Haroun Adamu

Author

Followed

Contributor Since October, 2021

Expertise

Android, Samsung, Google

323

articles
223

News
21

Features
5

Lists
64

Guides
10

Deals

About Haroun Adamu

Haroun authors features for Android Police, covering Samsung, Google, and the wider Android ecosystem. He first joined in 2021, cutting his teeth on over 300 news stories before moving on to features and how-tos. A one-time OnePlus die-hard who genuinely couldn't stand Samsung, he's since done a full about-face — he now daily-drives a Galaxy S24 Ultra and keeps an S23+, S22+, and his old S20 within arm's reach, which gives him a lot of hardware to put through its paces.

He's a medical doctor with a decade-plus obsession for consumer tech, and his coverage has also appeared on How-To Geek and Android Authority. When he's not buried in Google's apps or a Samsung settings menu, he's trying to get his chess rating past 1500 or playing table tennis/football.

How long have you been interested in technology?

Since around 2010, though I didn't recognize it as an interest at the time. It started with my dad's old Ferrari-branded TV phone — not the carmaker, just a budget novelty clone — he handed down to me. It had a huge unsightly pen and two swappable batteries. I'd hot-swap the batteries and stay up watching late-night shows on the tiny screen long after I should've been asleep. That chunky phone definitely hooked me.

By 2014, the interest had grown teeth, and I would consistently argue with classmates about why the HTC One M8 was the best phone ever made. I've been following tech ever since.

What was your first phone and what do you remember about it?

My first phone was a Multi-Links feature phone, one of those old Nigerian CDMA handsets that came locked to the network. My parents bought it for my siblings and me so we'd be easy to reach, but as the eldest, I commandeered it most of the time.

The memory that stuck: it went missing for days, and I eventually found it wedged deep in the recesses of a sofa we'd left outside, through days of rain. I pulled it out, turned it on, and it just... worked, fog trapped behind the glass and all. The fog cleared after about a week of use.

Years later I learned Multi-Links didn't even make its phones. Mine was a rebranded Haier, a name I'd read on the front a thousand times without ever knowing what it was.

What tech products or categories are you most passionate about?

I'm mostly a software person. Hardware has gotten so good that the software is really what sets phones apart now. My interests cut across Google apps, Android features, the deep well of tweaks in Samsung's One UI, etc.

I'm a reformed OnePlus loyalist who spent years swearing by OxygenOS and side-eyeing Samsung, and for good reason (looking at you, TouchWiz and Samsung Experience). That was until Samsung started acting like the giant it really is. I switched and got completely absorbed by how much a Galaxy actually lets you do.

These days I daily-drive an S24 Ultra with an S23+, S22+, and my old S20 never far away, so I'm usually somewhere in a settings menu figuring out what a feature really does, and whether it's worth anyone's time.