt truffles that we got a couple of days ago,” Seokjin adds on. You are wholly unsurprised he calculated the exact amount. “Anyway, let me finish my story. Okay, so I went to Macy’s, right? And the same lady that checked you out for Tae’s shirt helped me return my mom’s coat. And I don’t know, maybe I looked sad or something, because she took one look at me and said, to my gorgeous face, mind you, ‘Oh, did she break up with you? You should have treated her better!’”

It feels like your mouth drops open in shock. Thank God this isn’t a video call.

“Wait, what?” You ask, sufficiently speechless. Did the Macy’s checkout lady really think the two of you were dating? It seems kind of laughable. Sure, Seokjin’s your best friend but you don’t know if the way you behave around him is similar to the way a couple would act. If at all.

“I know!” Seokjin exclaims. “And I didn’t know what the fuck to do so I just stood there awkwardly and nodded. This is slander.”

Before you’re about to ask why, your best friend barrels on.

“Like, how dare she think I make an inferior boyfriend? Excuse me? I would make the best boyfriend in the entire world,” Seokjin declares, as if he has any sort of scientific evidence to back up his claim. In all of his years of living, Seokjin has never been a boyfriend. A fact that shocks you most of the time when you think about it, because Seokjin is incredibly attractive and funny and kind and quite frankly, top-notch boyfriend material. “If we were dating I would treat you so fuckin’ well. Take you on dates to amusement parks and sacrifice my wellbeing by getting on the biggest rollercoasters with you. I’d buy you funnel cake and then I’d tell you that I can make it better. Then I’d make you better funnel cake. And I would pay for your meals only when you wanted me to, like when we split the cost for our two-pounds of Lindt chocolate. And I’d laugh at all of your jokes even though mine are superior in every way. I’d go to stores and see dumbass things that remind me of you and then I’d buy them and give them to you. I’d—”

“You sound really intent on proving this lady wrong, Jin,” you interrupt, Seokjin’s voice getting progressively more determined with every sentence. Like he’s going to change this lady’s mind. Like he’s going to just up and become the best boyfriend you could ever ask for all so he can tell the Macy’s checkout lady to suck it.

“Yeah, I am. I’ve been slandered against,” Seokjin says. You can practically see the furrow of his brows, the resolution lacing his features. “Don’t you agree, Y/N? If we were dating, I would be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had.”

Your mouth opens to respond to him with some witty comment like you do with everything else he says, but your tongue is dry. Red alarms blare in your brain. Even if only for a second, you don’t like thinking about what it would be like to date Seokjin. Because you know—of course you fucking know, he’s your best friend, he’s been your best friend for so long, it’s as if you’re already—

“Christ,” you say, resting your head against your hands.

“You know what?” Seokjin keeps going, paying no attention to the resignation in your voice, the subdued tone of your words. “I’m gonna prove this lady wrong. Tomorrow, you’re coming to Macy’s with me and we’re gonna hold hands and I’m gonna be the best fake boyfriend you’ve ever had.”

“Tomorrow’s Tae’s birthday bash,” you remind him, the only thing you feel confident saying without your words betraying you.

“Cool. Even better. We’ll drop by Macy’s, tell that lady to suck it, and then we’ll just drive straight to Tae’s. Sound good?”

You don’t think you’d have the heart to say no to him even if you tried. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. Good plan.” You think the conversation will end there when, “Be prepared to be swept off of your fucking feet tomorrow, Y/N. I’m gonna be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had. The best boyfriend the world has ever seen. I’m gonna be so in love with you tomorrow, Y/N, you won’t know what’s hit you.”

The line goes dead.

The very first stop that you make when you and Seokjin return to the mall as part of his ridiculous, convoluted scheme to prove the Macy’s lady wrong is the Lindt store. It’s only natural—all roads lead to chocolate. That’s just how life works.

“Two pounds or one pound?” Seokjin asks as he plucks one of the plastic serve yourself bags from the shelf.

“Who do you take me for?” You respond with your eyebrows raised, as if to challenge him. Like you’d ever settle for anything less than the absolute most. “Two. Pour up, bitch.”

You and Seokjin slowly begin to pick out your desired chocolates, two of this one and four of those and ten of these—”Seokjin, what the fuck?”—as you make your way around the section of the Lindt store meant for losers like yourselves to waste away their day looking at truffle flavors. It’s a good thing that you and Seokjin have similar tastes when it comes to chocolates, because every time Seokjin motions for you to choose the next flavor you end up selecting one that you know he’ll like just as much as you.

“This didn’t seem as heavy the first time around,” Seokjin comments with his hands full as you march up to the register.

“Maybe you’ve gotten weaker,” you tease softly as you fumble for your wallet, operating under the assumption that you’ll split the cost like last time.

“No, it’s alright,” Seokjin says with a hand on top of yours, blocking you from opening your wallet.

“What? Seokjin—”

“Please? Come on, I gotta get in the boyfriend mood. Just this once, alright?” He pleads, puffing out his lower lip. Maybe you’d argue more if it weren’t for the way he asks you with such gentle eyes, or how he’s already gotten out his own wallet, or how he’s been swearing up and down that he’s going to be the best fake boyfriend you’ve ever had. You won’t take that away from him.

Besides, you’ve always been weak for him.

“Fine,” you huff out as Seokjin happily hands over his card to the guy behind the register, who looks like he doesn’t get paid enough to watch gross, overly-romantic couples be gross and overly romantic in front of him. Seokjin gives you the greasiest wink you think you’ve ever beared witness to, and with that the cashier hands you your purchase and bids you farewell.

By the time you’re rounding the corner into Macy’s, Seokjin’s expression has changed from that of chocolate-made satisfaction to pure, unadulterated determination, brows set and eyes hard. It sort of makes you laugh, the look on his face, because never have you seen him look so driven just to prove somebody wrong. The lady might not even be working today.

It’s weird, because even though the lady was last seen working in the men’s section on the first floor, as you enter through the second-floor entrance by the shoes, he grabs your hand. It is by no means romantic, not gentle or soft or delicate, but he grips your palm tightly and interlaces his fingers with yours purposely and it makes your breath hitch in your throat all the same. It’s not as though the two of you aren’t touchy with each other anyway, because you definitely are, but you’ve never held hands before. Not like this. Not in the dating way. Not in the way that feels like if Seokjin lets you go you’ll drift away, out of his reach.

Suddenly your hand is held tightly in his and for some reason, you aren’t looking forward to when he’ll let go. In fact, you’re rather dreading it.

You’re passing by the women’s sections, steps slow but meaningful, and Seokjin leans over to tell you to pick out something that you like and something that you’ll wear often.

“What, why?” You sputter out as he guides you through the racks of clothing, sections disheveled from the holiday season. Seokjin’s always had a good eye for style and particularly great taste, even if he does toe the line between fashionable and questionable every now and then.

“Well, first of all, it can be your Christmas gift,” he reasons jokingly, a finger gun accompanied by a wink pointed your way. “Second of all, we’ll need to buy something to have a valid excuse to approach the checkout line.”

“But I don’t—Seokjin, we stopped getting each other Christmas gifts a long time ago,” you remind him, the memory of the two of you deciding that buying material objects for each other wasn’t up to snuff for your relationship playing in your mind. And then, softly, “You know that your company is enough of a gift to me.”

He shrugs, pulling a soft pink sweater from a clothing rack, one that looks to be about his size rather than yours. “Well, then consider this one of those things that reminds me of you that I just had to buy you, alright?”

You end up in the same line you stood in several days ago with a pink sweater hanging from your arm. Seokjin makes sure that every time he pulls out a Lindor truffle from the bag he offers you one as well, unwrapping it with long, nimble fingers before placing it on your tongue.

“We should have just gotten Taehyung some chocolate,” you realize belatedly, staring down at the packet hanging from Seokjin’s wrist. It’s half-empty. Have you already eaten that many? “We wouldn’t even be in this predicament in the first place.”

“If we had gotten Taehyung some chocolate, Jungkook would eat it all,” Seokjin tells you, making you laugh. “And besides, I don’t really mind this. Being your boyfriend, or whatever. It’s fun.”

His words stun you into enough of a silence to last the rest of the journey up the line, up until there’s a single patron in front of you.

“This is a team effort, alright?” Seokjin says to you, grin spread wide on his face. “I know that you’re going to pale in comparison to my incredible talent and flawless boyfriend abilities—,” a laugh, “—but you gotta have your head in the game too, okay? I can’t do this without you.”

“This isn’t a soap opera, Jin,” you remind him softly.

“Yeah, well, it’s about to become one. And just in case you forgot, I love you, Y/N.” Your eyes widen at the sound of his voice, the words on the tip of his tongue—they are words you have heard leave his lips plenty of times before, but never in the way that they do now—but before you can react any further, the customer in front of you is moving out of the way and Seokjin is pressing his hot, wet lips to your cheek in a crushing side kiss.

The lady behind the checkout desk probably looks as shocked as you do.

“Just this?” She asks as you place the sweater down on the counter, too afraid to turn around to look at the expression on Seokjin’s face.

“Great taste, right?” Seokjin asks the lady, forcing you to look up at him. He’s got the biggest smile on his face, proud of his choice, your hand still held tightly in his. You’re almost positive the lady can’t see it from her position behind the counter. “Picked it out myself.”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much, it’s not that exciting,” you reprimand lightly, hoping the comment is enough to warrant girlfriend behavior. Whatever that is.

“You wound me, Y/N,” Seokjin says with a hand to his heart, feigning injury. “Move over, I need to get to the card scanner.”

You scoot over complacently, allowing Seokjin to purchase the item with a swipe of his card. When the price appears on the little screen on the card reader, your eyes nearly pop out of your head, having failed to realize how expensive the sweater was as Seokjin stuffed it into your hands. Surely he must have known, or he wouldn’t have picked it up.

“Seokjin, what on Earth—” You immediately say, making to fight with him.

“Just let me, Y/N,” he pleads. “Please? I just want to treat you.”

“But—”

“You deserve it, you know?” Seokjin asks, turning you so that you face him directly. He’s got the same look in his eye, determination and focus lacing his features. Like he’s daring you to challenge him. “You’re so wonderful, all of the time. And you treat others with so much kindness and respect. You’re funny without having to try super hard like me, and you’ve been dealing with my shit for so long that I’m surprised you haven’t up and left.”

He gives your hand a firm squeeze from under the checkout counter. A reminder not to argue with him, even if only for a couple of minutes.

“And I love you,” Seokjin finishes, too firm and secure to be an afterthought. Too easily said for it to be something he felt obligated to add on.

The lady looks sufficiently endeared as she hands you the plastic Macy’s bag, giving the both of you a smile as you turn to leave. Seokjin looks incredibly pleased with himself and pulls you into a side-hug, crushing your ribs in the process.

“You never let me down, Y/N,” he declares successfully, releasing you from his limb prison. “Thanks for letting me be your boyfriend for an afternoon. I’m ready to go raid Taehyung and Jungkook’s apartment.”

You hum in response, letting Seokjin ramble on about how he was worried he wouldn’t be a good enough actor to fool her and how he really thought she would see through the whole thing without any interruptions from yourself. If he’s noticed how resigned you are, he’s made no comment.

“You know I hate it when you buy me things,” you tell him softly as you’re walking out of the store, fingers fiddling with each other as you stare down into the bag in your hands. There’s a sweater in there that you wish Seokjin hadn’t bought you and a feeling in your heart that you can’t get rid of.

“Pay me back later if it bothers you that much,” Seokjin tells you.

You stay silent.

Christmas lights decorate Taehyung and Jungkook’s apartment, taped up along the walls and windows and wrapped around their grossly millennial white Christmas tree, radiating a soft, warm glow that seems to make everything more romantic than it should be.

You’ve been sitting on the couch the entire night, nursing a cup of kombucha in your hands as everyone around you celebrates, shouting and cheering and screaming. Seokjin disappeared from your sight the moment you walked through the door, always the life of the party.

There’s a sweater in the trunk of his car and a nagging voice at the back of your head.

Taehyung loved the gift you got him, if it’s any consolation. He had opened all of them right after Jungkook wiped most of the icing off of Taehyung’s birthday cake and onto his face, using it as perfect leverage to kiss it off of him, much to everyone’s minor disgust. As he gave you a hug of thanks, Seokjin winked at you, as if to say, “Don’t you trust me?”

You worry that you trust him too much.

Seokjin bought Taehyung Super Smash Brothers for his birthday, and immediately the video game became the object of everyone’s attention as Taehyung rushed to plug the game into his Nintendo Switch. As you swirl around your kombucha, Taehyung and company are furiously shouting at each other, aggressively mashing the buttons on the controllers in their hands.

“Hey,” a soft voice says next to you. You turn your head to see Seokjin, his soft palm placed against your back to get your attention. “Wanna go outside? It’s loud in here.”

It’s loud in here, too, your brain supplies unhelpfully.

Your best friend pulls you up from where you’re seated, leading you to the balcony outside Taehyung and Jungkook’s kitchen, overlooking a rather dinky part of town. It’s not the greatest view, and by no means is it peaceful or quiet, but it’s enough. He seems to be nursing a cup of kombucha as well. Taehyung and Jungkook never really did alcohol.

You stand in silence for a few moments, letting the fresh air wash over you like waves on the shore, the tide pulling you in before pushing you back.

Then, “Thanks for helping me pick out Taehyung’s gift. He really liked it.”

“I knew he would,” Seokjin responds. “You should have more faith in me.”

“I have enough faith in you, Seokjin.” You sigh.

Car honks. Police sirens. Chatter. Wind.

“If you really don’t like that sweater, I’ll return it. It’s no big deal,” Seokjin speaks up. “I know you don’t like it when I buy you things.”

“It’s not that, it’s just—”

“I wanted to tell you that everything I said in Macy’s today, that’s true,” Seokjin continues. Your breath hitches in your throat. Boyfriend or not, you’re the greatest person that I’ve ever met. That I think I’ll ever meet.” You feel him as he comes up next to you. “There’s nobody like you, Y/N.”

“You don’t mean that,” you say, more to yourself than to him.

“Of course I do,” Seokjin says. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Then would you kiss me?” You whisper softly, hoping that the sounds of the traffic below will drown out your voice. Hoping that the words will just fade into the air around you without Seokjin even realizing.

“What?”

He places a hand on your arm before pulling you into him, large palms tracing up and down your figure. Seokjin reaches up, brushes away a stray strand of hair. Lets the soft pad of his thumb gently press on your cheek.

“Don’t make me say it again,” you mutter to yourself, eyes tracing the laces of your boots.

“Y/N,” Seokjin says, tilting your head up so that your eyes meet his dark brown ones, the Christmas lights decorating the apartment reflected in his irises, like golden stars in a sea of black. “Do you even need to ask?”

Before your mind can catch up to your racing heart, you feel his lips pressing against yours, warm and soft and perfect. He pulls you in closer, leans in further, holds you tighter. It’s not a deep kiss, no tongue, no biting. Just lips. Just lips and the feeling of him, of your best friend, of Seokjin in everything that he can be.

He pulls away softly, standing up tall once more. His cheeks are tinged pink. His smile has never been brighter.

“You know,” Seokjin says. “When I said I loved you, I meant that, too.”

There’s a sweater in a Macy’s bag in the trunk of a car, and another kiss on your best friend-turned-boyfriend’s lips that you fully intend on stealing.

⇒ hmu with feedback or just talk to me here!

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notyourmotherscopingmechanisms · 5 years ago

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Water Bottles, Getting Rid of Stuff, and Social Media Goodbyes.

Hi, all.

This is it! Welcome to the first post on this experimental foray into talking about my brain, intentionally, and with a purpose in mind.

The post that led you here (from facebook, instagram, or twitter, if I got my shit together) mentioned that this post would be about the first few things I’ve done since the New Year to try and wrangle my life back into some sense of order, so I’m just gonna jump right into that.

1) I bought a planner.

A real, actual physical paper, honest-to-god planner.

This in and of itself is not much of a shock. I’ve bought a lot of planners in my lifetime, always excited to finally be one of those women—capable, powerful, every moment of their day accounted for in perfect handwriting—and reader, I am absolutely garbage at using them.

So I bought another one. Makes sense, right?

I’ll tell you why: I think I finally figured out why I’m bad at using them.

Every planner I’ve bought in the past has been one or both of these things: a month/week/day view, or an electronic planner (for my iPad.) These...did not work. The use cycle would usually go something like this: Overjoyed with my new beautiful book, I would spend an hour or two dutifully filling out the “month” views with absolutely everything I knew about at the time, and then I’d manage to use it for about a week before I realized I’d been forgetting to write in the “week” portion of the planner. This immediately triggers the guilt—I failed, I wasted part of such a nice book, what was the point, why did I even start....you get the idea. Of course, this is all ridiculous. The book never changed...but now it makes me sad to look at, and angry at myself every time I remember it. I can’t stand to use it anymore, because every time I pick it up, it’s a reminder that, according to me, I suck. So I put it away, and vow to never again buy a planner, or to do better next time. (I wouldn't.)

Then, I read a post a few months ago that my dad sent me (I’ll have to look up the link later and edit this post to add it) that boiled down to something along the lines of “stop trying to do your tasks the way “normal” people do their tasks.” If you have a hard time getting your laundry sorted out because the hamper’s hard to get to, take the lid off the hamper. If making a sandwich is too much work, just eat the parts, no sandwich required. Shit like that. I sat with myself for a few weeks and said to myself, brain, how can I remove obstacles that don’t even seem like obstacles in order to make things less hard?

And then I learned the secret.

Did you know they make planners that are ONLY a month view?

There’s another secret to this process, by the way—but it applies to a lot more than just planners. Through a bit of soul searching (and by a bit, I mean a lot of grumbling about what a materialistic, vain, optics-centered magpie I am at heart) I figured out that I’m at least 80% more likely to successfully use something if it’s pretty. If I love the way it looks, I am excited to be around it. I am delighted to use it. I am sad when it isn’t nearby. So, the month-view-only planner I bought is also covered in small flowers and made from beautiful low-tooth paper that feels good to write on. I also downloaded many, many, many beautiful habit trackers, goal planning pages, and other freebies from bloomplanners.com (they made my work calendar.) Highly recommend.

2) I bought a water bottle.

I am probably the most dehydrated person you know personally at basically all times. I’ve literally gone to the ER with medical issues that, while genuine, were all exacerbated by massive dehydration. It’s not just that I hate the taste of water (even though I do) but also that I just...straight up do not remember to drink. Ever. And when I do remember to drink, I never remember how much I’ve had, what’s left to go, any of that crap.

“But they make apps to remind you!”

“You can log every time you drink!”

YES, CORRECT, but also may I remind you of the above “remove obstacles from my brain” epiphany from three paragraphs ago: if there’s more than two steps (realistically, more than ONE step) to getting from “I drank water” to “I drank this much water, and now have this much left to go to not die”

I won’t do it.

So, I bought myself one of these bad boys. #notanad

The Hidrate Spark is a “smart” bottle that connects to my iPhone and my AppleWatch. Its connected app will remind me through the watch, as well as via pretty glowing lights on the bottle itself, numerous times a day that I need to drink. When I drink out of the bottle, a sensor will record how much I drank, and immediately log that info into my Health App on my phone. The app automatically uses the humidity and temperature at your location, your weight, your height, and real-time activity data from your watch or phone to update how much your water goal is in realtime.

Notice how nowhere in that description in there is there anything I have to do to track my intake and hit my goal besides fill out my info in the app once, fill up the bottle, and drink out of it? Yeah, me too.

I’ve avoided buying this bottle for over a year, because it’s a $60 water bottle, and I have twenty water bottles already, and it’s “techie” and “unnecessary” and “silly” and “excessive” and all those other things people say about smart tech, but goddamnit, and ER bill costs more than $60 and I’ve been there four fucking times for this problem. I talked to my fitness director (I work for a YMCA, so, health and fitness woo) a couple friends, and my doctor about it, and everyone agreed it was a good decision, so I did it. I can’t say if it’ll work or not yet because I don’t HAVE it yet, but I promise to keep everyone apprised.

Also, it’s pretty.

3) I deleted an ass ton of people off my social media.

I’ve never cared much about my numbers when it comes to social media, I’m not in it for those, but I have the same problem with my friends lists as I do with my real life: I add without thought and then people I never talk to, never see, never will see, and don’t have an effect on my life...take up space. I’m very happy for all of them, and I hope they have wonderful lives, but I don't need all of them front and center at all times. Plus, after the year I had last year, a lot of people needed to be let go from my life for my sanity and theirs.

So, on January 2nd, I deleted 160 people from my Facebook friends list, and blocked 7. I thought it would stress me out more—I’m not about the numbers, but I always worry someone will take offense, or be upset. But once I did it, I felt literally, physically, lighter. It hasn’t had any measurable impact yet besides that initial weight-is-lifted feeling, but I know it’s a step in the right direction for my eventual journey towards weaning off a lot of social media platforms. (Did you know facebook is the actual face of evil in the internet age, and we’re all trapped beyond belief?)

4) I cleaned, or cleaned out, everything (and I mean everything) in my house.

This is the biggie! This is it! The goodwill pile is literally taking up every inch of available space in my car!

(This is also one of those “Ooh, it’s embarrassing, I can’t talk about it” moments I mentioned in the original post. Whelp, here I am, talking about it! Cower in fear! Hide in your homes! Real Talk is coming!)

The Marie Kondo bug that bit all of us last year got me in tandem with a few months of violent living situation upheaval. As a result, I tried to go through my belongings with every moving day I went through, and use those hell experiences as motivation to just. Get. Rid. Of. My. Shit. I’d already started on this task a few years ago, but it’s difficult to describe how much....stuff I’d managed to collect in 18-19 years. It doesn’t take much past the first time you and one friend, or just you, have to move everything you own in a single day to go “oh my god I am never doing that again.” But, I know I’ll have to move again, and even if I didn’t...my stuff was stressing me out. The obvious solution was, and is, “have less stuff.”

I go through my wardrobe once a month now and try to get rid of at least three things. If you’ve known me since high school or just after, you might remember the absolutely astonishing size of my wardrobe. I mean, truly ridiculous. I achieved my goal early last summer of “all my clothing must fit inside a single closet” and began extending that to the rest of my life with a general rule of replacing the thought “I need more storage” with the thought “I need less stuff.” Obviously, there are some things that really do need better or different storage, and I’m recognizing that, but I can’t actually describe how much better I feel with...literally probably 70% less stuff than I used to own.

This is an ongoing process in every part of my life, and with the habits I’ve learned and the very particular anxieties that I have (I can’t get rid of this, I might need it one day/that person was so nice to give it to me/someone might get angry if I goodwill it) continuing towards a minimalist outlook will be a path I am on for literally the rest of my life. But it’s a good path—a worthy one—and I’m so absurdly relieved that I’m finally walking on it, regardless of how many stumbles, stops, and starts there might be.

The bonus part of having less stuff is that it’s suddenly way easier to clean your house; which is what I spent all of Saturday and part of Sunday (today) doing. My combined to-do lists* numbered around 72 items, all-told, and I accomplished almost all of them—everything from sweeping/mopping/vaccuming to moving all the appliances in my kitchen out of their spots and cleaning the sides of them. All the laundry got did. All the shelves got dusted. The tub got scrubbed. The fridge got cleared out. My closet got organized. Even my bed got a facelift in the form of a new duvet cover and some swanky king size pillows. We. Cleaned. Everything.

And damn does it feel good to have a clean space. It’s so. Much. Easier. To keep tidied up when I’m annoyed at myself for ruining the room with clutter, or setting something down and not putting it away.* When you have less stuff, everything suddenly has a place...and when it all starts out in that place, it’s way easier to put it back and keep that momentum going.

*/**There is a flip side of this feeling, which is my anxiety this summer beginning to express itself as certain tendencies towards OCD behaviors, but I won’t go into that here. It’ll come up soon enough, but it will need to be another post about that topic specifically and what I did/am doing to work through it. Another post will be about my “listing” and how it works/doesn’t work for me, because these are tandem issues.

I’m sure there’s more than these, but I’m going to stop here.

Mostly because one of my other goals for 2020 is to do better at setting, and sticking to, a routine. (Hey, another post!) That routine involves me being in bed by 11:30PM every day, and awake by 9:30...and it’s 10:44. So for now, goodnight, and I hope this didn’t bore anyone to absolute tears. Even if it did...that’s okay, because this is as much for me as it is for anyone else.

See ya!

#1/12/2020

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purplesurveys · 5 years ago

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525

This survey is literally called Adult Survey so let’s see just how bad I am at being one 👉😎👉 What grocery store do you shop at the most? My mom does most of her shopping in SM supermarkets, but sometimes she’ll stick with Freshto.

Which stovetop burner do you use the most? Uhhhh I haven’t used the stove in a while, especially since it almost exploded in my face the last time I used it – but I used to go with the rightmost one since it was the largest, and it fit the pan that I typically used. Do you use a dishwasher or wash dishes by hand? We wash dishes by hand here. I can’t name you anyone who actually bought themselves a dishwasher here in the Philippines.

What color is your favorite laundry basket? Idk, I don’t have a favorite. What color was your first car? White. If we’re talking about the car bought by my parents.

What was your first job? Never had one yet. What is the best job you've had? What is the best pharmacy near you? Not sure about the best, but we have one right across the village that we head to. Do you use public transportation? NO. Public transport in this country is an embarrassment, a joke, and one of the reasons I’m hell-bent on moving out entirely. If you ever needed a country that has trains regularly break down every week (forcing its passengers to walk to their destinations even when they’re nowhere near), trains with poor air conditioning, smoke-belching jeepneys, buses driven by murderous drivers, and public transportation that all in all will force you to wake up 3 hours earlier and STILL end up late to school/work, the Philippines is for you. Which bank do you use? I don’t have any sort of card yet.

Do you have a credit card? ^ What is your favorite fast food restaurant? As questionable as every branch of theirs smells like, I have to give the crown to KFC. What do you want to name your kids? Olivia and Mia are pretty much locked in for me. Still clueless about boy names. How many tattoos do you have? No tattoos. What year did you graduate high school? 2016. Three years, but it’s felt like forever ago. What chore do you hate the most? I haaaaate washing dishes. Thankfully Gabie loves doing it, so it’ll be easier for me when we move in together haha. What is your favorite shampoo to use? Dove is fine. How do you remove stains from clothes? Water and tissue usually do the trick. Do you carry pepper spray? I don’t. I really should. What highway do you drive on the most? Marcos Highway. I live on it and have to go through it if I want to go anywhere. Do you like driving? It’s convenient and I like being out on my own time without the pressure of tiring out/going overtime on a personal driver; but being stuck in traffic for hours all by yourself can be very draining. What is your favorite radio station? I listen to 93.1 in the morning for my favorite radio program, but for the rest of the day I’d switch between that, 99.5, 94.7, and 87.5. What do you use for an alarm clock (phone, stereo, actual clock, etc.)? I use my phone and I have like 5 alarms set everyday because I’m pretty difficult to wake up. Which department store do you shop at the most? I don’t shop for stuff a lot; most of my money goes to food haha. Which dollar store is your favorite? Do you shop at the dollar store often? We don’t even use dollars, sis. What is your favorite gas station? I don’t have a favorite but I like going to Petron just out of habit. Do you burn candles often? I never burn candles. How do you relax? It depends on what I feel like doing. I can choose to watch YouTube videos, watch Friends, take a survey, take a nap, or binge-eat. What's your favorite app on your phone? Twitter or Reddit. What do you cook the most? I can’t :( When was the last time you relaxed in a hot bath? Over a year ago? I dunno, I don’t get to do this a lot. Do you take showers or baths normally? Showers. What is your favorite candle scent? Whatever smells like food, like a bakery or cinnamon. Floral scents make me gag. How much does it cost for you to laundry (if you use a slot machine)? Do you make your bed every day? Yes. It feels so much nicer coming home to a fixed bed. Do you have any pets? Yes, I have a dog. Do you have kids? Nope. Are you married? Also nope. Do you save receipts? Receipts from important dates, sure. I like keeping the little details. Do you use re-usable bags at the grocery store? I think my mom does. What color is your carpet? We have a big brown carpet in the living room, but other than that the rest of the house isn’t carpeted. Have you ever burnt yourself with the glue gun? No and I am too scared to know what it feels like so I’ve never held a glue gun before. We actually had to use one fairly recently to make props for an org event, but I told my orgmates I wasn’t gonna help in that department and I could work anywhere else I was needed instead. Do you write checks? Nah. I’ve had my parents ask me to pay with one, though. Ever had a garage sale? My parents never held one, but we’ve been to several. What have been some of your best garage sale finds? I don’t think we bought anything from them. What time do you wake up in the morning? Depends if I have something to do that day. Are you a morning person? God no. I hate having to report to school early and I usually need an hour or two to adjust to the surroundings. I have a 7 AM class on Wednesdays and Fridays and my brain just refuses to cooperate every time.

Are you more of a morning person now than you used to be? Haha I don’t think I ever was a morning person. Do you like to read? I used to. Nowadays I’ll read something every now and then, but it’s not my favorite hobby anymore. What was the first election you voted in? 2016. Who is on speed dial in your phone? We don’t have speed dial. Do you play games on your phone? Sure. I used to have no games at all cos I thought it was a waste of storage, but now I have like 10 games on my phone because of all the advertisements I see hahaha. What phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8. What was your first phone? I keep forgetting the exact model, but it was the iconic Nokia one that had a green screen and early versions of Snake and Space Impact. What kind of computer do you have? I was too young to ever pay attention to the brand and the model, tbh. I did reach the era where connecting to the internet meant weird sounds and not being able to use the landline, so there’s that. Wall calendar or desk calendar? Phone and laptop calendar. If you read a daily devotional, which one are you using currently? I don’t. What is your favorite book? I’ve read a lot of books but I don’t think I’ve encountered my favorite yet. What is the strangest food you've had? I absolutely love Indian food and would do anything for it, but gulab jamun was pretty horrid. The taste confused me so much and the wet, sticky texture didn’t help either. What do you do when the power goes out? Curse out Meralco on social media, especially if it was an unannounced outage. Then I’d stay with my dog so that he doesn’t get scared. Does your home have a basement? Nope. How often do you clean? My mom likes to be in charge of general cleaning, and she does so once in a few months. How often do you go grocery shopping? An hour or so seems like it. Ever bought a lottery ticket? Nah, I don’t want to grow obsessed with it hahaha. Do you gamble? Nope. What does your purse look like? My *wallet has several essential cards/IDs, my savings, and old receipts and papers I never got around to throwing away. Do you ever sleep on the floor? No. I slept on the floor a lot as a kid and I hated it, so I stay away from the possibility completely now. Which room do you stay in the most? Mine? What is your bedtime? I don’t have one, but I always strive to be in bed by 10 or 11 PM. Ever worked two jobs or more at once? This hasn’t happened to me. Do you live in an apartment, condo, house, or dorm? I live in my parents’ house. What does your dream house look like? Modern, minimalist, square-shaped, lots of glass, white. Describe your dream wedding. I haven’t figured out what location I want, but I wouldn’t want it to be in church, at the beach, or in a barn. I want an all-white (or at least almost all-white) motif, a laaaaarge guest list (I’ll only get one wedding so I’m making it huge lmao), free flowing drinks, cupcake racks, and I wouldn’t want it to be too formal nor too casual. That’s like 6 elements out of the hundred I’ll probably end up thinking of, but it’s a start. How often do you go on vacation? As often as my dad is home, so like a few times every 4 months. What is your favorite type of weather? Rainy/stormy, dark, and bleak. What do you do when you have a sore throat? Hate myself. And continue eating whatever because a sore throat isn’t gonna stop me from eating delicious food. How often do you go see a doctor? When it’s required lol Do you have acid reflux? I don’t. Do you snore? I snore only when I’m ridiculously exhausted after a day. And when I do it’s only like once then I stop. Are you on birth control? I’m not. I don’t need it currently. What kind of toothpaste do you use? A normal one? Idk, I just use Colgate. Do you wear glasses or contacts? I have glasses. How often do you wear make-up? Only when I go to parties, which isn’t often. Do you put on make-up in the bathroom or the bedroom? Gabie usually puts makeup on me in her room. Do you have a swimming pool? Nope. What is the first site you go to when you turn on your computer? It differs, based on what I feel like doing/have to do. Typically, though, it’s Twitter. Which email service do you use? Gmail. How often do you check your email? Everyday, because I guess I’M AN ADULT NOW AND I HAVE TO SUCK IT UP. How old were you when you got your first phone? I was 7. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t want to get it for me, but I was 7 in a private school, everyone was getting their own phones (and this was when phones was starting to get big among kids), and I was feeling pressured to get my own. What was your favorite boy band back in the 90's? I wasn’t conscious for most of the 90s. Did you own a Britney Spears album? Nope.

#survey #surveys

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helena-studyblr · 6 years ago

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a post no one asked for!

hello so i reblogged a questionnaire a lil bit ago and i’m going to answer them now because...why not

1. how old are you?

im 18!

2. are you in high school or college(university)?

college

3. what year or grade are you in high school or (university)?

im a freshman in college

4. what is your school’s grading system look like? do you like it? what problems do you have with it, if any?

so my university has a standard letter grade system for most classes and pass/fail for some courses that don’t really need a grade. i do like it because it’s what i’m used to, however, a lot of times having a letter grade system can be more stressful because it makes you feel like anything but some kind of A is mediocre and not good enough, when in reality, a 75% or above is better than average.

5. if you are in high school do you plan on going to university or college? if you are in college do you plan on finishing and if you do, do you plan on continuing on to other graduate or professional schools?

i plan on going to veterinary school after i finish my undergraduate degree! if i end up changing my major to my second choice(music education is my second choice), then of course I won’t be going to vet school.

6. if you are high school what do you plan to study in college, if you plan to go. if not, what do you plan on doing after high school? if you are in college what is your major? do you plan on changing it?

i am currently studying biochemistry and molecular biology and i have a minor in music! i dont plan on changing it at this point, but if i do, i’d change it to music education.

7. why are you picking or why did you pick what you are currently studying?

i want to go to vet school, and biochemistry has almost all the requirements for vet school admissions. also, i find it interesting

8. do you go/plan to go to community college, technical college, or a four-year institution? how did you make your decision, or how do you plan to?

i am at a 4 year university, and i went here because it fits what i want to do

9. what factors did you consider when picking a college, or what factors do you plan on considering?

the college I chose is in my hometown, which is probably one of the deciding factors(i really wanted to be close to home). the campus is very pretty and small as well, and i really wanted to go to a small college. i could have potentially gone to The Ohio State University because i’m about 20 minutes away, but the camous is so big and i know i would have hated it. the school also has a good music program, soi can continue playing even though it isn’t my major

10. what is your favorite pencil?

i love my muji mechanical pencil and also the papermate clearpoint!

11. what are your top three favorite pens?

pilot juice, muji gel pens, and sharpie pens

12. do you prefer wide-ruled paper, college-ruled, dot-grid, or graph paper?

college ruled is my favorite for class notes, graph paper for revised/nice notes/math work, and blank for planning generally

13. do you use different types of paper for different courses or classes?

i use college ruled for almost everything except math homework(i use graph)

14. do you use a backpack/bag for school or college and what kind is it? why did you choose it? price, quality, function, design?

i use a backpack, i have no idea what brand it is, but its the perfect size for everything i need to take to classes and its also really pretty(it has a black background with flowers on it)

15. what is your favorite outfit to go to class in and why?

i generally wear leggings and a sweatshirt/sweater just because they’re comfy and also look cute! if its warm enough, i wear flip flops but if not, i wear my vans or converse.

16. what is something you always have to have in your backpack or bag?

usually my laptop and pencil case

17. what is your least favorite subject and why?

math!!!!!!! will always hate. guarunteed.

18. have you ever gone to tutoring, if so, how has it helped your academic endeavors?

i have not

19. have you ever seeked academic counseling, if so has it helped you?

i haven’t

20. has your mental health ever suffered during high school or college, and what did you do to cope?

holy shit yes. i suffer from depression and anxiety(depression for almost a year and anxiety for 4 years). i could make a whole post about this but in general, i make sure i give myself time to relax. it can be so so hard to take care of yourself when you suffer with things like this, so even if you can barely get out of bed, try to make time to do things that make you happy. for me, it’s drawing, netflix, and video games.

21. do you like to listen to music when studying? if so, what genre, if you have a playlist share it!

i do listen to music! i just listen to music i like, which is rock/pop punk/alt rock/etc. (here’s one of my playlists!: https://open.spotify.com/user/helenakitten14/playlist/4R6ZGIlz8K5UDEk80cVfV5?si=cXK0z3HTRUKCQSKx9F8tNA )

22. do you prefer to study at a library or at home at your desk?

depends what i’m working on and how much i have to do. if i feel like i have to be totally focused, i go to the library, but if i have some time to take breaks and get distracted, i just stay in my room. I also hate going to the library on my own, so sometimes i stay in my room anyway if no one can come with.

23. what are your top three items you keep on your desk?

my lamp, my laptop, and whatever drink i’m drinking while working( i always have a drink so i avoid snacking lol)

24. do you feel as if you are more productive during the day or in the evenings?

evenings for sure

25. if you exercise, do you feel as if it affects your productivity and if so how?

i do marching band which is usually my exercise, but i don’t work out. working out just exhausts me and i don’t have energy to begin with(ye ye depression)

26. do you participate in any extracurriculars and if so how do you manage your time?

marching band and wind ensemble! i’m also joing KKPsi, which is an honorary fraternity for music service! i am not great at time management, however, i plan out everything to hold myself accountable

27. do you use a bullet journal, a planner, or to-do lists? do you use a combination of all three?

i use a combo of all three! i’ve been bullet journalling a lot recently, but i also use a planner during busy weeks when i dont have time to make a spread and i make to do lists for weekends

28. do you have a note-taking style?

nothing specific

29. do you have a color-coding system?

i like to make every different topic/spread a different color. also, when i make notes, i like to highlight vocab words.

30. what do you believe is one of the most overrated studyblr trends?

100 days of productivity. its impossible to be completely productive for 100 days straight. shit happens, and i understand the purpose of the 100 days challenge, but i think it also takes a toll on you mentally.

31. what are your career goals, how do you plan to reach them?

i want to be a veterinarian or someone that works with animals somehow. i hope to go to vet school and then have my own practice or join another practice.

32. do you use a laptop? if so which model? how does it perform, would you reccomend it? if not, what model would you like?

i use a macbook air! it is nice because it is easy to transport, but occasionally the functionality can be questionable(storage space is always my issue). i do reccommend it, though. if i could get a new laptop, i’d probably get a macbook pro.

33. do you use a tablet? if so which model? how does it perform, would you reccomend it? if not, what model are you interested in?

i don’t, but i think having an iPad would be nice!

34. if you post pictures to tumblr, do you use a camera or your phone, if so, what is the model?

i use my iPhone 6s

35. 0.5, 0.7, or 0.9 pencil lead?

usually .5 or .7

36. 0.5, 0.7, 0.9, or 1.0 pens?

37. how many hours a day do you spend studying? are your hours consistent daily or do they differ depending on assignments and exams?

i tend to study for a majority of the day most days, but it always differs. i have no set timetable

38. how many courses do you take? what are they?

so i am in 8 courses right now. Biology, Gen Chem, Bio Lab, Gen Chem Lab, Calculus I, The History of rock n roll, Wind Ensemble, and Marching band.

39. how long until you graduate? in credit hours, semesters, or years?

i still have 3.5 years left of college, which is 7 semesters

40. how did you find the studyblr community?

honestly i dont remember, it was so long ago

41. how did the studyblr community impact you?

i was in a big funk my sophomore year of high school. i had no motivation, i hated learning, i hated everything tbh. but them i found this community and it inspired me and showed me that studying can be fun and pretty while also being a learning experience!

42. do you go to school in the day or night?

day!

43. what is something you are too afraid to be involved in at school or college and why?

in high school, i was very afraid to get involved with a lot of things, such as theatre and some other clubs just because of anxiety.

44. do you type or write your notes?

i write them mostly, but my biology professor talks really fast so i usually type notes for his class

45. what do you do on your breaks from studying?

netflix, eat, play video games, probably other stuff i’m forgetting

46. how do you study for math exams?

honestly i just look through lecture notes and hope for the best. occasionally i do practice problems but not often

47. do you rewrite your notes at home after class, or do you just use the ones you have already? why?

i rewrite them because it helps me memorize things

48. what are your least favorite courses and why?

math of any kind! i also hate biology right now just because my professor sucks

49. are you in a relationship while in school? if so, why? if not, why?

i recently got out of a relationship, but im open to being in a relationship with someone

50. if you are in a relationship, how do you manage that along with your studies?

it was very hard to manage it honestly, but i did what i could to make time, even if it was only just having a meal together.

51. if you aren’t in a relationship, do you plan on entering one while still in school? explain.

if i find the right person, yea! being in relationsips is great, especially because you have a companion to help you when you’re struggling

52. do you worry about GPA, if so why, if not why?

oh my god yes i do. i have to have a certain GPA to keep my scholarship money and to stay in the honors program, plus i just want to do well.

53. did you or do you plan to take the SAT or ACT, how did you feel about the exams? did you study for them? have you taken it more than once?

i did take both the SAT and ACT. i did well on each, but the SAT was a lot harder for me. I got a 1220(i think) on the SAT and a 31 on the ACT. i took the ACT twice

54. did you or do you plan to take the GRE, LSAT, PCAT, MCAT, DAT (or any other grad exam)? how did it go? how are you or how did you study for it? have you taken it more than once?

i’m going to take the MCAT

55. do you or did you take AP classes is high school? how do you feel about how they prepared you for college? did your school require you to take the exam?

yes i did take AP classes! i took 9 total, and they overall did help me learn how to manage time better as well as how to study. we weren’t required to take the exams, but i always did

56. do you or did you do the IB program in high school? can you explain it more for those who are unfamiliar with it?

i did not, however the IB program is basically an intensive high school honors program that is very writing intensive. its like AP on steroids

57. do your or did you take dual-enrollment classes? how did you feel about how they prepared you for college?

i didnt but i wish i did!

58. how many colleges or universities did you apply to or not? and why?

i applied to 5 colleges. i already knew where i wanted to go, but i wanted to be safe just in case i didnt get in, so i applied to the 5 i was most interested in. I also wanted to see if any other schools would give me a lot more financial aid.

59. how did you make friends in college or high school?

through band! in both situations

60. has your friend group stayed the same throughout your time in school?

yes actually! i’m still very close to all my high school friends and a few of them go to my college as well. of course i’ve met new people but i. also still have the same friends

61. how does your friend group influence your goals?

we all have our own goals, we just encourage each other and act as an outlet for stress

62. what is your favorite thing to learn about in your free time?

music and current events

63. what is your favorite study snack?

i like to eat carrots/pretzels with hummus or oreos

64. what is one thing that can completely make you stop studying?

being depressed or tired

65. are there days during the week that you keep completely free from studying?

yes. wednesdays are my hell days class-wise, so i refrain from doing work on those days after my classes are over

66. what do you do when you have to hustle? where do you go?

i dont know what this means

67. are your parents or family supportive of your goals? if so how does this affect you?

they’re very supportive!

68. do you like to read? and do you ever have any free time to do so?

i really love reading but i never have time

69. do you wear a watch? why or why not? what kind?

nope, they annoy me

70. do you like to drink coffee or tea when working? decaf? what do you add to it? why do you like to drink coffee or tea?

coffee with full caffeine! i always add creamer, and i drink it because it wakes me up

71. how do you organize your notes after your finish writing them?

i have notebooks for every class and binders as well

72. what do you do with your notes after the year or semester is over?

i either recycle them if they won’t be necessary anymore or i keep them in my closet

73. what are your favorite studyblrs?

studyign, emmestudies, and a lot more that i can’t think of

74. what are your favorite studygrams?

same as above except add on focusign and revisign!

75. what is the biggest impact a teacher or a professor has had on you?

my band director was very impactful on my life just because he was my teacher for 5 years, so we had a good relationship

76. what is the biggest impact that a class has had on you?

my film and lit class had a massive impact on me. it made me think in very different ways

77. who is your inspiration and who do you look up to academic wise and career wise?

my dad inspires me a lot because he worked so hard to find a career he loved and kept going until he got there. he’s also endlessly supportive of me

thats it! this took me so long hahaha anyway. thanks for reading!

#student #studying #studyblr #questions #study questions #q and a #study notes #my post #mine

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alexanderkoshy-blog · 7 years ago

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25 AND STILL NOT MARRIED? :O WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?? :O

"You are 25! Aren't you planning on settling down?"

"When are you getting married?"

"Did you get promoted?"

"How much do you make? I'm sure its enough for you to provide for a family"

"Do you have anyone or should we suggest someone to your dad and mum?"

"She will be perfect for you! Your parents will love her!"

"People of your age is already married by now. When are you planning to?"

"She will be a perfect match for you. You two will have adorable babies"

Me: *nodding my head* “………… mmhmm okay listen! Do you know which route I should take next? I would prefer if the route has some curved roads and probably a good pizza joint on the way!”

Life is not all about working 10 – 12 hours a day and slogging for that worthless promotion at that job that you hate so you can quickly get married and make babies and settle down. NO! BIG FAT NO!

Yes you should work! Yes you should have a stable income! Yes you should find that special someone and settle down! Yes in this society you should ideally be doing all this. BUT! It shouldn't be at the cost of being happy! There is so much that life has to offer and trust me you haven’t experienced the half of it. Take a week holiday from work, pack your bags, travel! Or go to the library every day that week and read the books that you so badly wanted to read in the past couple of years! Or binge-watch the series that you’ve been planning to watch! Or finish that game and cross off all those accomplishments and top the leaderboard! Do something that makes you happy! Don’t live under the pressure of the society and the worldly expectations. That’s not living, that’s more like exploitation of your life, time and energy. You could say it’s the modern day human trafficking. God didn’t create this beautiful world and give you this beautiful life to just let it go waste. TRAVEL! READ! BE HAPPY! AND LIVE!! Don’t give into this exploitation! Take your bike out! Explore this beautiful world that God has created. Ride in the monsoon (Only with proper bike gear though!), get muddy, wash your bike after you reach home, when you see a breath taking view stop for a second! Not to take pictures and post it on social media, I mean come one I would need a phone with at least a 1TB of storage if I stopped and clicked and posted photographs of the beautiful nature. Stop for a second, look around, see what you are missing out on, experience it, breathe in, just stay there and live that moment! Start the engine and move forward to live through another beautiful view, bond with your bike, bond with the roads, and bond with nature!

Pack your bags! Get your riding gear! Start riding to any random destination! Stop for a second! Look around! Experience it! Breathe! LIVE! On a serious note, please do suggest some routes. I want to live!

Image taken on my iPhone (and tweaked a bit with the Adobe Lightroom App) while I was riding back to Mumbai from Pune on the Old Mumbai Pune Highway on 27th August 2017

#Indian #Mallu #Travel #PetrolHead #Wanderlust #IndianSociety #Future #Life #Happy #yamaha

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alien-origins · 8 years ago

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random numbers!!! 4 6 10 14 15 16 23 38 45 50 68 72 83 91!!! have fun answering these!!! and if you don't like one of the questions, just ignore it ^^

4: What’s something you really want right now?

money and kisses !!! my bunny

6: Do you like the beach?

do i like the beach??? nah m8, i love that shit i want to live on the beach. it’s so beautiful witht he ocean i feel so at home by the beach tbh !

10: Do you like your phone?

not really, it has too little storage and i have too many memes :((

14: Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain?

emotional pain, physical pain goes away eventually and can be treated. emotional pain can be forever and as someone who is emotionally damaged it’s really tiering and it messes with you a lot.

15: Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum?

museum, some zoos here have a reputation.... plus i’m more interested in seeing old artifacts or to educate myself about things!

23: How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now?

none, usually i have my jade bracelet though but i was scared of dropping it on the boat yesterday so i put it in my bag

38: What do your friends call you?

mom and krys, mostly mom!!

68: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night?

probably acting up some scenario i want to happen, i think up a lot of stories before going to sleep since it can take an hour for me to nod off

72: What is your ringtone?

whatever my phone was set with (iphone) idk how to change to like fun songs :((

83: Will you talk to the person you like tonight?

hopefully, but i don’t really have a crush or anything, i just like to talk to certain people and i feel really anxious and scared if they don’t reply. i’m nervous and in need of constant validation.

91: Do you sleep with your window open?

when it’s summer yes but if i did in any other season i’d probably get sick, living in sweeden and all, can’t sleep with the window open in bellow zero degrees !! i’d die, especially since i hate cold and freeze easily.

thank you for sending in bby !! i didn’t answer some that i already got 💞💘💗💝💓💓

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infotainmentplus-blog · 7 years ago

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Worst smartphone experiences: Our team members share their tales We’ve been through many smartphones here at Android Authority — it comes with the territory. Some have been great, some have been bad. But how bad can it get? We asked our AA staff to recall their worst smartphone experiences of all time, highlighting the best ones below. We tried to stay clear of low-end smartphones because, let’s face it, most ultra-cheap Android devices were awful for the longest time. HTC leads the pack One of the more interesting tidbits from the poll was how HTC surfaced three times. This could be due the sheer bad luck of our staff, HTC’s fault, or its early popularity magnifying bad smartphone experiences. It’s still rather interesting. More specifically, Oliver Cragg‘s worst experience was the HTC One M9. “Imagine following the HTC One M8 (one of the most beautiful and best smartphones ever made) with a buggy, derivative phone that had an unforgivably bad camera,” Oliver explains. “I had it for six months before it stopped accepting any kind of network — a blessing in disguise. I’ve used HTC phones since (the 10 and U11 were both solid), but the M9 was a disaster.” Editor's Pick Daily drivers: 30 AA team members reveal the phones they use Mobile tech is what we do here at Android Authority. We have a huge team of people from all over the world. With that comes a broad range of needs and wants when it comes … Sticking with HTC, our SoundGuys colleague Lily Katz particularly disliked with 2012’s Droid DNA. “There was constant screen flickering and sporadic reboots that weren’t remedied by multiple factory resets. Not cute,” Lily said. Going back even further, Jimmy Westenberg pointed to 2010’s HTC Desire, but his experience wasn’t as bad as you might expect. His only major complaint was the storage space — a common issue during this era. “I could pretty much only use the stock HTC apps — the 4GB of storage didn’t allow for much wiggle room. I got used to living my life with a ‘low storage’ notification, which was annoying,” Jimmy recalled. “Other than that, the phone was great! No iPhone killer, but I still have good memories with it.” Huawei makes two appearances Chinese brand Huawei surfaced twice. The manufacturer is massive in Europe, China, and emerging markets, so it shouldn’t be surprising someone had a bad experience. Scott Adam Gordon generally had a good experience with his phones, but says the Huawei P10 sits atop the pile for worst smartphone experiences. It’s a stark contrast to the Huawei P20, which has been praised by us and other outlets. “They’ve all been great, but my worst experience has been with my current daily driver, the Huawei P10. The rear cameras have an autofocus problem that will cost money to fix (I don’t have a warranty),” said Scott. “The shots are blurry unless I take them in black and white. Google Photos will forever remember this as the film noir period of my life.” Read more: Best smartphones of 2018 — Here are our current picks Meanwhile, AA and DroneRush‘s Jonathan Feist mentions the Huawei Nexus 6P as his worst smartphone experience to date. It’s no surprise —the phone’s various issues have been well publicized. “It was a perfectly good phone for the first while, but then the issues started. First the battery would die anywhere below 50 percent, giving me less than two hours of screen-on-time per charge,” Jonathan says. “Then the dreaded boot loop killed it. To date, this is the only phone I have ever had that is no longer operational.” Did your old phone make the list? Robert Triggs recalled his experience with the Xperia X10, back when Sony Mobile was Sony Ericsson. “The Timescape UI was an overly complex, stuttering mess that got in the way more than it helped. Worse still, the Snapdragon S1 CPU developed an overheating problem after a year or so that kept rebooting the phone. I haven’t let a rubbish Android Donut experience put me off Sony, although I haven’t owned an Xperia since.” Meanwhile, the Oppo R11 (pictured above) was the source of Tristan Rayner‘s frustration. “The hardware wasn’t awful, but it came without an oleophobic coating, copied iPhone-style anti-Android notifications and had a poor skin,” said Tristan. “Add to that very little third-party support from the likes of LineageOS because it didn’t sell well enough, plus Oppo moved across to the R11s, meaning it’s a phone no one wants and it can’t be re-sold easily either.” Samsung only showed up once in our poll, with C. Scott Brown‘s worst experience being his Galaxy S6 (above). The device saw Samsung attempt to take on Apple for design prowess, but that’s not why it landed on our list. “I hate TouchWiz/Samsung Experience with a fiery passion. I bought the S6 planning to flash CyanogenMod, but Sammy/AT&T locked the bootloader, leaving me with only module options. I returned it after only a few weeks and got the Nexus 6P instead. CyanogenMod was up and running in a few minutes.” Xiaomi‘s Mi Mix 2 gave Adam Doud his worst experience, partly because of the expectations tied to a high-end device. “This is a flagship-level phone but the camera was below average in almost every way — very disappointing. It also had a weird bug where it wouldn’t accept group SMS messages, which, for a suburban dad, is an automatic deal breaker.” If I had to pick my own worst experience, I’d choose 2009’s Nokia N900 (though it’s probably a toss up between it and the Lumia 950). On the plus side, it had a slideout QWERTY keyboard, 32GB of storage, powerful Maemo OS, FM transmitter, video-out, and could run the Debian distribution of Linux. But it lacked WhatsApp, used a Linux-style app repository system, offered a resistive touchscreen, and wasn’t meant to be used in portrait orientation. Did the experience deter them from the brand? One rather interesting figure was that just over 30 percent of our staff said their terrible smartphone experience soured them on the brand. It’s a tiny sample size of course — we only had roughly a dozen responses in total. Nevertheless, this is potentially good news for companies that produced recent stinkers — maybe people are as willing to overlook a misstep as most of our staff. Most of these brands are more recognizable though, so who knows whether users would be kind to unknown manufacturers. What was your worst smartphone experience? Did you jump ship to a different brand afterwards? Let us know in the comments section! , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2yNw84D

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davidegbert · 8 years ago

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Samsung Galaxy S8 Review: To infinity and beyond?

For the last two weeks I’ve been approached by at least 10 people for the same two questions that always came together. The first was: Oh, Is that the new Galaxy? And the second: Well, but does it explode? This proves how much of a footprint Samsung owns in the smartphone market, where people associate the name Galaxy more to a phone than to the Milky Way, and where one mistake has only made the brand even more viral.

Marketing is a powerful thing. 2017 has served to show that even negative publicity is still publicity. It’s still a brand making headlines, and only helping it generate awareness in the consumer space. If you thought the mistakes made with the Galaxy Note 7 were going to cripple Samsung, think again. The Samsung Galaxy S8 has been met with record-breaking results; something Samsung hadn’t been able to achieve since the Galaxy S IV.

Marketing can go both ways though. The reason why Samsung took so long to re-gain the popularity it had with the Galaxy S IV is mainly because consumers realized that good marketing doesn’t necessarily mean you’re buying a great product. People soon realized that most of what made that phone special were just a ton of gimmicks you would never really use, and a cumbersome experience can do a brand worse than bad publicity.

Cue in the Galaxy S8. This is probably the biggest departure Samsung has ever made from the typical Galaxy we knew. Is it just another marketing stunt, or are you really paying more for a better product? Read our full Galaxy S8 review to learn more.

Hardware

For details on the larger variant, make sure you tune in to Juan’s separate coverage of the Galaxy S8+. This Galaxy S8 review is focused on my time using the regular S8. I actually received both units at the same time, but decided to review the smaller variant for a few important reasons.

The first is ergonomics. Sure, the Galaxy S8+ is actually smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus I was using before it, but some of Samsung’s design choices make it more cumbersome to use, even for my larger-than-average hands. Also, because products like the LG G6 did a great job in getting me to sip on that taller-display-on-a-small-phone Kool-Aid. I find the idea of a larger display over a smaller chassis to be genius. Sure it’s relatively the same surface area as other regular-sized phones if you do the math on surface area, but a narrower body is easier to hold and operate with one hand.

The second reason is because with the exception of a smaller battery, you’re pretty much getting the same phone. Samsung doesn’t force you to buy a larger phone in order to get its best features, something which other competitors should follow.

Focusing on build, Samsung made some interesting changes. The metal trim is now protected by a glossy coating that remains intact even after three drops onto tile. The buttons continue to be just as clicky, and color options like the Orchid Gray model that I chose can handle fingerprints and smudges very well. And even if many aren’t fans of the curves all around, they contribute in providing that surreal feeling of holding a large phone that feels small in the hand.

Those curves also contribute in creating what Samsung calls its Infinity Display. This is probably one of the best displays of the year given its blend of rounded corners, curved edges, and Super AMOLED technology. Samsung also added its mDNIe technology to this display, making it capable of playing back HDR video. At 5.8-inches diagonal, it nearly kills the bezel at a whopping 83% screen to body ratio, and with palm rejection being addressed fully in this new model. The screen is capable of Quad HD+ resolution, but is versatile enough to scale to 1080p+ or 720p+ to help with power efficiency. This is proof that the display spec race is over. I’ve tested this phone at 1080p+ for all my review period, and you know what? It’s all you need.

Buried inside we’ve got some of the best specifications in the market thanks to a either a Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895, in addition to 4 gigs of RAM, and base storage of 64GB that’s expandable. You also continue to enjoy the benefits of IP68 water and dust resistance, fast and wireless charging, a 3000 mAh battery, and new toys like Bluetooth 5.0 for those that want to stream music to two pairs of headphones at a time.

Software

To blend with the elegance of the hardware, we have Samsung Experience UX 8.1. Those of you who fell in love with the software that came on the Galaxy Note 7 will be delighted here. The company continues its trend of minimalism in absolutely every detail, and as much as I’m not a fan of Android skins, this one falls under my short list of exceptions.

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This user interface is capable of a ton of unique tricks that aren’t enabled out of the box, as Samsung continues to tune-down its approach to software. I’d suggest you watch my 24 hours video for more details on the full list of what this UI can do in a unique way.

My final thoughts are that I’m really liking Samsung’s attention to detail in the basics. The company’s Always On display is now more robust with notification icons and a quick way to react with them.

If you need a quick short cut to anything, it’s just a swipe away from the edge, and I’m shocked over how much I use this now. I’m also a big fan of the hidden home button, and little things like being able to swap the order of the navigation buttons. One of my favorites continues to be Secure Folder to help me protect information, in addition to having a second copy of apps in case you have multiple accounts.

Concerns for a taller display were also considered. I continuously rely in touching the home button three times for enhanced one handed use, though you can also choose to activate this from sliding from the bottom. And as for scaling, I’m surprised at how fast third party apps are adapting, with important services like YouTube already enhanced for it, even if the content won’t always do so for obvious reasons. One thing I notice is that the UI is smart enough to detect when content is built for it and automatically adjusts, whereas competitors like the G6 still don’t.

Camera

And as for the Camera, let’s just say that by now we all know that a Galaxy is a Galaxy. Juan’s real camera review is one of the most extensive he’s ever done, and for great reasons. This continues to be one of the cameras to beat, even if most of the enhancements are in image processing compared to last year’s model.

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Double click that power button and enjoy some of the best photos a smartphone can take with amazing color saturation and detail. Just like last year my advice remains to just take the shot.

Even when you see a grainy view finder at night, let the camera show its prowess when you see that final shot. Video is also one of this phone’s high points thanks to great stabilization from the primary sensor…

The selfie shooter got a bump in megapixels, which I’m sure is great for fans of it,.. But I’m honestly annoyed at the crop that Samsung has adopted for video. The field of view has become just as bad as with the iPhone, and I’m hoping they fix that.

Performance

Other features like performance can be delightful for the most part given the power of this 10nm processor. Games are surely benefited by this, with no lag or stutter to be seen, no matter what title I play. The only thing is that I can’t really call this phone the fastest performer out there. Once you load up the launcher with your stuff, and you start using it as a normal power user would, you’ll notice that the UI is quite the RAM hog. The result is mixed performance, with minor stutters when moving around certain menu items.

Bixby is seriously one of those features I wish Samsung would’ve waited to launch. Pressing the button sometimes does nothing, and even so it takes forever to launch. It also slows down the launcher, so take my advice: Pinch within the home screen, swipe to Hello Bixby and switch it off from the launcher, and just call on it from the button if you ever desire to. Bixby vision is a neat trick, but I sometimes find it quicker to simply search for a product than to have to wait for Bixby to react. This is sadly a half-baked mess that reminds me of the old Samsung full of gimmicks.

I’d say this phone could really use Android 7.1 ASAP, and not just for UI improvements, but also for power efficiency. A 3000 mAh battery is small for a display this large, with cases where I rarely reach a full day of moderate use, and where the 7.1 enhancements could really come in handy.

Cool are things like the insane amount of ways you can unlock this phone, with the Iris Scanner topping my list of favorites given its speed, and the fact that it even works through sunglasses. If the sun is too bright, you have the oddly placed fingerprint scanner to assist. Over time I’ve become used to its placement, but I do recommend using a case in order for the hump to assist you in finding it. This is another of the reasons I moved away from the Galaxy S8+ as you actually need to adjust the way you hold the phone to reach it.

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A major and welcomed improvement comes at the hand of audio for the most part. Yes, you will still hate the placement of the speakers, but I fully agree with Juan’s Real Audio review in that this phone made dramatic improvements to headphone audio, and I even notice a louder kick when using it for phone calls.

Pricing and availability

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is not what I’d call an affordable phone, but this is the first time I’ll ever say you’re actually getting more for your money. At its initial price of $729, you get a great phone that starts at 64GB of storage, and a good pair of headphones tuned by AKG. The headphones alone are $600, and most competing devices start at just 32GB of storage.

Conclusion

To conclude our Galaxy S8 review: there is a lot of good to be said about the “New Galaxy,” as everyone calls it. Those of you that were left nostalgic by the beauty of the Note 7 will be happy to see even more beauty shown off here. There is a lot of genius being placed on this design… So much so that I highly suggest that you go to a store and hold one to fully understand what I mean.

The only challenge continues to be the same we’ve always dealt with Samsung. Beautiful software should not be an excuse for stutters, or the slow speed at which Galaxy phones get updated to newer versions of Android. I’m not calling these deal breakers, but really just problems that are getting old for a phone this expensive.

Would I recommend the Galaxy S8? Sure! My minor list of complaints can be fixed with an update. This design and form factor are definitely the future for smartphones. A future which you can already access today.

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infotainmentplus-blog · 7 years ago

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Huawei P20 Pro review: The Galaxy S9 killer 40MP, the world’s first triple camera, 5X Hybrid Zoom, artificial intelligence in all the ways, and the most unique color on any smartphone ever. These are just some of the features Huawei is hoping will make you check out its new flagship, the Huawei P20 Pro. This isn’t the first 40MP smartphone — Nokia had the 808 PureView and Lumia 1020 in 2012 and 2013, respectively — but this is the first time we’ve seen such numbers on an Android smartphone. We crowned last year’s Huawei flagship Mate 10 Pro as the best smartphone of 2017, but does the P20 Pro pick up where its sibling left off? With the standards set by smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and Google Pixel 2 XL, Huawei has a fight on its hands. Let’s find out how it stacks up in our full Huawei P20 Pro review. Kris and I have both been using the Huawei P20 Pro for about two weeks since the phone was announced in Paris. The software is still in beta, and we’re running build number 8.1.0.106 (SP9C432), with the 1 March 2018 security patch. Above you’ll find the video review, where Kris mostly focuses on the camera, while in this written review, I’ve also expanded on other areas of the phone. Although we do have the P20 as well, this review focuses on the flagship P20 Pro, and references parts of the P20 experience where applicable. Show More Design The Huawei P20 Pro borrows several design cues from the iPhone X, with a vertical camera placement on the back and notch atop the screen. It stands out with three cameras and the unique twilight color, which awakens everyone’s inner wish for a real-life unicorn. Whatever your palate, Huawei has a P20 color for you. There are four or five colors depending on which model you choose, with the regular P20 coming in a champagne gold color that’s not available with the Pro. For the P20 Pro, Huawei offers black, a majestic midnight blue, and pink gold. The twilight color offers a new kind of color gradient — it actually shimmers in the light. The pink gold version also has a gradient, but its range is much more muted. Whatever your palate, Huawei probably has a P20 color for you. Beneath the screen is Huawei’s fingerprint sensor, which is flat, wide, and allows you to unlock your phone while it’s laying face up on a table. I’m normally a bigger fan of Huawei’s rear-mounted fingerprint sensors thanks to their added support for summoning the notification shade, but the P20 Pro’s scanner is still fast and reliable and supports gesture controls for navigation. The power and volume keys on the right offer nice feedback and the power button has a nice accent color. The bottom houses a speaker, microphone, and USB Type-C port. There’s no headphone jack, but an adapter comes in the box. I’m not an audiophile so I usually pick convenience over function, so I’m fine with Bluetooth audio. It’s the easiest solution and the P20 Pro works well enough in this regard. The back of the P20 Pro in twilight is stunning. It’s my favorite smartphone color ever. Despite that, the glass back feels fragile, and I kept mine inside Huawei’s official black rubber silicon case — hiding the glorious color. The camera bump at the top left has a lot of sensors, though it hides them well. The laser for the autofocus is hidden inside the black bit in the middle of the main camera module. The flash also contains a color temperature module. It’s a clever design from Huawei, and gives the appearance of things happening by magic, which fits with how AI comes into play throughout the phone. The P20 Pro brings a different design language to previous P-series devices, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It looks stunning, feels great in the hand and helps the phone establish an identity of its own. Display The P20 Pro offers a 6.1-inch AMOLED display with a rather awkward 18.7:9 aspect ratio. That extra 0.7 is due to the notch. Let’s get this out of the way: I’ve used the iPhone X for months and after a while, the notch just doesn’t matter. More phones are adopting the notch design, and you’ll have to get used to it eventually. If you really hate it, you can also turn it off on the P20 Pro, rounding the corners and turning off the extra pixels for a more standard-looking experience. The P20 Pro’s got a great panel, offering the vibrant blacks and deep colors all AMOLED panels do. The biggest issue for me is the resolution. Like with the Mate 10 Pro, Huawei opted for a Full HD+ panel. Huawei CBG CEO Richard Yu has told us several times the company chooses Full HD+ over Quad HD+ due to battery life concerns, but there’s likely another reason. Considering how the Mate 10 Pro also had a Full HD+ display, it seems Huawei saves a few features for its luxury flagship. On top of the better fingerprint sensor position, the Mate RS has a Quad HD+ AMOLED panel. We put the P20 Pro through its paces in our testing lab and it’s bright — very bright. Its top brightness of 600 nits under bright lights bests the Galaxy S9 by 26 percent, which achieves just 475 nits. Most surprising, the LCD display on the P20 is actually 23 percent brighter than its Pro counterpart, albeit with a cooler display. The P20 Pro achieves a color temperature of 7,212 Kelvin. The P20 is 9 percent cooler at 7,841 Kelvin. After testing Samsung’s latest flagships, we found Huawei’s displays are set to be about 200K warmer than the Galaxy S9s. Samsung is known for having the best displays, but the AMOLED panel on the P20 Pro is up there as one of the best on a smartphone. It’s a pleasure to use and ticks all the right boxes. The eye comfort mode works really well. Despite only being a Full HD+ display, it’s fantastic for anything you throw at it. As always, there’s a bevy of color-tuning options in the settings if you don’t like the look out of the box. Performance The P20 Pro is packed full of the hardware we’ve come to expect from a flagship Huawei device. It’s powered by HiSilicon’s Kirin 970 chipset and, like the Mate 10 Pro, has a lot of AI features thanks to the built-in NPU. It’s backed by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, alongside the Mali-G72 MP12 which handles most tasks well. The GPU isn’t quite on par with the Adreno 630 in the Snapdragon 845 on the Galaxy S9, but it held its own in our testing. The regular P20 drops the RAM to 4GB, which doesn’t have too much effect on performance, at least according to the benchmark scores. The P20 Pro beats the best flagships of 2017, including the Mate 10 Pro and OnePlus 5T, but the Galaxy S9 produces results from another world. A large part of this is likely to be the Snapdragon 845 CPU, as the Galaxy S9 results are on par with our initial testing on Qualcomm’s latest processor. The P20 Pro’s benchmark performance is great right now, but it’ll likely be bested many times in the coming months. A lot of devices are going to launch with the Snapdragon 845, so we’ll have to wait until Huawei’s next Mate device to see how good its 2018 performance can get. These benchmarks show how good the performance of the Snapdragon 845 is. Like our initial benchmark scores, the Snapdragon 845 sets a new standard for AnTuTu performance. The Kirin 970 inside the P20 Pro is significantly better than the same processor inside the Mate 10 Pro (which scored 178466), but as a generation older, the Kirin 970 can’t keep up with the Snapdragon 845. These two benchmarks show that while there is a gap between the performance scores of the Snapdragon 845 and the Kirin 970, it’s a smaller difference than it has been in previous years. In particular, the Mali G72 GPU inside the Kirin 970 is close to the performance of Qualcomm’s Adreno 630 GPU, and this is reflected in actual usage of both devices. In day-to-day usage, the P20 Pro never misses a beat. The phone is fast regardless of what you throw at it. 6GB of RAM usually results in about 2.5GB to 3.5GB of free RAM at any given time. I’ve yet to see the phone stutter at all, even with a lot of apps running in the background. Huawei claims the AI allows it to remain fast over a longer period compared to other flagships, but we’ll need a longer time with the P20 Pro to confirm if this is true. Hardware Porsche Design Mate RS… in red! The P20 Pro doesn’t have expandable storage. If 128GB isn’t enough for you, Huawei hopes you’ll spring for the Porsche Design Mate RS, which comes in 256GB and 512GB variants. The P20 Pro is IP67 certified, offering dust and water resistance up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. The regular P20 is only IP5X rated, so it’s splash proof, but doesn’t offer anywhere near the same level of durability and protection. There’s no headphone jack, which may be a deal breaker for some users, but personally, I don’t mind. The phone comes with USB Type-C headphones in the box, which offer crisp sound but are otherwise unremarkable. There’s also a USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter so you can use your existing headphones. If wireless headphones are more your preference, like me, there’s support for Sony’s LDAC codec and HWA 990 Kbps high-res audio over Bluetooth 4.2. There are also stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. These speakers are pretty good, and deliver loud volume without too much distortion. I find them a little louder than the Galaxy S9, though Huawei’s silicon case muffles audio a little. Dolby Atmos is a useful addition and offers a stereo-like effect during audio playback. Like other Huawei phones, the P20 Pro comes in dual-SIM flavor. Dual-SIM functionality isn’t new to most smartphone ranges, and even the Galaxy S9+ has an optional dual-SIM variant. Unlike most others, you don’t need to get a different variant of the P20 Pro to get two SIM card slots. When you do have two SIM cards in play, both can access 4G LTE, and you can customize which is used for data and for calling. Like previous Huawei devices, the P20 Pro allows you to disable the on-screen keys and use gestures on the fingerprint sensor to navigate if you prefer. A tap on the sensor takes you back a screen. Pressing and holding takes you straight to the home screen. A horizontal swipe launches the recent apps overview. Personally, I don’t like this and have stuck with the on-screen keys. Huawei backs up the fingerprint sensor with its face unlock feature. It’s not as secure as Apple’s Face ID, so it can’t be used for payments and other secure transactions, but it’s lightning fast. In almost any condition, including pitch black, it unlocks your phone so fast that you don’t even see the lock screen. We tested it in the back of a moving taxi, in a dark room with little to no light, and in day-to-day usage, and it’s the best way to unlock your P20 Pro most of the time, assuming you’re OK with the heightened security risk. With direct sunlight behind you, however, the face unlock doesn’t work — just like Face ID on the iPhone X. Battery The P20 Pro has one major advantage over other 2018 flagships up its sleeve — a 4,000mAh battery. Most flagship devices come equipped with a battery ranging from 3,000 to 3,5000mAh battery. The P20 Pro brings the same battery capacity as the Mate 10 Pro, which we crowned as the best smartphone for battery life last year. It’s great to see a company not conform to battery capacity norms. A large battery combined with Full HD+ resolution results in exceptional battery life on the Huawei P20 Pro. Nirave The battery life on the P20 Pro doesn’t disappoint. During nearly two weeks with the device, the battery lasted around two days on average, with around six to seven hours of screen-on time. During my flight back to San Francisco from the launch event in Paris, I used the phone as my Kindle device and reached San Francisco with over 50 percent battery left, after over 9 hours of solid screen-on time. The testing numbers also reveal a similar story. Overall, the P20 Pro offers better battery life than any other device we’ve tested, including the Mate 10 Pro. Our Wi-Fi browsing test cycles the same set of webpages and drains the battery from 100 percent to 0 percent, with the display set at 200 nits brightness. The P20 Pro lasted 11 hours and 28 minutes, which is better than the P20 at 10 hours and 17 minutes, but not as good as the Mate 10 Pro which lasts for 13 hours straight. In our video playback test — where we loop a 1080p video at 200 nits brightness — the P20 Pro lasted 12 hours and 21 minutes, while the regular P20 lasted for 10 hours and 20 minutes. The P20 Pro proves to be much better than the Mate 10 Pro and Galaxy S9 Plus here, which lasted for 10 hours and 40 minutes and 11 hours and 16 minutes, respectively. Interestingly, last year’s LG V30 also proves to be a champion here, lasting for 12 hours and 20 minutes. Samsung phones are known for offering a ton of features, but battery life has always been a concern. The P20 Pro offers 11 percent more average battery life than the Galaxy S9 Plus, which is actually less than we expected, given the 12 percent larger battery and lower resolution display. Huawei has improved battery life with updates in the past, though — the Mate 10 Pro battery life got significantly better after its first update — so we’d expect the P20 Pro battery to improve with age. Overall, the battery life is arguably the best we’ve seen from a flagship smartphone to-date. Whatever the task, the battery will easily last you a full day or two. For many users, it’ll last much longer. During our time with the P20 Pro, using the camera didn’t seem to have too large an effect on the battery as we spent three hours shooting with the phone in Paris with the display at full brightness and the battery only drained 18 percent. The P20 Pro comes equipped with Huawei SuperCharge, which charges your phone to full in just 90 minutes. The P20 also has SuperCharge and is even more impressive, charging to full in just 72 minutes — faster than any smartphone we’ve tested. In 30 minutes, the P20 Pro charges to 54 percent, while the regular P20 charges to 65 percent. In 60 minutes, they charge to 87 percent and 95 percent respectively. By comparison, the Galaxy S9 Plus and S9 take 96 and 93 minutes respectively, despite both having 500mAh-smaller batteries than their P20 counterparts. Camera They say big numbers help sell phones. If that’s the case, Huawei has plenty of these to lean on in the P20 Pro’s camera. There’s the world’s first triple camera, a 40MP main sensor, 3X Optical Zoom, 5X Hybrid Zoom, 4D Predictive Focus, 102,400 maximum ISO, 2μm pixel size, 4-in-1 Hybrid Focus system, 960 frames per second slow-motion recording, and more. The camera also has Huawei’s new AI-assisted stabilization (AIS), which lets the P20 Pro take long-exposure shots without a tripod. The three cameras combine to make an incredible trio that produce great shots in all conditions. Each camera serves a different purpose. The main 40MP sensor captures rich color, the 20MP secondary monochrome sensor captures additional details, and the third 8MP telephoto lens is used for zoom and additional focal length. They make for an incredible trio which produces great shots in all conditions. Kris goes into more depth on the make-up of the camera in the video review, and Adam has rounded up all the facts on Huawei’s triple camera in our walkthrough below. The 40MP main sensor will be a draw for many users. I remember working retail when the Nokia 1020 was launched. I experienced first-hand how many customers came into the store asking for the phone with the 40MP camera. The P20 Pro’s camera will likely have the same effect for Huawei, at least outside the U.S. where it will appear on store shelves, but without the turn-off of Windows phone OS. By default, the camera shoots images at 10MP, which is where the 2μm pixel size kicks in. The main camera actually has 1μm pixels, but by default, the P20 uses a process called pixel binning to combine the light information from four 1μm pixels into a larger 2μm super pixel. See the full-res photos Huawei P20 Pro Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus You can shoot at 40MP if you want, but remember, the smaller 1μm pixels are less sensitive to light, and you can’t zoom in, so you’ll only want to shoot at full-res in well-lit conditions where zooming isn’t necessary. By using pixel binning rather than just having 2μm pixels in the first place, the 40MP camera offers more versatility. As a result, you can take rich 40MP photos in great lighting, and still get excellent low light performance when lighting conditions aren’t as good. The 20MP monochrome lens also has a part to play in the overall pictures, as it captures three times as much light information than the RGB sensor (because it has no color filters). The result is images with more detail, increased sensitivity to light and less noise in shadows. The P20 Pro combines the data from both sensors to capture vibrant, richly colored and nicely detailed pictures, regardless of the lighting conditions. The third lens really sets the P20 Pro apart from other smartphones. It offers 3X optical zoom and captures about a ninth of the standard frame (so if you have the grid overlay on, you’ll always know what you’ll get at 3x). In darker conditions, the smaller f/2.4 aperture results in less light sensitivity though, so even when you’re zoomed in, the P20 Pro is still using all three cameras. Just cover the telephoto lens at 3x zoom to see it in action. There’s also a noticeable shift in the colors when switching between 1x and 3x zoom. The P20 Pro also brings the world’s first 5X Hybrid Zoom, which combines the 3X Optical Zoom with additional detail from the main sensor to achieve a 5X Hybrid Lossless zoom. It’s fantastic. From graffiti on buildings in Paris to bottles of wine in a restaurant’s wine rack, the Hybrid zoom is a lot of fun to use. I’ve spent many moments zooming into pictures, and even when pixel peeping, the result is excellent. Regular 3X Optical Zoom 5X Hybrid Zoom Many companies have claimed lossless or hybrid zoom in the past, but the P20 Pro seems to be one of the first devices to actually deliver on this feature. The 5x images naturally aren’t as good as they would have been with 5X optical zoom, but they are very similar to the level of detail from the 3x. As Kris says, it’s nice to know you can digitally zoom in a bit and still maintain image quality. The P20 Pro lets you zoom in up to 10x digitally, but we wouldn’t recommend going past 5x if you still want crisp detail. The telephoto lens is the only one that officially comes with OIS, but an iFixit teardown seems to show OIS in all three lenses. Regardless, the P20 Pro also uses AIS across the board. It analyzes the frame and ditches small parts of the edges to keep everything stabilized. 4D focus also predicts where a subject is moving and keeps it in focus, so you have smooth overall footage with locked-on focus. To see how AIS compares to EIS used on the Pixel 2, check out the video review above. Captured using a long exposure with night mode AIS is responsible for what both Kris and I think is the biggest highlight on the P20 Pro camera: night mode. If you’ve tried to shoot a low-light, long-exposure shot by hand, you’ll know the resulting image is usually full of noise and image shake. AIS solves this by stabilizing the image long enough for you to capture a four-second handheld long exposure at night that’s crisp and blur-free. Add in the excellent low-light sensitivity and detail of all the sensors combined, and the results are simply amazing. On the P20 Pro display, all these images look fantastic. It’s only when you begin pixel peeping on your computer that you start to see where the P20 Pro falls down. As Kris mentions in the video, however, this raises an important question: what constitutes a good photo? Is it the one that produces the most realistic colors, or the one that makes them pop the most? Is it the one that maintains detail at the expense of added noise, like the Pixel 2, or the one that looks great on your phone but like a painting up close? Your answer will determine if the P20 Pro is the camera for you. If you want true-to-life images with more detail when you zoom in, the Pixel 2 is the better camera for you. But if you want images that look the best before you start crawling the pixels, the kind that will look better on social media, then the P20 Pro might be for you. The P20 Pro’s 24MP selfie camera is definitely an example of more megapixels not really translating to better photos. Millions of pixels aren’t much good if the photo captured is soft. Even with all of Huawei’s effects turned off, selfies have a noticeable smoothness that shouldn’t be there. It is possible to take some good pictures with the P20 Pro’s front camera in good lighting, but the images are too soft and artificial for my tastes. With such a reflective rear panel, you’re better off just flipping the camera over and using the back as a mirror to take the perfect selfie! The front and the rear camera both have a portrait mode, but both are a little hit or miss. Software-assisted bokeh couldn’t handle Kris’ wild hair (as most phones can’t). It faired a little better in my own test shots, but it’s not on par with the Pixel 2. However, the rear camera also comes with a feature only Huawei offers, which I got a lot of joy out of using on the P20 Pro and the Mate 10 Pro. Slide all the way to the left in the camera and you’ll enter aperture mode, called wide aperture mode on past Huawei devices. The P20 Pro allows you to capture images using the main sensor, and adjust the focal point and aperture size both pre- and post-capture. This isn’t a new feature — The Galaxy S9’s live focus feature does it too — but the P20 Pro’s aperture mode allows you to change the aperture from f/0.95 to f/16. Unlike the Pixel 2 and other devices which only offer one type of Portrait, the P20 Pro leaves the customization up to you. By default, it’s set to f/4 which produces a natural amount of bokeh like other devices. If you prefer more bokeh, you can change it to f/0.95. If you don’t like much or any bokeh in your photos, then the f/16 option is designed for you. Aperture mode works well for selfies, as you can adjust the amount of bokeh in the shot, and if the cutout is all wrong, remove as much background blur as possible. Similarly, if you take a great picture and decide you’d prefer to have your focal point elsewhere, you can easily change it. The P20 Pro is aided by the Kirin 970’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which helps with all of its AI features. These features are most apparent in the camera. Alongside the AIS which allows you to take excellent photos and video, there’s also automatic scene recognition. The scene recognition can be good, but Kris and I both found it occasionally got in the way of taking excellent pictures. Once you get to know the AI’s attitude to photography, you can take advantage of the suggestions you like and ignore those you don’t. This is because Huawei now lets you deny automatic scene recognition changes as they pop up or you can disable AI assistance entirely. Sometimes you’ll find yourself fighting with the AI, trying to take a regular shot while it keeps changing settings on you. For example, there are dedicated portrait and night modes in the camera, but the AI will automatically switch to portrait mode when it detects a human face in the frame or launch into night mode in the dark. Of course, this can be helpful, but if you don’t like fake bokeh or aren’t after a long exposure it can be annoying. One of the new scenes recognized in the P20 Pro is waterfalls, but the phone automatically tries to take a long exposure for that dreamy water effect, but this isn’t always the best way to capture it. Once you understand which scenes the phone is good at tweaking, the results can be fantastic. The AI can automatically detect food, dogs, and cats (with separate modes for each of these pets), and it can boost colors to provide a more vibrant image. Similarly, the greenery mode really makes grass pop out of an image and the blue sky mode makes even dreary skies look nicer. It’s not the most accurate look, but it’s amazing on social media, which appears to be Huawei’s goal. Personally, I liked it when it automatically switched to portrait and night mode, but Kris found it a nuisance as there are already dedicated modes for these. I also like it when it switches to greenery, food, or dog scenes. The results are usually much better for social media. The P20 Pro is the first smartphone with the ability to shoot up to 102,400 ISO. This feels like a number that’s big for the sake of being big. A photo shot at that ISO would typically have enough grain to completely ruin the image, which is probably why you can’t select anything above ISO 3,200 in Pro mode. During our briefing and the press conference, Huawei made a big deal about the P20 Pro’s 4D predictive tracking, which uses AI to predict where a moving subject is headed to maintain focus. In Huawei’s demo it worked well, and it mostly delivered in our testing. We found the autofocus struggled to stay locked on a moving subject like flowers blowing in the wind, which you can see in the video review. It’s not terrible, but it’s not as good as it was on stage either. Another big AI camera feature is assisted framing, which helps non-photographers capture images with better composition by giving them various tips based on their photos. It doesn’t seem to work right now. There doesn’t appear to be an option in the settings for it and neither Kris nor I saw it pop up on its own at all. It’s more than likely coming in a future update. We’ve reached out to Huawei and will update when we have more information. One thing that I do find a little strange about the P20 Pro camera is the location of HDR. By now, almost every smartphone offers an automatic HDR option, but Huawei insists on keeping this option hidden away in the modes menu. Night mode can act as an HDR replacement in certain shots — such as a high contrast shot with a bright light source — but it doesn’t work all the time. Instead, you need to open the HDR mode and there’s no way to make it automatic. We wish Huawei would change this. There are a lot of other features still to touch on with the camera. The Ultra Snapshot mode launches the camera in 0.3 seconds from screen-off. Unfortunately, it only captures a 7MP image in 18:9 aspect ratio and there’s no way to change this in the settings. Since the image is taken so quickly, there’s no AI scene recognition either. Fortunately, you can change the function of the button shortcut in the settings menu, which I did. The camera is plenty fast enough once you launch it, and I’d rather have more control over my images, so I changed the shortcut to launch the camera without taking an image. Huawei P20 Pro Camera samples: The P20 Pro also captures 960 frames per second slow-motion video recording like other recent flagships. It’s a fun feature to use and it’s relatively easy to get the timing right — I struggled a little at first, as it happens almost instantly when you press the capture button — but it’s not as fun as the Galaxy S9 Plus. Samsung’s flagship brings an automatic slow-motion mode, so you don’t need to perfectly time the shutter, which makes taking slow-motion video a lot more fun. Before the P20 Pro was announced, the rumors had me excited. Since the launch of the Nokia Lumia 1020, I and many others have been waiting for a replacement. Back then I wouldn’t have pegged Huawei as the company that would offer it, but the P20 Pro has the camera we’ve all been waiting for. The P20 Pro is the flagship smartphone camera we’ve all been waiting for... It features all the hardware you could want in a camera and takes stunning photos. Nirave It features all the hardware you could want and gives you the tools to take visually stunning photos. The AI features get in the way a bit, but once you learn how to make it work for you, the results are amazing. The 5X hybrid zoom is a highlight, but the night mode has me wanting to go out and take pictures just to see what it produces. You could give 40 people the same scene and they’d take 40 different pictures. The phone is designed to allow you to take the photos you want, albeit with a focus on social media, sharing, and being visually appealing on a smartphone screen rather than blown up on a computer. The versatility of the camera sets it apart from the competition and no two P20 Pro pictures are the same. Indeed, with some training on the different modes, you could give 40 people the same scene and they’d take 40 different pictures. Therein lies the problem though. While phones like the Galaxy S9 and iPhone X are designed to have no learning curve, there is one to the P20 Pro camera. If you’re not willing to invest time to truly understand it, it’s not the camera for you. If you are willing to learn how to use it, the results speak for themselves. Software The P20 Pro runs on Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI 8.1 interface on top. Huawei’s interface has come a long way since the days of the P6, but it remains a polarizing experience — you either love it or hate it. Personally, EMUI is as functional as any other interface for me. It has some quirks, but it’s on par with any other OEM skin out there. EMUI 8.1 brings the same packed feature set from EMUI 8 on the Mate 10 Pro, with a couple of small additions. Like the Mate 10 Pro, PC Mode works with nothing but a USB Type-C to HDMI cable and works well enough. I’ve yet to see a need for using your smartphone as a PC, and my constant travels make me the type of consumer Huawei is going after. That said, if you want an easy solution to using your smartphone as a PC, the P20 Pro’s Desktop Mode does the trick. Oddly enough, the biggest new software feature on the P20 Pro is the ability to “turn off” the notch. We’ve touched on it above, but it’s a noteworthy feature that we hope comes to other Android smartphones. Huawei’s face unlock is a software-based feature that proves, at least for unlocking your smartphone, you don’t need a lot of additional hardware for a great experience. As part of EMUI 8.1, Huawei has also added six more automatically detected scenes in the camera, including fireworks, dogs, cats and waterfall. It also added NPU tricks to the album. We’ve not really been able to test this, but Huawei says it uses AI to give each photo an aesthetic score based on how pleasing it is, and displays larger thumbnails for the photos with the highest scores — all to make your gallery more appealing. The P20 Pro also sees the launch of the Huawei AI Engine (HiAI), an open framework for developers to make use of the NPU’s AI features. In China, the company has worked with partners to add enhancements to the camera, like a vision recognition feature similar to Bixby Vision, automatic filters for photos, and a voice assistant. There are no plans to bring these features to other countries, but the engine is open to developers around the world. Polarizing though it is, EMUI offers a ton of customization options, once you dig into the features. You can add options to the navigation, make use of tons of gesture controls and knuckle shortcuts, choose how you want to navigate your phone (using gestures or the default on-screen keys), customize the status bar, and more. I like the ability to display the network speed. It’s proven helpful when trying to troubleshoot my data while roaming. There’s also an always-on display option buried in the security settings. If you’ve used a Samsung Galaxy device over the past few years, you’ll have likely experienced a similar feeling. The Samsung Experience — formerly known as TouchWiz — was polarizing at first, but with hundreds of millions of devices sold, it has become a mainstay. EMUI is somewhat similar. Personally, I have no issues with it, but chances are you already know how much of a deal breaker EMUI is for you. Specs Huawei P20 Huawei P20 Pro Display 5.8-inch Huawei FullView IPS LCD 2,244 x 1,080 18.7:9 aspect ratio 6.1-inch Huawei FullView OLED 2,240 x 1,080 18.7:9 aspect ratio Processor Huawei Kirin 970 Octa-core CPU (4 Cortex A73 2.36GHz + 4 Cortex A53 1.8GHz) + NPU Huawei Kirin 970 Octa-core CPU (4 Cortex A73 2.36GHz + 4 Cortex A53 1.8GHz) + NPU GPU Mali-G72 MP12 Mali-G72 MP12 RAM 4GB LPDDR4 6GB LPDDR4 Fingerprint Scanner Front mounted Front mounted Storage 128GB 128GB Cameras Rear cameras: 12MP RGB f/1.8 + 20MP monochrome f/1.6 dual-LED flash, PDAF+CAF+Laser+Depth auto focus 4K video recording at 30fps Front camera: 24MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, fixed focus Rear cameras: 40MP RGB f/1.8 + 20MP monochrome f/1.6 + 8MP telephoto f/2.4 with OIS dual-LED flash, PDAF+CAF+Laser+Depth auto focus, 3X optical zoom, 5X Hybrid Zoom, 4K video recording at 30fps Front camera: 24MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, fixed focus Battery 3,400mAh Non-removable Huawei SuperCharge 4,000mAh Non-removable Huawei SuperCharge IP rating IP53 IP67 SIM Dual SIM Primary SIM: 4G Secondary SIM: 2G/3G/4G Dual SIM Primary SIM: 4G Secondary SIM: 2G/3G/4G 3.5mm headphone jack No No Connectivity Wi-Fi 2.4G, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct support 4x4MIMO Cat 18 Bluetooth 4.2, support BLE support aptX/aptX HD and LDAC HD Audio USB Type-C NFC Wi-Fi 2.4G, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct support 4x4MIMO Cat 18 Bluetooth 4.2, support BLE support aptX/aptX HD and LDAC HD Audio USB Type-C NFC Software Android 8.1 Oreo EMUI 8.1 Android 8.1 Oreo EMUI 8.1 Colors Twilight, Black, Midnight Blue, Champagne Gold, Pink Gold Midnight Blue, Black, Pink Gold, Twilight Dimensions and weight 149.1 x 70.8 x 7.65mm 165g 155.0 x 73.9 x 7.8mm 180g Gallery [/section] Huawei P20 Pro: The Galaxy S9 killer! The P20 Pro is Huawei’s most ambitious smartphone to date, combining flagship features with an incredible camera. A number like 40MP is bound to get people interested, and the phone lives up to its billing as a photographic masterpiece, though it takes some getting used to, like any good DSLR. The biggest Android competitor to the P20 Pro is the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, and which you should buy depends mainly upon your preferences. If you want a phone that can take great photos without having to learn too much, the Galaxy S9 Plus is the way to go. If you want a phone to take great pictures in every condition, and you’re willing to put a little time into learning the many settings and options, the P20 Pro is for you. The P20 Pro is the best Huawei smartphone ever made and is one of the best devices now. It has a sublime camera, outstanding battery life, a color unlike any other. In short, it delivers a flagship experience surpassed by none. Nirave Both devices are flagship through and through, yet they feel very different. I’ve long been a fan of Samsung’s flagships, but the company has made great devices for many generations — the S9 Plus is just the latest. It has few noteworthy features, but it’s mainly more of the same. The P20 Pro is the best Huawei smartphone ever made and is one of the best devices now. It has a sublime camera, outstanding battery life, a color unlike any other. In short, it delivers a flagship experience surpassed by none. What are your thoughts on the Huawei P20 Pro? Is the world’s first triple camera, with its 40MP main sensor, a big deal to you? What about the unique color or the excellent battery life? Let us know in the comments below! , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2JBd3nK

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