Gadgetory

4-pocket now it's time to say alpha is n2 Aoife 2014 but before we left we wanted to run down the highlights of the show for you join us as we take you on a tour of the smartphone tablet and wearable news we've encountered this week in Berlin the first devices we saw after landing in Germany and arguably the most significant smartphone announcements of the show where Samsung's note line the galaxy note 4 something everyone was expecting coming into the show Samsung is used to launch its new Galaxy Note smartphones for the last three years and although it's pretty much iterative this year the Galaxy Note brought some necessary changes to one of Samsung's most popular brands like actual metal trim and even some newer S Pen features and even though it's pretty minor the bump to 32 gigabytes for the base model is a trend I'd like to see for more manufacturers the one device I don't think anyone expected what's the Galaxy Note edge we've been shown this curved display technology for years I've seen it at CES at least two times now but I don't think anyone was expecting the note edge to actually emerge but it did and it's effectively a galaxy note 4 without a bezel on the right edge the display wraps around the side of bone with 160 extra horizontal pixels looks cool when it's interesting until you actually cold and use it there's a lot we're uncertain of like how useful it is important or for left-handed users by myself and if any developers will even use the sba either way samsung isn't giving up on curved displays anytime soon it's only the beginning from the looks of it Samsung device I was most looking forward to was the galaxies have active actually no it wasn't it was a total surprise to me and I had a good time checking out this rugged tablet anyway it was samsung's new SmartWatch capable of operating without being connected to a smartphone which captured my inspector gadget imagination and the run-up to Aoife and after holding the gear s well I still think that hardware is rather beautiful if clunky Samsung Tizen software didn't do it justice on the show floor I was much more impressed by the LG G watch our it's still no moto 360 as Joe leave I will doubtless a test and the name is pretty weird but it's circular display is still impressive a much more fitting home for Android wear than sony's somewhat unremarkable SmartWatch 3 sadly as we discussed with guests nicole scott and Joshua Vergara on the latest pocket at weekly podcast none of these wearables are a great fit for women the wearables are all too big I wish that someone would come up with something a little more elegant something that fits my wrist I have this once Moses a thigh gap but you know take me moving this is like good watch cap that's a problem the SmartWatch ecosystem has yet to solve and Aoife 2014 didn't do anything to change that one place samsung may be targeting women is with the Galaxy alpha based on the advertising we've seen from the company and the tendency of om's to market smaller devices to the female audience the gender ankle is a conversation for another time what we will say now is that the Galaxy alpha is almost exactly what the galaxy s5 should have been even without its IP rating people at least in the vocal online communities on a nicer flagship from Samsung a pretty handset with nicer build quality to better complement its stance in the industry an active variant would have brought ingress protection anyway the galaxy brand wouldn't have been diluted further and the Alpha series wouldn't have even needed to exist it all would have made more sense switching to another s manufacturer we found Sony's line of larger devices more impressive but thanks for the company's quick-paced release cycle nothing here is a real surprise the z3 is an improvement over the z2 in both features and hand feel and the z3 compact builds on Sony's past experiment smaller flagships on the bigger side the z3 tablet compact brings the slim design and lightweight of the tablet Z to a smaller form factor and given how much we enjoyed using the original tablet Z in the bathtub we're excited to give this one a try speaking of size while weight went big with its ascend mate 7 in more ways than one for sorters it would all metal two jingly glossy plastic your it also blatantly ripped off the design of HTC's One max even taking what Michael refers to as the g string but it has a huge battery beautiful sulfur in the best mobile fingerprint scanner we've ever used it's fantastic and works exactly how a fingerprint scanner on a phone should work while wave hecht everything that could into this one and it's a truly solid entry and let's not forget Microsoft the company dazzled us with the colorful notification light of its new wireless charging plate and teased us with the possibilities of Lumia denim but the real star of the show is the Lumia 830 smartphone meant to bring Nokia's excellent camera experience to a lower price point with a special 10 megapixel PureView shooter it's sibling the Lumia 730 is much less notable well it's got a solid front facing camera it's mainly a vehicle for Microsoft's new selfie app which will be made available to other Lumia phones eventually and much of the news from gifu came from the other side of the world our own Adam Devils on site at Motorola Chicago event and everyone's favorite Android guide to leave i unboxed the new Moto X moto 360 and moto G the Moto X has now five point two inches framed in aluminium comes with bamboo and leather backplate options and has front firing audio the Moto 360 is the same circular Android wear watch we've been drooling over since spring but it didn't launch with the steel band options only leather straps and the Moto G crew to 5 inches has a higher risk camera and it also has fun firing audio off the same starting price as before 179 dollars before tax and a bit of a loose end from HTC something we saw quite early in the shows the desire 820 looks a lot like the other members of the desire family but with much more stylish trim a big ol screen in a 64-bit processor which of course will matter to those who want to crow about specs and might matter more as Android starts taking advantage of hardware like that thanks for joining us from Berlin for another exciting international phone ushed alone and if you want it even longer run down of Aoife 2014 tune into pocket now weekly 112 where mobile geeks own nicole scott and android authorities Joshua Vergara join us for an extended podcast running down all of the fun and exciting and maybe some of the disappointing stuff from this show until next time this has been michael fisher and i'm taylor martin and we'll see you on the other side of the ferns a term