Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I murdered Chang and with me our special guest Dan Ackerman and Jessica dull Court hello Google had a busy day adding three new products to its Hardware family let's dive straight into the pixel three first just what stood out most for you what stood out is really a lack of what stood out this is definitely the most refined of all the pixel devices it looks kind of the same this bar shrunk on the back a little bit that glossy like they called the two-tone yes the colors are pretty neutral it kind of looks more like an iPhone it's running the Android operating system the latest one which is Android Pi so that's really interesting to see because of course pixel represents Google's vision for what an Android phone really should be at its best so it is interesting to see that there I have some problems with the operating system one thing that's notable is there are two cameras on the front yes and it's taking a leaf out of LG's playbook and that's so you can take like group selfies we took one last night that actually had 13 people in it so it works notably is that there is one camera lens on the back when you buy companies like LG and Huawei that are putting three cameras on the back so I'd say what we're looking at is a refined iteration and it's got the hardware specs that you expect for a flagship phone but there's not that one killer feature or as some would say maybe a gimmick oh that's interesting to me that the the larger XL was the only one with a notch and they kept with the standard you know the standard smartphone designed for the smaller version is it because they're made by two different manufacturers again like they were last year who's making these two I talked about well it should be their in-house team they brought over from HTC you heard of that deal last year it was was HTC LG LG yeah well I talked to them about sort of the hardware build and they said it was just a matter of not being able to fit the components into the smaller version and making the knotch look fine look you know work I guess cuz if you notice the the notch on the bigger phone it's it's a lot bigger than some of the other notches out there so part of the reason why is because it's making room for those two front-facing camera lenses exactly and still no like you know 3d face secure face and like unlock like the iPhone has right alright moving to the pixel slate which is kind of like a surface Chrome OS powered it even has an expensive keyboard accessory Dan what do you think uh yeah it's a Chromebook meets a surface pro from Microsoft they had an expensive thing last year the pixel book which was a very nice high-end Chromebook but high-end Chromebook is a bit of an oxymoron and people think of those as cheap laptops but Kim you could make a case for one the problem with this guy is if it's the slate and then you clip on the keyboard but just like the surface just like the iPad pro they show it to you with the keyboard right and they give you a price but then you got to buy the keyboard separately it's like $200 that's crazy it's a keyboard when you route it all together you've got even like the surface surface has the same problem for Microsoft but if this thing is starts at 6 for the keyboard is 2 it's a 33 it's a 1/3 premium to add the keyboard Wow plus 100 bucks for a stylus I don't know my style this is from everybody or $100 it seems crazy to me all right lastly there was the home hub we saw we just saw the Facebook portal as well as the echo show coming out two weeks ago those two touted video chat as a core service but this one interesting way has has no camera I'm just curious what you guys thought about its obviously so you can put one in the bathroom right yes in the future devices that don't have cameras that's going to become you know a bullet point feature no camera because no one actually enjoys video chatting I think one person on my phone or my tablet where I can move around uh-huh we still have laptops oh yeah people still use Skype you know I think what's interesting about it is of course that it's bringing Google services into the home in a way that obviously is meant to destabilize Amazon and the big wins that amazon has you know won so far the gains they've made the other thing I want to do less than talk to be on the phone is video chat with people well there you go for our full coverage and all things Google took us on CNET our mother Jane Jessica Dahl card Dan thanks for listening why do we have to say our own names I always find it very awkward and remember this show originated as an audio podcast it's don't listen to it so to be identified it's no vilified ribbing did you actually just turn the audio off yeah video to get out so in the meantime it's time for you guys to send in your questions and comments about the event and our takeaways from everything we saw yesterday and will continue to see throughout the week I think the thing that everybody wants you to talk about is more about that much when did we decide that was like a cool thing to have what Apple decided I really not the first made it cool well I would say the essential just sort of came and disappeared really really quickly people are still buying it for like 255 what the essential yeah up until recently yeah because the price slashed anyway we're not talking about that essentially but you can't okay of course we first found out at the nod to GU about the knotch support from Android at Google i/o yes they first introduced the what would become a high the beta right so that was first introduced and everybody freaked out and why is android supporting notches now and so that led to a lot of speculation about with the pixel you have it google's response was well we want to support all of the Android manufacturers because they were going ahead and they're creating not support anyway right Huawei LG you know Xiaomi like tons oboe and 1 plus like Titleist goes on different manufacturers we're already using the knotch there were these different designs that Google supported as well because that was a developer build so you have the knotch that you see on this phone which we all thought looked huge it looked exactly like that so then there was also a corner knotch you know for phones like xiaomi makes a phone that has oh yeah the camera facing camera in the corner like you could put a notch there right and and so the double notch the top and the bottom a little bit of a lip on the bottom so it's not the next generation we're not more not just everywhere man I just I hate this notch max I hate it so much that's all it is to it this is just a fad until they come across the next thing so screw you Apple for initiating well look it is definitely like I think it's a kind of a bridge feature or not feature but bridge it's me don't you dare call that a feature it's a simulation of a feature created to give you the appearance of having a larger screen yes until they get like the technology of the glass know how they market it wait so was there an actual question or are we just talking we're just talking it up I'm diggin out more questions and they're all about the distinct and not why are they really let's take a real question from priority-one he says i'm a camera nut I used to own a DSLR time to change back to Android from iOS iPhone 10 on the basis of photographs alone in the pixel 3 he's pretty much asking like what was your response to the camera on there now they both did a really impressive photography session there at the keynote yesterday and I actually thought that was really kind of fun and cool and how they did the magazine covers and everything there so what is our gut feelings on this bold brave a single lens camera absolutely um well so what Google is basically saying it's basically thumbing its nose and every other manufacturer that has multiple camera is saying with our software and our AI and our machine learning it is so advanced we can do better or at least the same with one lens and you can with your three let's point out that what a lot of what Google is doing is behind the scenes and I also want to say that our review is underway so we have taken some photos but not we're not at the point where we're doing the deep camera comparison dive against the others Google phones the pixels have been very reliable for taking low-light shots that low-light shots tend to have a lot of contrast they tend to have a lot of details they're not the brightest like Samsung they're not artificially bright right so this processing is going to change they could become a little bit brighter but in terms of like less noise and sort of what you want to share I would say that that there's that reputation and it's been earned and it's the same thing with portrait mode for selfies you know I've taken selfies with other phones and the pixel to was like the only one that correctly identified my curly hair and didn't blur it into the background so the software is working and I would say that you know everything Google has told us is very iterative you know when you look at the presentation you're like oh wow a night sight this new mode and you'll never have to use a flash but when you stop and think about it it's kind of the same promise as every other pixel just probably a little bit better right and and that's sort of what Google's been doing it's just been making everything better well my question is how much of this is hardware versus software and if it is all software in terms of making the photos better and adding all these extra features how easy does have to port to other phones either other Android phones or whatever I would say I mean given the fact that it is a single camera it's probably software have yeah there's just point like the use of a I machine learning like picture recognition software specific it may be more it may be more difficult to like I support those features over other Android makers because I think a lot of those other OEMs fine-tuned their camera experiences to their own specifications so I think it'd be tough and Google probably wouldn't want to it's already providing the base platform it's up to these other you know phone makers to differentiate and one of the ways that they do that is with all of these cameras or with their own software you know because they don't want to be just like the dumb phone right they want to offer something to you and it's interesting to consider LG or the Huawei what's unique about a product that's hardware based versus what software based and suffer is easier to at least copy yes and and and clone I think in this case first engineer in this case it may be a combination sure yeah hard to replicate elsewhere that might be built into Android I think you're perfectly right there is one feature I wanted to talk about that was the camera is the top shot no it's not top shot it's such I was pretty cool cool what we have the iPhones have that burst mode yeah that's why we choose the no the call screen feature that's awesome I'm down with that duplex basically having someone answer the phone and then a transcription of that I'm gonna hear the call live with my a I assistant are you want you yes smack-talking yes you were - laughs hello who who are you state your business we are from goodbye can we choose different accents for whoever supposed to be like nine voices at least with the original Google assistant edition of nine voices John Legend is supposed to be one of those but I haven't but that was pretty consistent undecided but with duplex you know you could presumably like Jews like they're the same voice right duplex so I don't think it has to be but but duplex is basically like the script that is written right it's like it's the platform for understanding that kind of conversation and being yeah the voice is just sort of like file1 file2 because the key is to let you record your own voice reading various thing it's like 20 minutes and then it knits together you answering the phone that would be super creepy at some point we'll just we just like completely offload our phone conversations to duplex like there's nothing take this fun honey I'll be late love you I don't think anyone who knows me would be inconsiderate enough to actually voice call me on the phone well there's that too but yeah given all the robo calls we get the closing numbers okay this is actually one of those fears of like wow I wish this was on every phone will that be on the iPhone 11 probably not anybody else smell a reboot of the Jerky Boys coming with the Plex I that's that's a sponsor deal I'd be on board with I'll bring my glasses and my shoes I got them what questions do you got let's take a few more from syringe I will Google+ app have not support when I away more relevant to evil from CERN joy any further information about duplex since you guys were on the topic anyways besides specifically what we saw just at the keynote no we didn't see much of what we saw at the keynote was a really great application that existed outside of what we saw at Google i/o I would say it's like the first real application that has made sense to me absolutely and didn't necessarily creep you out because you kind of want to creep out the robocallers well part of what the creep out factor was at Google i/o it was a lack of information they weren't communicating exactly like were you right how it worked and the fact that it would identify itself and like when you would use it so they just kind of gave you like the high level was your benefit and then I also think the whole like identifying themselves that whole came up it was creepy ahead of time I hear they're trying to show off this random nuclear launch codes over to do planes now so we have nothing to worry about yeah so yeah I thought that was cool I want to see that in action that's something that we haven't tested yet maybe well of course but I feel like that's something you don't want to force like you just want it to happen naturally right and then monitor let's take a couple of maybe slights or criticisms here Jerrod Glenn says I wish I didn't see the Niagara Falls of leaks that was cherry on top the Google troll video I would have enjoyed the conference so much more Hughie egg says Home Hub is not being released in Canada and it's causing a bit of hate to our neighbors to the north as much as Canadians are capable of hate being so mellow tempered usually I mean they apologize for it but so let's let's talk like that let's talk about the keynote and the days leading up to it overall the the the presentation was was okay they they flubbed a little bit you had your little Google home pod oh yeah she's rising out of the displays right in front of you right in front of me yeah like a front row seat to it I was heal it I was reaching for seconds like I probably shouldn't try to take it and just run we were gonna give you one in like an hour anyway Wow yeah so that's why I agree about the Niagara Falls of leaks comment yeah definitely yeah I mean and they came out they're like here they are now we're gonna backtrack and talk about design and bore you to tears I'm super in faith I mean first of all do you think these were deliberate leaks well I'm pretty sure the Engadget wasn't even a leak it was just sold to them not sold but it was available for sure yeah why are we saying we want to lock it down we want more information I want everything to leak early and I want them to just come out and say fine for any guy watching these press conferences it's not fun I'll tell you that everyone is so stiff I do not enjoy it I prefer just get a press release with the name of the product and some photos and the specs that's why I drink I I mean they could cut down the time they spend on this by 75% and just get to that I love that they got to the products first and then there's a lot of blah blah blah but LG does that oneplus does well yeah way too much information they let all capsule of all bags I mean they're trying to hype it up louder the thing and then you get there and you're like wired yep I don't even care dude this was the issue with the LG event last week everything was leaked not leaked they were releasing the information themselves hang time then they spent half an hour talking to two mountain climbers about dying every stop it don't do any of that so you know that that's the alternative if that's it's filling space because I think every company feels the need to have one of these grin that's doing that thing they need to fill time on those events right just make better products I don't need a big event yeah I want to change if I want to show they hate the guys in the Dockers reading off the teleprompter who clearly don't do that a regular basis and the overtime very awkward turtlenecks let's bring out the token woman I was at an Intel event on Monday and everyone on stage they're also reading off their teleprompters was dressed in like a button-up shirt and a blazer and jeans and I had to I I said to Laurie who I was like I really got to re-examine my fashion choices here because I was rocking the exact same thing I could have been on stage yeah I dare you to sneak on stage next time you see what happens just have some car area or something you'll be good guys let's talk about frame rates let's not do that Bryan what's her well there's a second question was there yeah that was a two-part question it was the Niagara Falls of leaks it was the second question Oh Amazon will ship went up there what's in it feels like a really weird omission and when that Google could possibly it could also be back on it could also be just because distributions being set up that they're starting with the US and they'll go to other countries later assuming people buy this I feel like there could be a very lucrative border store you know like a grassroots if you want me and Polly sells the home hub nothing else if you want the hub email Jessica's ship went up to you for a small processing fee it's all terribly bad maple syrup you have to you have to that's I can pay I only I only accept Vermont maple syrup not Canadians and Dan have I got all right more questions we got about ten minutes left in the show let's see how many ways these we can slam through I'll and and coolly related to Brian is the rumor about the software true that you are forced to use the gesture mode instead of the classic three button Android well let's take a look-see I mean that's kind of what I did use I have some issues with it I don't remember seeing so that could be display why don't you go ahead to the next question and I'll do a little okay see if I can get a better shot on that we will also accept payment in I mean we did just easy yesterday we haven't fully tested or anything like that we're still cause I didn't display but I wasn't specifically looking for changing it can I say while she's looking at that I really like this you like the one is that a nice little standing charger and stand very simple well may yes very well one issue nevermind they don't like that hold down imagine you're trained to carry this with you on vacation again also what we realized is that unless you're really sliding it in right angle also man they don't come with I mean the cable here the cable cables here you got a rope in the cable at the bottom right yeah that's nice though if you if you break that cable that's easy to replace with like any Rando mmm-hmm yeah otherwise thank you I like the design the design is nice it's very clean and there's no like branding mmm-hmm I say it just needs a little lip on the bottom like Jessica said to keep it from slipping it does it does something I like that better than the tabletop once you lay it down flat this does have a bit of a lip in it just a little more and a little more more of a lip already print a solution for that there we go Jessica we'll send you that long update here payment accepted in loonies so there's no setting okay in display there's no setting in accessibility and when I search settings for navigation nothing shows up so that's that's the research I'm doing right now that's not plugged in nevermind no okay why did my phone charge next question from Tammy and hiking er I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right so apologies if I'm not will saw well some of these software updates we're seeing becoming retro actively to the pixel too and if not what new software is still being developed for the pixel 2 and earlier right um they did mention one and I can't recall off the top of my head but I think that it's a fair assumption to say yes some of them will be bad words compatible to pixel and anything that they add to Android 9pi or you know future versions of it will also be backwards compatible so Google never really stops developing and yeah and some of those I think that some of the photo tricks as well as a call screening feature are coming to the older musil's I think either next month I'm like me what it was yeah yeah I know call screen for sure because I had a long conversation about that with Google and they they assured me that was coming to older pixels that's that's unique to pixel I mean that's a killer app right there it's for me from Riley Sullivan do you have any info on the new security chip I didn't see any info on pixel through product page the Titan M yeah the 10 M it's basically a secure Enclave for your biometrics personal information Finance iPhone has something similar I think it's built into the a12 Bionic chip but this they Google says this is a first because it's it's own separate chip this is what they use in their servers to secure their data centers and I guess this is a M is the mobile version of this so Qualcomm's 8 snapdragon 845 tip that is in this phone also has the same kind of secure space so it's possible that Qualcomm and Google worked it's probable that Qualcomm and Google worked together because that chip is in there right so they may have kind of fine-tuned it specifically for gusta maybe they have two different places in the phone well the observation the the t1 and the t2 they started out in phones and now they're in MacBooks right so when you have like the the fingerprint reader on your macbook pro now that's all part of that secure Enclave yes qe eggs asking if the pixel will still fit in the stand if it has a case it depends on the case but still charged let's see yes yeah fine beside a pixel but it's a phone with the big ass compatible so it would work right and it would work got it that's wait does it work this way can you do all these things you can view it on that side too perfect but nobody's gonna put it on the stand like that I don't know a little viewing angle there yeah why not all right next questions coming in from Joseph Gauss what is the main difference between the new third-generation chromecast and the second-generation I'm looking into the chromecast what are your thoughts on it we have the chromecast in in our offices we haven't actually and there's a gift box talk about all our when we do we'll have David Katz Meyer on a fan-favorite of cats Meyer to talk about the chromecast damn it I think it's matte instead of glossy first of all or gloss you said it's matte one of those two every bit maybe colorize a little differently really case but it's definitely 4k and HDR but I don't know if the last generation was okay okay yeah like oh yeah there's a chromecast all right back on the phone let's talk about the stereo speakers Clio or kilo sorry kilo is asking about the stereo speakers on the pixel three well there there how do they sound can you put some on right now I mean we're not gonna be able to do it much justice because it's just it's you know here coming down I can tell your phone to both models have speakers let's see how loud it gets at least so we have tested so the Samsung Galaxy S nine note 9 does have stereo speakers and those are really loud sometimes too loud sometimes you compromise the richness and then the razor phone and we're expecting to possibly see the second generation of that actually tonight that also has the front firing speakers because that's a phone aim for gamers so that's really essential in gameplay if you're not gonna have headphones so this is something that phone makers are really picking up are you doing with that first thing I get it online if there any yes that one no nor Wi-Fi either online sorry I think you meant on like it's it's signed in le it's not signed in but it's it's past the setup page all right in the meantime while we're trying to get sound to play out of this a deep Aditya Aditya would you prefer the LGV forty over the pixel three XL as both as they both boast themselves as camera phones front and center and they have fairly similar price points okay I love that you asked that because I just wrote about this obviously we haven't reviewed the pixel three yet so we can't make that kind of final determination buying it but I wrote a story called pixel three XL versus iPhone 10's max no nine and LGV 40 I have a complete spec breakdown there I think if you're only buying it for camera alone we know that the LG v 40 takes really good pictures and with the three cameras there's this like trick you might call it gimmick where you can take one shot from each rear camera simultaneously so we haven't been able to test that but I think that there's more to buying a phone than just the cameras I think at this level every photo like every expensive phone is going to be able to produce really good photos and I think you should think about things like storage right you should think about things like security updates and how important it is to you to be up-to-date with the latest you know Android version a one thing that I called out in this comparison is the storage capacity because I have a fascination with like which phone is actually cheapest for storage you know people store a lot of pictures what are you going to do with them what are you going to do with the video that you take if you keep RAW files how quickly is everything going to you know build so you've got the pixel three phones don't actually have expandable storage capacity and that you have your 64 gigabyte version in your 128 gigabyte version the LG v40 starts at 68 you can't get higher than 68 so you have your one option but you can expand your 64 so but you can expand your storage capacity to 512 which is pretty much the highest card that you can get right now so actually if you look at total possible storage the pixel 3xl or pixel 3 is 128 gigabytes of storage that's the highest right capacity model that they offer whereas the LGV 40 you can make up the difference by buying a card and then you have a total possible 576 gigabytes of storage so you know yeah and those photos and videos definitely add up the LG when I tried to send a shot which is this idea where it's still photo but there's bits of motion and those files are pretty large yeah so yeah that storage is pretty important so great question but I think you should wait until we have the full review and then of course you know we love to do our camera and deep dives they take a really long time but I think they're really worth it if you if the camera is the most important thing and you want to get really granular just some stereo speakers alrights do it dad it wow they're thinking they're so great dad geez man what anyway we can at least say that they are impressively loud yeah melody wise we're not to be able to represent eight or represent that here accurately i like representing yeah in a review go my god yeah and i think what's also important as i said it's not just a volume but it's also the richness sometimes like music richness is different than vocal richness as well like if you're watching a movie yes video i will say i'm not really a big fan of having that speaker at the bottom because it takes especially on the excel cuz it takes away forever you're gonna say you know got rock the the fullscreen design is true but samsung has one and is it the microphones and speakers down there and I constantly somehow I get up from the bottle oh and then too because this is my song that's all the way up we're gonna get sued by you I wrote this for a Jew of logic the vs. story so I can shut in the show notes take a look okay great so anybody who wants to delve deeper into these stories today go down to the description below click the links until then we're gonna say goodbye thanks everybody Roger take us out of here yeah the 3:59 podcast is available in iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo f course cnet.com we will sail tomorrow thank you guys for joining me is it gonna be on Google home hub hit up my soundcloud don't do that don't do that you you