It’s finally here.

The new  xel is in your hs ready to deliver on the promise of -designed smartphone bliss. There’s a lot to unpack, even if you’ve already been down the Nexus road before. has taken the integration of Android hardware to a new level, there are a lot of little features hiding just underneath the surface

I’ve explored nearly every corner of the software in my xel X(the “very silver” model is quite nice!), recommend you do these 10 things first. It’ll make your experience more enjoyable rewarding, so you can show off to everyone else just how great your new phone is.

One of the perks of the xel is that you get unlimited backup of all your pictures video at full resolution (even videos in 4K!) to the rather excellent otos service. 

However, you have to go claim it. To do this, go to otos > Settings > Back up sync. Turn this on ensure that your account is selected as the backup location. From here you can also choose if your photos or videos are backed up with through cellular data or only via -Fi. Then start snapping away with the xel’s excellent camera.

OK, cue the “ copied Apple” complaints. Comparisons to 3D Touch aside, the application shortcuts are pretty cool. st touch hold on an app icon you’ll have one or more options to jump you right to a particular part of the app.

And in true Android form, there’s more functionality than what you get with iOS. Touch hold one of the shortcuts, you can drag it onto the home screen. That will put a new button that lets you leap right into that action. This only works with a small group of apps for now, but the A is available to developers support is starting to roll out already.

There’s a neat little trick built into the phone’s fingerprint sensor, known as the xel Imprint (because we must br all the things!). en you swipe down, it pulls down your notification shade. Swipe back up to send them away.

But you have to turn it on. Go to Settings > Moves to do that also see two other choices for custom moves: mp to Camera Flip Camera. 

mp to Camera lets you launch the camera with a double tap on the power button, while the Flip Camera trick lets you switch in out of selfie mode by double twisting the phone when the camera is open.

Don’t forget about the little things. The Opinion Rewards app is an easy way to rack up ay Store money so you can spend it on apps, games, movies, TV shows, or books.

If you’re setting up your xel fresh, you’ll want to make sure you go get this. The app uses your location, web search history, other data collects to offer you surveys about companies, places you visit, or other rom questions. The reward is monetary credits to your ay Store account. Sure, there’s the whole loss of privacy thing, but given how much knows about you anyway, you may as well cash in to upgrade your cards in Clash Royale.

Duo lo don’t offer quite the integrated experience as iMessage Facee, but it at least closes the gap.

lo has some neat tricks with the Assistant (similar, but not identical, to the Assistant available from the home button on your xel) has some surpringly accurate autoresponse suggestions. Duo does video calling well, especially if you’ve had to use the somewhat glitchy Skype.

Very few people I know have gone all-in with lo as their main messaging app, but Duo may help you stay in touch with those on iOS who can’t Facetime you.

Android has had ve llpapers for ages. Most of them aren’t really worth it – they’re battery hogs, or they’re too visually distracting to be effective wallpapers.

But the xel Xships with a fantastic set of ve llpapers. st hold down on an empty space on your home screen, choose llpapers, then look at the ve earth ve data categories. There are 3D lscapes from Earth, abstract shapes that are based on your calendar activity the weather, a real-time globe with accurate day/night cycle clouds. There’s even “Horizon,” a rendered sky where the sun rises as your battery charges sets as it drains.

If you don’t like where the flashlight or autorotate button are located in the quick settings, you can move them around. st swipe down twice (or swipe with two fingers) touch the pencil icon.

You can then drag drop the tiles wherever you’d like. has even created an A for third-party developers to implement their own links here as well, so keep an eye on this area as you install new apps over time. For example, Shazam has an “auto Shazam” quick settings button.

If you want to take customization to the next level, then enable the System UI Tuner. Do this by touching holding on the cog that appears at the top of the Quick Settings menu (swipe down from the top edge of your phone). You’ll get a notification that it’s been enabled then System UI Tuner will appear near the bottom of your Settings menu.

From here you can turn on or off buttons from the quick settings menu. This is also how you enable the battery to always display the percentage: Touch Battery select ways show percentage. It’s odd that this feature is still hidden, but now you know what to do.

The Assistant is the star feature of the xel, you’ll want to explore all that it can do. You still get to the customization section the same way as you would with Now by launching the app going to the settings.

You’ll want to spend some time here to learn all the different features. At first glance you may want to tell which news sources to hear from whether to start a shopping list for you in Keep (this is quite useful). You can even give your name, spelling it out so that it’s pronounced correctly. Much of how Now worked in the past is still here, but improved machine learning capabilities promise to take things to a new level.

The fact that there isn’t a bucket of non-removeable bloatware is reason enough to go with a xel over other Android phones.

That’s right, if you buy the xel from Verizon it’ll only include My Verizon, Verizon Messages, Go90. I tried was able to uninstall any of them. (If you buy the phone from , there’s no bloatware at all.)

However, I do recommend keeping the My Verizon app. It’s pretty decent at giving you updated account details, letting you pay your bill, finding out how much data you have left for the month.