Gadgetory

this special episode of the pocket not weekly is brought to you by ops genie they're there when you need them you're devs and ops teams if something goes wrong with your business you can rely on them to get you back up and running as fast as possible and with the tools your team has access to with ops genie your next incident doesn't stand a chance visit ops Genie comm to sign up for a free company accounts for up to five team members no credit card required that's o-p-s GE and ie comm never miss an alert again with ABS genie from Atlassian no I'm still not guy fieri but this week I am indeed driving around looking for the best grub from roadside restaurants though this time around I have a best bud with me hello everybody and welcome to episode 334 of the weekly brought to you by pocket now and xda-developers recorded over two days from Wednesday the 28th of November 2018 now I'm somewhere in California and actually in each and every part of this podcast I'm in a different place in California as I Drive up the coast with the best bud you know him as either Michael Fisher or of course the mister mobile we're driving up the coast in a Hyundai Nexo and Michael was gracious enough to invite me to be his co-pilot on this particular test drive where we're driving a hydrogen powered car up the California coast we've gone from San Diego to Santa Barbara up to San Francisco and now we're actually in wine country in Napa Valley and we're gonna go a little bit further before this week is over but while we were on this trip we were having so many discussions on the road as you do during a road trip we've had a lot of fun gotten to know each other even better in our friendship and we had a lot of discussions that I realized we should be having on the pocket now weekly and this one in particular is a reminiscence of 2018 not only going through some of the best devices that we have had the pleasure of testing this year as Michael has done his awards video over on his channel which we do talk about in the first half of this podcast but we also look back at maybe some of the other pieces of news that came out some of the trends that we are looking forward to in 2019 that may or may not have started in 2018 rolling oh man I cannot believe I can't believe we're doing it this way no Sam is easier you can just sit there I should be a pilot what I own I would imagine that the boyband Mike says we've called him on the show are gonna help Oh most definitely I already feel like I'm driving a 747 can you give a quick explanation as to why we're even in this configuration well yeah because either the steering wheels over here so that's not what I meant we are in a car yes it's a very special car isn't it yes it is we're in a Hyundai and obviously mr. Boies here with us right now we're doing a special podcast for this week on ice one hour just discussion inside of the on date mixer which you're gonna hear a lot more of probably later this year definitely 22-18 obviously it is a hydrogen powered vehicle and we have been testing this out Thank You stonde sorry I don't know why I did that we there is a lot to like about where we are right now yeah aside from the traffic which we've taken advantage of and that's the reason why we've set up these cameras we are recording your podcast here so this is the pocket my weekly episode number 334 if I remember correctly but if it's not right you'll probably tours the correct number at the edge well yeah I mean we've spent the last few days together or spending a couple more and we're gonna be together next week in a whole different estimation oh that's right we have a lot of time together obviously you know of the as people say bromance between myself and mr. Moyer big time bromance brother ears I'm very very glad that you're my co-pilot for this one also thank you for agreeing to do the podcast in this manner no I was just thinking man like we're looking at the Android auto eta right now we're driving from San Francisco to Sacramento at the moment we've got one hour 54 minutes left and I can't think of a better way to burn time in traffic than podcasting because we've been talking this whole way anyway ever since San Diego so why not record something we really have like we've gotten to know each other very well on this but as far as tech related not really news is concerned because obviously I can I don't have a laptop in front of me Jules isn't in the booth yeah have somebody prompting me for the for the news items I kind of want to just take this hour to look back on 2018 get a little bit contemplative because mr. mobile here actually just released his video about the awards that he gave out for and this year's devices and I wanted to go through the Mentalist a little bit just sort of maybe gush but also reminisce about the year that has been especially the last few wants my goodness oh yeah good god I love to the spread of awards you had Sochi that the first one was the captain two phone's award right thank you yeah I don't remember what order we put him in but the captain two phones award most definitely because I knew I wanted to issue an award to like here's the thing with the words right it's always best stuff it's always best of it's always the best the top the the winner the the loser the you know it's like I wanted to do one that was the weirdo award like here's the phone that I really frankly have never recommended to normal people but it's a phone that's so charming or weird or otherwise niche that it demands that okay I'm gonna carry this so I'm gonna have to carry a second phone to make up for its shortcomings yeah and that phone was like BAM and that's that's so cool because as many of you know the two of us car right now are generally advocates for that keyboard yet were the last two right yeah we are as attention to tech bloggers world we indeed yeah I'll never always remember that one picture we took a Google i/o low a while back and we were all holding at the time it was keep one yeah we were also happy with it and it was like yeah what you see in this photo is literally the amount of people Pope's would just use this fun we're selling like blackberry fans short of course there were people who buy the key to and it's it's great for a lot of folks but for people like us who rely on cameras in particular you know you need a second phone and for the various other things like a big screen if you wanna you know I don't watch netflix on my key to folks started at this point I have I've done extensive YouTube dealing on there have you really I have some YouTube you it takes a little while to get used to I will admit yeah and you have that entire keyboard on the side that sometimes you wish you could use for certain functions like skipping forward a few seconds or use the scrolling app for us the scrolling ability in order to do the the seeking inside of the video yes obviously not the case but that's fine like I look past it I think oh you need and you know what's wrong but if the key to how I've always viewed myself as a very tolerant tech person in the sense that because like I know people who would look at the key to they would see that keyboard on the side the fact that the screen is not even sixteen by nine it's definitely far from 18 minus 3x2 it has 3 by 2 and they would just they would just lose their minds over it so upset there were two beats just so much vitriol in their voices when they talk about the experience I'm not that way like it doesn't take much for me to adapt and you know what's crazy is like you will get feedback from all sides of the things of the of the question in the comments right it's like it seems like every every time that I get really enthusiastic about a device there's always a segment of folks who are just like you're being paid to say that or you're you're just you you just like everything or whatever and then when I really Slama divisors you're too hard on this you're too narrow so it's impossible to please everybody right now just gotta exist in our own way and that's why when I was due to putting these awards together I was like you know I don't have the review lab that that some folks do I don't really deal with the generative review scores I can't do spreadsheets of averages I'm just going to sit and think about this and select winners based on a cocktail of considerations including how much they've affected the market how how well they achieved their various objectives but also mostly how much they've affected me yeah for better or worse what's at the end of the day is well yeah for me yeah yeah and it's been the thing I'm about to say next is not to say that you have to create an award for the key to but I love that you had that angle and it fit right in yeah and it made so much sense like personally for me and I feel like a lot of people if I had to choose a captain to wielder what would you do you know what you've been awarded to what coordinates of the picks launch because next ring yeah hey I'm very much use the pixel table of the daily to begin with it's not the fish to be but it is yes pretty particularly in still mode I think it over to video yeah it might be a much closer contest between note 9 and pixels pixels at nighttime when I shouldn't low light a lot in video and the noise really is is still an issue I actually would probably have the pig song alongside some sort of something like any of the new phones coming out that have like mechanical parts that slide or motors like the Opel 5x just because it's fun fun then the pixel fills in all the gaps that that the first one doesn't have like the camera inside it if you like that would be Lakers right and I think a lot of people over here at pocket Malibu feel the same way that the camera is just so reliable that it makes the experience like I said in my review if you haven't seen that yet it's a Broadway channel of course I made just in his review as well so you can see right now well yeah I called it the most disappointing phone I still use every single day wow that's nice yeah and then perfectly encapsulated encapsulates it again did you have the the excel yes yes yeah I think if I if I use the Excel I would be in the exact same boat because I've tested the smaller one though every time I pick up my pixel three I don't immediately want to throw it into the sea I'm sorry the other exhales period well I remember I remember you and you and I were choosing our devices and you're kind of adamant to whoever we were talking to thank you yep and I wanted the large one I wanted to see what that Lord would be able to do that fun I'm happy to report that it is generally a fun to the finest read even with that action like am i hiding use nacho nacho nacho now and you also don't have the penalty I pay the price for the smaller phone because the battery doesn't last long at all from the small zexal just like it never has the smaller pixel has never done one but even then the XL I would not I would definitely not call it isn't that crazy you're not running any crazy extra software on it you're running Google's the pixel and take on Android you in its doing this crazy of RAM management thing where he's closing apps on the background much more often than I think it should and yet these things are not battery performers it's very very strange yeah I if I remember correctly the pixel didn't really make a newborn's didn't didn't now as good as the pixel is and as much as I genuine they do use it all the time it's it's this struck me as a year that Google really didn't excel in any particular respect outside of the camera which is particularly which is already what we were expecting yeah so it just seemed it just didn't really honestly I didn't consider it for long at all I sort of knew all along but now this isn't really a year where the pixel is shining so no indeed yeah look back the pixel to excel was far superior in audio quality oh you mentioned that in microphone I just remember times David Emmel shouts out to David he once did a full voiceover just using the pixel 2x I did it using a voice recorder nice I don't know if it would be I don't see why it would be different once you hit the record button in the camera I imagine it would it be different so I would say probably the mics long to our we've done that once on the three so I don't know sure is really odd but that is that is probably the most disappointing part is that the audio just I'm so bad so I agree with you it probably would not it would get the dual wielder award in my case but I don't think it would actually fit any of the other categories like what was that you had right what was the one that you did okay so just kind of waving my hand up here you can see that rings are now a thing and I'm trying to remember what was the award that you that you gave this particular ring you are wearing they said this was one of three awards that was classified under the stay mobile over the stand and basically I just picked that name because that's the catch phrase and but this was category focused on non phones okay so that's why it was one of the state mobile Wars it's just the best of the non phone stuff that I thought stood out this year for me it was the motive smart ring which I am wearing right now as well yes I'm wearing its competitor the aura and we were throwing around a few different terms because we were kind of comparing our rings over dinner the other night and it's like this is the ring for fitness trackers and my ring Deora is the ring for the biohacker and he likes cuffed openly guffawed into my stick hackers I mean I have to say that the motive does to a lot of things really well it definitely takes the fitness tracker and puts it into a four factor that makes perfect sense and it's something that you would quite literally wear all the time because it's that unintrusive yes on the other hand it's also good looking to it is pretty good you should have seen the original horror yeah we had a big old lump oh yeah it was huge little thing yeah it was really weird that's what I want version 2 came out it jumped right on it because I figured out how to streamline their design but the motive in particular link so step tracking sleep tracking hard tracking yes and you mentioned that it has I need the mini an explanation as to how this ring does them does the two-factor so do I used it now I have but it's like I looked at the technical stuff and I was trying to write it up and that's when the middle of tech Tober happened and I just like the review went right to the back of the show I knew what my conclusion was gonna be but I didn't I don't actually have the video put together yet so what effectively if you're familiar with a UV key or Google's tightened security key sure this serves the same purpose where if you're not familiar with that basically you input your password and then where you would normally get a two-factor authentication prompt being like hey let us text you your one time code don't use SMS for that and if you don't know what I'm talking about with two-factor authentication at all two-factor authentication on everything please immediately security oh man but instead of using that texted getting a text of code sent to you or emailed to you or through an authentication app you can just have a physical key and that motive ring can now serve as that physical key and you you tell the computer use my physical key and then you do this little little hand move that I can't really illustrate with words too well except to say like you know when somebody is asking you for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down and you're like it's kind of mediocre that's basically what you do and you just do it in open space the accelerometer tells the ring that that's what it's doing and it authenticates through bluetooth yeah to your computer whatever you're trying to log into Chrome or but it has to be able to tooth connect it to that device see that's correct so does a Yubikey or a Titan C key the very first thing you do when you're authenticating it is putting in their pairing mode it informs the Bluetooth connection you do at one time pen and it's it's sound here's the problem it sounds really complicated it's at if I was listening to this I would be like I don't ever want to buy that that sounds ways yeah but once you've once you get used to it it's great because no one who doesn't have that physical key can get into your stuff yeah and security should be the easiest thing to market to people but it's hard to the slight hard and you know do you remember what BlackBerry said when we were pressing him for questions on the key - yeah and they were like yeah well here's the problem of security if security is working right you never hear about it yes yes Rob it's true and it's impossible to sell that yeah just to give a little bit of extra information as to the ring that I'm wearing it's it is a fitness tracker but it's its main claim to fame is using that information to sort of coach you in the main metric that it does that they would have does not which the reason why I picked it is that it it actually it tracks your heart rate variability now I'm not gonna get into the Nitty Gritty of it but it's not just that it tracks your heart rate it also tracks the amount of time between the beats of your horns and when it's varied and it's it's different with every beat that actually means you're more relaxed and actually means you're quite healthy which is low is my mind yeah if you're a heartbeat even if it's at 60 beats per minute is the exact same amount of time in between every single beat that means that your heart is working on something that means you're it is actually working I should say it's not just relaxing I can't that's so crazy to me as I said to you the other night it was like I would think that if you were super healthy your heart would be the most consistent thing out there because when you think about it relaxation your breath is not labored it's not very it's not very uniform between breaths but what you need to do something your breath is actually very uniformed that's true but when you're just kind of chillin you're just like breathin you just breathe when you relaxing your heart is just beating this is not anything else so this tracks that and based upon those metrics all together it gives you like an assessment of your readiness of the day and it allows you to see whether or not this particular day is a recovery day or if you can push yourself a little bit harder than sham randomly bad and it's it's useful because I personally think that fitness trackers have a wealth of information what you do with that information is the next step that most people don't understand yet yes so that's why I like this the state level the world I don't know what I would give in that case but if it weren't going to be something contact like I don't know I mean even these GoPros that are right here yeah sir pretty awesome shooting this with the GoPro Hero seven if you're watching the video the Sun is getting darkness that's getting darker rather like the sun's going away because of daylight savings so hopefully the video looks fine right now yeah the ghosts have been really great and we've actually used it to get some awesome footage of Jesse driving this car thank you friend not visible that disrupter the disrupter yet again the the the the imagination of mr. robot is why I heard that at those two turned by heard that term muttered in the video I was like yes oh my god it's just the coolest name I am so grateful to hear you say that because I found it to be the most derivative like tech tech buzzword bro nonsense stuff like I the only reason I say lunch might be coming for you the only reason I called it I called it the disruptors because they is literally the most perfect award name yeah we do go back to phones with this one at any one I think I even said in the video anyone who's ever followed phones for even the last year knows already what this is and it's not because of of all the branding but but really the red hydrogen one really was no yeah the one plus 60 yeah which I love because like okay so just just just so we can get into like the general information about that we've used to sharing reminiscing in a more general sense phone of fun of the best fun I don't remember what you're used was fun of you say it was part of the year yeah here very very difficult to come to that conclusion but again we'll talk to it we'll talk to it a little bit later the hallway may 28 Pro is what I consider to be the front of the year the reason I wanted to bring that up in this particular portion of the discussion is of cause I have I on a personal level as GV I have yet to finish all of the reviews of all the funds just such a busy time as you can see but if I had to think of it right now now what fun I think the phone of the early Teddy between those two Oh between the one was 60 and the maintain a brownie pro and he's interesting part of the reason is because the availability of the one plus 60 is such a compelling part of that package Emily should probably reiterate right now that we're coming from an American perspective churro is and the 60 hitting carrier shelves the first one plus to be sold in a carrier store that is huge for us literally available all over the US no and to be honest pretty huge for oneplus 2 with their demand for the 60 up 86% everything up over there yeah brilliant props to them and also it's just really great to see that a solid maybe even more than solid phone is getting the exposure and the for distribution that it yeah deserves and even that you were saying it's now we do come from up more the u.s. centric perspective but if you were to compare the mall plus 6 to you that means the may 20 pro is far more than that in how many places it's available to dusty definitely unless you have County of Europe you have India each South America's is available not only different e-commerce channels easily and that's something it is available to you Congress isn't that's what I meant to say which is actually not something to be enjoyed very true but just let's just stick with a 16-4 one second yeah I want to say that like I think I've seen a little bit of pushback in the comments I want to say it's totally justified I think everyone's sort of tired of one-plus doing this thing every year that they do where they're like hey we made a really great phone at a really affordable price but we kind of kept bumped up the price if they do every single generation and by the way don't tell me that don't tell me that keeping that eliminating the lower storage option is not bumping up the price yes this is the same as the last 128 gig one plus phone but when you eliminate the 64 gig or whatever that tier was your de facto increasing the price don't get taken in by that crap guys secondly you know oneplus has also leaned on this branding for a long time it's like yeah with it we're the alternative where the where they you know you don't have to pay this much for your phone you should buy this one and they've leaned on the community angle for a long time or it's just like we you helped us design the phones it's like yeah that was true you probably would have kept in the notification light than the headphone jack there's a lot of things to complain about with the oneplus if you're a 1 plus fan triple what struck me about the 60 was it's it's the first one for normal people that normal people can buy and that I can recommend without and that I can recommend without saying yeah you gotta buy it unlocked and you gotta you should get it on Amazon or whatever or oneplus X no just go in here t-mobile store buy it or buy it unlock to use it on Verizon and you're gonna get a great experience for 550 bucks that's fantastic I hold I wholeheartedly agree they also have to give some credit where credit's to that despite some of the choices that warpless is made to remove certain features like the headphone jack at least they're putting an effort to make sure that those walls are at least addressed by creating a great twenty dollar pair of earphones in the USBC points by creating a great opportunity to make nineteen dollars and ten cents and that is that is the harsh reality of it but i would be more upset about it if those were crappy ear foods and they just were not for the record are these the ones you talked to me on the other day yeah the microphone is a low to hear everyone around me plus me and it was hard to hear me because man hear the person twenty feet away from you digesting their meal they sound fantastic and they're they're usually excess they even then oneplus also has the bollocks wireless which themselves if you're a blue tooth person at all those are really good holidays not really great you know and at least are trying to address those things in certain ways yes it would be best if they have the end from Jack and just kind of call it a day on that but you know at least you can recommend to I could recommend the bullet I actually recommend the bullet or less to be is a good yeah and on the flip side of the gauge I'll call out another one of my stay mobile award winners with the Sony WH let's write 1000 x m3 or the mark threes there are $350 but I love that you can they're the best over-the-air Bluetooth headphones I have ever used and I love that you can buy those and a1 plus 60 and still come away paying I think like a couple dollars less than you would like a note 9 or and I found yeah at their launch prices obviously all the fountain prices have come down for the holidays and even then I'm running yeah that's true but node 9 was close though it was ya know 9 is still a beast and every time I use it we've been using on this trip a lot cuz folks I don't know if you know California big state not covered by every Network my only Verizon SIM is in the Verizon is in the note 9 so every time I pick it up to use it on this trip I'm like oh god I forgot how much I love this phone was that your unit provided by Samsung yeah so okay good you just confirm something for me that I have been meaning to test if a verizon said would work and oh no not yeah absolutely I have not done that I just kept it in my pixel yeah okay so with that the May 20 Pro okay this is the I'm still it's a daunting task to review this not only for pocket now but also for myself because oh my god there's so much to talk about yeah I want to hear your take on them 820 Pro first I wish like I say the same thing every time I wish I could give you more info than is in my head right now because I actually haven't used it properly as a Dale like for long enough to formulate a full opinion and this is one of those phones that requires that amount of actual usage and I'm not just talking about taking it out to like a food festival or a food truck festival and taking pictures with it and assessing it in that situation you have to use it at night you have to use it on a trip you have to use it when you're out and about because the camera is that versatile at this point you have to wide-angle you have the night mode you have good stabilization in the video the video mode may not be the most robust interface which we've learnt over the last couple of days and so you have to understand you have to understand that this review I think this year is the hardest one because what the oneplus 60 I can wholeheartedly recommend it to everybody for the razor front to which I'm reviewing right now it's a great phone for what I call the unapologetic the people who are like I I know exactly what I'm buying I'm a razor fan I want the whole world to know it so the unapologetic for that the pixels for like IG boyfriends and photo takers but the meet Tony Pro it fits in so many different categories in different ways and them I'm flabbergasted by how to succinctly say that in a review well from my perspective the may 20 pro is is a hardware tour-de-force yes I mean I'm I really mean it when I say hardware because when it comes to software I think we could have a whole podcast episode this this length just talking about the things I would change about the software yeah um but I was sitting there in that New York City briefing getting the lowdown on the may 20 Pro a couple weeks ahead of its launch and I realized a little more than halfway through that briefing that I was gonna have to reschedule with the entire rest of my year because we had the opportunity to go to London to spend five days with it's shooting with the may 20 pro in London and I needed to take that I had said no and I needed to reconsider because it between all of the cameras that you mentioned the the facial unlock stuff that no one really has copied as well and I do mean copied from the iPhone with the possible exception of yeah and the wireless charging and reverse wireless charging which by the way is the best crab Cruiser you bring that to Thanksgiving dinner as I did and you're like my girlfriend's dead his phone was running low and it's like how is that a galaxy s 9 pass over here I'll just put my bait 20 Pro down face bump down the table put it on top and I'm giving a mature then 20 minutes later he got 1% and I mean and then you take it all the way into the industrial design you know man and that the fact that they've hidden this speaker in the USB port like there's so many incredible moves that hallway made in terms of hardware that phone it it reminds me of what it's like to get excited about a phone again true like I'm excited about the oneplus 60 in a very practical way yes like it's like an easy Android phone to recommend and it's probably the best Android experience you can get from our software perspective right now but for a phone that like just inspires the imagination I don't think you can do better than m8 20 Pro this year ideally just don't and you said it all about the camera already we should say that we're using a May 20 Pro as our primary mobile camera for this shoot in this Hyundai and up until today I have not regretted that for a second I got to diagnose a little problem yeah there's something that he that he has to look a little bit further into to make sure that it hasn't been a trauma where it hasn't been a more widespread issue yeah Oh framerate problem and shooting wide-angle video by the way we are passing we're gonna that's Napa Sonoma yeah I told you we were gonna pass through this here we're gonna drive past the windows XP Hill on this trip I think we have but unfortunately it's not the best no we can't show you - it's dark before Shane I really hope the videos looking good right now I am sure it's not well with that in mind I actually have actually had an idea we're at the 29 minute mark what if we were to cut it that way the rest of the video tomorrow we can do it during the day okay yeah I want to do that is because I went ahead I don't know if you saw strategically set your award video discussion as the first half of the podcast yay I did not realize that because now we're at the 30-minute mark so if we were to cut right now I can do like a transition thing I'd be like hey we're back we realize that the Sun was so down that we just decided to the rest of the story of the day it sounds like a good plan to make brother see we cover all my Awards was there a where those did the stay mobile well the other Nintendo switch but who cares that's that's stay mobile and three and then there's disruptor there's best of and the oh then there's viewers Choice Oh worst add add to that yeah okay so I just remembered word cut I just remembered that there was one more and I think the reason why I have forgot about it was because you were still getting your entries for still M as we record this all the time this goes up the viewers Choice Award will have been selected that is the final mr. Mobile 2018 award and it's chosen by viewers like you so as I said I think it's probably too late to vote by the time this airs but should I give it well won't be a spoiler well why don't you put in what like what what the top three I believe the trending top three were Galaxy Note 9 okay while we made 20 Pro and I don't know I'd really don't I don't I don't know what it wasn't wouldn't be surprised if it was like the one plus it's possible yeah yeah it may have been iPhone 10's max I'm not sure but yeah so I'm looking forward to seeing which one wins and I I'm very very eager to have that conversation in the comments because anytime you do an awards thing as you know everyone's got opinions and that's what this was pretty cool about it because we all have different criteria for what best means right oh yeah for sure that's bestest social it's it it supposed to be nebulous yeah you useless turn such an odd thing yeah okay so with that in mind since the Sun has gone down quite quickly once we started recording this something that we were halfway expecting we're gonna go ahead and just sort of do a bit of a transition from here we'll see you once we have more Sun in our next segment it sounds like a plan the PocketNow weekly comes to you with the help of casita by Lutron today I want to talk to you about casita by Lutron smart lighting control brought to you by Lutron pioneers in smart home technology with casita you can schedule leader lights to come on at dusk so your family always comes back to a weld at home and it does so just by you saying so with the help of Google assistant Amazon Alexa the Apple home pod or whatever smart speaker you might use in fact you can connect casita to smart thermostats from nest as well as smart cameras smart locks and a whole bunch more for example our producer extraordinaire Jules has set up his lights that you can call for mood lighting whenever he watches all of the movies he doesn't have time to watch which leaves me wondering what moods he actually has but well whatever in any case get smart lighting and get it the smart way with caseta by Lutron just search for it cas ETA or check out Lutron comm to learn more cosecha by Lutron welcome home it's a peace of mind welcome back with the PBS telethon we have switch seats this time it's the day after that original first half of the podcast so yeah after coming back from our break yesterday or rather in the previous segment we were talking about his awards the best products of 2018 as a worker I kind of just want to talk for a little bit I'm very casually about 2018 in general like I feel like this year has been if things have been ramping up to bed as I've said some more device releases like higher frequencies right this year was like the craziest in recent memory it's crazy because I think we said that about 17 as well oh really yeah well at least I did I was like oh my god I can't believe our phones are back baby we're not it's not boring anymore and then yeah this year just October absolutely crushed it yeah not necessarily in terms of quality though that may be true but just the quantity stuff sadly you had phones everywhere wasn't deniz I post something on Instagram about she did yeah should free tech reviewer she had a little pose where it looked like she was being a little bashful and she was like oh my god I just wish and then if you if you look at it and you see someone wrote they just wish smartphones would stop yeah but I'm glad that it only really came up in mainly October I'm glad that the entire year did quite feel like oh you know very surely Suzie lookin fine getting a chance to catch up now and you know you post a video of when you post it and then what fortunately in our line of work there's always someone there ready to say I'm puns late like always then you can get a nice good rush of satisfaction by banning them for a few we've been having so many discussions about of a creator the life of a tech youtuber I don't know what kind of term you want to say but yeah there's so many little quirks to the song there are and this is only like one facet of it's the fact that these phone manufacturers just don't seem like they want to stop there's so many phones that came out this year that even in the first half of the year I feel like some people may have kind of forgotten and I think that's a bit of a travesty I mean the Gallup the Galaxy S nine for example the LG G seven even HTC phones from earlier of the year that weren't exciting when they were first being announced the domain itself and that's even a more recent release that is already feeling overshadowed by four phones just after it definitely and that's the pace of this industry it's crazy which ones do you are you do particular one thing you're like said aren't getting getting the FaceTime and it worked pretty much pretty much ideology device yeah LG has been a real sleepy sleepy time this year yeah I mean there are some incredibly sound things that are being done with their phones like the boombox yeah sorry I don't mean to say that like the products are snoozefest sigh just made like it seems like every time LG has released something it's immediate superseded by something more splash where they were Buzz worthy or it didn't really take hold in a way like g7 yeah you didn't have a company as I recall they were there was maybe one carrier partnership with that right it's probably just eighteen T right it's a sprint hosted sprint okay I can't remember how I ever been and then so that was kind of a real stall in the US don't you know citation needed don't quote me on that one but as I recall the carrier Gil's worked out is intense on that and then the forty rolls around in v40 is like we're on a every carrier and we're all like hooray and then I think something like twelve hours later the p20 Pro drops it sort of just sucks all the air and s oh poor LG it's hard to its high can appreciate the fact that it's hard for these companies to know when so they don't exactly know what the training will do to a productivity cycle and it must be tough I feel for them they don't know as much as like they have a release window and they have to strategically you know it make the think the most of it I will say if I was LG I made my same move on be 40 because Huawei p20 Pro doesn't launch at the United States that's true so on one on one hand like yeah and I don't mean to say that help she has been a disappointment by any stretch the imagination there's certainly things I could have been done to not only not only get the phone in front of more eyeballs but also in terms of some of the features because obviously so many phones have come out that we're starting to see features actually proliferate and even more foam it's like the wide-angle is now a thing in more than just LG phones for example yeah so it's these about that yeah you've been using it actually the beats when you travel I've been using them a trained pro on this trip almost it's almost exclusively just which is the node 9 for today probably bust out that be 44 some of the interior shots tomorrow just so we can evaluate its wine and versus p20 throw a little bit more now that's updates and all that means me crazy sorry May 20 program name it's a little hard for me to IP ok so some tangent it slow hard for me to do the turning my head to see the the other Lane because of the mic but it's night it's use it in the cluster I was about to say it's nice as we're doing this road trip just another little tension a little bit of context awareness here we're on our way to yet another landmark but it's not going to be Tahoe the reasons why you can see in about this particular vehicle right now and I'm in the driver's seat is it fair for me to say I want to talk my wants and ask you what your what has liked you to warn me before so I can think about it I know and at the same time I'm thinking of myself like just how far do we want to go with this in particular we're not I don't want to disparage anybody we just want to be empirical we want to be objective about I'm not worried about that I'm just worried about being able to remember and it's generally a disappointing product will come and go and then you just kind of forget about it there's no time you have to go think about the next thing people care about I will say the first thing that jumps to mind for me and I'm sorry I don't know if you want to keep this to phones but I'll just throw it out there triggered still relates to it agree it's the surface laptop 2 for Microsoft Oh everyone was telling me that that I remember when it was announced I should practice that it was announced people were so excited for it yes and myself included okay because the surface laptop first gen was such a comfortable machine is a pretty machine as well they came to that lovely blue you can type on that Alcantara and have the nice fabric beneath your palms surface laptop to is basically the same exact machine with some respect bumps on the inside and while that's a typical complaint you hear in this industry it's not just that I'm annoyed that it's an iterative bump I'm annoyed that they didn't do the one thing that would have made it a 20-18 machine which has put USB C in it I know I'm a broken record about this but guys if you don't have USB C in in your product I don't care if your talk about an earbud charging case or a laptop desktop replacement laptop yeah you I can't take it seriously you're already shooting yourself in the foot in terms of like ubiquity among the tech yeah I mean people and people of my comments are complaining because I've said this in I think in the last three videos but yeah I can now charge everything I carry with me on with one cable and if that cable if that is not true then I'm not gonna carry that product I'm sorry the server's laptop too has no place in my bag if I have to carry around a surface blade charger with me you know it's it's funny you mentioned that because I feel the same way in a slightly pivoted manner I have been testing USB see earbuds recently and I love the fact that we're finally getting to a point where these earbuds could actually work with other devices than the ones they're meant to complement so for example the the Razer hammerhead USB sieve noise cancelling headphones that actually thinks I'm pretty good with the noise cancelling is what I love about them they're not going to really noise cancel everything out but even just a little bit goes a long way sometimes they work with my mate book extra oh yeah that is nice yeah I can plug into the USB see and exactly either of the two USB seaports and there you go I have an I have audio now I was like wow so if USB see isn't every single product I have then they can all work in Congress and I yeah I kind of look forward to that actually I understand there's some people out there they're gonna be like yeah but USBC audio where's the headphone jacks blah blah blah what's funny is that the maid book has a headphone jack also but since I only had those hammer heads on me they still works and I was really happy about that and it would be really nice when USBC finally matures just to like get off the like you know brought to you by the USBC coalition ii like us PC is still broken in a lot of ways stuff that should be compatible it isn't and even if the port fits it doesn't mean that it's actually gonna gonna work for you every time I'm glad it worked for you in that kids yeah it's far from Universal yeah but it's nice to see that more things are starting to sort of just fall in line true and yeah I have an anchor power break that I connect a bunch of things to in order to charge my stuff I can connect my my laptop or my phone or these GoPros yeah to it to charge things and that's nice I hope it becomes more and more prevalent neither a great example of a USBC embrace ersatz hero 5 or 6 I've got I can't remember to ask I'm fantastic do not make me carry around an old microUSB cable to charge my stuff I stopped a few of my back yeah I just can't get it away from it right yeah cuz like the minute you think you're free of it like a company will release a SmartWatch and they'll use a dock that's like you know it has a micro USB port but you guys where are you on sorry I was waiting for that we had a less traffic subsonic situation I was being very nice and that person was it's funny when you have that little pause it's like an awkward handshake you know you go oh it's he bone collision yeah exactly at least they looked really slow I was like okay okay so you just mentioned smartwatches like where where do you stand on smartwatches in 2018 after everything we've seen while we waited basically all year for the new version of Google's where OS to come out right and that version looks pretty cool now that we've gotten to play with it a little bit and it's starting to trickle out on devices but so far the only thing I've used it on for a long time is the LG watch w7o and I'm still very envious of you for having that but here's the thing it's not a typical wear OS experience because it it's the watch that has the analogue hands mounted over the display yeah and that's fun that's a cool little thing it makes this a very special experience but it also introduces a ton a ton of compromises because the production pipeline was longer so they had to use the old Snapdragon wear 2100 no it's got I couldn't did the same thing I was so disappointed yeah there's no heart rate sensor which I don't really care about some people do you know it's it doesn't get the new battery life improvements that the 3100 brings blah blah blah so that's really frustrating and I feel like we're still waiting for where OS to get some traction I think once fossil finally kicks in with all of its new 3100 stuff did they just fall support right yeah or but I'll talk about the whole fossil group Oh God and you know you we've really gotten to the Montblanc out which should be waiting for me and think I get to move into that one next nice a thousand-dollar SmartWatch true which is absurd and never will not be absolutely out until these things continue on they last for five years is not very good investment right I've made it very clear in my my last one or two years of being in this industry such a proponent of the hybrids now of a hybrid SmartWatch yeah I love them so much no you had a bomb too right yeah yeah yeah I don't I can't get into I'm like I think they're they're really smart but I still use a lot of the features of smart much I love reading holy emails I'm a smart one clothing like that's archived not me yeah you know I just I just keep going back to the same thing I know I don't want to sound like a broken record now either but if I'm going to spend that much time looking at the screen on my wrist I might as well just use that time looking at those smart phones straight anyway sure unless you're driving or you don't want to pull your phone out of your pocket well I mean this this experience notwithstanding I'm generally not looking at any of those things about driving anyway yeah and Angie no it does not come through Android auto so it's not like a nice try good yeah yeah by design I don't know I mean I feel like not much has changed the smart much space this year and we just I sort of wanted it to I wanted this to be the second coming of Android wear but we'll have to wait until next year to see if to see if that pans out and I will set the software is definitely better and the hardware is a lot of interesting potential yeah how about these trends that we're starting to see especially in very recent months the certain form factors returning to smartphones like this slider you got the Oppo find X ID the Xiaomi B makes three he'll set the owner magic to I prefer the mechanical like physical slide over the motor personally yeah I get that the find X motor is super cool it is but I I was saying before that I wanted to do a video on Thanksgiving about what I'm thankful for this year and I wanted to be controversial about what's going on perhaps off-roading over there is off-road oh no they weren't off-road and there's a road that we couldn't see and they were thrown up water that was a puddle through splashing what is this I was in Korea this is a branded vehicle it's a culligan water vehicle Oh interesting dilemma in that pure water wells now we've got some coming out of tail but we do we could done it yeah we were told not to drink it though yeah no no no I I wanted to do a video on Thanksgiving about what I'm thankful for in tech in 2018 yeah and I also wanted to be a little bit controversial and say I'm actually thankful for the knotch not because I asked for the dodged a bullet being a contrarian here we go here we are it's not because I actually like the notch it's because I love that it made companies getting you again getting imaginative most definitely get unique get creative with their solutions so that they didn't have to resort some actions and I think the 510 was the first ones really next I'll find X I keep saying it's confusing I think the fight tent was the first one to really capture the the consciousness a little bit because it was like owners back all looks so cool it's really it looks really awesome and it's like so so flashy but then that's lighter for Drive just absolutely adoring that right now once I got my hands on the show me and I don't have it yet for a review that is when I was in China and I was playing with it was just click click click click click like click like all day it was so most definitely I miss moving parts on phones to an unreasonable degree you always get people coming out of the Woodworks saying it's a valid point I get it more moving parts the more opportunity for failure but like I said I think in that Oppo find X video that I made like we went guys we went a decade where the clamshell form vector was the most prevalent in it's back when dumb phones were the only phones yeah and you know yeah sometimes flips broke most of the time they didn't yes well you know when you engineer a product you can deal with a moving part you know it's okay and it's not like we're gonna be holding these things that eight years gone like I hope my phone doesn't break you're gonna buy a new one in two years yeah potentially now you said clamshell on a crappy but it's not reality it is the it is the reality that's where tech has gone that's what the last few years have shown us like you're not gonna get a smartphone and then use it for a long long time I just made this point in my video that I said to go live about my first cell phone oh yeah thank the you know a cell phone that smarts right this phone has gotten so old that the petroleum the the petroleum in the rubber has started to destabilize the plastic is like turning into a liquid at some points of the body and 2001 like these things were never meant to last even back then yeah we have been in this throwaway consumer culture since then it's just the way the way it is right now you mentioned clamshell I have this you what you were mentioning like between parts of a clamshell and if they were broken and whatnot I don't think anyone's ever like like bent they're there they're flipped thumbs and the other direction so much that it actually cracked in half I've never seen anybody with like two halves of a clamshell phone you've never worked in a sprint retail store oh sure whether busting all the time but you know it's it's just like people think that that's gonna happen at the moment you introduce a moving part to something enough yeah not if it's well built it was not well built it's almost like we should have a cadre of reviewers who cover this stuff tell you that you might want to watch out for indeed and that is exactly what people are going to be asking us when foldables yeah finally come in so did you watch the the Samsung developer okay well you know of the the F or whatever they're calling it the Flex what I'm still I'm still not too sure what the terminology should be but the foldable and how excited are you for that particular trend that we finally got and announcement about it yeah I think it's going to be a lot of really bad products first you're gonna have compromises in the screen remember the LG G flex from back in the day I miss it it had a curvy - and had that curved display but in order to get that they had this display that like couldn't reproduce whites they can look like wet newspaper I think someone said it was a perfect characterization of those colors but then by the second generation that display had gotten a lot better so we're gonna see a lot of compromises probably gonna be a very very bad phone in its first iteration and we'll have to we'll have to wade through a few generations until it gets good what's your what's your take on Google saying that they will support this new form factor wholeheartedly with Android like what are they use case scenarios other than is really like is it just gonna be big screen experience because I would hope that there is some sort of some sort of functionality that comes with the fact that the screen wise you fold upon itself I don't know I just I just keep thinking to myself that X on em or enshrine head no it's the opposite direction by ZTE folding both folding phone yeah that the dual screen or anything but if you have two full-sized smartphone screens that together can be used as a function bigger apparatus can you like can you cut the middle and use a dual screen experience like can that be an X to get the kid that can multi window finally become yes actually what is meant to be yeah I think again but then you've got to well factor in a bunch of time for developers to rebuild their apps are they going to do that right even now you long press the button in Android and it's like the actor using doesn't support melting but no you can't do that you know and multi-window has been posted after it for a couple generations so it's all gonna be weather people stand up and demand that I think and then whether Google follows through and incentivizes developers to to build for that the point is we don't know it's so it's such a strange idea and we have no idea at this point what whatever strategies are yeah I just like that if like having a big old screen when you want and having a pocket ball device money now yeah even though things gonna be thick I know it's gonna be thick and this is one of the things gonna suck about it at first yeah and but we've always said that you know for for features or bigger batteries we wouldn't mind a bigger device this is like kind of going all-in on that idea yeah we will test that with with this category of devices but I think a lot of you know the consumer stuff that's worth buying is a long ways yeah I haven't even used convertible laptops or a convertible tech a whole lot I remember the last thing I was super jazzed about was the Isuzu transformers where you can put the phone into a dog that binky that me to become a tablet oh there's the phone my apologies it is tad fun well yeah and you even you you're using the pixels late right now that can be technically converted it's like a laptop experience because the keyboard that you can attach to it yeah I don't know I'm still conventional in the sense that I use a general laptop I haven't used to be convertible so that this might actually be a new friends here for me that a phone can become a tablet like what's weird as I'm with you on that like you know I find Microsoft's surface line like the regular surface you know the tablet with the optional keyboard to be fascinating and futuristic and awesome but also totally not compatible with my use case I'm literally doing laptop work so often than for me the surface laptop is a much better fit resource book or something so I feel you're completely on that so while I advocate for these bigger form factors sometimes man there's some movies have a proven design yeah you just get yeah sometimes the the tried and true yes should always be around even if the new stuff is is encroaching on it yeah I mean iPad pro a great example it's just not I love all the people who are saying it's the best iPad ever made still iOS like it's not going to replace my laptop anytime soon yeah although you know I am starting to see now with this generation glimmers of that possible future watching Jonathan Morrison added a full video on an iPad pro on YouTube was he was quite an experience I did not actually believe that actually didn't watch that what did what did he use was it rush and now it wasn't Russia was another programmer I can't cyber director comments comments help us out whatever it was it was a it was something to watch a video edited on an iPad with no fans in 4k with an Apple pencil instead of a mouse know what I mean that's my dream yeah so I don't have to carry around a big MacBook Pro you know yeah that it's true or or like I was saying I think he would there was last week or the week before bring the iPad pro and I'm a committee and use that new product that someone used to make that upon order you had to make it a monitor that's a fairly portable set yeah you got a plug-in but right but it's a stopgap yeah exactly that's that's that's an exciting possible future mm-hmm so for these for these last number of minutes for this potentially one-hour show this is yeah we're we're about there what are you looking forward to 2019 then because I know we're gonna see each other next week in Hawaii there's still the entire month of December to like look back on 2018 for but I figured this is a perfect way for us to do it in this car for the long haul that we have so why not look a little bit more in the future once 2019 got for you that you think you're gonna and I have to like could just go on the fly real quick cuz I haven't thought about this question long enough for a better answer but I will say this the Lenovo yoga see 9:30 by the way Lenovo maybe think about think about the brand names like Sony WH 1000 xm3 exact killer yeah I'm drooling already didn't I call them when I first got the market oohs I called him to cancel cans that's I remember that take a tacky name like that over jumble of numbers and letters well even then like although nothing on this topic you know if it's a yoga right why not name it some sort of pose you've crossed the line the yoga the yoga asana the Yolo called our Federal Credit Union this sounds good oh my goodness was actually actually Yolo federal pay you and that's pretty cool hey so what I'm saying is a laptop that and the reason I bring it up is because what I'm looking forward to in 2019 is more more devices that rethink what their role is how many laptops have I played with that have a have a stylus that you can use with them but there's no place to put the stylus you have to carry it in your bag the C 930 gives you a silo like a Galaxy Note how many laptops have I had to put a sticker over the front facing camera on because I'm either paranoid or prudent depending on your point of view oh man that's a whole podcast right there is the scene on 30 puts a cover right in there it's built into this friggin laptop and it's not thick it's not dumb it puts a massive sound bar and hinge it's just a used it for judaize I don't know if it's a great laptop it could be total crap from what if it delivers on it on making a solid Windows experience it's my favorite my new favorite laptop so for 2019 I'm looking forward to existing form factors that realize they can do things better and doing those things better and also new little categories coming back like that little GoPro what's it not come from oh the people did have done invite me to their events and I don't like the Osmo pocket yeah DJ I yeah the DJI Osmo pocket wait looks like a nice little nifty camera I love that you can connect that thing to any smartphone on the side over on the side make it a big old monitor genius yeah and it's bringing back that handheld a digital camera that we had back in the days of flare blip actly does that so much so yeah we'll see if it survives her if people say you don't know the stabilization I get on my iPhone 10s or my pixel three is fine yeah but I I love I love it I love it any time a company is like let's experiment with either a new thing or making an old thing better refresh an old thing yeah yeah I completely agree i I'm pretty much in the same boat I actually look forward to whatever the next generation of our gaming consoles are that's what I really want to see happen because the ps4 and the Xbox are really due for a refresh or an upgrade of some sort but on the on the topic of pocket and mobile apparently there might be a new switch and I'm really curious what that would look like I've heard that rumor too yeah the switches switch to switch to switch Pro perhaps and I want to know what that would look like and to see if other companies are going to move towards that because if there's one thing that we're seeing a lot more of in 2018 this is a trend we didn't even really touch upon in this podcast the gaming phone is now a thing and I want to see that evolution so if the switch Pro comes out with Nintendo making more IPS not just for it but also for mobile everyone else gust up to game of man and it looks like they're trying it looks like a soos razor everyone's trying gun Shami make nubia makes one yeah I'm looking forward to seeing more of that because a mentality I've always had in the computing realm is a gaming machine is so it can be so powerful and so good that it can handle pretty much any other task right so a gaming phone hopefully will fit that description as well a forward to that ya know I strongly agree with that and and that's another thing where the ecosystem has to keep up with it and catch up with it like I've had these gaming phones and it's been great but frankly mobile games as they stand right now are still not as compelling to me as the kind of stuff you can get on even the switch it's a lot of people you know just like turn their noses up at because you can't play yeah Red Dead Redemption 2 on it you know because it's not a very it's not a parent console that's all about power yeah but it still has those Nintendo exclusive titles that I think are worth the price tag along well I mean there's this rumor going around that a patent because a patent will suggest signed off on by Sony that kind of was like a vida of Vita successors Oh what was the Aveda the Vita was their portable they're the PS Vita oh yeah remember that clumsy product plays better in house of cards yes Gavin Spacely hey is that a PS Vita Sodhi woody okay well yeah I think we're on our way to our next destination is it gonna do monetize this podcast if I say it we're literally going to a monument called the glory hole a glory hole you can give them a quick explanation because I've never even known about this thing we're just one of my wineries and that's all I want to go to this is amazing actually I should take some more video it's beautiful here in Northern California we're going to a big old drain do a youtube search for a glory hole right no no don't Google do a search for Hut The Devil's Gate yes we're just big drain you'll find it yeah I'm being trained uh Sonoma in Sonoma California the minute you see the thumbnail you will know what we're talking about yes uh since we're since we're here I'm driving I can't necessarily look at the script that Jules makes me every single week I'm gonna go ahead and do the outro after this so thank you so much for being on brother hey thank you so much or even having your you're the one who had me on this Drive so I have to thank you so so happy I wouldn't know if I would have had it any other way that's amazing thank you so much and thank you for being on and we've been able to do this this is a really different format we're gonna do this at CES I bet you this this whole format if it turns out pretty well but yeah let's go on to the outro where I'll tell you how to follow Michael and how to follow myself and how to follow PocketNow so alright cool perfectly half an hour right there that was 30 minutes perfect that's standing so I why are you gonna keep the cameras rolling for it no no and with that we're gonna go ahead and call it on this one I hope you enjoyed this kind of crazy a really fun and unique episode of the pocket not weekly I just thought if I was going to be out the entire week with a great personality and a great friend like Michael Fisher I wanted to make sure we had a podcast where it was just the two of us discussing all of these forms of tech and with that in mind I want to make sure that I get all of you in on the conversation make sure you let us know what your favorite pieces of tech or your favorite memories of tech in 2018 were by shouting us out on social media with the hashtag pn weekly also the weekly is just as much a conversation as it is a show so make sure you make your voices heard either in the comment sections down below or by emailing us podcast at pocketnow.com Michael Fisher is of course found at the mr. mobile found on Instagram and Twitter so make sure you follow him and his YouTube channel that you can find he is of course mr. Mobile and I can be found at JV tech team you know me by now I am JV I love tech and to drink tea pocket now is at pocket now on twitter facebook Instagram and YouTube in English and espanol where you can find more news on the pocket now daily and pas canal Adagio every weekday we would really appreciate all of your feedback through Google Apple stitcher pocket cast or wherever you might be streaming us because without you we would not have been able to make this show for three hundred and thirty four crazy weeks straight so that's that's and whatever you're doing stay fresh folks we'll see you next week