Gadgetory

from pocketnow.com this is PocketNow weekly hello and welcome to episode 02 one of the pocket now weekly the once-a-week podcast from pocketnow.com where we discuss what's hot and what's cool in the world of mobile technology from windows to android to iphone to other platforms we like just as well sometimes I'm your host Michael Fisher senior editor at pocket now and I'm joined by our managing editor 27 hours without a cigarette anton d Naja good afternoon to you sir good morning to you guys can grab and buy our android guy the man with the nexus collection Joe Levi how are you good morning pocketnow he's obviously much better than I am I was gonna say Tony just was gonna leap through the internet and strangle Joe small blessings I'll take him home for I can get him it's good to have you back on the show there Joe it's been a little bit this has been a little while always good to be here you know it's always live tweeting always live tweeting this is the my favorite part of the of the pocket now podcast my favorite accident from the podcast I want to jump right in with a with it with a we've had a lot going on this week as usual and we have a lot of devices to talk about whom we have some some reviews and so after the buzzes that went up this week and just a whole lots going on but probably most visibly is this thing that I think we are all three of us can weigh in on this was a suggestion from Tony to talk about because Microsoft has kicked off its its newest windows phone marketing kind of son yeah stunt it's not even a campaign and it's not really even that new it's a reboot from from last year and it is something that if you're on Twitter you've seen probably marked by the hashtag droid rage or order response windows rain is rate right so Microsoft has like has this we'd that says do you have an android malware Horror Story reply with hashtags roid rage with your best worst story best or worst story and we may have a get-well present for you so Microsoft is capitalizing on this kind of non non story about Android malware experiencing some kind of uptick and it has been I kind of looked at the hashtag I just did a quick search of it before coming on the air and it looks to me like one of the biggest backfires in in a very long time I mean Tony as you mentioned there's there's this response hashtag called called windows rage yeah androidcentral has gotten something that's gotten retweeted a whole lot where they're like whoops just activated another million devices today sorry about that Windows Phone right right hey good one and even like individual users not just you know not just fan sites are responding with the just using the droid rage tag completely improperly what do you guys think about this I I am I I hate it when companies engage in like you know attack ads against each other I hate it when Samsung does at Apple I you know what how how hilarious / annoying is this to to each of you any of either of you can weigh in well the Samsung to apple stuff I kind of like because it's not really I hate it and it's terrible and it it's not full of hate and anger and animosity it's just kind of politely poking fun this this is calling out the dogs this is going to war and it's just not up to par with a company that we expect better guys if my kids were doing this I put them in separate rooms that or I put them in the same room until they were friends again absolutely I agree i think it's i think it's childish and it's for a company maybe there's Tony maybe you can weigh in on this if there's some kind of PR formula that says the exact right time to weigh in with a with an attack ad and maybe we just stumbled across that time period and that's why they're doing this right now I have not worked and I have not studied marketing but I have worked in companies where had marketing departments and I personally don't believe that any marketing campaign which is attacking another product the competition is is Dean for success now those who are following me since since I've been writing in technology probably know that I don't really like Google's open model in terms of controlling malware which is every now and then appearing inside the google play store I would prefer an a priori system and that's not in place but still Google does a great job at kicking malware out and uninstalling it from phones but you guys know which is the first question I am being asked when talking about phones know what isn't so somebody walks up to me gets his Android or hers Android device out and the first question how do i install applications without buying them yeah so that's that's the problem i had never purchase I mean I have never installed applications which I have not purchased or which i have downloaded or installed not officially the problem is when you go to a third fourth or fifth party store and you download I don't want to point fingers from where applications you are probably exposing yourself much more than you would if you would just limit yourself to Google Play sure and that's that's my point I i think is like I I do limit myself to google play as do i think a lot of legit Android users like globally and I have I know I am conscious of the fact that there are viruses and there's malware on on Android you know on the Android platform and you have to kind of be careful with with your side loading and stuff like that but I mean like that seems to be the whole foundation for this for this campaign right the microsoft says they have a to-do list for android users step one wait for your android phone to get infected with malware and then you know the way they make it sound is is that everybody is exposed now we've been using android since the early days and i have personally never encountered a situation where me or my data was jeopardized because i think the rule of thumb here and Joe would probably agree with me if an application or any software bit is too good to be true then it's probably not so if you find a super super game which costs like point ninety nine dollars that's probably not the real deal or if you find a copy the cheaper copy of a popular game up there you just don't want to purchase that because it's something's fishy yeah yeah i mean i've i've had android since the t-mobile g1 so a year after android came out i personally have never had any malware or anything that could be considered malware on any of my devices and i do a lot i push the envelope a lot i am one of the people that of anyone would be likely to be infected then I haven't been the the closest that I've come is on some of my kids devices where they have gotten apps that have airpush installed which I hate but that was what's their such an ad campaign it's a way of monetizing apps by putting ads in them except they're not in that apps per se they show up in your notification tray really yeah so it's annoying but i get i get females almost every day asking me to upgrade my apps to put them in there so i can get so much more money off of them wait to my eyes so the ads go in the notification tray the ads go in the notification tray even when your app isn't running there are some people who claim that no it will only run when the app is running but I I don't know if I believe that her I haven't seen that to be true well yeah and that's it that sounds like a fresh window to exploit for these people out there who do you know write these malicious android applications but I don't know I you know I mean we can't spend all day on this it's just it's it's it's very interesting when when I PR campaign backfires and I think this is droid the droid range thing a rage thing is right in the middle of this and if you have a minute you know anyone on any of our listeners either of you guys if you guys just want to laugh just plug into roid rage into the Twitter urgent just just watch this this s storm absolutely you know taking hold and you know what and I think it dis bears repeating at this point even though we're about to leave into the windows section of the podcast look I i do like Windows Phone a lot and I like it more each day actually I had a total fanboy moment last night where I spent I realized i had spent about an hour and a half to two hours on various windows phone forums and like I had spent 25 minutes organizing my home screen and you know this isn't because I was doing it for a reason I was just kind of having fun nerding out with Windows Phone so you know I'm whatever i'm in the club I get it it's awesome I just think it's a really stupid campaign and a lot of the back wait a minute wait a minute what you're in the club and you're rearranging your windows phone home screen yeah what's the what's it better with that okay I may be the married guy in Utah I know that's not what you're supposed to do when you're at the club no not that Club Joe Levi this I was at college I'm just well be there yes no I wasn't out if actually if I ever manage to visit the club's that Tony references pretty often if I ever enter a Romanian Club Tony please remind me to to rearrange my home screen while I'm there I will thank you and we'll text yo Levi I'll know this is so while we're talking about Windows Phone a while we're talking about home screens yeah let's let's leap into the window section because it's been a massive Newsweek for for us it's been a big one for nokia there's been a lot going on with them with nokia from apps to business events to device reviews and the latter is what i want to kind of leap a start off with here because we just reviewed the nokia lumia 822 and it's our first quick review listeners so if you're missing this in the headline if you are a fast reader like I am and you sometimes miss the details it is not a full it is not our typical full review which tend to go what guys between 2,500 and four thousand words something like that oh I thought you're talking about how many hours it takes us to prepare them oh right yes it's not a typical 25 day review presents yeah yeah and it was really it's been kind of interesting you know working with with everyone to come up with that kind of pared down format and we're going to alternate between this format and the traditional review format for devices going forward and I think I formerly had a word of explanation at the top of this one which I which I liked and I found I found it beautifully wordy and we'll craft and then Tony came along was like no this is a quick review you don't need 800 words explaining why it's a quick review which makes a sense I get to teach the purpose of the quick remain exactly so anyway if you haven't seen it yet go it you just went up this morning go ahead and check it out let me add a 22 quick review and um guys I gotta tell you if if you have not headed out if you're you know into windows phones are into smartphones in general and you just want to see something new and you're in America because this is a verizon wireless exclusive variant of the 820 you should go to 0 verizon one of the store and and check it out because it is really really interesting it is a very ugly phone I don't think there's there's any way around it this phone is is is just hurting visually some people will like it but it reminds me as i said in the review of a bar of soap like it's this thick kind of battleship ask thing with with with sharp lines and i don't know it maybe it's because i have the white one and maybe it's because it's got the chin maybe it's because it's really thick and really light and it feels kind of toy like but if you look at it from the front or you look at it from the back it looks like a decent phone but as soon as you see it with the side view yeah wow yeah if we see from the side view and it looks like like something that um not not like a futuristic 80s concept but maybe something that would have been on MacGyver like if MacGyver was you know in the mid 80s you know he's checking out some some office with some high technologies like ah check out this new remote control from the future MacGyver like that's kind of what it looks like you're being you know NE marche it really does look like a hotel para so it does Tony you don't tell me you think it looks it looks good to you no it does not don't have to emphasize that I am you're right we're being a little mean it's what's on the inside the count exact that is and what's on the inside like matches almost completely matches what's on the de lumia 920 the much higher end device the casing design well it may not appeal to everyone it actually feels wonderful in the hand and if it weren't for the inferior display which I talked about you know in the review and in the videos it obviously performance doesn't suffer at all because it's Windows Phone right but it's just amazing how something even if you weren't told the price you weren't told the model number or whatever but you held the 822 in one hand and the 920 in another you could instantly tell which one was the the premium device and which one was the mid-range but da 22 has amazing guts and it has LTE and that's something that the 810 doesn't obviously the t-mobile's variant because t mobile doesn't have LTE so yet it would yet exactly sorry excuse me but it's it's it's fascinating because it's this kind of like transcendent device it's this it's this phone that's like oh hey yeah i got a mid-range model number and i got a low price tag and it's not i don't i'm not the prettiest but i've got an amazing set of features and its really really cool in that we'll just go out and watch the video i mean you've got a video where you compare the 822 to the 920 yeah if you bring out some stuff that we've been talking about but just the on device experience they're almost identical in speed and fluidity and in all honesty if nobody knows that it's an 8 22 and knows what that means someone's gonna ask what phone is this oh it's the the Nokia Lumia well okay and that's all that's gonna matter because it performs as good as even the high-end stuff which is really quite impressive right n plus go ahead has something which others don't have removable battery and microSD slot exactly and it's still a paradox to me that this thing and it's not just a microSD slot like thrown in as an afterthought right it's not like this thing where it's like yeah we'll put this in because we can like you can expand the memory up to 64 gigs additional I mean that's something that I remember blowing me away at the galaxy s3 because I think that was the first device I had heard of that could do that and you know the fact I mean you can you can have double more than double the memory in this 822 or the 820 for that matter as in that this you know the supposedly higher-end Lumia 920 I mean that's a big deal there knows question for you yeah you've handled both devices what does it make the Lumia 920 a premium phone and what does this what why is this a 22 a mid-ranger or or what's the difference aside from the camera things what's the difference which sets them apart in terms of premium and mid-range primarily on specs you're talking the camera is is a big one and the end the display and the build quality and we talked about the build quality a little bit but just just to touch on it then kind of move on it is unmistakable the feel in the hand you get from these things yeah if you hold the 822 in a vacuum like like Joe suggests yeah no it's just that new Nokia Lumia for verizon and it's fine and people are like oh that's a good weight and it kind of looks like a toy but it feels good in the hand but then you put the 920 in your hand and people might say holy god this is heavy but they are also going to like feel that curved glass on the edge of the screen they're going to feel that the kind of concave nokia smile thing and the polycarbonate even feels better and these are both glossy devices by the way the white 822 and the white 920 are both have the gloss finish but because of the removable battery you tap on the back of the 822 like I'm doing now and it's this kind of hollow what I'm getting on the inside yeah this is this toy like witches you know once again in a vacuum considered by itself it's not going to bother anybody you hold the 920 on the other hand you know which one is the premium phone and it's there's no mistaking it then you you are you know running them both at the same time and on the video this didn't show very well but the what is it the super not the super sensitive touch because they both have that what is nokia call their high frame rate they're 60 Hertz thing on the screen it's like I don't know that mean the clear clear motion or puremotion hd+ god I hate all these brand names for features but like the the higher frame rate the fact that the Lumia 920 screen never really drops below 60 frames per second that is something that I didn't expect to notice and I do when you go to another device it's like oh wow that it's it's strange it's running Windows Phone just as smoothly but it's not visually as smooth it's tough to explain so it's not really a lag it's just more of a not quite as buttery smooth see exactly it doesn't appear visually as buttery smooth that's still one to one and it's still there's no lag to speak of but it's um it's visually much smoother maybe it's because of the resolution um it's it's probably the resolution in combination with the frame rate cuz I I've been telling you I've like I can see the frames now on a 30 FPS you know or whatever this the other day but is my friend if you can see frames in 30 FPS you got great eyesight I do I well remember what I remember the thing that one of the things that occupies a lot of my time is running a YouTube channel where we routinely shoot it like you know 240 FPS and so I can I can tell the difference between 30 and 60 pretty well but at any rate and then there's the camera Tony you mentioned this it and I don't want to spend all day talking about this so this will be the last thing I touch unless you guys have another question the camera on the 810 in the 822 surprises the heck Adam II because it's really good it's it's not pure view branded it doesn't have the optical image stabilization but it's it delivers really really good results especially in low light if you remember to use the scene settings in the viewfinder software like if you look at the the photos I've captured in the review you know they're not not going to win any awards but there for a mid-range device for an 8 megapixel mid-range device with a sensor that small it does a really really fantastic job especially an idea i agree with you i had the opportunity to review the 610 which i believe was the first known to should come with tango yeah well it has all specifications and that phone aside from the fact that it was dirt cheap also had great camera performance so nokia does one thing right right cameras and the camera performance regardless but that whether it's a premium device or am I Granger uh well what what's interesting is that the Lumia 900 had a really crappy camera remember that like the I remember getting the 904 review for about two weeks and I was like wow I can't believe how bad this camera is especially since it's calling out the carl zeiss optics and like what's what's the deal here but oh that's optics I thought that was a feature where you could have your name engraved on the back of the phone brutal Joe is referring to the very soft metal that was that bracketed the lens on that thing oh god I had that thing scratched up inside two days just from taking it in and out of a pocket there was the first question i asked a nokia rep when I saw the 920 was like did you guys change the metal on that camera bezel and he was like yeah totally we know it's bad so yeah we fixed it yeah um so anyway yeah that's the 820 to take a look at the review we've had some cool comments on the on the YouTube the full review video and on the comparison videos some people are saying the 822 in the 810 the special variants are getting all the love and the 820 isn't getting enough coverage and all these devices that have the same core right there all the 820 in spirit it's just interesting to see these modifications done for carriers because it's not like it's not like the HTC 8x which is the same Hardware almost between verizon and AT&T with the exception of some radio stuff you know I mean it's not like that it's it's like nokia has actually built a complete custom chassis for both t-mobile and Verizon Wireless with this 820 variant I think that's pretty cool even though I don't particularly like the way it came out in this instance speaking of Nokia stuff because we are only halfway through our nokia news feed Adam Lane had an awesome video up I think it was yesterday was yesterday the photo Beemer of story does any member five yes yeah so nokia released this no keys been on a tear by the way they've been releasing apps for Windows Phone into their nokia collection or updating them or doing something like every day every day I go into the everyday I go into the Microsoft Store on my Windows Phone devices and there's a new Nokia collection title in there and there's one called photo Beamer which is really strange title for a nap so it immediately caught my eye and this is an awesome awesome feature if you guys both seen the atoms video i have but then you go on and i will ask you something after that sure sure Tony I mean I Joe have you seen it yes I have seen Adams video then if you haven't seen it it's a it's a very good video to watch interesting concept it is awesome and it is also also kind of cool to see Adam Lane talk to his xbox because I don't get that was it was an awesome Adam lanes like yeah we're gonna just go to a go to a YouTube year we're gonna go to a URL in the browser here and then I'm expecting him to like cut to a keyboard but he like he like talks over his shoulders like Xbox go to the good of the web browser or whatever he says it's awesome it's it's a great video but the deal is and yes I know you've been able to do that forever I'm not of that much of a newbie I've just haven't seen it in a while but the deal with photo Beamer is you go you install it on your Windows Phone your nokia windows phone specifically and you go to a URL on either a computer or a you know a computer attached to a TV or whatever anything with a web browser you go to photo be more calm and when you fire it up on your phone you can scan the QR code that pops up on the remote device on the TV on the computer whatever you're using to visit photo be more calm and it creates a data link between your device and the device you're using to show your photos and then you can swipe through your gallery and it displays photos from your gallery on the larger screen around the remote screen and it does the transitions and with swipes and yeah it's really pretty well done it's really really awesome and I mean I that's all you have to do is seriously you fire up photo memory you scan the QR code boom you have a connection and you just swipe right from your hand and it changes on the screen it's not instantaneous said there is a delay I actually managed to get like a five or six second delay between photos at one point but I mean it's it's such a cool simple free app and it's something that I think I I'm still stunned it well at how well it works for her simple it is yeah so to explain the the concept and please a little bit of the delay being a web guy in my other life you've got your device that has this app on it you've got any device that has a web browser so in this case Adam uses xbox but anything with a web browser will work or should work and then have a connection yes and an internet connection on both sides so the QR code essentially just sets up a session between your phone and that particular web browser the phone then we'll upload that image and those images can be relatively large and your internet connection may be relatively slow to some server somewhere that then it has to download from that server to the web browsers so there's going to be some inherent delay especially as we get into very very high resolution images right on so it's not just going from your phone to the web browser in front of you it's not that short it's actually going to some server out on the internet and back I see so it's kind of justifiable that there's some some delay don't be too upset with it I totally get this and I can totally agree to the fact that it's super cool and I understand the difference between this and the standard DNA which was there on LG phones from day one but I'm trying to think of a real-life scenario when I would find this useful oh but you know i'll give you one I like when I I visit my my aunt and uncle right who have a giant big screen TV and they're a little case ave so they've got a web browser you know you can browse the web on their TV if you want you know rather than using weather and wondering whether my handset has DLNA support or you know and trying to figure out that kind of stuff like it's just as simple as like hey Uncle Jim go to photo be more calm and let me scan this QR code real quick boom instantly I'm kind of showing them pictures you know what I mean like yeah I'm a fan of DLNA I don't know why because maybe I can playback videos and music too yeah and and that that's actually a functionality gap that I would like to see filled now G is that possible with something like this with photo Beamer can you pass any kind any kind of data through an app like this from a psychological standpoint yeah technologically speaking yeah yeah so I mean I wonder if that will be a future enhancement and maybe maybe they'll go premium with it can't be you know it can't be cheap too I guess it's nokia paying for this some for the server space or no i actually didn't do enough research on where photo beamer came from i don't know if they devised it or they bought it or they're just offering photo beamer under their name and it's made by another company i don't know is there an equivalent on on other app stores for this guys do you know off the top of your head like android or iOS mm-hmm i haven't seen one hmm but either I like Tony think that DLNA is where we're going it's taking us a long time to get there Apple decided to invent their own thing which they always do they've got what is an air player waking yeah yeah they've got airplay which works great if you've got an entire Apple ecosystem running or if you've got an android that can take advantage of that because we can do stuff like that because we're Android so this photo Beamer is is kind of a an in-between you don't have to have the apple ecosystem you don't have to have a DLNA setup at home or at and Martha's house configured all you gotta do is have some screen with some browser and it'll work from your phone guaranteed it just works I think if it fills a gap for the time being but DLNA will eventually as soon as it gets you know broader adoption across Aunt Martha's house will replace it well basically if you have a computer which is connected to the Internet and that computer runs windows from Microsoft you already have the backend necessary for DLNA all you need is a phone which supports the RNA which most of the phones do and then you're all set you just connected the same Wi-Fi network and you're you're good to go one of these days I'm gonna go ahead and try out DLNA and it's the coolest thing ever I'm gonna go ahead and real once you do it it's awesome yeah it sounds icky but it's awesome well no you know what this is gay photo Beamer is geeky but it's one of those gee whiz features that's another thing right way I feel like DLNA is something that is still firmly rooted in geekiness and you try and you kind of bring up DLNA to a friend it's when they ask about the features on your phone and the guy I feel like maybe my eyes were at least would kind of glaze over like what is that acronym that I don't care about oh it's about connecting two TVs who cares but you show them like this something that doesn't require much in the way of setup at all you do this QR code scan with your phone that nobody is nobody's heard about except for the past month thanks to the ad push and like what's this weird of doing with his Lumia oh holy crap how'd you do that I feel like this is kind of gonna do a little bit not much but a little bit toward pushing Windows Phone toward you know amor oh wow gee whiz that's that's cool can I do that those are clean thing I was like wait a minute um anyway let's let's let's let's let's move on because there's there's Saturn news and then happier news from from the world of Nokia and this is weird they have nokia has sold its headquarters building and they've stayed on as a primary tenant so they're not leaving but they sold their headquarters in a espoo espoo be pronounced head its espoo only in English SS ball yes bo I think it says I think I don't know but I think okay um did see this is sad because I'm just I think I just finished reading some stories about like a benign 20 sales numbers are up three hundred percent for Windows Phone whatever that means and you know nokia lumia demand is very high and lumia pre-orders are matching the iphone pre-orders in the netherlands and and then it's like no kiss selling their headquarters and that's you know obviously this isn't this doesn't mean the companies like folding or anything like that but a company it is it's not a good sign this is exactly it's like this is what i want to ask you guys for your input on i mean i don't think it's I don't think there's any debate that a company that's doing well doesn't sell its own headquarters building but how bad do you how bad a sign do you think this is very really very been really it just just put yourself in their shoes and imagine your needs to sell your car or your home and stay there as a tenant just for you to get your hands on more cash in idle mode it literally the title loan you could barely but ok how many factories has not yet closed in the best how many people were fired there's there's nothing left to sell from nakia which is not essential it's except for the 4 THQ right so now I wonder though I mean it so they got 220 million dollars us for this for this thing which isn't a whole lot of cash and grand scheme of things but as Stephen says in his story you know is it could give the company some breathing room while while the Windows Phone adoption because it comes on so I feel like this is the point at which it when the Lumia line really has to take hold and it we don't know yet whether that's going to happen on Windows Phone 8 or not but it doesn't look bad it certainly looks like a much brighter picture than it did for the initial wave of Lumias running Windows Phone 7 so do you think that I'm still hopeful for Nokia's futures I guess what I'm saying even though they sold their their headquarters building but and that was that foolish is that typa don't I think this gives a totally new meaning to nokia is all in on Windows stuff I think you are totally I would have to concur I don't ever think that hope is a bad thing you know let's never scourge being hopeful because nokia is a fabulous player they make wonderful hardware we've seen that that the Lumias look really really nice and just in my opinion is an android guy we really need that other player in in the arena to make things better mmm for all of us selling your corporate headquarters to me just says we couldn't get a loan to help get us through this rocky period because nobody wants to give us money the bankers aren't hopeful so let's start selling assets that then we're either buying back which means instead of paying back 220 million it's 212 20 million plus tax right or they're leasing it which is they're not even gonna get it back there they're just throwing that money down the drain and it's like Brent you're just following up on what joe just said it's not even naki asphalt I mean nakia is doing everything in its power to bring good devices out there with good looks good materials totally it's the fact that Nokia now depends on the success of a product which comes from another company what they have very little control over yes or or or say they did their best they brought everything which was in Nokia's power even their HQ they brought it to the game and now it's no more up to them that's an interesting look success or failure that that that that's a very good point and the phrasing that you just used Tony was very interesting like nokia has has really really put itself completely at the mercy of Windows Phones success or failure and that is going to be viewed as either well just another thing they had to do or you know maybe in a year or two down the line when the company is flush with cash again as a result of the success of this Lumia effort it's going to be viewed as the the darkest day when nobody really knew whether it was going to you know succeed or flop and it'll be interesting to see which way it goes i will say Joe I agree I think I think hope is never a bad thing and to inject a little bit of hope before we move on here you know sprint did this sprint did something very similar they didn't sell their headquarters but sprint the third-largest carrier in the United States sold its network basically it's a it back I think about three or four years ago when it was doing really really poorly it basically made a move to get rid of all of its physical Holdings it sold its towers and to another company I don't know if it was Eric center tower co or something like that and basically just said no we're going to be a service provider we don't want to deal with the real estate aspect of this and that was their PR spin but of course the real deal was that they were losing so much money that they needed a quick infusion of cash to stay alive I think you know just to be a jerk because I can yeah you guys imagine that board meeting when Stephen Elop came in together with the I don't know probably the CFO or somebody who who knows numbers when he wakes up in the morning and just says it says stuff about things and he's like guys we need to sell this yep can you imagine I know I mean that would be a hell of a meeting to have right before lunch but my point is that sprint still exists you know what I mean and they're actually doing really well now as a result of that move that they had to make and it's that thing you have to do right it's like wow I've had this pocket watch for forever but if I don't sell it on eBay right now I'm not gonna be able to pay rent like you know I've been in that situation before it sucks but i buy your pocket watch yeah yeah you know I appreciate it I wouldn't wish you'd spend a little more money on it anyway um we'll see how it alternately plays out for nokia just a really interesting not the brightest chapter in the company's history but i still have hope for their survival but not based on their low-end offerings nokia is introducing the Lumia 620 and Tony I will definitely want to hear your take on this as the guy on the team who i think has handled the lowest end nokia device there is and that's the 610 right there was at the time the 620 is a really really cheap windows phone 8 device that its primary like point of Attraction seems to be that it has a double like finish it's a two hundred fifty dollar phone first of all unlocked which is pretty cool but what is it like they did these are brightly colored back covers on this lumia 620 that are finished first in one color of polycarbonate and then sprayed over with another color I was probably carbonate or something like that d i don't know all i know is there's a there's like a lime green and a bright yellow phone on my screen and a pink and blue and a black and a white yeah so these are nothing to get excited about and we kind of bandied around an email yesterday on the team like why is what is the deal with this like this low-end Lumia pushed this 510 this 620 the 610 the seven I mean it will tell you wrote this story what are your thoughts on this device and where's it going I think Nokia is is thinking in in two different ways first of all we've heard I think recently but also at the beginning of this year to that in order to succeed in being a competitor for Android nokia needs cheaper devices because android devices are very cheap I mean low end and some mid-range devices so in order to grab if they want to have a chance at grabbing a small chunk of that market they need cheap windows phones and on the other end Stephen ela every time I listened to him or I watch his keynotes he is also talking about those people who want to be or who nokia wants them to be first-time smartphone users the first connection to the internet they want to connect 1 billion people to the internet they try that with Asha phones in the emerging markets and they're trying to do that again with this lumia 620 with the 610 and as you mentioned with the other low end phones yeah whether if it's a good thing to have a such a low-end phone in the portfolio I say yes because Windows Phone whether if it's 7 7.5 7.8 I'm sure it will be or eight it is designed in such way that even with lower specs it will still run buttery smooth and once you get that experience of course give or take an application or two like Skype which are not working you can have that experience be part of an ecosystem and Nokia as well as Microsoft are desperate to get their hands on you customers now this is a very very interesting point because I we talked about this a little bit in the email thread as well like I totally get that impulse right there is still so many this is the refrain of struggling smartphone makers everywhere there are so many non smartphone users out there let's capture them let's make sure they're on our platform first we need to get them but you know I feel like people who are on dumb phones still and I'm not talking about the people who just want to be on a flip phone forever and hate smartphones I'm talking about regular people who are eventually going to upgrade to a smartphone don't care like when they dream at night about the smartphone they're going to get they don't dream about a mid-range one cent phone on a contract they don't dream about a hundred and fifty dollar phone that that's you know just cheap thing that's I look it's multiple colors you not and even though they are the end consumer and the target of this device they are really not think of this and introducing the equation the carriers when you go to a carrier let's say any carrier in this world will probably buy a couple of hundred thousand devices from you Nokia and we'll put it on an offer either a prepay offer or a low-end cheap contract and here's the phone for free or here's the phone for one dollar or one other currency and that's how they need to capture users but I don't carriers like Kent carriers tell a manufacturer to take it to take their product back if it doesn't move that well the world the globe the earth is kind of huge so you were not necessarily talking about the US market only here we're talking about those carriers in other regions you up to which are not the top of one two or three carriers which are third fourth fifth carriers which need also to have something attractive in their portfolio no I get that and yeah I'm not no I'm not taking in a mirror in a mirror centric view of this all I'm saying is like I remember what happens when you know like best buy best buy is a huge retailer in the States it's just you know it's an example I have because it's fresh in my mind and when they got shipments of the HP TouchPad and it turned out to be a flop you know there were those rumors that were being reported on words like best buy is best buy wants to send two hundred thousand touchpad units back to HP you know I mean cuz he's they can the carriers do have the option to do that if a device doesn't move right can't they just tell the manufacturers to take it back like I don't know I don't know I don't know enough about the business relationship to think it all depends on with contractor comes with the device not but they've always got 11 little tool in their toolbox and that's well we're not gonna order any of your new device that you have such a big media push behind until we clear out all your inventory to ensure right and in fire said yeah there since that's never gonna happen cuz the new ones out then they can negotiate better deals and swaps and whatnot yeah I don't know about you guys but I can see this lumia 620 in a nice colored box with the carrier logo on it going for I don't know ninety nine dollars or or forty nine euros with a prepaid sim inside it with a number and five dollars or five euro credit which you can talk and then top up sure I just don't know I can see it too I just don't know if the customers that are looking for that kind of like really bare bones smartphone plan are gonna wanna well you and I are looking when we're going to Berlin or Barcelona well yeah but I'm not gonna get a 620 give me the 920 all right let's I want to I want to save my surface RT discussion for when Brandon is back cuz he and I have to trade notes and we're running a little behind but um while we're talking about companies in decline just to close out windows phone really quickly oh geez HTC can we yeah just come on man i am so i hate it i feel like this happens every every quarter because you know what it does every single quarter HJC announces their numbers and today there are thirty one-point-four percent down compared to the same quarter in november 2011 to the month yeah to the month right okay yeah and october numbers were 61 percent down right i'm looking at the right up that you did here Tony this is now you updated this story with a metric that am I reading this right is is maybe would give us a little bit of hope I was a bit perverted when I when I came up with this headline HTC is 31.4 percent down compared to November 2011 but is 23 point eighteen percent up compared to last month so in the picture of this moment they are climbing but compared to last year they are still down so they are on a climbing trend why do we think they're on a climbing trend is that a combination of the 8x paired with the DNA I think yes that's in so we have October's numbers from last year to see if there if this is ciktim cyclical or if this some real recovery a really good question here somewhere but not in my reach yeah unwinding the October numbers were well October's numbers were 61 percent down from the previous October yeah i'm not sure and we we probably will need some more some more time to fully analyze this time which we don't really have but we say this almost every podcast we love you HTC and we really really really are kind of always plugging for them to succeed but hopefully this decline that we're tired of seeing can be arrested by this mysterious flagship device which will carry us into the android segment of our podcast which was is very very new new rumor news i think it's only about two or three days old there is a rumored m7 and this is not the droid DNA right this is not the international version of the droid DNA this isn't the what is that called the deluxe but as far as we know as far as we know it's something rumored for early 2013 this comes from an analyst i think and it's anything that comes from analysts i'm kind of i'm always like all right well what are you know we'll see but it looks like a lot of outlets pick this up and it looks like this m7 at this point still looks maybe like it could be legit as a flagship model scheduled for a q1 2013 release this could be very well the deluxe is the LX or the j butterfly / droid DNA for for europe or international use but i think and this is my personal opinion HTC made a very very big mistake with releasing the droid DNA only on one carrier and only in one country I would have done it differently released an international version probably one or two weeks after that go with a carrier and capture the holiday season now if they do want to come out with a phone which will probably be the international version of the DNA and they will do I dare they will do it's not going to be earlier than CES or MDC then that's already too late see I thought that it was coming much than that I thought that it was kind of like on the roadmap and already they're like ready for ready for shipping right now but it's it's not is that that correct it should have I believe it should have been their first priority well here's the thing though right when I can see why they would do this like it I agree that they should not miss the holiday season at all but when you do the droid DNA and you put it on verizon what happens is as we've seen in our comments a bunch of people on the internet and I mean hundreds of people go what America only this is crap and it generates a whole bunch of buzz for the device and then when you release it internationally there's this kind of built up too mad as long as you don't wait too long so I can understand why they would have made that that kind of you know decision but I I just I don't know if it's going to ultimately pay out or not I know the droid DNA is really hot and HTC probably doesn't have the money you know how we complain about HTC not advertising enough completely Samsung well I don't think HTC has the budget necessarily to to match Samsung on that so they need a carrier partner in the states to say yeah listen name this thing the Droid and we'll pick up you know half or three-quarters of the marketing bill for you to move these units you know I don't know I'm sorry I lost you dare completely no I didn't lose you so long I'll chime in on samsung has done a really good job with creating brand recognition for their devices you can go and get a galaxy s3 on virtually any carrier out there and all pretty much the same time you know obviously there's some a month here a month there where you can't but that leads up to the anticipation within a quarter let's say you have complete saturation across the major carriers of this wonderful fabulous device that Samsung's leading with HTC has well they've got this platform and here it is on verizon USA and we don't know if it's kind of coming anywhere else and it just slows down and the buzz and the hype and all of that synergistic marketing that could happen or the device just Peters decoupled from the carrier isn't there right right yeah and you know it's a chicken or the egg thing too because you know Samsung has gotten to a place they've built themselves up to a place where yeah they have a lot of buzz in this because a very successful brand name with the galaxy s2 galaxy note but you know and they've gotten that respect from the carriers where they can push a launch on all four US carriers and a lot of worldwide carriers of the same almost the same time in HTC isn't there yet and I think that they have to play ball with with a carrier that says yes we'll give you an exclusive and yes we'll we'll spend some advertising dollars on your behalf but it has to be an exclusive you can't release an international version 4 X months if I were HTC I'm not sure I would be doing anything different exclusivity is just killing everybody it's gonna kill innovation and it's ultimately going to come back and hurt the carriers well look what it did for the iphone though right the one exception yes I don't know I don't know it's it's it's it's a crazy thing are you going to get one Tony when it when it turns international absolutely and I would have I would have probably spared enough money to get one unlock this holiday season but HTC didn't seem to want me as their customer since I'm an international customer you know I chose this is this is why I'm so bitter and angry yeah from a business perspective I'm always aiming or in thinking I should always aim at capturing a huge chunk of the market instead of a limited one you know we can argue that I don't know everything or anything about this maybe they have problems at their factories with yield rates and and stuff like that it's still the way I see it the HTC deluxe or whatever its name will be would have probably outsold and this is going to be bold the galaxy s free this holiday season that is a bold that is a solid bold claim but you know what I'm not ready to disagree with you because it has the buzz behind it yeah um and it's a great phone and it is it's a great it's a great fun we talked about with a great company podcast and one in a while but here's the thing Tony I don't think that HTC made that decision you know spitefully or thinking I think that they are really are they have their hands tied I really think that they're in a rough spot and they need to kind of take offers as they come and if if Verizon came along with a sweetheart deal because for whatever reason verizon needed to you know re re solidify their droid brand in the absence of some compelling motorola offerings because the razr maxx an HD and whatever are not really bringing the heat then you know if your HTC and you don't have many options maybe that's what you have to go with and then hopes Italy I agree with you but I think verizon or any other carrier could have waited one month and after an international launch because by the time HTC comes out with this they will not be the first 1080p international global phone on the market anymore because Samsung snaps its fingers and they can do this quickly and from what we've seen LG is already preparing the follow-up to the optimus G with 1080p screen going to AT&T and I bet LG will also release it globally yeah yeah and we talked about it we weren't planning on talking about that but just to drop that into the feed we are getting reports of what is at the e 960 Tony yes and is that is that the thing we've talked about is the Optimus g2 or is that another device ID forgot that is that it sure looks like it's going to be the follow-up to the optimus G we've heard some rumors of a 1080p LG phone the f 2 20 if i recall well now this i believe will be and this is my speculation the international version of that phone which will probably be a carrier phone and south korea and if my predictions turn out to be true we'll probably see this phone it's either at CES or at mwc but i think it will be CES for the AT&T version and mwc will be all about the optimus g2 or whatever the main will be right we'll see i think the the 1080p revolution is certainly certainly upon us and i agree that HTC may have missed an opportunity here to milk their time as the only 1080p phone on the market by not doing the deluxe on an international scale first and that's a point i made an a 22 review where I was like you know yeah you can deal with the yesterday's display with the display with yesterday's specs you know for a couple months but the more 1080p screen and start flooding the market the worse it's going to look when you look at your phone and you realize it has a display from 2011 yeah so it is a big big force in the market and I will see how it goes for HTC and LG both both companies we like Tony you like LG I think better than anyone else that I know so I've got my fingers you can't leave me out of that I I'm a big LG man as well I didn't know that Joe well it's you know what you have an opportunity to talk about LG for a little bit because Joe Levi has taken another look at the Nexus 4 we've been doing some stuff at pocket now recently where we've been kind of sending our review devices to different members of the team so we can get different perspectives on it because we all have different views as is evidenced by by all of our podcasts and all of our discussions and I had another look at the surface RT this week and I'm going to talk about that next week when Brandon's back on the show but Joe has taken another look at the Nexus 4 and I read your piece Joe and I liked it a lot and part of these pieces that is fun is that you can you your expectations have already been set right you've read you've read your teammates review or if you're a listener you've read 11 pocket now team members review and now there's somebody else with a completely different take on it saying well okay well here's here's my view I agree with these things I don't agree with these things and here's what I think overall overall Joe just what's your because neither Tony nor I have handled a nexus 4 what's you will bring me one in Barcelona will I is that the plan yes you will Oh terrific I just don't know it yet well now I do I'll r I'll add it to the list I might bring myself one um based on based on what Joe tells us now I mean Joe how how and love are you with this thing and or how much do you want to get it out of your house well first of all there's two different things that we've got to discuss the first is Brandon when he did his review it ran through everything ran through the equation and came up with a cumulative score of seven out of ten right and that is causing a lot of comment and discussion not only on our review but so on my not really rebuttal to the review but the the second look at it yes so if you haven't been over to the the website make sure you read it I essentially go in and justify Brandon seven out of ten this is a seven out of ten phone so that's the first side out of the way boom that having been said this is my favorite phone that I have ever used or none what it is my daily driver I love this thing I would not go back to a Galaxy Nexus I would not go back to the sgs3 this is my phone of choice seven out of ten notwithstanding if you have any doubt about getting this phone unless one of those things that reduced the score you know cost points in the review just really gets under your skin LT you want this phone realty eat no I don't care LTE this phone gets 13 to 15 megabit per second on my t mobile HSPA right now I've beat that point in the ground alright but that is that's amazing and this is without the wireless charging or right this is just the device itself yeah this is just the device itself just checking just checking um that's that's really not what I not what I expected to hear now this is a good point and and I want to just mention this briefly you're talking about a phone that is your favorite phone basically ever that scored a 7 out of 10 but you agree with the seven out of 10 this is the paradox that I don't think a lot of people understand and rightfully so because it's very confusing how can your favorite phone ever score not low but score it thoroughly or as the Lumia 820 to write in it well exactly how can how can your favorite phone in the world match numerically the review i just gave to this phone that we spent 20 minutes discussing how it looks like a bar of soap right and that is really the core the way we've been doing our reviews we deduct points for certain areas that aren't done up to snuff the nexus 4 is slippery it is more slippery and gross and slimy feeling than the samsung galaxy s3 which I just ride yeah from four in four heads I just abhor that feel and the msg today you know we reduced points for that mm-hmm cuz it slides out I able to top of that yeah I you know just for that I can adjust my my daily activities and at the end of the day I I can get past that because what's inside of that device and the screen on that device are just so much better we can't give super extra bonus points for those that cancel out the negative points for the other you know that wouldn't be fair to two other devices that we've reviewed in the past so it's got to take a hit for stuff that doesn't do perfectly or doesn't do up to the quality that we'd expect but we can still give full points for the other stuff that we do expect and when you average things out it drops it down so the the point if I've got any statistician friends out there in the audience we're averaging things here which has an inherent bias the three points that that this phone lost in my opinion are outliers they're things that if we would have done a median or if we would have done another type of of figuring of that score the outlier on the edges would have been dropped off and it might have scored better so are you are you worried are you worried about dropping it I want to know yeah this is I'm very I'm so worried about dropping it that I did not take the the back protective cover off you left the film on film I know yeah Tony makes a very good point it's not going to help just gonna hold the shattered pieces together well I funny I put some thought into it and I thought glass especially Gorilla Glass usually is pretty robust and durable until it starts getting scratched and when it starts getting scratched then it's more prone to breakage so if I can keep that back sheet of glass from getting scratched i'm going to i told you so many times don't place the nexus 4 on your stash of diamonds haha how did you know I had a stash of time do you remember bags that's the only thing that can scratch your phone well but your glass back though I i I've scratched up glass last front moans last front tablets just just did it and I just did it to my lumia 920 it's in my pocket just dropped my 920 on its face twice in the span of 45 seconds one night and I wasn't even you know impaired I was just stupid I was just dumb and I've scratched it up already and that's girl of glass too i mean you know class class scratches particularly when I guess particularly when your phone the phone that's driving it into the ground as 185 grams heavy but like it what is I don't know I get so worried when I think about buying the nexus 4 because it is the google device i would like to carry first i bet so many others and on a fairly related note without touching the nexus 4 i'd give it a zero out of ten just because LG italy said that they will not bring the phone to Italy oh did you guys miss that spot no I saw it in the headlines but you know this is strange I mean what what does Google and LG think there are like five or six Google Play stores around the world where he can buy this phone what about countries like Italy Romania okay yeah other countries which don't have the phone how can LG it's only say we're not gonna bring this phone to Italy I mean just screw those million people that's an interesting question I mean I did you know I don't know I feel like it's getting so much buzz I'll tell you why because it's probably because it's getting so much buzz the United States is because of its price point and because of its value for the price um that you know we I don't think they I don't want to say LG doesn't need those million prospective customers in room however many million prospective customers you know I I just think that they don't they can't afford to take their focus off of what they're trying to do in regions where it is cheap right now like America yeah I think that this is a backfiring thing I think that this happens when you heavily and I mean heavily subsidized a phone like Google does with the nexus 4 and then poor LG cannot sell this phone for its true price because people say okay its one third of the price in the US or other countries yeah that's because Google subsidizes it yeah it could be you know I don't know I feel like I feel like when you boost the price if I think of a nexus 4 at a more conventional price the price that it is sold for in some non American countries right now or that it's going to be sold for I can't imagine ever buying it I the only one of the driving factors behind the nexus 4 for me is the fact that it is so cheap so Tony I think that that reinforces your point I think it's you know that's that visibility may have may have shot LG and Google and the foot and it in an international sense but or maybe maybe just maybe LT says okay I don't need you to buy this phone and italy by the optimus G it's the same thing it's mine and this is the price for it right well there is there is that as well and the optimus G is we've said time and time again is a really good device so it could be I don't know if it's tactically speaking I don't know what LG's thinking there but i do want to stay on the nexus 4 just just well we before we jump over to the to the other Nexus device but Joe you've got cm10 running on that thing yeah yes and I have not seen your I've not seen anything on that because I've been too busy with other stuff how how is that I mean I have not run ass antigen mod build in a very long time and I feel like what the nexus 4 just as kind of like putting on my average Joe hat it's like what this is the nexus for this has got stock Android already i'm getting updates why do i want a sandwich in my build is it just for like little things like UI enhancements what's what do you like better about the CM build then then stock jelly bean you're not the first person to ask that in fact a lot of comments on both the video and the article are are our readers asking the same question its stock Android why would you want to custom rom it which really kind of confuses me because the reason i get nexus devices is so i can customer on them it's easier it's it's so much nicer to be able to do that and in my opinion that's kind of what a Nexus device is designed to do that's one of its main purposes is so people out there in the community can can root and confess some ramen can just go to town on it and it's it's a nexus that's that's what you do with it it's there for that so to answer the questions for for you Michael for everybody else why cyanogenmod it has not only the core features of Android just the stock launcher the stock everything else but it also takes that and it improves upon them it takes out some of the weird stuff that ninety percent of the people out there want but the ten percent of us power users could do without we can remove that we can toggle that off we can turn that off we have so much more ways that we can customize it for example i have three home screens i use profiles I like being able to theme my my phones my devices and whatnot I can do all of that in cyanogenmod and can't really do that easily with with the stock if Brandon were on he'd love this the AOSP browser is the browser that comes with cyanogenmod not chrome so I'm running the aaos p browser he would live on my Nexus 4 not chrome so I've got all of those speed improvements and all of that fun stuff never yeah yeah the second point is looking at the the benchmark numbers and we just ran quadrant and geekbench which are two of the more telling benchmarks in my opinion when we ran those stock it performed a little bit slower with cyanogenmod than with the stock rom with stock configurations as soon as we went in and started doing some of the tweaking and just very minor tweaking we're not talking even overclocking just minor tweaking we jumped up in Quadrant I scored 4908 compared to 4722 and in geekbench to 21 37 compared to 1856 so just minor tweaks on cm10 really really improves performance and speed without not really battery life it lets you take the thing into the garage and do what a nexus phone was originally designed to do exactly yeah I totally get that and that's that's good i'm glad i asked the question because I'm I did not know that a lot of commenters we're asking the same question but you know that's that that I feel like asking the question I feel like that that group that question being pot that popular is interesting in that it's it tells us something about how the Nexus brand is perceived these days I think people do forget in myself included that the nexus one when it came out was supposed to be was a developer device you know was the thing you used to tweak Android as a dev before they kind of before regular people started picking it up so regular people before non-developers for you this tells you that before when we did have the nexus one and to a lesser extent the next s that were marketed primarily as developer devices the Nexus brand has now moved out of that type of perception into the mainstream this is now a mainstream device oh that also gives you all of the benefits and advantages that a developer device would if you want it to it gives you freedom it gives you flexibility and you can't beat the price I am so oh good Tony I was about to say that I don't necessarily think that people are buying a nexus phone or a nexus tablet because they want to do extreme tweaking most people probably have learned from previous mistakes and the huge thank you goes here to all the carriers and OEMs who do not support phones with timely updates because the Nexus bird guarantees timely updates and I think this is very important for Android users yes yeah agreed and I think you know that that hybrid of in smartphones because we're going to talk about a nexus tablet here in in like like like 20 seconds but that hybrid of a device like like a nexus smartphone with a history of being a geeky developer device with all of its timely updates with all of its straight from google goodness mixed with this kind of new cachet like hey here's this thing that's kind of as well recognized as a galaxy brand name but maybe not really and like you put them it's like what is this nexus thing what's going on that that is kind of like it i feel like its consumer catnip I feel like Google is still sitting on this wonderful resource pool with the Nexus brand that I think it's going to continue exploiting as it goes forward and I really hope they don't bungle it up because they didn't manage to torpedo it with the Galaxy Nexus debacle on verizon wireless probably because it's just one carrier in one country globally and that's good and it looks like they're determined not to repeat that in the future as we've seen with the nexus 4 where they're not they're like screw your carrier's you're messing up our whole thing so we don't need to cater to you the nexus 4 doesn't have alt you deal with it I don't like it but you know what it's I think it probably was a good business decision Joe Levi has almost the entire Nexus collection over it over in Utah if not the entire Nexus collection yes he should the entire it's as he should I agree as he should meanwhile and I'm sitting here with my nexus 7 still loving it but being like man I would like it I'd like to get my hands on a nexus 4 well you want to get that nexus 10 back in your hands because it's got that super super awesome back that is entirely true I if the listeners you don't remember i unbox to the nexus 10 because it was shipped to me and then i sent it immediately out to Joe Levi for his full review that's been posted I really liked the hardware I really wanted to get to know the device and having spent some time with the surface now I'm used to landscape tablets so Joe briefly because we don't have too much time what was the nexus 10 changed your life how does it factor into all this Nexus talk I have been a 10 inch tablet hater since I got my motorola xoom I just think it's too big it's too clunky that forms that factor is just it's too big it's too big to be practical for me to carry around with me as soon as I got the nexus 10 that changed it's about the same size as the zoom quite a bit thinner quite a bit lighter at least you know I don't have the numbers in front of me but it feels lighter ok on it finally is a 10 inch tablet that I would carry with me and even the Lyman android guy I don't burst into flames when I pick up a fruity device so I've I've touched iPads and I'm i can compare those as well they're still in my bucket of 10-inch tablets that I just don't like to feel to carry around there's something about the nexus 10 that that I don't know if it's the contours I don't know if it's the grippy back it probably has a lot to do with the front firing speakers and probably an awful lot to do with that gorgeous screen that makes the nexus 10 the first 10 inch tablet that I don't mind carrying around with me and actually enjoy using and that's held true since you received it and that's that still true today you still use this still true today yes interesting what do you what's the app situation like I know that the Android tenant shab situation hasn't changed much how are you dealing with apps that are stretching to fill that that big hole screen says I mean how painful is it yeah it is well Scotty it's not as painful as it might be for some others although I have had experience with you know with the iPad and some very beautiful apps over there I don't use it daily so I'm not used to this tablet centric makes it look beautiful display that some of the apps that have been custom crafted for the 10-inch iPads you know the I'm just not used to it so when I come over to my nexus 10 I'm used to those same apps on the neck 27 I'm used to the same apps on a nexus 4 or a Galaxy Nexus and they look almost identical there's not a disconnect and it doesn't look bad to me now seeing how some of the people have built their tablet based apps there's so much room for improvement I agree and that's where Tony says it's painful it's just not it doesn't get under my skin like it has a lot of other people and I can only encourage developers to to start taking advantage of the space and and making their apps flow and fit better and better utilize the entire space that you have to work on look for me it's not a game changer or a deal breaker to not have those special format maps let me ask you it as an app developer as a guy's you because you've written a nap or two in your time right I've got a couple apps in the market in the entrance to the point that you're going toward I'm a web developer and as a web developer you're more I has to develop for I don't know what streamwise my stuff is going to be displayed on right right right but I mean just just philosophically speaking as putting on your fear broad developer head well you know say you were developing an app for Android would the nexus 10 inspire you to develop a beautiful large screen android app is it enough is that is it a beautiful enough piece of hardware to to spur you to spend some effort on it specifically more so than just the nexus 10 seeing that Google is now officially backing that size and that resolution I put more stock in it now than I have before I mean we've had 10 inch tablets before the resolutions have been different across all of them essentially so if I were sitting back and saying I don't think this 10 inch fact form factor is going to take off in the Android environment this would now be my indication to say okay let's put some time into making our stuff look gorgeous on a 10 inch tablet I think that's where we're Joe just hit the nail on its head head on straight on and the problem with google and i don't know much about coding applications but i think that the problem with applications for the android platform is not screen size with screen resolution for instance on the apple ecosystem the 10-inch form factor has two resolutions or the tablet the broader concept the tablet form factor has two resolutions in the Android world a tablet whether if it's seven inches or 10 inches has multiple I don't know how many but at least three or four resolutions so I think that that's problem Jake Odum application I'm sorry I'd say it's got even more than that I'd go six or eight different resolutions that is just in red and then probably that many again on smartphones so it's it's whether whether Googlers or android fans love it or not it's this fragmentation that probably kills the I don't know the effort or the decision to go with a tablet dedicated application hmm that kill me if I would be a developer yeah you've got to put more work into well not only just developing but into testing I mean you've got to have these devices in hand to be able to really know how it's going to look and how it's going to behave the emulators they try in fact I haven't even gone back and seen do we have a 10-inch emulator in the android sdk I'd assume we do but the emulators suck they then what resolution would that views exactly you know they don't give you the true feel of what you have in hand you've also got a numbers game to look at how many people are running at that resolution versus the other where do you want to put your time do you want to put it into creating new levels for your game or adding these ten new features or fixing these ten new bugs more do you want to put that time into something that you know five percent of your customers are going to see because they have these large resolution tablets so it's it's all just a business game it's where do we want to to invest our efforts where are we going to get the most return on that investment and this finally is the tipping point where we're going to start seeing more and more emphasis put on the 10-inch tablets the higher resolutions because those numbers are starting to increase and it's becoming more justifiable from a business perspective to do so so the nexus 7 had its own kind of built in sales motivator with its very very low price the nexus 10 is still pricey and you know maybe rightfully so because it's packing a really high res screen and whatnot and it's light and beautiful and whatever but it's like what is it starts at 399 doesn't am i right am I wrong yeah yeah yeah that's that's right price point yeah so it's very well and competitively priced when compared to other 10-inch tablets right but it's still not a 7-inch not an insult me it's not that it's not anywhere near in the ballpark in the next 27 this is kind of like 199 threshold of like ah man I can rock and I can spare 199 so in light of that I mean how big a success to you each think this is going to be to close out the nexus 10 before we move on oh I think it will be I think the nexus 10 as it is right now will probably take a lot of users from other companies who are making 10-inch tablets and I'm not necessarily referring to Samsung even though the note 10.1 isn't such a great advice personal opinion here but i think that the nexus 10 with its high resolution and great build quality and the nexus factor has got what it takes to to launch okay Joe I'd have to agree this this finally gives people a Google branded device that is at least on par with the Apple equivalent devices and for a little bit better price it gives people another viable option where they might not have known about samsung or motorola or some of the other companies that are making android-powered 10-inch tablets and it puts that on on the radar for them it's not going to be the ninety nine dollar or the 199 Nexus 7 that's you know it competing with ebook readers alright but it's still priced appropriately for what you're going to get and it's going to it's going to succeed it's going to do well and we're going to see new versions of it down the road not to use the buzz word from 2010 but the word that I think of when I think of the new Nexus brand is ecosystem and I have said this on a podcast before I'll say it again I do kind of wake up mornings with insane ideas that I'm just going to go onto my computer go to google.com / nexus and order all three of them because the idea of having a device a device in each form factor small medium and large running the same platform and that play nicely with each other with things like Google Chrome sink you know what I mean being able to hop from one device to another and kind of have this faux continuous client experience is incredibly alluring Michael Fisher you are finally understanding Apple fans who own the iPhone the iPad Mini and the I i yes indeed yeah that is true that no totally absolutely I get that and it goes beyond just that you've also got the google play store which now is finally a viable alternative to itunes where you can have all of your music collection you can have your works you can have your movies you can have your movie and they're available across all of those platforms as well yeah and then you combine that with wireless display and you can watch all of that on your big screen TV without wires there's your you know your airplay competitor as well so Google is finally to the point where ya from a device and media perspective they are a real competitor yeah and that's six that's real exciting to see because I think it's going to turn up the heat under apples but to uh that's just one one thing to note here yes they do they are there but what they need to work on is to make the content available and more regions I can understand about devices about six five or six or seven max Play stores they need to do that with content with books with movies applications are all over in every Google Play Store and every region but if I in Romania I want to buy a nap I can do that with no books no movies no music mmm yeah that's entire Apple has the lead I agree and I feel your pain google is taking things a little bit a little bit differently as an app developer I can tell where i want my app distributed i can say i don't want this to go to Romania because I'm afraid Tony might pick it up don't sell it there or sell it in Romania for 10 times as much as I would anywhere else I have that control as a developer as developers we want our apps as far and as wide as we can go and as level of a playing field on price as we can that generally speaking the same type of distribution model can be applied to other content not just apps so that's books that's movies that's yeah there are copyrights and right that's the other people these license agreements you have distribution models you've got exclusivity agreements you've got all this stuff that comes into play so it's not google's fault that it's not there they do need to put the screws on and and get those license and go she ate it yeah but it there absolutely but let's let's put the blame where the blame lazy and it's on the content providers for not letting their stuff go into those other countries so take that animosity and rage that you have for google and put it on to the whoever it may be time warner MGM touchstone whoever it is that's distributing those and not letting them be distributed in your country feel like i'm having a ingrid a flashback to I earlier episode in a week I mean Apple wasn't the same situation at the beginning when they launched iTunes as a service and an offering and I think it's about it all comes down to how well you can negotiate the terms and I think that it is possible I don't I also think that it's not in their best interest or not as high as on their priority list as I would like it to be and speaking of priority list unfortunately we are we are running very short on time as usual yeah as usual with I not that not that i don't find digital rights management scintillating but we and i could not care less about this leak but we have to talk about it just very briefly Tony would you please tell us a little bit about the iphone 5s leak and what you think about it this image was was leaked to what was it two days ago I think though it was it was yesterday and refined swimming from summer in Asia if i recall well e trade's robbery in china and it is basically a picture of an iphone 5 from its back and then the case of the iPhone open and that's all I'm going to say about this because i personally think that we're not looking at anything else but an early prototype of the iphone 5 before it has received its FCC approvals and all the other things needed for these types of phones to go on sale there are a couple of tweaks we have two pictures side by side the five and the so-called 5s I think those are technological modifications from the early stage of a prototype until the final stage of the finished product I think it is too early to talk about an iphone 5s at the moment even if Apple is going to do a twice a year cycle of releasing products the iPhone 5 is still a new phone it's still just getting its way into markets like China so I think that this is bottom line an early prototype of the iphone 5 I would tend to agree it looks like that to me it doesn't look terribly interesting I think that the more interesting part of this leak or you know whether it turns out to be authentic or not is do you guys think and this will be the only question i asked in the in the iOS section do you guys think that apple will do the same thing they did with the four in the 4s do you think that the next iPhone will be an iterative bump and it'll be maybe even called the iphone 5s I think yes if you take a look at the internals of the iphone 5 they are excellent if you're not comparing them to components of an android phone I mean the iphone 5 runs buttery smooth on iOS 6 so there's nothing really not too much to bump in terms of specifications the CPU is good the RAM is enough the screen is good the resolution is good what I think apple will do is whenever so this is again a personal prediction whenever we'll see the iphone 5s it will probably have a minor spec bump of some sort but i think it will launch with the new iOS a redesigned one which will have probably Johnny I've signature on it and that's going to be the selling point at the iphone 5s it's from the Android side of thing at least curve we're gonna see an iterative bump some time but it's going to be more focused around a way than it is around guts because they just did a major overhaul to to what's inside the iphone and they've just introduced the new screen resolution so we can't do anything with the screen or we're going to have developers mad again they just upgrade the speed upgrade stuff mark camera out the battery so yeah yeah it's going to be iterative it's going to be and here's than the new iphone 5 which just makes the old iphone 5 it builds on it it makes it better all right so just like the 4s came up with iOS 5 I think and with Siri and the iphone 5 with iOS 6 I think the f of finest will come up with something I cannot put my finger on it or at my head around it but it will be focused on the platform yeah read well I think that's completely reasonable and I don't disagree at all if I did I would I would say something but I don't um let's do short on time we are so short unto them but you know that doesn't mean we don't read listener mail and we had a we had just one that I wanted to read very quickly because William Lee has been waiting very patiently for us to read any of his mail on the air and I like this as a little as a little wrap-up point because we have as always talked about every platform every major platform there is in the news today on this episode and William Lee has a two-point piece of mail that is very short he says I remember Michael talking about if there's a good reason such as camera he would sacrifice weight and thickness but now it is proven not to be as impressive he's talking about the Lumia 920 here do you still think the Lumia is a wise choice if we are buying a daily driver to use for at least a year that's the first part of his question William I have to say yes absolutely in my experience the Lumia 920 has been excellent if you're in the market for a windows phone I really wouldn't personally wouldn't wouldn't buy anything else and is the camera is disappointing yes but but only in the sense that my expectations were artificially bumped by the PureView branding and also once you learn how to use the scenes mode once you actually you shouldn't have to do this I'm not making excuses i'm still irritated but once you learn how do you use the various tweaks in the viewfinder software you can make some really get some stunning pictures out of that camera not to mention all the lenses and stuff and the slight overexposure problems the JPEG compression problems are easily fixed in a software update that we've heard time and time again nokia is actively working on so yes i still think the 920 is an absolutely solid device and for a smartphone camera it's difficult to do better but this and this applies to everyone and this is a great way to wrap it up so I'm glad William asked to wrap it up can everyone contribute their favorite phone currently selling so webos doesn't count thank you thanks for the reminder somebody knows that somebody podcast likes webos stay tuned by the way we're gonna have a cool web OS video I think in the next week or so well let's let's contribute I'll go first do as far as my favorite phone that is currently selling the 920 is the is the one I own so that one is I I have to answer personally that would be my favorite on Windows Phone but overall I think that currently selling the nexus 4 would probably have to be the one that I would I would choose just kind of off the cuff and you know for reasons why rewind about an hour we talked all about it you can't choose the nexus 4 because you haven't had it in hand you haven't used it for a week mmm that is true that is true but I mean you know I know give me give me photos yeah and also give me photos of like you know six seaside mansions i will pick my favorite one despite not having been at any of them you know what are you was about to see something which would totally totally i know it you know it's you know i know exactly what you recommend this Tony go what are you give us your your your kind of answer to this broad question that I like okay Windows Phone Windows Phone 8x by HTC Oh android HTC one x+ and of course the iphone 5 which happens to be my current daily driver not because i'm a fanboy but because I'm locked in the ecosystem because I prefer the applications in terms of aspect on the apple ecosystem versus the others wow I did not expect you to say windows phone 8x or HTC one x+ that's that's impressive it's interesting I've we should get into into that on a future podcast cuz we don't have time to get into it right now we sure do now good good thank you Tony what about you Joe I'm thinking the other iphone three-prong no it's the nexus 4 hands down absolutely love it yeah yeah yeah yeah i William thank you for your fear for your mail we kind of about once every two months we go into our personal devices and we start talking about that kind of stuff and when we have time we will follow it up with with more there but thank you very much the mailed and and gentlemen thank you both very much for for joining me on the air today was enjoyable as always do you uh any any parting thoughts from from Tony before we go i'm looking forward to CES where you will be there on the floor and I need you to upload a video a hands-on of the webos toaster alone horny android dishwasher something i'll find that android blender that we didn't get to it Aoife or it not that MVC sure yeah exactly yeah i will be at CES with with brandon minimun and with jaime rivera which will be great and maybe he will teach me how to pronounce his name properly with the rolled our while we're there so that commenters can stop making fun of my standard American pronunciation Joey for the final thoughts well I've got my traditional it's a great day to be alive but I wanted to go into just a little bit of what you guys are talking about of all the platforms out there android is the only one that has a development kit for doing just what you're making fun of we have the ADK so an android-powered toaster or plant water detector or fridge we can do that off the shelf ready to go SDKs and whatnot today so you'll see it on Android first thats Sarah Michael D D remember that iOS application at Aoife to monitor your your plans do I ever I just threw away that business card recently actually a Tony and I were Tony and I were checking out an interesting accessory at Aoife that yeah the den successfully destroyed and yes indeed yes I spent far too long pretending that I was interested in the accessory okay that's yeah I think you're right that that wraps it up for episode 21 or zero to one of the pocket now weekly throw a tweet our way listeners most of us are active on the Twittersphere and we say funny things and dumb things and smart things all in order Joe Levi is at Joe Levi tony is anton d Naja at a nton d na gy and you can find me at at captain two phones its captain the number two phones followed pocket now official twitter account pocketnow tweets is the name follow us on facebook and google+ leave us a review on iTunes or Xbox music formerly zune if you like the podcast and if you have a topic question or suggestion for the podcast you just want to say hi for whatever reason email us podcast at pocketnow.com thanks again for listening we'll see you next week thank you favor we'll see how