Microsoft Outlook for Android lets you resize large images attached to messages to use less data.

Our beloved devices are great, but like all things, have their pros and cons. But what matters most to us is data consumption. A phone without a data connection is a dumb phone and unfortunately, data costs money and we have to find the right balance to save as much data as possible. Sure, our devices are getting smarter at that with most of them having a data saver feature of some sort. And better yet, we now have apps with their own built-in data saver, mostly browsers. But there’s more.

Today Microsoft updated Outlook for Android with a feature that gives users the choice between resizing images or keeping the original size when sending them as attachments in emails. The changelog says the new feature will “resize large images attached to your message to use less data.” The screenshot above will appear when sending images to let users choose whether they want to resize and save data or not. This comes in handy, especially now that our phones' cameras are getting better and better at capturing high-resolution images.

To take advantage of this data-saving feature in Microsoft Outlook, get the update in Google Play Store and start saving.

Opera Max introduces new mobile data savings feature for Facebook.

Mobile data costs money and, unfortunately, some apps on our phones do not quite play nice when it comes to using data appropriately and Facebook is one of those apps that is a resource hog. Fully aware of that, Opera Max, a data savings tool made by the same company that built the Opera browser, is today introducing a new feature aimed at helping users save data when accessing the social network on their Android device.

In order to take advantage of this new data savings for Facebook, users will have to sign in to Facebook within Opera Max itself, a requirement that may make many uncomfortable with. In the event you're inclined to do so, tap the hamburger menu at the top left of the app or swipe from the left and select "Savings for Facebook", enter your credentials and you're done. The app will use a built-in browser to access Facebook mobile site.  Opera Max will also give you information on the data you saved. For that, tap the three vertical dots at the top right of the screen. This menu also give users control on quality of images, videos and music compression etc. 

If yu are on a limited data plan and a frequent Facebook user, give Opera Max a go. But if you feel uncomfortable signing in to Facebook through a third party app, you may as well use Facebook Lite for Android made by the social network giant.

Download Opera Max in Google Play Store.

Netflix introduces cellular data controls in its Android app.

This year Netflix went global making thousands of movies and TV shows available to the world. The company did not sleep on its laurels and enjoy the incoming stream of cash, instead they analyzed how much people are streaming on their devices and "what kind of mobile data plans they have". I use a monthly 1GB data plan and never used it to watch Netflix, but according to them and their study, if I enable their new tool to control how much data I use when streaming, I should be able to stream "about 3 hours of TV shows and movies per gigabyte of data." Netflix says that "In terms of bitrates, that currently amounts to about 600 Kilobits per second. Our testing found that, on cellular networks, this setting balances good video quality with lower data usage to help avoid exceeding data caps and incurring overage fees. If you have a mobile data plan with a higher data cap, you can adjust this setting to stream at higher bitrates."

In order to take advantage of this new feature and set your cellular data usage, select "App settings" from the menu and choose "Cellular Data Usage". From there, you can select a higher or lower data usage. Remember, the default is automatic and, as stated above, will let you stream 3 hours of TV shows and movies. Something I'll definitely try as soon as possible.

Update Netflix for Android in Google Pay store.

Opera Max for Android gets tablet layout and support for 4 new languages.

Unless you have an offshore account, you are probably like me doing whatever it takes to save as much money as possible on your limited data plan, helped in this by apps like Opera Max, an app that describes itself as a data saving app. Available free in Play store, Opera Max is developed by Opera, the same company behind popular Opera browsers for Android and Windows. Besides helping users save megabytes of data, the app also helps boost speeds both on Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Today, Opera Max was updated with added support for tablet layout and the addition of new languages: Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Hebrew.

Download Opera Max in Google Play store and save some money.