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morning on Wednesday February 28th the final day in February of 2018 its episode 362 of the 359 podcast on BB G and your host today are outfitting and Ben Fox Ruben fun fact about the 359 our first show ever was on February 29th on a leap day two years ago we gonna play her two Penzance so we can't have an adverse or episode for four years if we can't have it that's that's exactly right so Matthew dacher thanks for joining us on your day off we promise you this episode will suck episode terrible I was gonna say Lego fully that shout out would be beneficial but you guys went in the completely other direction so whatever either way Matt thanks as always for joining us today we're gonna be talking about 5g there are a ton of announcements around 5g and apparently is the big thing that a lot of the telcos are talking about at Mobile World Congress where Rodger is right now in Barcelona we're also going to be talking about the Asus zenfone 5 + 5 Z it's basically an apple copycat at a much lower price point and last Amazon's big acquisition of a ring which is a video doorbell company and will round out the show with that as always send in your questions and comments BBG we'll get to as many as he can at the end of the show let's get to the podcast here we go 3 2 1 welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred hang the 5 g race is on a Mobile World Congress sprint said it's rolling out the next generation of wireless tech for six US cities this year and promised a nationwide mobile 5g network next year meanwhile t-mobile said it's bringing mobile 5g to 30 US cities both carriers won't actually let customers buy the services until next year when the first 5g capable smartphones hit the market are you excited no because my phone can't even handle it and I'm gonna have to have like the latest phone to do it which I'm not gonna have unless it drops to like cheap enough that like I'm probably not like everyone else will get 5g and like with the latest phones probably in like the next I don't know like two years or something that way for me I feel like it's like a five-year gap for me unless like because that's how long it would probably take me to get to a phone that's like capable of using it I it will I think entirely depend on you know the the first adopter is what they're actually gonna tell their friends and family whether it is gonna be significantly different or significantly better so the move that I did years ago from 3G to 4G was a significant and notable one if 5g is much better and the marketing actually holds up I think that it would propel a lot of people yeah that I knew that's the thing like 5 G's supposed to blow like LTE out of the water on this one like it's it's not like a small leap from like 3G to LT you important we've been hearing for years I got massively this is like supposed to be someone that can like power like your home like Wireless yeah like as a replacement to broadband the idea is is that 5g is also going to help enable drones self-driving cars all sorts of other technology that need like really really fast speeds but we'll see as these deployments go out if that is actually going to happen next if you want to get an iPhone 10 but don't have the money just buy an Asus zenfone 5 Z it's basically a clone of the new iPhone complete with the notch on top but it goes for five ninety five hundred and ninety dollars instead of the base model thousand dollars for the iPhone ten you see that it's it's even got like the camera setup on the back the same way I mean it basically looks like an iPhone ten I don't know yeah this is the dopest thing I've ever seen man I love this so much it's half the price it's got the full screen everything it's also cheaper than what the Galaxy s8 is and the s9 hold on is it like you really think it's dope or you're just cracking jokes I've it's a little bit of both like if if I were like trying to buy a new phone I would definitely like consider this it's actually a high-end phone that's not selling it for like $200 it's got like really good specs yeah for expect you know if you get the 5z which is supposed to be the bigger one like their version of like five plus it's got like eight gigabytes of RAM 128 Oh - like 256 gigabytes of like storage which is insane but yeah I mean I this is this is something that like has actually piqued my interest I'm I'm very interested in like getting like higher-end phones for like lower end prices and this definitely like I'm actually excited about something I believe it I've literally never heard you excited and it's terrifying last Amazon agreed to buy smart doorbell maker ring for reported 1 billion dollars Amazon also purchased video doorbell company blink in December so I guess if you want to get a video doorbell you have to go through Amazon this is obviously a continuation of Amazon trying to control the smart home and compete with Google which has nest so are they gonna combine them to make bling how how they letting ling-ling and blink yes yes yes yeah ring and blink I think ring is gonna be a standalone company that's at least what a lot of folks have been saying so they're they're gonna be able to kind of stand on their own one interesting thing about ring by the way is is that they were on Shark Tank a while ago and they got passed over now they sold for apparently a billion dollars if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang thanks for listening you know what else I saw in the Asus phone what starts with an H ends with an Ed phone jack oh yeah no it's so great this is just like and before the trolls get to us yes we are still talking about this I have headphones that I like they're my tooth I'm super into the headphone jack I was really annoyed that the pixel 2 dropped it after the Google pixel talked it up in like all their presentations so yeah definitely this is this is the phone to get not the iPhone 10 and yeah if you don't like it obviously it doesn't have like a camera as great as yeah it's also not waterproofed there there are two other things that they died by injury so there's like a lot of things here that I'm just like if you just want like a big screen and a phone that has like pretty good specs and it's cheap like yeah if you don't want all these like extra things like you don't really care about an emoji then yeah here you go like no wireless charging no waterproofing - so they do strip out some of the newer things that you would get yeah on the newest iPhone but I would probably argue that a lot of people wouldn't really miss wireless charging like the wireless charging pad stuff doesn't come with the phone so you know my galaxy s aid I think has wireless charging capabilities but I don't want to spend the money to get a wireless charging pad you just plug it in yeah I'll save the 30 bucks yes I I'm like I'm continuously scrolling through this article I'm like this phone looks pretty cool like I feel like I would actually get it I'm like super confused by your enthusiasm this is like I'm enthusiastic about everything it's literally the first time it's a high-end phone that I don't have to pay a lot of money for that it really is it's it's let's say in to put it into better context it's still $600 I mean like that's not that's not it a little bit of money but obviously especially with it's like with a much less compared it is yeah relative it is now in relative terms I totally agree with you but $600 there's a good reason why people are holding on to their phones longer than two years now and in the fourth quarter of last year for the first time ever smartphone shipments had actually gone down so people are definitely holding onto their phones longer and you know maybe 5g is gonna be the reason that people upgrade for sure it looks like you got a bunch of questions yeah we got a great feedback coming in through the chat today let's start right off with a commentary from Matthew dacher he was said he was thinking about buying a ring not like a ring sorry like it and put a ring around God I'm it makes and that made me think about if there's anybody out there if Amazon's acquisition of this company would deter or further encourage you to move forward with getting a smart doorbell or if it you're completely indifferent to it I just wonder if that has an overall effect on your concept if Amazon is the greater evil a greater good and that's where that's a good way of looking at it I think with ring and blink they both already had Alexa integrations that's not to say that everybody flipped the switch and started using those Alexa integrations but if if there was already Amazon involved so it's possible that people would be detracted from getting a ring because of this but I don't really see that to be the case for most consumers fair enough it was just an interesting thought they kindly are into my brain yeah it's interesting it's an interesting eye because of all the conversation that people are having about are these giant tech companies becoming way too big it's definitely I think something that Worth's that's worth discussing how does affect Amazon's like smart lock doesn't they don't make a smart lock so Amazon key is service where they provide a security camera and then they partner with smart door lock makers like August wait I think August isn't one of them but the company that makes August is is part of that so you can buy I think from three different smart locks to set up Amazon key so they don't have their own does the ring acquisition affect that and buy it in any way like being able to tell when a Amazon delivery person under Amazon keys at your goal or something like that it's possible that so that would be the security camera that they have now the cloud cam goes inside your door so it might be an interesting yeah additional step where you would then have the video doorbell outside your door so it's just even more video to have every person so you've got inside and outside the door we're gonna get into a really interesting relationship with all your delivery people it's a great Amazon home invasion how long how long until Amazon just buddies up with IKEA and does like their own construction Houston by IKEA already has like they bought TaskRabbit said - I assume like make yourself oh yeah yeah um the thing is is that Amazon key is still pretty new and I don't know anybody personally that actually uses it and the response from the public about the idea of having a delivery person be able to open your door even with all the steps that Amazon created to ensure security I haven't really seen it taking off and and people are like diving all over themselves to get it so even even with them buying blink and ring I think the best way to look at it as is Amazon wants to have more hardware and control more Hardware related to the smart home as a to being able to like have Amazon ki be this big thing that everybody uses got it a shout out to our boy Josh boy de good to have you with us today as always he's asking does does ring have Google assistant integration and if it does do you think Amazon is going to face that out that's a good question I'm gonna try to look that up really quickly it doesn't know it doesn't have it but thank you Ness does well source basically the Google equivalent of ring right and the other thing that's interesting to pay attention to here is that nest used to be kind of a separate subsidiary of alphabet and then nest most recently this year like rich Nieva or Google or reporter wrote about this a couple weeks ago nest was brought in to Google to more tightly integrate the nest stuff with Google assistance so I would say keep an eye out for this race because it's continually heating up and Google is really trying to make a run for the smart home just like Amazon is and that that's why Amazon bought ring like I don't they need to keep up with thee and I'm just like a grump because I don't see why you would need like a smart doorbell like I get a smart lock and like a security camera stuff but like first of all no one needs a doorbell like that's that's that's silly everyone has phones just calling all your generation is killing doorbells now hold on a sec Millennials kill doorbells now hold on a second though this is gonna actually stem into another great question in the chat but I live in the the underground apartment in my complex and it is concrete it's pure conquering the foundation I got bagel for signal down there so I need a working buzzer and right that's because I get a lot of pamphlets coming through do people just like stamp down to like like let you know when they're at your door then or they they send up a flare okay I like smoke seeps in 30 yeah I remember when I was visiting family in Israel back in the 90s they had video doorbells that we you know would would kind of like have an apartment that we were set up in it was like a crappy closed-circuit TV though and it was something like that but like that and it had to be wired yeah it was it was back then it was you know to me it seemed useful just till I get that additional like layer of security to see who was there who you were buzzing into the apartment building so I I do see a value to it it's not gonna be for everybody though yeah even even if you have like no reception though I'm like sure like you have internet connection and they can still like send you something on like Facebook Messenger or something yeah because that's what the smart doorbell would also rely on okay so how does a pizza guy get a hold of me I'm not friends with him on Facebook yeah just don't order pizza so looking at it from Amazon's perspective and you are gonna have to shell out quite a few hundred dollars for this but let's say you have the echo show which is an echo that also has a touchscreen and you have the echo show in your kitchen you've got a bigger house so you've got this video doorbell on the outside somebody rings your doorbell bingo you go and you ask Alexa to go see like hey you know show me show me who's at the front door and you just you have that immediacy I think that's what they're trying to solve again I don't really see that as something that everybody needs yeah I know there's there's good arguments on both sides of this but there's plenty of special cases where this would be very helpful and it's just it I was gonna say interesting the amazons getting into it no it's not that was a no-brainer as an absolutely no it's totally interesting I mean like the reported figure is not confirmed like they didn't even send out a press release about this but if it was in fact a billion dollar acquisition that's one of the biggest acquisitions ever well and Andrews headline said at all because of course they did right exactly oh no no no that was bright Chris right right Chris sorry right sorry I'm pretty sure he watches the podcast religious of course he does he with Amazon's purchase of ring do you think this will prompt any response from alphabet going back full circle here well they ante up in the smart home tech race absolutely I mean like this is this is just gonna continue to heat up in 2018 we saw it at CES where Google made a big splash there they do not want to Hamazon to run away with smart home and voice assistant yeah they're they've been the ones amping it up to begin with like when they yeah they're behind yeah when they brought back nest to be like a part of Google as opposed to its own company yeah and then like I think it was like last week or two weeks till when they ad a Google assistant like feature to the nest cam IQ like the camera itself was its own Google assistant like it wasn't like oh go talk to this thing like you could say okay Google to the camera itself right I two things about the Amazon Google race is that it could benefit customers in that it will speed innovation because both of these companies are gonna try to compete and win customers a little bit faster as they're fighting each other on the smart home the other problem is is that they've already kind of been in a pissing match between each other so it's possible that Google and Amazon go and start you know doing crappy things to each other to try to outsmart each other like you know Amazon had had gotten rid of chromecast's on amazon.com for a long time and just recently brought them back yeah I'm laughing in the chatter and how because Alex Mitchell says pizza guy uses the app to notify you the same app you ordered from you're a monster if you call it Donatello is in Astoria don't use the internet I don't think they have the Internet I still use a rotary Bob yeah there's a there's a capito app specifically for New York City slice yeah yeah I used it last weekend it sucked I never got my pizza and I want to blame it on the store not the app just for the record I I'm not gonna throw them under the bus but the the store I called it in to never delivered so it's kind of like I just walked down the street to the grubby old hole in the wall got a greasy slice and I was happy yeah um I don't like giving out my credit card number over the phone anymore it's gotten stolen one too many times so absolutely speakerphone when you call everybody knows the best pizza joint is that old Italian place that only takes cash right just putting that out there it's we don't have that in my neighborhood but you know that's what's useful I think I'm just severely anti doorbell I have a doorbell now but like growing up I like I've never had wine I'm anti people interacting with them in general so I don't know I there there's uh there was an apartment that I lived in once that didn't have a doorbell so and wait this is before I had to sell the best days of your life this is before I had a cell phone too and so for my friends to get my attention to come open the door they either yell out side my window or throw rocks at it and one time this dude like he cracked my window and I got in so much trouble oh Jesus I just held the boombox over his head everybody knows that's the best way to get somebody's attention for love let's talk 5g real quick before we wrap it up for the day Josh boy I will 5g be better at getting through buildings William Jenkins wonder if the new Samsung s9 will have 5g in it now and dacher all the way full circle when will I ot devices like ring and smart locks start to build in 5g very good questions I don't know the answer to the first one yes I'm gonna be better through buildings who do we thinks gonna race back for that we can circle back to that with Roger because Roger is very much like our 5g expert he's gonna be coming back from MWC and we will do a download with him about everything that he saw at the show I can answer the IOT thing though so I had written a story for uh from MWC about arm the processor stuff with so the chip maker yeah yeah so they they have a new there they're looking to put like basically SIM cards into your IOT devices so they all have their own like network instead of like you know siphoning off your Wi-Fi or anything like that so they're saying that like this is really gonna ship out around like 20 20 ish or 20 21 or so I don't know if it'll be 5g but they'll definitely have their own connections if it's gonna be 20 20 20 21 that is definitely when 5 G's expected to get broader deployment but I don't know I don't know these like chips like have like 5g capabilities apparently I'm sure with a company like arm I'm sure they're looking into it so going back to the other question as far as like who's ahead they're all trying to race each other to try to say like oh we're going into six cities we're going into 30 cities so we mentioned on the show Sprint and t-mobile they're both starting two deployments this year they're actually gonna be available to customers next year I'm gonna circle back to Verizon Verizon is expected to launch its commercial service in at least one market Sacramento California later this year an AT&T promised it's going to have these little pucks wireless hotspots by the end of the year - I'm really an all the marketing campaigns that they usually do if this where it's essentially like we're and we're bringing it to these cool cities blah blah blah like New York Dallas whatever LA yeah and I was like oh cool so like all the cities in between like - they just don't matter right they don't they don't get this really high-speed Internet like ever well remember Google Fiber was starting to roll out to the smaller cities as test and then that kind of fell through the cracks look I mean as long as they bring it to New York I kind of don't care such a jerk okay me first Ben first we are almost hosts elite yeah we were almost at a time let's help Carlos out Carlos is a regular listener and he's blind and he wants to hear more about this Asus phone as the iPhone X competitor can we bring up some of the performance stats for them and rundown that's running on a snapdragon 845 processor which is gonna be the same processor that the galaxy s nine uses but that's only for the 5z the zenfone 5 itself is running on a snapdragon 636 which is not as high-end as that one it actually might be I'm not sure how it compares to the galaxy s 8 I think the SI was using 839 right the 800 level are the best ones yes Snapdragon the 600 or more of the mid tier yeah and so the lower tier one is also running on four gigs of ram and 64 gigs of storage I personally think that's enough for like what you're planning on doing if you really want the high-end the 5z is using 8 gigs of ram this is just off like listing the like specs though like I think it's always different when you have it in your hand and like you're actually testing it and I have not been able to use this so also to correct one quick thing that Alfred said earlier I think the 5z is not the Plus version they both have 6.2 inch displays the difference is the processor as you mentioned has an 800 tear and the other as it's 600 tears how does that not make less version it's not because like Fry's usually I suppose that what Plus usually indicated is literally like the size was kind of a byproduct of it being maybe I misunderstood well whatever it there they are similar in appearance but they're different under the hood yeah so hopefully that answered your question and thanks as always for listening yeah and on that note we are are out of time I got nothing else to say to close out today was sucked Matt yeah Matt whoa whoa not a cyberbully the - that you are always appreciated by Ben Fox room hope you hated this show as as is everybody who joins us that is that is absolutely right okay the 3:59 podcast is available on iTunes students that your Feedburner Google Play Music the Amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks everybody for watching we'll see you again tomorrow later everybody bye