Gadgetory

from CES and digging into the hottest news post show will I phones get their performance back after the battery throttling scandal will we ever see a real consumer release for razors project Linda and just what the heck is LG doing with their future phone line up we've got a lot to talk about so make sure you're charged and ready for episode two eight eight of the pocket now weekly recorded January 19th at noon pacific this weekly podcast is where we dissect and discuss those gadgets that make our lives mobile smartphones tablets and wearables it's all the stuff you wished existed when you were a kid and trying to talk about a razor phone wasn't a who's on first dial exercise of sorting out different manufacturers I'm Juan Carlos bag now senior editor pocketnow.com joined as always by plucky podcast producer mister Jules Wong on the East Coast how's it going buddy boy oh well don't mind me I'm just looking at XML text wondering what the heck is going on for my webpage here but that's just that's good but we always strive to bring you the most attentive and conscientious podcast we can while also she's already out the back end code on all the the fires that are happening this is just wondering who the hell is talking about which story here and why the stories are not popping up that's that's the key I mean I post the freaking rundown you know two hours and admit and I you know I would hope to have all this sorted out but instead it's oh why why why would I have things well prep we can we just wing it will do alive do it yeah really Java SE runtime now wants to install itself and it's great well I always fan of the Java here I don't I don't I could do away with this by me I need to get prepped I need the time Jules to flingy in the first two minutes of the podcast but I want to jump back in do just like kind of a little CES recap on our own I know you guys were able to produce live show from the show floor I wasn't able to join you this year for that but some of the other cool things that we saw from CES and just some of the fun that you guys had run around and covering some mobile stuff Jules what were what were some of your favorite finds at CES this year I had no favorites if you saw the video that Jaime put together after our podcast with the mobile tech podcast manure and the group there you would have seen you wouldn't have able to have seen the first take in which I was just all Janette generic and like oh this is my first big trade show and I'm super excited for it I mean you were stepping up to the to the big show this year they were you know doing the videos and putting you on the cameras no you have to choose a favorite part you have to choose the best product you can't just no no you you have to say this is the definitive thing and I reluctantly chose project Gemini which you know and I mean I think that's gonna be one of the you know things to watch for but not necessarily my favorite I didn't look at to explore the show floor more than just the heck is going on with this video or that video I mean and if I did you know and nothing really caught my eye and I was thinking off there at this time like one of these things is gonna catch my eye and maybe never found it um this song is dedicated to a man who just didn't see anything cool today like as Jules becomes Cameron to my Ferris Bueller I mean but the nice thing about CES is that you'll also catch them like some cool experimental stuff I saw the video that I may put together on some of the crowdfunded initiatives that companies were showing off on the show floor didn't even catch anything wacky and I think ooh like did you see the Star Wars we want to go robot the robot was awesome I thought that was great it looks great it's just well you it's not for sale and it's it's not a purview I can't just like turn on an app and get this robot well okay if we're gonna keep things more focused on mobile because this is the pocket now podcast there were a couple extra things that I saw on the show floor that I thought were a lot of fun my experiment for CES for my personal stuff was to see if I could cut daily vlogs all from my phone so recording all the video doing all the editing the rendering the uploading 4k videos and I constructed a mobile rig with with a gorilla pod and a baseplate and a job yeah no I mean like a really as pro is possible to try and get the best I had a luma cube do all the lighting and that that was my big experiment and it worked way better than I thought it would have in fact I don't feel it really slowed me down a lot for doing quick and punchy vlogs so we're always trying to put out like you know extra little side content or you know Instagram stories or something you know we're always trying to kind of keep the story moving throughout so what are the upload speeds never managed above three megabits per second it took a long time to upload 4k video but I mean again that would have taken me the same amount of time from a laptop is from a phone I mean like everything still seemed to work just about as quickly as if I had done it all from my laptop and so there were a couple of things on the show floor that I felt were really exciting for mobile production and so you know at the Osmo to the new DJI handheld gimbal it it looks like a nice refinement over the first Osmo the first series of Osmo gimbals but really it's the price point seeing them clean up the product a little bit give it a slightly bigger battery even though now it's not removable but now it's $130 yeah that was a crazy thing that was that was insane to see that and and I you know this is one of the top names in sort of consumer facing video stabilizers gimble's that kind of a thing the the quality of video with drones that they do it you know and so yeah that's crazy it's just crazy and an alongside that I think for the for the back end workflow cuz you guys got to see the new Asus phones right we're havin a little time with the that was like you know it had a big battery and you know it's like the mid-range everything that 2017 bronze kind of thing well and and you know again I think Asus is still trying to play that price war but one of the things that blew me away at the Asus suite was the Zen screen go I it's a it's a mini portable professionally calibrated monitor that it's all powered off of USB C and it has its own battery to so it won't drain your other product so you plug it into a laptop and it shows up as a second screen but I plugged on there demo unit which is still a prototype it's not even a finished commercial release yet it's gonna be coming out q3 I plugged my phone into it and it instantly screen mirrored without having to do any other apps or drivers or anything so I fired up my video editing software on my phone had this amazing display see what I was doing and and like they're saying that the price point on that's probably going to be between I sub four hundred dollars is what they said so in that three to 350 where I mean we're gonna be talking about project Linda a little later in the show an all-rounder professional-grade calibrated monitor it's just a murder right and no touch screen by you want the larger workspace and you want a bigger field of view to look at that it works with everything and it's a one cable connection is a really exciting idea to me like that something like that could be a huge benefit for people who are trying to work on the go yeah I can see definitely has its uses for the mobile production suite it's just one of those things I feel like that could mean I'm not sure well maybe you could make things more fun now you know it's always about efficiency and about you know just getting things quick done and as well wrap together as you know possible for a mobile setup but yeah I'm not sure if this will make things fine necessarily because it's another piece of equipment that you have to lug around even though it's like you know good for the size it's still another thing right but what I'm looking at is we've got a number of companies experiment thing with changing form factors like project Linda is a great example of a proprietary solution which works for one phone to give you a bigger workspace and something like this where you I mean you would have been carrying around like a tablet in addition to a phone and now you can blow up this work experience or you have a work laptop and you want a secondary screen a second monitor to go with that laptop you don't have to cart a TV sized device just for extra work space like you just want to keep your video output on that so you can work your timeline on your main computer or you want all your plugins if you're editing photos just all off on one little screen so you don't interrupt the the bigger display on your laptop again there are fun applications like you know you can watch movies better you can see your video on a bigger screen if you're using it with with a phone but for me this is a Productivity dream is to have this modular portable you know Universal accessible monitor which I thought was just extremely well done and yeah I mean as long as they don't have to check bags at the airport because these one you still don't have to pull for a tablet so if you added this screen and a phone technically well I guess now you do I mean it's a sheer you know give or take OS system but then again you know just having one thing powered the whole you know a set up is kind of gold but in any case I think that is definitely something to be appreciated and we'll talk more about that we would get to project Linda in the news how about that I'm gonna throw them out there real fast the Garmin speak I'm super super stoked about this live in California every time we get behind the wheel of the car I feel like I'm taking my life into my hands it's it's a little - but better well it's a little dash camera and and I'm kind of holding out my fingers here because it is you know about the circumference that I'm kind of showing right here sticks up under your rear view mirror and it off it will give your car Lane Guidance and accident collision detection so if you don't have those things already built into your car it's gonna give you that it's got a dash camera built-in so if anything happens you've got a DVR of all of your driving that's great and it's got a tiny super simple heads-up display that tells you how fast you're going and gives you very simple turn-by-turn simple forward arrow left arrow right arrow and distance to your next turn and for the newest version this year they've incorporated Amazon Alexa so you can also ask it you know while you're driving like hey what's my next appointment or hey what what's going on in my schedule or you know play the Seinfeld trivia game with me 0:01 car assistant that people have been walking wanting out of their smart speakers at home 200 bucks 200 bucks and it brings some of that smart speaker stuff into your car it gives you a heads-up display that you can keep at eye level you don't have displays that eventually you'll be like wondering if you could speed read the phone 4:05 and like record games like Oh Californians know you can never speed around the 405 it's always a bumper-to-bumper and then the last thing something that I'm playing with right now I'll be getting a review out on this shortly years ago I did a review on a product called the backtrack mobile and it's a it's a portable Bluetooth police grade breathalyzer that connects to your phone and this year the company showed off two new products one is a keychain sized version of the backtrack mobile this is the backtrack c6 and then later this year they're gonna be releasing a skin sensor so it reads the alcohol content of the sweat in your skin and you can wear it like its own standalone wearable if you want to wear it like a fitness band but it's actually designed to replace the watch strap on your SmartWatch so you have an Apple watch you can keep a sensor on your wrist super discreet you never have to show it off or no one will ever know what it is and all the time it's going to sit there and monitor your the blood alcohol content of your sweat so you can get a real-time glimpse of just what your level of intoxication is throughout the evening phenomenal like piece of lifestyle tech because this kind of stuff is is dangerous we're seeing rates of DUI over the last year have actually increased so even with uber and lyft and taxis getting cool apps there are more people getting behind the wheel inebriated than there were in years past and so something like this I think can be a very valuable piece of information for people that are looking to have a good time but are also looking to try and do that safely self impairments in terms of drunk driving I think I'm not sure how I feel about that I just you know if I'm gonna drink I'm just gonna take the subway home or get it lift anyways because I don't write at all that's well yeah I mean that that's a private for you I'm not saying that you we're gonna want to do this but I I actually for two of the parties that we were at for wrapping up CES I was walking around with this thing and it is kind of interesting like the first time someone sees you blow into a breathalyzer in public there are just cut and aah fish nests of like what's this guy's got problems why is he walking around with a breathalyzer but with these little interchangeable tips so that you can like hygienic ly pass it around it became sort of the fun party game of like just how and even about the bottle man you know and you clean it off alcohol is a disinfectant it's fine you'll be fine um pass it around but that's one of the things like once you kind of take the stigma off of it it's just really interesting to check in because I think a lot of people know about how many drinks they can handle if they have experience with alcohol but they might not know how many drinks will actually put them over the legal limit and so in a car heavy state it's always kind of gross and insidious that in California you kind of can't get anywhere unless you're driving so I don't go out at night and hang out at bars cuz I'll have my car like I'm gonna have a couple drinks and then get back in my car or I'm always having to hitch a lift or an uber or something like that so again products like this I feel are just really nice lifestyle adaptations that people can use and this is the the newest version of it is not that expensive this thing retails for 50 bucks so the c6 it's about the same size as the clicker for my condo gate and it works surprisingly well so I've been very impressed with this company I think they're making some great lifestyle products instead of like $50 every night you you know wanna like higher DD or something I don't know you know but I only just adds to the gushin you know and it also gives you a little bit of insight like I have a really good idea now of like how many Bourbons I can drink before I'm gonna be running into problems or it's not just I'm taking a guess well I weigh about 170 pounds and I don't know this drink is like 80 proof so if I have two of those and maybe I'll be no no don't mess with that don't try and guess what your BAC is there are some good products out there that I think can help people out I mean don't be like me that could you know but get this like very nasty little bruise in the elbow because not because I was drinking but because apparently there's this hotel that doesn't know how to pull down its pool railings correctly so awesome and so did you like you throw a fit about like liability I'm going to call my lawyer mmm I got to take away a bathrobe and better call Saul would be so disappointed in you right now I think uh you know those are some of the fun other other products that I saw at CES there were a ton of really crazy things especially checking out CES for gaming gear and PC hardware building and stuff like that so CES is really known for but there were some really fun lifestyle you know companion devices not always the most exciting show for phones but I thought I saw some really cool services that we can now start doing more cool stuff with our phones and with our mobile apps and services yeah more life stylist less strife style yeah we're totally gonna make that a t-shirt for the show we're gonna yeah merch yeah right now hashtag merch have steak brands it's $50 at pocketnow.com not really hashtag one in joules Paul we're gonna now fly to Japan and let's not go there let's you know instead of doing that we should talk about some news for the week of January 15 2018 this is all the news that is fit to podcast Apple had a huge bonanza this week with an announcement of a 350 billion dollar capital plan for the next five years thanks to the recent reforms in corporate tax rates in the United States one of the other pieces of news that CEO Tim Cook made in an interview with ABC News revolves around the startling controversy for older iPhones he said that users will soon be able to toggle the throttling of of the throttling off through software with a future update the behavior was put into place to prevent battery malfunctions and device shutdowns Google's fuschia OS cuts put into a pixel book in a semi working States in terms of interface by Ars Technica as though the applications picture is still far from finished the pixel book has been in works for about three years now and was one of the this excuse me future iOS has been in the works for three years now the textbook was one of several Intel based test beds for the experimental OS that is to work on found tablet and laptop platforms of upcoming Motorola phones has ran Android life detailing devices in the Moto G 6 Moto X 5 edmodo z3 series all of them have come up with 2x1 displays and some of them have intriguing things going on with the fingerprint sensor lit into the nitty-gritty later on project Phi is introducing a bill protection a feature that caps the bill amount depending on how many users there are on an account and individually charged on a pro-rated basis up to up through six gigabytes of usage and then we'll have free access at full speed up through 15 gigabytes the user can then choose to pay for more full speed data or stay with slower data for free through the end of the month razor could launch the project when a smartphone laptop hybrid with a razor phone sequel in September that means coming from a source 2 for Android Lynda debuted at CES as the latest in many concepts that have yet to go on sale from Razer and worldwide it could cement razor's involvement in it mobile and finally Huawei has published a video promoting a fast charge technology that can promise smartphone battery up to 48 percent capacity in five minutes the only problem the video was first seen at a symposium in 2015 that quotable batteries were more popular in phones and that's what this technology is predicated on we've yet to suss out a reason why the videos been remixed and republished you got any guesses why I guess is as to why no but that definitely seems to be something that is again a current a part of the current zeitgeist you know the Apple story battery Health battery longevity and then no more flagships with removable batteries is something I think people care about so I think it's it's just like revisiting a concept or revisiting an idea that is resonating right now I mean we can make it cool again we can like start talking about and get getting all like the the social armies riled up and I think any company in Huawei especially they're the number three in the world anything that a company can do to act as a differentiator is a good marketing tactic right now you know the the difficulties that we're seeing from manufacturers like LG and HTC Huawei doesn't want to just coast on their current market market penetration they want to see if they can't build on their fan base and so yeah they want away well that's profusely to our friends at Huawei I mean people care about right now like what's going on with the battery in my phone and I think their timing on this is right to revisit this as an idea yeah yeah indeed dad and you know introducing Goverdhan right the the whole graphene ball fast charging tech there are gonna be some some competing solutions to fast charging coming on the horizon very very soon are out right now and you know there's there would be more news to be made out of this because you know they'd be promoting the heck out of it then I mean that's then and this is now so I still want my graphene balls let's I think we talked about some other things like such as Apple who you know it's very big week for them they're gonna pay billions and billions in repatriation taxes and also apparently you're not going to see a cheaper iPhone just because they got all these savings you know whether economic trends thought is that if they get tax savings in any ways that will pass on to the consumers but instead we're just being told that innovation costs what innovation costs so there you go you get you get that oh yeah and that's right Murray's batteries well I don't know that's definitely one of the bigger nice stories coming out of this is better disclosure again Apple got burned because there was confusion surrounding this this topic and there wasn't the kind of transparency that people expect now with one of the most mission-critical lifestyle companion devices that they carry it was a very bad look for Apple for them to be monkeying around with the performance of these devices it brings up a whole new conversation on things like what should a premium smartphone contain to offset some of the ways that a smartphone can age you know like if we activate the full power of an iPhone and after a year that can cause system instability then I think it's on Apple to put in a bigger battery so that there's a buffer zone as the phone ages in that battery degrades I don't think it's sufficient to say you're 7/8 $900,000 smartphone has the bare minimum capacity to drive the CPU at full power for six months like that's not okay but at least now consumers have a little bit better transparency on on on what's actually going on with their phones so I just closure that comes out of a lack of disclosure and now they're trying to make sure now is trying to cover their bases and who knows what else they might be hiding in the next kind of you know barrier in this race so I mean we'll see whatever but I mean getting on to the other sort of political - I you know giving giving employees bonuses that's nice I $25 in that stock yeah cool I'm happy to see that and I'm happy to see that they're one of the few companies that made a big announcement out of giving their employees bonuses and not then going on to lay off hundreds or thousands of their employee maybe even announce it like some what some source inside the company he passed on an email Bloomberg and they had to confirm it with Apple so it's like yeah you know like you know who is it wasn't Verizon one of the first like hey we're gonna give all of our employees bonuses because of this new tax plan you gonna 5,000 of them mm-hmm yeah so I mean you know right before the holidays whereas this you know it's just yeah after the holidays and none of the seasonal impacts are coming into play so I mean I mean you could just they could justify it as something that was part of the you know average yearly cycle for jobs but that doesn't take away from the sweet sweet irony from it yeah again a bad look for a company like that so hopefully this is an apple who's gonna participate better an apple that's actually gonna pay their taxes and and do business in a way that's a little bit more up front a little bit more transparency a little bit more clarity as to what they're doing that that to me out of all of this that would be a positive ramification of some of these changes well as the world's largest corporation you know having that discount from thirty five percent to fifteen point five percent on the repatriation rates when you're talking about two hundred fifty two billion dollars it's still a lot but it is galling that they held their taxes hostage until they got a better rate like I don't think that's an apple I would want to do business with I don't think that's an Apple that still qualifies is us cherishing it as an American company but this is a step towards I hope you know a better relationship between how these monies are sort of extracted from this country and then paid back into the system so that everyone can benefit the math that's that leaves owned you know that's like two hundred forty five billion dollars going back in with like seven billions left for a Regional Park you know just you know maintaining the businesses outside of the US which is you know fine and all that when you put this as part of the overall view with the 350 billion dollars you're going to lots of data sensors to a lot of the new facilities including I think those one in Reno Nevada another there it could I'm not sure if this is the one that was on an end still or something entirely separate but one in Culver City you know near Hollywood because they're getting into more of the media play with the original series and stuff and they're doing a lot of money just to see I'm not sure if that's part of like the the capital plan or the investment plan in the United States and make it great again and whatever but I'm like the one thing I can be fairly confident as Apple with Tim Cook at the head I don't think they're too mega I don't think corporate corporate tax reform for them they you know Tim Cook said it it benefits them and you know it's helping them create jobs 20,000 up to 20,000 a lot not that a corporate tax rate is also being appropriately paid because I mean we went through the same thing with Apple migrating to the EU to the to Ireland as a tax haven and then still not paying the EU what they what they thought the tax bill should be this is coming in from Renato Laporte using the PN weekly hashtag Renato writes I am oh this should contain it should contain a warranty if you better dollar phone talking about the battery if you buy a $600 phone you expect it to run okay for a long while yeah the battery won't last the same as the first day but if it's affecting performance after one year replacement should be free and and I think a lot of people would probably agree but this is also one of the ways that Apple was able I feel to build a larger profit margin into their phones is the bare minimum battery for the smaller iPhone to get you through the day but as that battery degrades you have zero buffer room you have zero room to lose battery capacity and total power output which is necessary to drive a powerful CPU and GPU at their max rates one starts to question whether that $29 replacement fee for the battery usually $79 is should be considered more of a bill in price instead of just something some accessory kind of deal of service I mean it's tough and it's tough to unravel because these are also priced at the premium end of the market so what are our expectations and what should we demand from a company but switching gears because I also really want to jump into this one I the the article written up on fuchsia we talked about this the potential successor to Android or Chrome OS we weren't really sure it was more of an experimental project but seeing more and more development working on this and that it's already being tested on current hardware solutions is a positive step towards a Google and Android a Chrome OS merge the ability to compete more readily against other operating system solutions and and kind of drive consumer mobile products into a smoother faster more streamlined development cycle I think it's still way in early days because what will make this platform are the apps in the new they're supposedly many bridges to codes like Swift which originally was an apple but the Creator has moved to Google so that's that's an interesting move as well as Kotlin and all these others that Google is cooking up and the standard languages as well Java and the like so yeah in terms of working all those into like a single design paradigm whether material design gets carried over in the future I mean that's and how these all these link up interact and provide services to the users that's gonna be an interesting path for where you're going but in terms of the interface I mean it's for me it's intuitive it's simple it's clean it's what I've always wanted in terms of just a you know mobile workstation so props so far at least what really pretty yeah so if you and will just do a little painting by sound here so at the lockscreen you know you type in the lockscreen and it's obviously integrated into Google you would get your account information like that the home screen you know you got the wallpaper you got central fuchsia button which you know the sides of it you got all the data the information the about network connectivity time device status whatnot at the bottom you're gonna find a familiar Google bar with the feed below it with all the cards the information that you need and then as you get into apps as you you know find your way in if the apps they'll be piled on top of the information bar so you can just go back to them whenever you want so I mean it feels intuitive to me now I mean really nice considerations on kind of building on the user interface and user experience that we all kind of understand at this point it's an it'll definitely be a stray away from just the Android ecosystem that we totally understand today but not so much so that I think it's going to be detrimental ultimately though I still think this is probably Google's best hope for rectifying some of the problems on things like updates and we recently went through all the stories about meltdown inspector those are hardware issues patches can fix some of the security holes from some of these from some of these issues but if we expect people to continuously live more and more of their daily lives their personal information their banking information their medical information out of mobile devices we need an update an update path which is better than what Google currently has with them putting out new software for Android it going to a manufacturer who then tweaks it it then going to a carrier who then tweaks it and eventually getting delivered to consumers months maybe even a year after that update was actually released from from the developers so if fuchsia can can get on top of that timeline in a more iOS fashion then that to me will be the biggest win I know there will be apt teething pains but it's becoming a bigger and bigger deal that people are not really getting the support they pay for with mobile devices so what Ars Technica which you know did the whole testing article it says dramedy Ron Adam can't even say the guy's name Ron I'm a a Oh easy for you to say Bakula is that there you know there is no there would not be a physical install medium and therefore there you know in my opinion there would not be the benchmark the version that you know Google would use so I'm not sure whether there is a more room for OEMs to play around with fuchsia but we'll have to see it's still far off we're still years away from any final workings to this so on but it's definitely interesting to just keep tabs on this yeah definitely definitely something also worth keeping tabs on real quick moto xiii uh what do you think modular phones the completion of the Moto Z experiment they a so what leaked along with the other Moto X and Moto e series phones what I really like Moto's entry and mid-range strategy I'm still not quite sure they found the killer niche or the killer app to get people excited about their flagships no not yet I mean just the single slate slide that we found on the one the highlight motive mods for the z3 which is a 5g judgment supposedly or you know we could infer that basically all these radios don't like the radios that would come on the road is e3 or not when have support for 5g and this would just be a tack on to allow the phone to support those speeds and those networks and those protocols but I mean the you know that's that's one cool feature that you know you just get that get instant faster day more especially if it could also like go all the way back to like the Moto Z like the first one I mean I would actually be pretty sweet you have got like a battery backup with a 5g radio array built-in you could just slap it on that would be epic that'd be great I mean and the the use case would practically be like a very small pool but still that I mean just the thought of that reverse engineering that is just amazing I'm seeing a different port here instead of like the sixteen dots that we're getting at those 16 pin connector at the back it's a more kind of abstract more you know metallic lozenge line thing at the bottom yeah we'd like it would be able to fit it would be able to those pins but I'm not sure if it's exactly the same kind of deal we're working with I mean Motorola promised that this would be around the pin design would be around for at least one more year so maybe we'll see this be inter compatible well fingers crossed and something you don't need to cross your fingers for real quick because I want to get to project Linda but talking about project Phi because I am a project file user I thought that was a nice consideration of putting a maximum cap on what you get charged for I I wonder do you think this is gonna make project find more desirable for people who are shopping the various MVNOs out there cuz here like the thing is that priced competitiveness after the Sprint t-mobile thing fell apart the merger fell apart has been very you know it's dried up it's been dried up and the only thing that Sprint has done I think now is started to attempt to go at and like switchers again and it's been forecast by analysts that they wouldn't be doing the whole promotional thing as heavily as they have done in the past so with that if nasai mean $80 is where we see AT&T Verizon and even some t-mobile plans at this tier you know Landon it's right up there the 15 gigabyte limit or the throttle point is kind of low compared to the rest of them but even still 256 kilobits per second is something I wouldn't you know you know cut my eyes out for so it could be okay because I'm looking at t-mobile right now and if you because they're new one plan is 70 bucks a month for one line but I mean yeah it's the basic deal that they have and so that it's we'd already be streaming it's like limited hotspot yeah you know like if we're we're talking about you know so if you if you want so seventy bucks in line for one line and if you want unlimited HD streaming then it's only $10 more and that also gets you unlimited Wi-Fi on gogo enabled flights more it slower speeds internationally than what's offered from Project Phi but it will bump up the speeds to more like 3G speeds in most countries you know like that's still at that $80 a month thing and I think you you you you're having to worry less as you get closer to like a 20 gigabyte cap where project Phi is gonna stop you at 15 isn't it something isn't it 21 22 well the thing is that gigabytes a month is when they will throttle people a big point about just raising that cap because oh well or network is doing so great and that would also add in a Netflix subscription yeah and you know I mean third there isn't yeah they're so like services I mean you know I mean t-mobile also ties you down in turn right but the difference is is that you're you are actually you are actually paying $80 a month whereas Project Phi you're only paying for what you use but I just think it's it's kind of interesting watching where we all kind of end up with these different dollar amounts like you know maybe a couple months you you are under that 80 dollar cap if you were really heavy smartphone user on Project five that could be kind of nice but if you do a lot of traveling man like trying to crunch the numbers in the math on what makes sense for what regions is is pretty tricky right now yeah I mean I I mean I have no further thoughts since II's Sprint's and I both in the same you know use case I'm just like yeah I can deal with both and this makes it more affordable you to say that so so so pitifully I'm with Sprint we're weren't the last carriers in the u.s. to actually go to five g's so yeah a long wait for us you know what let's let's switch gears and talk about talk about something a little more imaginative a little bit more fun spend some time with project Linda I got to spend some time with project Linda what do you think I thought this was a beautifully polished implementation of an idea we've been trying to achieve since the dawn of pocket computer phones too many moving parts seriously I'm being really serious you do you think it's it's too complicated I mean if with the whole the engineering for the USB C port because you connect to the shells so I mean let's you know you put in your razor phone because it has to be a razor firm and it can't just be eight Nicole Scott said that a pixel to excel fit in the area it doesn't recognize the shell doesn't recognize it so there's that but you put in your razor phone you press the button in order to get that drilling sound and have the USB food and then you you know it's great in in principle you got just like a 256 gigabyte disk for extra storage and another like however much batteries there is on to the show and you get that with the RGB II keyboard and it's nice and fancy I don't there's a root there's room for Android on this thing I would much rather prefer it be an AC PC and always connected thing with the windows but you'd want to see a mixed operating system environment not like what Huawei and Samsung are doing with their screen sharing and Dex technologies no no III mean I have more use for Windows apps than Android apps at this point especially given you know the variety of programs as opposed just one good program here on Android that you have to really search for the Google Play Store and whatnot so I think I'm a little bit more positive on this than you are if only because of my experiment in producing with my phone during CES is that mobile apps aren't there yet but they've gotten so much better at getting me through a huge chunk of what I would use my laptop for that III think there is a consumer today who could benefit from a mobile only approach and I think that'll only grow over the next couple years because of these innovations in screen sharing screen mirroring and making Android recognize different display aspect ratios and resolutions and so I mean you're not wrong having windows on arm could be pretty epic as a Qualcomm 845 that can switch back and forth between operating systems could be cool but I worry that that's gonna make I mean like I played with a Windows Android tablet way back in the day and it was a terrible experience and I'm know we could do better talking about glute situation I just want Windows 10 on the thing well and we all know how windows phones are going you know like yeah yeah I mean come on if you regarding like if our urine to be working between those things but I mean like you looking at the looking at where like Chrome OS was and looking at where Android is I mean from my LG v 30 I wrote out scripts in Microsoft Word you know I'm using Microsoft Word on a little Bluetooth keyboard I was able to record high quality audio and edit it on the phone I was able to keep a timeline with three video elements five audio tracks text transitions and the ability to mix content so I was pulling content from two different phones all in 4k rendering folk 4k upload that to to youtube do all of the same like SEO stuff that I need to do on YouTube and it was all through mobile apps and services and I think if I had just had more screen real estate to work with it wouldn't have been that much different it only would have been slightly less powerful than how I would have used a proper laptop in the same working conditions totally wouldn't work for the way that I work out of my office I'm working from a desktop proper workstation that thing's a monster I can do so much work there but on the go gaming laptop wouldn't have been that much different or that much faster from how I was working from my phone I would agree but I would enjoy doing it more on a gaming laptop as opposed to because like again I like I took out my essential phone for note-taking I was doing the whole you know trying to get the keyboard I could do it just as fast as I needed it to but if I had gotten my Eve V that you know I got and you know I started typing onto thinking and it it was a dream like I probably boards right right we've seen all these experiments like the a sous line the PadFone and the foam pad and the transformer line of tablets that could then dock into a laptop style keyboard cradle we've seen Motorola had their lap dock you know it was a really awkward you'd have to plug the phone with an HDMI and a USB port and then you know not being able to use the phone for anything because it was plugged into the back of this laptop laptop shell connected Project Linda actually does the one thing I think a lot of us were asking for where it turns the phone into your trackpad that I mean like I've been asking for that since like like the very very first Android phone the first droids were out just give me something that can connect to this especially back then since a lot of there were numerous ones out there that had HDMI ports so again ready yet but when you're talking about like hey I was using my essential phone to try and write notes and then it felt so much better to do that on a proper keyboard project Linda sounds like the right solution to mix phoned and lustre screen capabilities it does it does I don't need to kill it as a concept I just mean to I mean the software is not there yet for me at least so I mean I I would I would completely agree we were talking about this before we went online I think the thing that I would completely agree with you is also just the notion of it being a proprietary product you know yeah moto mods it makes me a little nervous like I'm gonna buy a really expensive phone and a really expensive laptop shell and it's not that's it that's the one product it's not gonna go anywhere if I try to move to another manufacturer or even a future phone update from the same manufacturer could still burn me well if it's a shell then you could do a little bit more engineering with you know if it if it were a matter of size of the phone and just having to cater to that you could do a spring thing or something like that like that you can make it Universal oh yeah so I mean it's not just so well one would if there's that's that's why it was oh yeah yeah go ahead no summer I mean some other manufacturer that you know can take this concept and get it to the Patent Office quicker than razor does maybe we have something here and who knows what will happen well that's that's and that takes me back why front to the top of the show why I was so excited about a Seuss that Zen screen go Android phones seem to do a really good job of screen mirroring now in a way that's seamless one cable connection USBC done and you're often running on a larger workspace and I don't think it would take much to add a keyboard and a trackpad to that environment and have any phone you would lose touch screen I think I don't know that you'd be able to do this with a touchscreen but I don't think it would take much to your solution that would that would mirror your screen in a useful way give you a mouse cursor and a keyboard and get you off and running that would then work for any phone that you used with that comparable tablets have spoiled me at this point because I I don't like this here this laptop and yeah there doesn't have that screen I'm just like what what that I have to move my mouse all the way over here I have to set this it could be fast and that well you know wait I can't get miss click because it was to suck I'm like from from working on from working on just like different Windows 8 tablets from back in the day and the surface and let that's why when I bought my gaming laptop it was like I need Thunderbolt I need a higher resolution than 1080p and I'm not giving up on a touchscreen and I there was only one laptop that it fulfilled all those at the time of purchase which funnily enough was the razor blade so I'm one of those triple snake in the razor ecosystem kind of guys while you're pulling that out we do have a tweet here from from Jonas gamau from PN weekly hashtag P and weekly raise the project Linda should have been what Microsoft showcased with Windows 10 mobile when it was first introduced and I agree especially because we saw with the Lumia 950 that continuum project I actually found my continuum doc I was digging out my lumia 1020 to do a revisit on the Lumia 1020 camera and in my box o windows phones I found my continuum doc and it just made me really sad that we hadn't really you know that Microsoft gave up so early on ideas that are now becoming really popular and if they had done that on Qualcomm 820 and Qualcomm 830 hardware that this stuff would have run so much better than when they introduced it on the Qualcomm 808 I'm sorry I'm just paying attention to my Eevee here and just you know you are digging that thing so tell the folks at home and especially those of us who those who are listening to our podcast not watching the video stream you've been playing with the Eevee for a little while was that your that was my up that's my personal purchase and Jaime is doing a review for pocket now but this is my personal purchase over here and you know - so far so good the keyboard is just the best for me like like not pitching and the travel are just nice and get being used to you know touch you know touch screens with a stylus and and just you know regular trackpad you know I was able to very much more quickly switch between two different windows and you know type in different text fields and all that which I need to do for my job and it was just it's like that really has improved my workflow by at least 10 15 percent so yeah I'm just so far so far the experiments been a success I mean where did you where would you see something like this fitting into the more traditional like manufacturer ecosystem of surface other traditional manufacturers out there I'm just doing this selfishly and and just using it from my own tools I understand on on whether or not you think that this is this is the the right competitor opposite you know like HP came out with something similar has had something similar I mean everyone do something similar to wooden one form factor and you know it's up to people's this you know minds to say hey I want a tablet or I want you know something that has a keyboard or whatnot or I want an actual laptop that can actually fold out that you know stays hinged but you know doesn't you know it doesn't work so I mean that's to people's preferences I think the the concept of just having a screen as needed is here to stay and it's just a different in a matter of you know engineering just being able to have it available have it as a choice yeah so um we're getting coming into the in territory in this podcast but we do want to spend a little time talking LG we got a number of tweets from people just talking about the the current strategy walking away from the G series name may be releasing phones later in the year we got a few here this is from at fat produce on using the p-n weekly hash tag which company do you think will be in a better situation going forward LG or Sony because Sony actually had some stuff to show off at CES and then Asli work with yeah right and then also following that up with I wonder if the suits at LG know where their weaknesses really are based on the decisions they are making right now huawei had better advertising taglines leading up to CES then LG has had ever for their phones and I think he's trying to make the the comment or the observation that maybe the problem isn't with the phone and it's with how the company is is disclosing announcing and advertising their products what do you think Jules it seems to me that if a company a major mainstream manufacturer were to try and take some risks right now not just dumping out a new product sounds like the right kind of risk you know maybe taking a step back reevaluating the market and not just following lockstep trying to compete against the galaxy might be a better play than releasing a phone which will continue a trend of selling as well it's not just a matter of competition of time it's a matter of competition of product and I wouldn't say that the March release a time frame would be the most important thing to go it would have been nice to have you know seen just a little mid-range action at the very least but all we're getting apparently is either first of all a new red color of the v30 and also this rule right now that there's an AI enhanced v30 coming up at MDC which you know rehash over rehash that's that's fun but that's a problem I mean iPhone users have had the same form factor for four generations of iPhone now like the V 30 is a gorgeous phone if I could get a V 30 next year with just refinements to the camera a new chipset and more storage wouldn't that be I think I think whatever fans that LG has garnered have less patience for that compared to other manufacturers and that LG's design is just is not I mean it's it blends in with the rest of them and with them being a third place a third string or whatever string they are it just blends in because people are only apt to encounter an LG phone by happenstance you know like if LG had gotten after the advertised so LG announced the V 30 then it took weeks it took like five weeks before we had availability and pricing in different regions and then it took a couple weeks before those things were actually in on store shelves by that point we were already talking about iPhones imagine if they announced the V 30 a week later it was on display in a t-mobile or a Verizon store and then the iPhone came out how the iPhone would have felt derivative of what LG did with their design you know the iPhone would have felt like the the the phone playing catch-up it wouldn't have felt like LG was struggling to keep up with the competition when they were the first company to come out with two by one aspect ratio displays and the v30 helped refine and pretty up what we got with the g6 I think that's one of their biggest problems is consumers don't pay attention to tech media like tech fans do so they're not gonna wait around for a phone to come out at some point and then hope that it's good they want to see it they want to play with it they want to touch it you know touch it and poke it and do things with it and then if they hear about it and they can't do that then they forget about it okay so if later and try and make up that if LG could retcon its reputation I would much appreciate that but it can't again it doesn't have the room to do so because you know if they they're not reaching the same people as you know Apple does just by scale just by whatever they're they're able to target so in you know the Apple you know like people have this confirmation bias or this I'm not necessarily confirmation bias but just familiarity or this ecosystem bias where they're kind of stuck in it or they think they're stuck in it it's actually easier than they think to transfer all those files and whatnot between ecosystems I mean ecosystem changes I think are actually a pretty big deal for general consumers I mean there's a lot of anxiousness and pressure that goes into that but one of the things I like there's like the Android like migration we're not actually plugging in the cable but I mean it's like you know everything that you have to change in moving from one manufacturer to another not necessarily even ecosystem does create a little bit of stress you you go to do something on your phone you don't want to think about navigating the UI you just want to do that thing on your phone and there's that momentary confusion muscle memory confusion of doing it I don't want to discount that but what I mean is Apple has that reputation that you've described and I think a major reason why is because of the way that they advertise and and I think LG could catch up and change up their their reputation a little bit more aggressively if they put more care and attention into properly releasing a product like don't wait two months after you tell us about it before we can see one in a store that's that's ludicrous but then also following the conversation after the phone is launched Apple doesn't give up on advertising the week after the iPhone goes on sale they continue to put pressure on the consumer market throughout the year to remind people that their products exist and that their products are premium and I think if the v30 had that kind of conversation from the manufacturer consumers would start to build a little bit more faith that the manufacturer LG continues to care and support their products whether or not that even earned it would be the perception I mean you know it hasn't started because they haven't been doing that thing but that's just getting them to base zero and it has oh not like until the day my weekend hasn't talked to them because they haven't done it yet tell me what that is what is the V 30 commercial that you've seen tell me one V 30 commercial that you seen the hit record thing where it's like everyone's dancing and happy and stuff and that's it people we're happy oh there is one other V 30 commercial out there if you're if you're on YouTube TV they are paying for an ad buy where people talk and FEM eclis about capturing moments and doing cool things and it's very hipster and it's very contrasting and it's very sepia tone like god bless the LG v it is I mean I to camera you know confessional style disclosure of the amazing things they do and then at the very end it's just that little LG splash screen with the V 30 on I mean like it has nothing to do with the product you would never associate the product with the commercial and you instantly forget about the dry drab dull tone of the commercial by the time the commercial is over that is not how you advertise a product you know I don't say I don't want to say rip off Apple but learn some lessons from Apple and Samsung as to how they generate an emotional relationship with their customers and see if you can do the same L offer something that no other phone does it is the world's best headphone jack built into a mobile device and we've never seen a commercial on that that is an easy 15-second commercial to create around a feature that they can definitively and objectively say is the best on any product that's currently available for consumers to buy and then I don't think that's a thing that was Hatcher captured you know a 10-4 audience but the fact is they haven't tried it yet so we we haven't seen them try anything yet aside from this like feel-good advertising this fun light-hearted advertising in this anthemic advertising and none of that works Jason Statham in a bunch of crazy costumes doesn't work try and actually talk about your product they think they are being different by just by not talking about the product they're not trying to sell you anything right those those Devils at you know the street so here's the thing here's where I'm positive on LG bowing out of the first half of the year I bet they will have difficulties placing orders with Qualcomm for chipsets and I think that's one of the things that was a minor stumbling point for the g6 is that it launched with the a21 when we knew newer phones were right around the corner with more powerful processors so that puts that takes some of the pressure off of LG trying to compete and trying to do you know trying to buy up manufacturing lines before you know Samsung gets in there and sucks up most of the market that I think is actually a positive but if we get to the second half of 2018 and we don't see an LG that's continuing to join the conversation on their products continuing to better support their products because they don't have a new phone out in the marketplace I would hope to see better support for their existing phones I'm still waiting for Oreo announcements and and downloads and betas on my V 30 that would be nice then I think LG's dead in the water in the second half of the year if we don't see them the the manufacturer trying to raise its own visibility they can't expect consumers to just figure out that their products exist well but hope that the LG's Joseon seong-jin who issued the direct order to stop the development apparently of the g7 has his mind where it should be in not up the bottom of where should well I'm hoping again the I think there is a potential for them to do something pretty killer and I think trying to beat the iPhone to its launch whatever follow-up to the iPhone happens at the end of 2018 and then also release this is the big little combo what would have been a g7 alongside what would have been a v40 and you just make it the same thing that Samsung does with the Galaxy s8 and AG acts Galaxy s8 plus you know just just focus on doing one line of phones in two sizes for all markets all regions don't mess around with some features in some regions and some features and others and deliver just the most simplified premium experience that they can that would be a huge step in the right direction for LG we've got a couple of tweets here with the from the PN weekly hashtag a lot of people out there talking about LG this is from James Vincent hashtag pan weekly LG should keep the G range it's what we've come to know and recognize don't change something that works they need to market their products better I never see anything from them when they're launching something new from Andrew Wallace also following up some of his previous comments on PN weekly honestly I don't think LG ever recovered from the boot loop controversy either in terms of consumer mind share and I think what would go a long ways towards improving that that that optics those optics would be more regular software updates for their current products the v20 is woefully under supported in my opinion the V 30 is already starting to feel the same Renato Laporte let's be honest the g6 launched a long time before the s8 and it didn't help LG was there showing the g6 to the world we were all talking about s8 rumors and how fake the fingerprint put out fake the fingerprint placement does so as important as timely launch and availability is promotion put some pop-up stores and stands in places ads be active on social media get a deal with snap and Instagram and work to make the best Android social media phone camera ever I don't know but do something and lastly again from James from James Vincent LG don't really seem to care about their products they never replied to any tweets either they don't interact with their customers it's the perception of the brand I think is the biggest deal yeah and so LLG life's good but are they listening good are you doing the listening what good is there to listen with the LG LD listen good I think I think that's the perfect note to wrap this show up before before we jump into my end spiel I just want to say thanks to all the folks that followed pocket now throughout the CES adventures we've got a ton of videos out there you can catch of course I may be meta really there you have it folks another episode with the pocket now weekly has come and gone this show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where Jules is at point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy please send us those tweets using the p-n weekly hashtag and use that email podcast at pocketnow.com for our monthly wrap-up listener mailbag we've got some cool questions already we want to make sure we've got some fun conversations for you guys and shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews on iTunes stitcher Google Play and wherever else podcast reviews can be left because ultimately there wouldn't be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air since 2012 the PocketNow weekly we'll be back next week with all kinds of delicious technology goodness so make sure