Top 9 must-have accessories to unlock your smartphone's full potential (photos).
Various accessories can unlock the true potential of any phone. This selection was created by the Android Police resource.
All-Day Battery Charge
9 Flagship Android phones often promise a full day of battery life, but gaming, content creation, or editing can quickly drain it. Over time, battery performance diminishes, making it difficult to handle demanding tasks. Modern external batteries address this issue.
Compact options are suitable for everyday use, providing one or two full charges for your phone. For heavy usage, powerful external batteries offer multiple charges and can power several devices. This makes them ideal for long trips, outdoor adventures, or workdays. Solar-powered external batteries provide reliable performance for outdoor enthusiasts.
Portable Cinema Instead of a Smartphone
0 Smartphone screens are small, limiting group viewing and immersive experiences. Mini projectors eliminate this limitation. These compact projectors are perfect for small gatherings, although they are less powerful than specialized Android projectors.
With HD or 4K resolution, they deliver excellent image quality and easily connect via HDMI or USB-C. Some also feature built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for direct streaming from your phone.
Video Setup with Gimbal Stabilizers
1 Even with built-in stabilization, smartphones struggle to capture smooth footage during runs, hikes, or biking. Gimbal stabilizers solve this problem, ensuring fluid shots. They also include intuitive controls for panning, tilting, and rotating for precise and creative captures.
Advanced models add features like object tracking and frame-by-frame shooting, expanding your filming capabilities. Lightweight and portable, stabilizers are perfect for travel and on-the-go use. Compatible with most phones, they support external microphones and lighting. With today's advanced smartphone cameras, a stabilizer is the perfect complement.
Great Photos with Tripods
2 Tripods provide stability for well-composed photos, videos, time-lapse shots, and group pictures without a photographer. A tripod is also essential for long-exposure photos, astrophotography, or night shots. For solo creators who act as both subject and director, tripods are indispensable.
Phone tripods come in various styles to meet different needs. Compact desktop models are ideal for indoor use, while travel-friendly designs fold for easy portability. Gorilla tripods feature flexible legs that grip surfaces like poles or tree branches for outdoor shooting.
Using Your Phone as a Drawing Notebook
3 Touchscreens are great for general use, but lack the precision needed for note-taking, pixel editing photos, or digital art. Styluses combined with note-taking apps mimic pen-and-paper work, which is beneficial for students, professionals, and anyone who appreciates tactile feedback.
Rubber-tipped styluses are an affordable starting point. Universally compatible, they provide better grip and accuracy than fingers for notes or sketches. Premium styluses offer more features with pressure sensitivity and palm rejection, making them suitable for professional artists.
Recording Studio with External Microphones
4 While smartphone microphones are fine for calls and notes, they fall short for high-quality audio. Wind, background noise, and limited range often spoil recordings. An external microphone addresses these issues, providing professional sound ideal for podcasts, interviews, vlogs, and video production.
Lavalier microphones are compact and discreet, perfect for interviews, presentations, and hands-free vlogging. Condenser microphones deliver studio-quality sound and are ideal for podcasters. Shotgun microphones are directional, capturing sound from a specific source while reducing background noise.
Expand Storage with Portable SSDs
5 Photos and videos quickly fill up smartphone memory. External SSDs are a practical solution for expanding storage and backups. They offer better value per gigabyte than upgrading the phone's built-in storage.
These drives are compact yet can hold large amounts of data. With USB-C technology, they provide high data transfer speeds, making file management easier. Advanced models also feature encryption for enhanced data security.
Use Your Phone as a Gaming Console with a Controller
6 Smartphones are designed for touch control, but many mobile games, especially shooters, are better suited for a dedicated controller. Gaming controllers feature tactile buttons, analog joysticks, and responsive triggers for a more enjoyable gaming experience.
They also make cloud gaming more accessible, offering AAA games on services like NVIDIA GeForce NOW, with a gaming experience similar to console gaming. Gaming triggers provide a budget-friendly alternative to full controllers. These compact accessories attach to the phone, adding physical buttons that mimic trigger input.
Cooling Fan for Intensive Tasks
7 Excess heat drains the battery and reduces performance, especially during gaming and streaming high-definition video. A cooling fan addresses this issue by dissipating heat to maintain consistent performance during extended use.
Clip-on fans attach to the phone, providing directed cooling during intensive tasks. Standalone cooling docks combine ventilation with charging, offering dual functionality. These accessories are convenient for mobile gamers facing overheating during long sessions of graphically intensive games like Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile.
Previously, we wrote about affordable smartphones priced from 10,000 UAH and their specifications. The review included phones like the OnePlus Ace 3V, Xiaomi's Redmi Note 13 Pro 5G, Motorola's Edge 50 Neo, Samsung's Galaxy A35, and POCO X6 Pro.