Gadgetory

the Google pixel two would get a fancy new Qualcomm processor we see another Samsung Galaxy s8 active leaked and will Google finally merge Google Play Music and YouTube red but the big news of the week Motorola publicly unveiled its newest flagship the z2 force to sysm to some somewhat mixed reactions Julian from Digital Trends is gonna drop by to chat about this new moto and modular phones so make sure you're charged and ready for episode two six three of the pocket now weekly recorded July 28th at noon pacific time 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 a modular phone meant a phone made out of Legos and I still want a phone made out of Legos I'm Juan Carlos bag now senior editor pocketnow.com blasting the signal from sunny Southern California joined as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong out on the East Coast how's it going sir hello and I'm doing great I have this new yellow waiting thing it's it's it's basically the only light bulb I can throw on top of me because everyone's complaining about the lighting it's only taken 50 episodes to fix so I very much enjoy actually being able to see your face instead of like sort of the backlit you know it's it's like when you sign up as a profile on like a new gaming account and all you are is this silhouette and I can just pull it even more so then the lighting is even harsher and look at that warm glow I'm sorry podcast listeners that can't look at this right now but when we're off the show let me um I'll send you a link because there's like a really cheap work lamp that I use that is way too bright to point at your face so I reflect it off of the wall behind my monitors and even that usually blows out like like for for how bright this shot is right now all of this is from like a thirty dollar work lamp that well it's not gonna make much of a difference anyways because hangouts likes to squish me whatever way I can into the stupid not pillar-box them what's the word for it that's that's absolutely accurate no pillarboxing is where the crops are like this letterboxing letterbox it's super wide so you're you are being color boxed right now and again in owing to our weekly complaints about Google Hangouts we have no idea why I swear I can't leave Julien choke audio on this podcast though because he is uh he he was at the Moto event with me and we were all in the same environs talking about the moto z2 force so can me for that in the meantime tell those questions in on to Twitter with the hashtag P and weekly and we shall look those up and we didn't get any listener mail this week so also spam us almost spam us with questions podcast at pocketnow.com is where you should send your questions in and we'll get to them on our next show or whatever you will you send them in so do that yeah I mean I'm in the hash tag now we've got a number of people asking about the moto z2 force we've got a question from Dennis about a so many s7 edges with pink lines of the s8 screen and and well we'll try and get a few of these at the end of the show just because I think that's a great question when we're talking about durability Plus to me Oh chefs s7 edges yeah well in literally the edges on the s7 edges you're starting to describe that I think we're using the word edges too much infinity pool the infinity display before we get into more tech tomfoolery though we would like to take a moment just to quickly plug a new series on pocket now some ideas need a proper debate and so what we're creating is a new show called the tech debate to tech fans on opposing sides of a topic hash out the pros and cons and we're developing the series to bring on guests and dick little deeper into controversial questions the pilot episode is already live on the PocketNow YouTube channel where Jaime and I try to analyze the value of premium flagship phones against mid cost competition and it's up to the viewers to vote on the conclusion to vote on who was more persuasive in their arguments future debate topics are gonna dig into batteries and politics and headphone jacks iOS vs. Android we've got a bunch of things planned a gentlemanly discussion about controversial topics we hope you'll check out the tech debate and if you liked it give it a share if you don't like it also give it a share cuz you know helping us out with some pitchforks and torches isn't necessarily terrible either but that first video is already live definitely go check it out and it's something that we hope will bring some value to the discussion of technology and technology topics yeah value-added discussion it's one of those things that's you know taxable in Europe I love that phrase value-added discussion like indeed you know what we can add value the news the news it's loading so slowly why is it doing that yet is that these things are live so things in the middle of a show but you know what let's get to it before the wheel of July 24th 2017 this is all the news that's fit to podcast and we start with Chinese manufacturer meizu and has two new phones each with two camera systems and two screens the pro 7 and pro 7 plus run on mediatek helio x10 processors use high-end 12 megapixel Sony sensors with a color monochrome setup and behind the large screen upfront 5.2 inches on the main in fact went seven inches quad HD on the plus is a small screen below the cameras with shortcuts notifications and perhaps a little bit more sales begin in China August 5th that's portents kind of hoping for us thing going on there there is word of Qualcomm putting out a minor in duration of its Snapdragon e35 chipset for the pixel 2 from Google much like that 8:21 was to the 820 the snap Derek and 836 could both the next pixel and pixel XL phones now the realm that we could still see a snap 8:40 8:45 that's supposedly what we're talking about here but there is no real turnover time right now so I'll have to see about that galaxy I say it active leaked out onto YouTube with a little I don't know it's a shaky cam she's a little treatment like that vibrance and wide and infinity display we also have some specs that we can dig into from an earlier post this morning actually so we can check that out but the key figure to take away is a four thousand milliamp hour battery so endurance is the key word no sign of a release plan by the way so coming up to that August 23rd event I'm packed for the Galaxy Note 8 let's hope that's these things don't Clyde very sketchy details on this story all we know is that HTC will have a 5 standalone VR headset running the Snapdragon III 5 faxes to the vive port at platform this was announced it was in China and that all we know is that's gonna be out later this year but it's a step in the right direction I suppose next is 5x and 6p owners are suffering from boot Lu problems they might want to check if they can deactivate the power cores the big cores on their SOC S on the 808 and 810 snapdragons xda-developers came across this barge of a fix recently and found that while performance was inhibited from before when they had the issue it works you can get past the boot screen so there you go there's an ongoing class-action lawsuit for the next six 6p by the way and now your very own chance to win and one plus five if you own a one plus five the company pushin about this giveaway to existing owners of the very phone it's giving away people are also very married about oneplus nudging people to give feedback through added notifications these toast notifications they're just intrusive unwell and wah I can't I can't tell if it's unwelcomed unwarranted it's both bozo on to aut bread and Google play music the development team for the two programs were already combined for a long time now but now the two services themselves will merge at some point and go under a different name record label see this as a move to provide a more complete package for a licensing of music and videos together we shall see about that and then as they attach the iPod Touch is the only iPod left on offer from Apple and two other two of the many options actually have been taken away prices cut and those are the 16 64 gigabyte discs that we've seen drop out of existence basically the iPod shuffle is gone after six generations and so is the iPod Nano after seven both debuted in 2005 with the first video playing iPod which I owned by the way so um thoughts memory is our IP yeah I you know I was one of those you know I'm gonna be a counterculture nerd geek boys that you know I had a creative player and then I had a Zune but I don't think I I don't think it's it's unwarranted to use your word there to really congratulate Apple for an incredible run of democratizing digital consumer media that these products revolutionized truly revolutionized not only just I can put an mp3 on a mobile device but the entire chain that we've come to understand for how music is acquired how music is consumed how music is stored really did come from this entire ecosystem approach that Apple that Apple pioneered so it is kind of sad what's funny is this is coming right on internally here a pocket now I just reached out to the folks at Pheo cuz vo they make some standalone music players and I was getting ready to do like some showdowns like you know Pheo versus iPod you know here like this well I guess it's not not gonna be as important for me to do as many of the cross comparisons for a standalone music player if apples even walking away from from the market if there's like another ipod touch generation coming up maybe they should just call it iPod and like there's no other iPod anymore it's just it's just or maybe maybe even better they they revive for old times sake like the Nokia 3310 the original click wheel kind of thing that would be a cool thing to have long and what's maybe five years from now that's like wasn't it like thousand one that they introduced the original iPod I would have to look that up I'm terrible at trying to remember time like I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night but you know III wonder if there isn't gonna be some future market for again you know vinyl is making a comeback maybe a standalone media player could also make a similar come back in a couple years this I don't want to put everything on my phone my phone battery is already taxed enough as it is I think there would be an opportunity for Apple to like do an anniversary edition or something like that sometime in the future but you know in the meantime we'll have iPod Touches still as long as they're in stock you probably still roll up on like a Costco because they usually had iPod nanos and iPod classics and stuff they had the iPod Classic for a while after it was sort of ended so I don't know it could be a could be kind of kind of interesting missed LG coming your way it's today they have it active it that's also a powerful thing and we I didn't get a chance to look at the this morning's piece but it sounds like it's gonna be a fun fun thing I mean we have the same like infinity display as we said the same old hard shell so it's a polymer with metal inside problem it's one of your favorite phones ever oh really I actually like while you were doing the news I ran over to the to the Shelf of of phones to pull out the active line of phones has has always been my favorite line of phones from Samsung especially as Samsung has started with the galaxy s6 moving over to glass the Essex active is just one of my all-time favorite just devices in general let alone rugged phones I'm the s7 did get kind of weird and I'm sort of chunky but it's also what is Jules kind of frustrating to me is is this um you know when people are talking about a phone like the active and they're like oh well it's gonna be thicker you're like well no duh like the whole point of the active is that plated and that it's got a huge battery like to be complaining it's gonna be made out of Newton's gonna be made of neo giving him it's like it's gonna cover all the outside everything from I want a totally rugged phone that's indestructible but it has to be completely made out of glass and be thinner than like pencil lead man you know like thing that exists you've got it like move some pieces around so if you tell me I can have a Galaxy s8 which is more rugged for drops I don't have to worry about the black at the back glass shattering and it's got a bigger battery than the si plus I'm on board I am on board that phone give me that phone I want that phone but but you better before we jumped into the show that now the concern is we did a Twitter video where I was talking about this because the actives are my favorite I was out on a hike I was covering the LG X venture another rugged phone but you brought this up before the show the big concern is now were weeks away from the note eight launch every galaxy active that has been launched is has been launched at end of May beginning of June and we're still seeing leaks and teasers not teasers not even just like leaks and photos on stuff we're almost done with the summer this is a summer phone this is a phone you launched in the summer it's a travel phone it's an adventure phone it's an outdoor rugged phone I do you think we're too late it's gotta be summer somewhere I guess I mean it well it doesn't work like that but you know what how about the southern hemisphere how about springtime that's always fun what about the fall we're all between no even even even then no like I I think an s8 active just gets eclipsed by no date coverage I think it I think it's it maybe it's too late maybe they especially you know with the AT&T exclusivity because this has always been that case where it's just that niche so I'm I guess you know if it was gonna appeal to that niche anyways they're not really they're betting are not really getting any interference from the no date so untrue I mean you know as you got a match your audience to what you suppose they want that's why I would say maybe it's just a good idea to skip it this year like if you can't get it out the door and there are problems with 18t certifying it and I mean I'm sure there's contracts and stuff too you can't just walk away from delivering a phone but whatever impact that 18t might have had with a phone like this I think is waning fast are you going to say that they should take the L I don't know that I'd go so far but maybe maybe take the f4 forfeit you know because it's like they're not even playing like they haven't even shown up for the game yet you know they're technically not losing they're just forfeiting technically it's a two to zero a victory for whoever the competitor is I don't this better for is going into hey I mean I've been I've been reading up I don't know too much job Boise lately so that that came thank you SP nation for for having him on anyways uh snapdragon 836 I think I think it's it's a likely case it's just it's just gonna happen well and especially with what we saw last year you know a 2021 it makes sense to me that Google would be looking at some kind of material advantage for the next generation pixel it's just I don't know that it's that significant to draw right the 835 is already not really being taxed by current software current services I don't see anything in this phone that makes me think that Google's gonna be delivering on their own AR platform I you know the no one's been saying anything about tango which is really taxing to a device and do I want a phone that's clocked higher than the 8:35 when he 8:35 brings power advantages and you know one of the things about daydream for VR is that it runs the phone really hot so really I'm just hoping to get more than 15 minutes of use before the phone starts throttling I don't need a faster chipset to do that than the 835 I mean it's if anything we hope that there's some efficiencies that they can find well getting that little 5 to 10% speed bump but you know would mind if they just went up the 8:35 altogether it's just it's just the top-end this is 2017 and that's the plane that we lie on so there you go YouTube read google play music that about time yeah yeah I mean like just to sum up our thoughts like that this should have been in the works this I'm sure it's been in the works for a while I'm shocked it took them this long the YouTube has way too many products Google has way too many products that are confusing and simplifying what yeah yeah exactly so my wife thought YouTube TV came with YouTube red because of all the different like YouTube shenanigans going on but you know I see we've got a guest we've got Julian from Digital Trends we've got a question here from Andrew Wallace on twitter using the pn weekly hashtag julian are you using youtube bread or google play music or anything like that oh sorry what was the question so from Andrew Wallace on on Twitter using our hashtag do do you use YouTube red or Google play music that would it matter that these two are finally merging yeah actually I have Google Play unlimited I have the family plan because it's super cheap then when you split with six people and I get YouTube red I particularly don't watch a lot of YouTube my girlfriend does and she loves that you know no ads thing I think that's something they should have done a long time ago it doesn't make sense especially cuz there's YouTube music and then there's YouTube TV and then you would think these things would have like an option to just bottle them all end and like they basically have to music streaming services - so it's alright everything should have been combined in the first place but you know what it took them all I don't it took them a little swerving path to get there so you know what I mean what's hilarious is that they probably had to work out different licensing deals just because one company was called YouTube and another company was called Google and when you're dealing with like an hour guys record label exact stuff like that like they're they probably had to jump through every single legal loophole to try and get one size fits all streaming up on the platform and it probably took them this long to deal with the lawyers well the problem is Google or YouTube have never been synonymous necessarily with music even though you know YouTube has been you know hosting so many music videos and everything for so long but suddenly you have Google making a music service and everyone's like okay but to be honest no one really knows I think still doesn't say that Google thing is it really exists and when you people hear YouTube music they're like what the hell is that I just listens go to YouTube and listen to music and now they're putting it together and so people are like I'm now learning of a thing that's combined that I didn't know before so it's just for the press release this was a good idea we have plenty more to talk about especially on our website pocketnow.com is where you can find details on these stories and more you can hit pocket now look for the podcast section to get to this episode's rundown and you can also chat with us about what you've been reading up on with the hashtag P and weekly also be sure to check out Jaime Rivera and the pocket nailed daily on our youtube channel and now it is my pleasure to welcome in Julian show cartoon of a digital as he is the multiple editor that outlets and a mic I he was at the moto world events where motorola lenovo moto novo Lenovo moto I liked like that which one do you prefer Julia well I think we're starting to actually now call them just motorola because we'll know it's kind of made it clear now that they're just going to do a lazy a fair approach and not touch motorola and let them do their own thing there's a whole thing where they were doing moto by Lenovo yeah and then and then and then they cut and cut like 1,500 staff yeah you know so it's like perfect this is the great plan you guys I haven't even held the phone yet you guys are starting off with like Downers you remember that time thousand jobs held it and I only have my experiences from looking at your review Julian or Mei your hands on obviously we're all still sort of producing reviews on these on these phones but I read your your hands on and I saw Jules's video and I I think I walked away from both of your experiences with more questions than answers as to where it's supposed to compete and who it's designed for and so I kind of wanted to jump in just sort of your general thoughts some of your first impressions from using the phone from being at the event I guess I should say first of all like does it feel like lenovo is working well with North American audiences because Motorola has been struggling through Google ownership and now Lenovo ownership Lenovo's a Chinese company is advertising going to be a problem for this phone can they express to consumers what makes it special I know go ahead please Julian like I like I think Motorola is a brand as you know you know brand awareness that they're fine in terms of marketing a phone it's just that whether this phone is worth that's such a high price is a different question because I really like the idea of moto mods I think that's something unique and really cool that someone's doing and not a lot of other manufacturers are really exploring or well LG tried it sort of but like I said so I like the moto mods but I just continuously thing everything every time I see the motor mod I see you know the phone I just don't think the Moto mods are priced right at all you either have to cut the price of the phone down and then sell the Moto mods a little higher or whatever or you cut down the price of the Moto months so that people you know are like sure I will spend another 50 or 70 dollars on this thing after I just paid $800 for my phone so I just think motor pods are a cool idea and I think people would actually use them especially if people are willing and I've seen so many people using battery cases on their phones you know the idea of just you slapping on a mod like that instead of carrying a case that's a battery all the time makes way more sense to me so I think people would be interested in doing that kind of stuff but I just think for what you're getting and for that high high price tag it's might not just be worth it for people I do want to build on that because like yeah I mean they're obviously all those analogs those non moto mod analogs for battery packs and gamepad the one that we saw at the at the event and there's also that 360 mod too and I mean I think it's the privilege of getting to just slap it on and then take it off like that but they're charging the premium for that's not the way to go with this I mean it's you know there's a lot of design behind it and all that but I think it's if it's not gonna be more economical as part of your package as part of your deal with the Moto ecosystem that's not gonna happen that's not gonna happen since sumers yeah definitely because this has been I think one of the things I've been most critical about the idea of a modular phone not motos implementation Moto's implementation is spot-on they work really well but I don't know and this is why I take it back to consumers if I'm gonna charge this premium I have to explain a concept to a consumer in an emotional way where they're going to understand why they should pay a premium for a product or service and I still don't see where a modular phone you can slap on a battery you can pop in a 360 degree camera you can use a game game controller style rig how that differentiates itself from just being able to plug something into a USB port I can have a standalone battery which charges every gadget I can have a 360 degree camera that communicates with any phone I can have a game can buy a ps4 controller and connected over bluetooth well your your sub gadget guy your moto not that your that doesn't withstand from the rest of us or the rest of the no but I'm serious like Julian kind of back to your point like you know you you were saying like you felt like Motorola still had enough brand awareness like I think there's a sense memory in this country for the Motorola brand but how do you get that message out there to say you know like well there's a reason why this is priced higher there's a reason why this batteries more expensive or this game controllers more expensive for the people who are really interested in those solutions I think they've found those solutions and it's not going to come from buying into a system like a camera like if I buy a canon camera i buy Canon lenses and Canon speedlights and all that stuff and it it all ties together if I buy a moto in the next year I want to buy a Samsung you know I should only buy USB accessories not moto mod accessories I don't think the average consumer really thinks of it like that necessarily I feel like a lot more people in general are way more tied to a brand than to an accessory so I completely agree so you know obviously so if someone's gonna buy a Motorola phone I think they're more inclined to purchase the next Motorola phone which is why they're probably more inclined to buy a moto mod and then say a well and I'm gonna be able to use it the next one so that's fine but another concern is the fact that I think they're they only said that they're gonna keep that same moto my design for the Z series for another year at this point I think no once you buy that like even if you buy a motor mount today that probably means you know in two years probably that things useless unless you're still rocking your motives you to force you know but which well may be the case but you know I think also the average consumer doesn't really hold on to phones as long as we think we like I think a lot of the tech community especially likes to you know switch up phones all the time and uh a lot of people I know hold on to the phones definitely for two years but there's also a lot of people have definitely upgraded every two years and follow that cycle mostly because is sort of in grow the averages we're looking up numbers right now is between 26 and 28 months so in in the United States so people are starting to break from that two-year contract cycle right so after you paid the phone off in 20 months or 20 24 months oh your bill just got cut 30 bucks you know I'm gonna hold onto this phone for a couple months before I run out and buy something new and that may be true but there are you know sprint might be the leading edge I see in terms of all the wait I'm still I'm still talking screen there we go spread might be the leading edge in terms of promoting leases and just recycling more devices so that they can keep that thing going with the 24 months or even 18 months in that case in any case I think what we're missing out on here is the design at well the device itself because yeah we might as well say like what's in the phone actually backing yeah no it's I mean it's the typical kind of 2017 thing that you would expect snapchatting 35 4 gigs of ram but you know it's all all this stuff in a very you know slabby kind of thing it's I mean so it's lights it's like 140 grams or so and it has a 5.5 inch oh you know display and so that inflates everything comparing that to an iPhone 7 the regular 4.7 inch thing you're talking about a third more surface area and just about the same kind of massiveness I guess you could say or the grams wise and for me you know the aluminum unibody felt nice and I make mention this pan on video but it felt like you know I was one of those weirdos that was able to run with the the freakin device in hand you know running from one demo station to that there and it felt weird this this whole you know it was like a wing it was like you know cutting through the air with a sword or something like that and it made it made me feel a little less secure about it now the like the county reaction to that would be the shadow shield screen that they you know it was on the droid turbo to you on Verizon and between all that you know that's supposed to save you some some grief although it's scratches pretty darn easily I saw Android police as a David Reddick share picture of his motor z2 force are ready I wasn't if I was a lot to sort of say something about that because I know I'm still under like a full review embargo but yeah there's a lot of edges on my screen already yeah I'm doing that from you know I never added so don't blame me that we haven't even gone to like let the shipping is supposed to take like a practical week for us because FedEx is like oh you have to it's from review right now but our RC rz2 forces is um but you know I like I had experiences with the the first Z Force and I think the shatter shield tech is again it's all gonna be a series of compromises we could make a screen that's virtually impervious to scratches but it would be probably too brittle to survive a drop so they've made a choice to flip that over but I kind of want to get just to circle back real quickly Julianne because you you were talking about this feeling like it was going to be too expensive immediately and and I actually have too many tweets to actually sum up all the people who have tweeted this question to us that a lot of people are taking the battery capacity reduction as a cynical move to try and encourage more moto mod purchasing on a phone that's already priced higher than like au 11 you would already sort of indicated that you felt that this was going to be an expensive purchase I was hoping that you could maybe sort of expand that thought just a little bit I mean if you just look at the back of the phone it's like clearly meant to have something on it like it looks weird in a way you might have people like oh what's wrong with your phone or it looks like your back came off or something like that and so I think they're sort of using that to their advantage to have people put stuff on it and that's why they're making it Oh where's our phone is so thin now well yeah you shaved off all the battery and now you're left to the smaller battery and but but you can buy our Moto mod so it clearly I think is a money grab I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea like sure I would like a bigger battery but they do sell the Moto Zi Qi play which is a pretty darn good phone for by with $500 still yeah but there are a lot of other options out there if you really want a bigger battery and the ability to have a modem on that it maybe expands your battery capacity to a lot more than you would have done if they didn't reduce the battery is also kind of cool so I'm not terribly offended by it but I just think the base price of the phone is still way too high so I'm of a different mind here because I'm viewing this yeah yeah it's it's big so this is the first time under Lenovo ownership that motorola has had a phone make it to all the major US carrier so we've even got US Cellular in that so and all there are all these deals about you know we're gonna give you a free modem out here we're gonna give we're gonna give you to boner mods if you buy it from Best Buy and you get it on on the network and it's just crazy and you know great for them for that kind of subsidiary kind of thing going on there what I'm trying to say is is that they had to produce a product that's you know if they had one shot that was going to be it and it was they don't have a regular moto z2 out there so then that to me we felt like you know that they were they were blending the two phones and so yeah it's more of an upgrade to the Moto original moto Z and not the Moto Z 2 for this is something that has consistently been a part of Lenovo design is AI with their think pads for example is that they would make a concerted effort to deliver the most portable the smallest the slimmest the sleekest and often at the expense of things like internal battery capacity but then champion something like really fast charging laptop battery tech yeah that was a Lenovo influence over Motorola this was a case of branding and you know market access realities and you know trying to bring that over to a phone which was you know it could have been just the Moto z2 but I guess now the taking of market realities I don't have a good just I really liked your phrasing there um I wanted to get your guys thoughts on the 360 degree camera moto mod because 360 video is something I've personally been having a lot of fun with we're still trying to figure out what to do with it but your thoughts on that implementation if you had a chance to check it out it seems I mean it's like it's one of those things that it's like fine it's cool that's awesome that I can take it and I've seen the stuff that I've out put it and it's actually pretty neat I tried to share it on Twitter and it didn't really come out as a 360 photo like it was just a super stretched photo and that was like yeah but then I shared it on Facebook and apparently that's just like the only place I can share it with the 360 or you could actually what you're not you're not rocking all this stuff on Google+ what well you know I'll have you know that I am the moderator of the most popular 360 degree photo and video community plus we have tens of you later on everyone wants to do the whole 365 day and it's great for VR but yeah I mean if I'm just sharing it to Facebook once in a while I'm not gonna spend $70 to buy it right and if then then I would do what like what you said and buy something I could just connect to a USB C port or something that I can bring over to multiple phones in the future is that something that I don't really care if it's tied to a particular phone I'd rather it be working on anything so even if I had to share it look like a girlfriend or a friend but then I could do that so I 360 is just a kind of a thing for me is if you like it you like it if you don't don't work with whatever the only thing that I'm looking forward to is a 360 live-streaming which is already hard enough from the consumer side I think it and it has some valid uses especially when if you can get things if we get the hardware down to something manageable I think that's the Moto 360 camera mod is barely it but in that case like there could be a whole bunch of citizen journalism or experiential kind of things going on that you know you can have life and I I'm not sure exactly what they are I think better minds than mine we'll find that out but um feel like that's an untapped potential and 300 part of the thing like when you mentioned citizen journalism for example like a common complaint I see you in 360 content is that people actually don't like the fact that they have to go search for what the hell is going on right and they don't want to turn around and oh the story is here look this way not that way but then I'm like well why am i watching in 360 then right because so that seemed like a lot of people complain about how you have to make VR stories in a good way that sort of encompasses that 360 environment because otherwise you're forcing people to try and search for it and that works with certain mediums and certain types of stories but you know for the average consumer I think that's one thing sort of like showing off breathtaking views yeah like for basically every single like here's a video of me at the beach here's a video of a car driving like we've got a lot of those it's what we've really struggled with is I feel that there is an interactive element to 360 video that if you have something where the viewer can discover something in the frame then it makes sense so we did a factory to her smartphone manufacturing Factory and you know three-quarters of the video frame one quarter of the video frame is me holding a camera looking mer you know like he's looking like a doofus but 3/4 of the frame you're allowed to sort of look where you want it wasn't about me trying to guide the narrative it was about you exploring what it would be like to be on this factory floor something like that totally makes sense to me but what's disappointing especially from listening to both of you talk about this is it doesn't sound like Motorola has done anything to improve upon the experience of taking a phone and taking a camera and plugging it in and being able to shoot upside down and you know the the the output is all weird and like oh the app flips the screen on in you're fine you know like I don't think there's anything other than the fact that you're not plugging it into your your CLO and you're just slapping it on so I'm not really sure what else they could do I mean I'm sure in the grand scope of all things 360-degree camera innovation there's stuff you can do but I think it's just a more of like a guess us to you know we're doing through the cameras my hours please though I mean they for all the talk that they say you know innovation and everything apart like moto mod was cool last year when they first introduced it but there's not really anything innovative now like a year on with the phone it's just a phone with all the flagship specs you'd expect and what I was hoping is is you know is was there a platform that made streaming easier was there or like a moto mod that maybe gave you high quality audio recording so you know like we're all working on different audio recorders when were out in the field or you know trying to plug into a phone to produce high-quality audio you mean like something like that again with a limited scope it's a niche product but that would turn my phone into something unique that would turn my phone into something useful for what I need to do so I would pay a premium for that like that that makes sense to me I don't know you you audio nerds just I don't think that would ever really care or want to buy these things well so speaking of mainstream um you know one of the things that I think was was more successful on Twitter when I was watching this sort of unpack I was watching people respond to this announcement was the the gamepad you dock your phone and you've got like you know a proper if it reminds me of like the old atari lynx remember it was like really long it had like controls that were sort of bordering this big screen or even the switch or even in attendence which is is this maybe the opportunity to to inspire some more daring design with consumers what with moto mods and then also like again I really feel like because your point there you know I don't really you're saying you don't really feel like consumers are are considering this with their phone purchases we've got to do something motorola has to do something to strike up the imagination or the interest or something to generate some good feels about these products and gaming I think is a perfect opportunity while we're looking at companies like Razer trying to you know produce a gaming centric phone Nvidia with their shield line is this maybe the opportunity to find a market that they can that they can build up a fan base with I mean it would be great if gaming could oval game you could get a boost from this game pad that Motorola is making but I have very sour feelings about mobile gaming for the most part I think there's great potential especially making like a lot of those indeed you find on steam for example making their way to Android and iOS but right now I feel like current state of mobile gaming is just so terrible just terrible terrible games sure there are some gems out there but most of it is like you know you know eight away or pay to microtransactions and all this little things and and I just don't Mike apart from you know those short quick games I don't really am NOT a fan and I'm a gamer so I'm not totally not really interested in mobile gaming but there again I think that there's an opportunity there and if people were interested then they could maybe create some awesome games for mobile gaming but I don't think Motorola's the gamepad is gonna do that I mean we've seen I watched Stuart Ashton's channel from the UK and he's obsessed a little bit with like those Android dedicated gaming tablets shield and you know well even the cheaper ones from China that you know you can import and I mean when everything else is just Bluetooth or it's an inch or it's just it has to be that one all in one situation you don't you don't really get much room for it's it's bulky it's I mean it's just the same with this and I just don't know how to feel about because myself I'm not really a gamer so when it comes to having the mod to compete for space with the laptop I always go I always go there because my backpacks always full you know if you're going everywhere with a battery pack or something like that you know how much room do you have for a motor mods like that I don't know well and that's actually another question too and I apologize to the person who tweeted this out of me because I can't find the tweet now is the the focus on modular phones maybe misdirected to that notion of I'm in the field I'm gonna swap it back and change part of the function of the phone in this moment instead of maybe it being I've got a bass phone which I will then customize to make the exact perfect for me not really focusing on what I can do to switch parts of it when I'm on the go because I really feel like the Moto mod idea is in this moment I need a gamepad I'm gonna slap it on there BAM I've got my my game pad and then I'm gonna pop it off and put on a battery when I need to extend my run time when I feel most people are gonna leave the house with a mod attached and then just kind of leave it there so it doesn't make any sense for them to leave the house with a projector mod but they will leave the house with the battery mod and then they're good for most of the situations that they'll need to use their phone for I mean I mean isn't that what project RL is sort of all about you know making that phone for you and upgrading it over time the parts that you care about I just think they made the right decision and closing that because I just don't think there's a lot of financial viability there and or the fact that people care what kind of RAM or speaker or thing they just want that's the border so my life Motorola's approach where you slap on things for certain events and occasions but the problem is you know a couple of things one is costs that we already talked about into like he mentions like the ability to carry these things around like I have a bag full of a bunch of motor mods and couple of them actually wouldn't mind using when I go out but not gonna carry that thing around like my bag does everyone the tech industry's bag is probably full and really heavy already because I carry like might be as Lauren everything all the time and I don't really want to carry two more mods just add some I mean again this really depends on the person but if we're talking mainstream I'm not sure if that's particularly useful for them but I also don't really know what else would be useful whether it would be project Aras method or motapod method but that's why I think just generally modular phones were an idea but I just don't think they're really gonna be going any further at the moment in the car landscape and what Motorola hats I mean if someone wants to prove me wrong and create this amazing modular film in short but from what we've seen especially with LG I just don't think that's too much interest where they may dream right it was also a little concerned listening to Andy Rubin talk about essential phone you know like again or III worry about any system I have to buy into that has proprietary solutions for problems we've already solved through USB what a fair point I mean we got the gradual treatments if not intended by Apple where you know there's the iPhone it's an Internet communicator all right we're going to put in an app store all right this already we're gonna do that I loved it that's for Apple all right I mean it's just it was just a gradual build-up and you know you're all starting with a decent device in the first place which I still think the this this is the marusici force is a decent device you know it's it's vibrant as it needs to be and it's simple software moto software has always been well recently always been a pretty good deal very clean and everything that they add to it is just okay here's how we can help you so there you go chop-chop oh and you're done 2014 and I think that still is my favorite phone of all time because I think that we go bring you as a client come on so I did a little pre-show this is the x2 um but but it was one of the the Moto maker one so it's got the bloody leather back the white front face I wanted the red accents red white and blue it's kind of my Captain America phone I like if I could get this with new mid Ranger specs and a rear-facing fingerprint sensor I would be so happy I mean like I would throw money at Motorola and sing their praises from the rooftops this was still one of my all-time favorite phone designs just gorgeous and it stands out I don't think is he well and I think that's the rumor there's like the Moto X that's supposed to come out this year you know one of x-force with me I'm fine yeah it could be it'd be happening maybe because magnetic snap Max is just not doing it for me well that's the thing too so I feel like they've box themselves in a corner with the c2 because they are like well we can't really innovate too much on the design because we have to hold this same format this is our runs where the xx4 or whatever the hell it's gonna be called is there sort of you know there's black shipping away their way to provide a phone that doesn't have to do there now we know you have to get going soon you have a heart out in just couple minutes right so before we land yeah I just wanted to real quickly if you could share some of your thoughts on on the camera tech because I'm the camera snob at a pocket Cohen I like dual camera shooters especially this implementation of color and monochrome and I read through your review and just if you could kind of unpack a few of your thoughts there too I definitely appreciate it I mean I really would like to see people just trying different things other than taking stuff from what other people have done and everyone's been doing you know Apple wasn't even the first one to have dual cameras but everyone's now copying the whole portrait mode and now they're taking from hallways black and white mode which is great but I think there's more than maybe could be done there I don't really know I think what they do the X the force Z to force offers is is fine that's possibly mine and it's going to be it's gonna be way more more frame than ever in it like the black and white is is alright I thought I would like it as much as the p9 but so far it's it's I like that well the p10 actually I like the p10 a little more and the portrait mode is surprisingly actually pretty good but only specifically on people on objects I haven't had any luck at all it looks terrible but I saw the point took a photo of like one of the little Android yeah poor antenna so yeah I mean it's it's fine I just don't that's like a part of my reason of why I think the phone is also priced too high because I think you could just definitely get a better experience a camera experience on other flagships and some of those other flagships are also waterproof which is another thing that could also mention but for me fine is like money take away from this this whole phone more or less I'm hearing a lot of it's fine it's fine it's okay little bits from the p-n weekly hashtag that we can get to Daniel Mladenov so if you saw if you plug a USB see 360-degree camera to one plus five it would have a normal display right referencing the recent controversy of oneplus installing their screens upside down technically yes Daniel if you used the insta error 360 app with the 360-degree camera then yes you would finally have your screen oriented in the correct direction same winter if you get penny modems II without emotive odd it would almost feel like part of your phone is missing which I think most people who could agree just by looking at the pins Laura Fagan what do we think of Moto's budget mid-tier range geez and LMNOP s catered to that range how competitive is that when blue exists I think it's very competitive when you're looking at Snapdragon processor Blue has a phones on Amazon like that's the big marketplace and they rank very highly on that but taken my family by store and storm I don't know Julian do you think that that's maybe a better strategy just to keep the the brand alive yeah I think they're they know they're heavily investing more I think their budget phones because there's just so much rivalry and competition going on there like they how many budget phones now the Moto an awesome on the end powerful but of g-series you know they're pretty great and you know they've been continually focusing I feel like on those phones way more I feel like they definitely made more of a splash on those phones earlier in the year when they were sort of demoing or showing them off especially mobile of Congress and then put this e24 it was kind of like this brushed press event where things just went by really quickly and it was like if the phone okay you know go away so I feel like and at one point you know the Moto G was the best-selling you know such phone on Amazon like 2013 so I mean maybe there's hope still that they can go for another one well and I just think for Asian markets you're gonna have way more traction on a Moto G for many consumers than you will on a Moto Z I think you're you're asking for a priced here that for communities that are maybe just recently jumping into LTE that's that's a pretty a pretty big chunk of change for someone to fork over unless Reliance geo decides to you know fail on you that day and everything goes to hell so gonna fail on you with an $800 phone it spreads that's worse than if it fails on you with a $200 or or a free phone or free phone that's true too yeah well on that note I would like to thank you Julian for coming on our show and just you know having fun talking about moto anything you'd like to plug socials work whatever yeah I feel like I can't not plug in our site but they go take a stroll down to Digital Trends calm if you guys are interested in reading and thanks for having me it was a lot of fun yeah definitely we were super glad you were able to join us especially for helping us to unpack all of this moto fun stuff I'd highly recommend people go and check out Julian's article on the z2 force it's a really good hands-on it's very complete lots of great photos after of course you've watched our video hosted by Jules on on the exact same phone with very similar talking points great minds think alike so on that note let's go ahead and put a pin in it folks there you have it another episode of the pocket now weekly has come and gone the show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where you can find Julian I am so sorry I'm gonna butcher your name Julian Chaka to check out through to Japan we just had I had the wrong yeah at Julian jakotsu Jules is at point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web on Twitter Instagram Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com now also in Spanish es pocketnow.com shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews anywhere podcast reviews can be left because ultimately there would not be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air 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