Gadgetory

and welcome to good morning everybody to the 3:59 podcast CNET's daily news podcast my name is Vivi gene on Wednesday October 3rd is episode 468 and check out this little factoid today is techy Appreciation Day a day to show some love for the techies in your life also virus Appreciation Day which is a good time to maybe run a scan if you haven't in a while here's a little history on this in 1999 it was experience of new jobs would require advanced technology skills that Americans do not have techies calm and CNET launched national techies day to encourage kids to embrace computer science and even the monikers that they are sometimes attached to contemporary technology and this is of course all during national cybersecurity month as well so absorb that enjoy the show here's Rowan and Roger thanks for that lovely intro yeah it's cyber security month which all the time this cyber we won't be talking about today that today though we'll be talking about breaking down the Microsoft Surface event yesterday they launched a whole bunch of products we'll break them all down for you and then quickies will talk about a gig ability and I'll answer any questions about gave it LTE that you have if you want to smile there you go all the answers it's pre 5g so it's kind of interesting anyway if you have any questions about either these topics I leave them in the comments section but I will pick up the best and will get them in three minutes or 59 seconds from 3:00 to Microsoft well sorry welcome to unite around a jam Microsoft unveiled a slew of new products yesterday we got the surface pro 6 a new surface laptop and update to that ginormous surface studio but the biggest surprise was a new pair of surface headphones and it's funny that Microsoft which is slowly been shifting away from consumers and towards big business they still keep experimenting with these new products Joe what's your biggest takeaway from this event I mean I think it's interesting you could it be very easy to make the criticism that it's sort of a throwing stuff against the wall sort of thing like coming out like right but the thing about the surface products is they really do feel pretty like fully baked yeah when they come out so the headphones seem like they're that's our David Carr knowing got an exclusive and got to hear about how they've been working on it for three years right but aside from the headphone surprise you know the laptop and the tablet they're really just kind of our superficial upgrades to a lot of internal spec upgrade yeah that's not a full redesign on those on those two people have to wait until next year if they're looking for something that really changes I do want time with a headphone more because the they've got the knobs or the what are the dials the dials on this each side of the head one for volume 1 for noise cancellation which actually flying kind of brilliant I think so dials are a big part of surface studio yes exactly they've got some experience with that and so I've got a pair of bose noise-canceling headphones I mean I just got from sadly but I would like I would at least try these I would get it's just searching that Microsoft put up this new product and I like I'm already kind of interested in it one of the downsides for the headphones it seems is that the battery life via wireless not great oh yeah it's like 15 hours which doesn't hold up very well I mean I know with my wireless noise cancelling headphones like in good days yeah same here with my Bose headsets but that's that's kind of sad I guess it's it's got the touch controls though it's got these little gimmicks that are like oh that's kind of cool I'm gonna drain your battery yeah yeah and I guess it works sadly works with just Cortana Wow I mean what do you know they've got a whole deal with Amazon so at least some Alexa help but I don't know we'll see alright lastly I want to talk a little bit about Ortiz my explainer on gigabit LTE it is a form of pre 5g network technology that's been the the Kara's have been steadily upgrading already it's been around for a while but it's got new good irrelevance was the iPhone 10s and 10's max now support it unfortunately the iPhone 10 R does not yet or won't support it but like as the name suggests it gives you theoretically a peak speed of one gigabit per second of LTE speeds and that is pretty much as fast as your fastest home connection Wow so it's noticeable difference yeah it's noticeable difference I mean you're not you're never gonna get that theoretical peak but yeah if trials or tests have shown that you can get speeds up like hundred and like 100 mil of mega bits per second which is you know a significant bump from what we're getting now I think T Mobile has the highest average speed right now corner open signal that's around 20 yeah so significantly higher yeah that means more I don't know that's buffering being able be able download videos in in in minutes instead of an hour hours but yes for all that for all the details on gigabit LTE check out the explainer is on CNET today so we're full coverage also seen it I'm Roger Chang thanks listening alright thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast you can subscribe using the links below right now send in your comments and questions about anything surface related now we spend a lot of time on the headphones but we didn't really get to spend much time on any of the new products Joan you said it's really just kind of a cosmetic upgrade that's why we spend so much time in the headphones it was something new headphones did kind of come out of nowhere yeah yeah yeah it was a nice exclusive for David Carr Noah and for CNET but yeah I think it was a surprise everyone that they'd even would come out with something like this know the studio hadn't been updated at all since its introduction in 2016 so even though it's not a revolutionary change for the studio that all in one giant computer even though it's not a revolutionary change for the studio it's still a long-overdue update for their kind of you know top tier big flashy computer yeah I mean do people buy own ones so like I have an iMac Azure but you know many years yeah I guess yes and I remember when they introduced it I was at that event it was a really impressive computer for people that aren't me I still haven't tried it like how was the dial was that like actually cool to you but you you know if you're not somebody who is if you're not an architect who's drafting or making models or you're not an artist or a designer I just don't know if in those workflows if it really is that's helpful yeah that's integrating that new way of interacting with your screen at some rate I would really be helpful I just don't know because I don't I don't know if it ever I mean really caught on like I feel like it still looks really cool looks cool but like that's great and Trello anybody who owns a studio I mean although they give the odds of someone in New York City owning something massive like that it's pretty pretty slim okay Brian what do we got for questions for questions is take one from Alex it says do you think others will start to copy Microsoft's feature to increase or decrease noise cancellation oh that's a good question you sound so surprised no I'm gonna be surprised but all the good questions you always yeah I think Bose has that setting now like I can I can adjust the level of noise cancellation others do others do too but I least in my experience which is limited that it's just kind of tricky you know like it's not as intuitive it's just like yeah like it's true that you have to like press certain buttons I think mine and for mine I have to use an app that's gonna be like a headphone so it's not there's no physical button I think that really controls it so having a dial is kind of nice yeah and I'm sure most people use their noise cancelling headphones at the max of noise cancellation generally but there aren't instances where I have them on and it's kind of like you know I would like to have a little bit when I'm using them at home and like I want to be able to like if my husband's calling me from the other room it would be nice to you know just get a little bit of that cancellation for street noise from the window or whatever without being totally tuned out right here's another one from Alex that I found kind of interesting to think of Isis unlike with Apple when I see the windows logo I only think of PC and I'm a Windows fan so to see that logo on headphones kind of throws me off even though they do look really good and a lot of people do agree the headphones are aesthetically pleasing yeah we'll talk a little bit more about sound quality in a minute but that's an interesting thought is Microsoft gonna become kind of a like omnipotent brand much like Apple has where they are on all kinds of different products that aren't necessarily computers you know maybe I mean yeah I think they've done a good job of cementing the surface brand is this premium like yeah aesthetics they've done a really good job with design for all their products and the headphones are no different in terms of like expanding in all kinds of different categories I guess I could we couldn't say no at this point cuz who would have guessed that a few months I'm not expecting a clock from them anytime soon kind of cool though the surface clock with Cortana as well oh poor Cortana but yeah they're definitely still far away away from like Amazon we're introducing two dozen I think partly because they have kept their surface brand really I mean like as much as I hate to flatter Apple this way and sort of like an apple like it's always gonna be a very well designed yes thing um they're going for that kind of thing I think they've succeeded so far yeah generally I mean the surfaces are surface devices are generally well reviewed and and I think they top a lot of our recommended list so yeah done good job with it a lot of people are asking a lot of specifics about the headphones now just to disclaim we don't have him in-house we had to send car noise out to experience them firsthand he wasn't available this morning but we should have him on the show to kind of talk about them totally more detail he does have a review up the link will be in the description so if you want to go get more of a better explainer when I had a little one-on-one with him after just recording his voiceover for the video he seemed like surprisingly satisfied with him he goes are they game changers no is it a game changer for Microsoft maybe I says the quality holds up across the board there no Bose QuietComfort s-- but they were damn good I'll be at probably overpriced that was my summation of what I took away from my conversation with David Carr annoy that being said a lot of people are asking about the sound quality yeah well I haven't tried them and you haven't tried them so I'm really just kind of on what karna has said in his review which is that you know as you said that the quality's kind of holds up yeah generally speaking with the tier of competitors that it's on let me see I mean yeah I mean I think generally it's pretty competitive in terms of noise quality but I mean yeah like I said they're not quite those I guess and those is sort of kind of that standard standard for noise cancellation kay Jones asks can you play xbox with those headphones well they don't have a microphone on them so if you are just looking for that I mean they have a wire on them so you can just tap them into any box it has an 8 engine there there are microphones on the headphone actually oh there are yeah yeah because they can be used as your your smartphone headphone as well my mistake I apologize so in terms of Xbox capability I don't think it's mentioned in the review at all but it becomes dumb if it couldn't work with your controller although a controller doesn't have Bluetooth so that's that would be I wonder if they're they'll have some sort of USB C to like Xbox controller adapter adapter yeah I have to look into that thanks for that question that's a great no that's that really good question because it's not really mentioned but it seems gonna no brainer to have this work with Xbox how much are they going for I school is asking I think I saw a 350 yeah pretty pricey yeah and it's sticking to that Microsoft you know surface premium in reputation having a a premium price product there and what about the rest of the surface lineup how old radically have any the prices changed for those products I don't know about the changes but the pro the surface pro tablet is $8.99 the surface pro laptop to those surface laptops who is looked $9.99 thousand dollars yeah and then the surface studio starts at 3500 which you know a lot of money I mean the surface laptop to you consider it when you rank it against you know Apple laptops it's the pretty decent price actually sorry more awkward silence sorry sorry sorry I'm usually pretty good about that so speaking of the surface book and the surface laptop what is the difference between the surface book to and the surface laptop - I'm gonna ask that myself well the laptop doesn't detach right the book had the detachable screen so it was kind of that hybrid where laptop is just sort of a pure laptop it's I guess the most direct competitor to him a MacBook Air MacBook Pro I guess MacBook Air yeah be the competitor whereas the book was I think that was the more expensive one right and has a detachable screen so there but then is I mean those are aesthetic changes is it really it's a functional change you can pull if you pull out the half of the display it becomes a tablet right so it's like I said it's it's more of that hybrid category as opposed to a pure laptop category but what's going on under the hood oh I don't know the stats for the book yeah the book hasn't been updated so it's it's a little bit common it's not a fair comparison at this point because the the laptop got a refresh next question is coming in from Matthew dacher I find noise cancellation headphones often give me headaches does anyone else have that problem and how do you deal with it I agree we do Matthew I'm not a big fan of noise cancellation also I live in a busy spot where if I listen to my music cancelling out the noise around me I'm probably gonna get plowed by a truck I just I don't enjoy the feeling I don't think it's worth the results yeah I don't think I've had a full-on headache but I don't find it comfortable there's something about it that makes me anxious maybe I loved about you guys why I mostly wear them on airplanes and that is when it really kicks in because it it's most effective with like ambient noise so having the the plane engine noise completely disappear it's just it's nice oh yeah yeah but I don't get headaches yeah here's a question from Vivek why is a surface studio coming with a 7th gen processor even though a few months the ninth-generation is going to be coming out I mean I think that you mentioned this or like the bigger changes are coming in in a year or so right some of the stuff I think it's just it was time for a refresh and they were using the chip that they could use really wish we had Ackerman on to really kind of spell out the the chip justification but I think that's generally is just a matter of timing do we know what the resolution of the surface studio is I'm sure we do hold on one sec thirteen point five million pixels 192 dpi what is the resolution on that we'll get back to you in the meantime is right oh wait it's uh jeez wait is that right 4500 bucks yeah dozen yeah that's the best ones buy right yeah a ginormous shine yeah and what about Qualcomm gigabit LTE Timothy and Vic are asking if any of these products are gonna be LTE compatible I don't believe so I know there was a sort of a separate line of PCs using Qualcomm processors with LTE built-in but this isn't I don't think any of these are involved with that it's almost like a side project and so I think these are all your traditional Intel CPUs I don't believe there's LTE options for any of these and Sanjay is asking about the bezel hoping it's going to get smaller in future products do we have any news on that no we don't they new since I mean these as John puts out these these products are pretty much the same as they were in the past I'd like to see them kind of slim down the bezel it would take more of I think its trigger design than just like your your normal smartphone tablet since you know they built these devices around the keyboard covers and the keyboard accessory which has to be a certain width for this to work so if they slim down the bezels that would make the device small or I guess or I guess they could expand the screen either way we don't know yet because these are the products that are out there new I'm sure they're they're working on prototypes that and are considering removing the bezel given that served in the trend across the entire industry but right now this is we've got are there any laptops out there that do support LTE this needs to be a thing that's from Tim yeah there are a handful they were announced last year that at the Qualcomm event there forget who the actual makers are there's a number of PC makers that are using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with an LTE radio built-in so they're they're supposed to be more powerful able to run on LTE longer they are out there I just I don't know how much hey they've made or what they're not people are actually buying these things yeah it's the the issue of buying one of these if an LCD radios like you also have to buy a subscription plan they go grab it so right you know that's not necessary attractive to everyone having to pay a monthly plan for their laptop here's another one from vivec do you think Microsoft is bridging the gap between mobile and PC due to the features they announced today I mean they're starting to you know they have this so there's this you're is it your app or your phone it's in your phone oh yeah for Windows that starts to bring some of these features that Apple had like five years sort of like having your messages on your phone also just kind of ping right up onto your computer so you don't have to be toggling between devices if you're working on something on your tablet or on your laptop so they're starting to do that and you know the one of the themes of this presentation yesterday was making your life more organized and more simplified so you can spend less time with your gadgets by presumably buying more gadgets that makes sense yeah it makes total but that's the idea that's what they're trying to do yeah I don't know we've made the absolute need to kind of bridge that gap since they're kind of out of the phone business I'm not kind of they're out of the phone business and so you know they've decided to instead instead of making their own phones to kind of invade our phones with apps for Android and iOS so it makes sense that they're trying to bridge that gap for sure I mean they're certainly not alone do we think this is going to be kind of a mo going forward for a lot of these developers is to just make products that are synonymous that don't necessarily fall into category ABC kind of thing oh yeah yeah I think so I mean that's what I think the the surface book was kind of like that right like and example the hybrid yeah I can imagine Microsoft experiment would think experimenting with this a lot more downline as always great question from sir enjoy is Qualcomm trying to be the single player at this because Qualcomm is accused Apple of stealing confidential information and trade secrets and passing them on to Intel a single player in what assuming LTE development for more products yeah I mean just by the sheer fact that Qualcomm is so dominant in this area that you know they kind of are the the single player it's both they're both the biggest player but also this is like a tiny market there's there's like limited interest I guess in having an LTE enabled laptop so quad I think quad its Qualcomm pushing this so I don't know if they're trying to be the dominant player I think they're like the only player that's pushing this like please play this game yeah and the Intel has a as a cellular radio division as well I haven't seen that much from them although it may be because I don't cover them as closely they focus a lot on 5g and just sort of connecting everything with 5g downline that's more of a feature play swinging back to the headphones one more time I school was asking about the duration I'm assuming that means battery duration talking to car annoy he was saying it was about 15 hours according to them and haven't had him in house to do a full-on test ourselves but the claim is 15 hours on Bluetooth and 50 hours wired which is okay not great but okay yeah that's yeah 15 hours is not that's not good it's not but it's we've seen worse to true I guess it's yeah I'll put out the try them out maybe the dials will win me over I guess the argument is that if they're charging the same as they're charging 350 like everybody else that has better battery life than why are they all so you know yes yeah I'm paying for my battery just thinking I want a long-haul flight like 15 hours it's like just covering it basically mmm so after the shock value of these headphones is Microsoft's gonna be kind of hopping on their own little hype train again some of the people in the chat are curious as if we think that Microsoft maybe doesn't get as much hype as the apples and the Google's of the world are they gonna start kind of coming up with new ways to shock us after they and I quote butchered the Zune and mobile phones I think that's I mean they're I think they're taking a much more cautious approach with this like they're introducing you know like these random products every couple of years or so there isn't as much hype for these products because I don't think they're as broadly but like every someone knows that you know at least one person with an iPhone probably a lot more people with iPhones the same could not be said about surface products there's still fairly niche there are still a ton of other competitive pcs out there so Microsoft isn't synonymous with any particular product category it sort of dabbles in these different categories and that's I think that's why there isn't the hype there is and they're just generally isn't as much hype about PCs and laptops you don't line up to buy pcs right so that's kind of why they don't and and the shock factor thing is nice but again like how many people are just gonna buy this headphone it's still gonna become a niche product so it's not it's not like a game-changer and I think that's why just it doesn't have the again the company itself its main focus isn't on consumer products on cloud services it's on stuff that's a lot wonky err and less easily understood and really doesn't affect the normal person so I think that's kind of why it just doesn't get the same kind of love that say Apple or even Google gets I think it's also fair to say that we're on the down turn of the hype cycle for smartphones like yes I mean how often do we have like an iPhone event and a samsung event and it's just kind of like hey the screen is a little different there's an extra hour of battery it's like bigger yeah like there we are kind of getting to a point of saturation and fatigue about hype arounds about like the iPhone and around the galaxy phone and that's really where the hype mostly comes up from from most of those companies yeah as Microsoft gonna actually move forward and develop maybe some in-ear earbud type headphones now and start working them in with some of their other products or maybe just bundling the surface as like a package deal with headphones kind of like an all-in-one I don't even know how to put that to words because I mean we've seen iPhone came with the earbuds and then we've seen other phones like pixel come with what what would they bundled with well they weren't bundled but there was that there was that like smart earbud accessory there like translated languages that didn't come in the box no no no these are same via Apple with the iPhone like those air pods are what a hundred and sixty dollar accessory well now they are but they used to come when they were just wired headphones in the box yeah those were just headphones I mean those are my basic wired headphones are weren't they didn't have any real smart capabilities to them I didn't say they did well I think the point is that I don't think Microsoft will be going in a direction where they're creating non-premium product just to have a bundle yeah it's like a laptop you know like they are not gonna create a $35 anyer thing just so that it would be there because people you know like if you're gonna be buying something that's at the top-tier price point you're not gonna be swayed into buying this versus that because of this one comes with some kind of not amazing yeah but that's not to say that they wouldn't try to make an in-ear high-tier in-ear headphones since now that we know that they're getting into the category maybe they'll try to expand it more oh alright for the road what products do you think you'd like to see Microsoft make now that they have made headphones wall clocks obviously what I want everybody to me because it's so stupid really I kind of want that wall clock actually do like anything it's got a little lights it's got a little Lions yeah I don't know rice cooker kind of cool the surface rice cooker it's all metal gleaming and it connects to Cortana of course you can get a fabric covering on it right yeah there you go all right a smart vacuum actually a Microsoft Surface I would actually consider that Microsoft you know good call okay so just a reminder folks tomorrow we're not gonna have a live video show I'm gonna be at Comic Con doing some coverage if anyone else it's gonna be a New York Comic Con track me down I'm easy to find hopefully we'll see you there we will be back Monday with a regular show and then of course next week we got the big Google pixel event a scene it will be covering and that'll be on Tuesday which might throw the show schedule off a little bit but will be involved in some way shape or form so anyways have a great weekend folks thanks for a good week Roger yeah we will have an audio well theoretically have an audio podcast tomorrow and if you are a New York Comic Con I'll be there on Saturday so look out for me I'll be dressed as me I won't be cosplay cosplay Roger yeah exactly also be a Comic Con as Roger change so look for him one day amateur I'm there all four and cause plan on Friday all right all right the 3:39 is available in iTunes tune in stitcher Feedburner google play music google podcasts the Amazon echo if quartz cnet.com we'll see you all later good bye alright you you