Gadgetory

the Moto X it's destined to be a very significant if not a blockbuster smartphone and we're on the eve of its launch we'll talk about that along with another android flagship from LG in the hour ahead plus we'll cover samsung gaming the system will chat on the new Nexus 7 setting the world on fire maybe and we'll do some fretting about everyone's favorite fins on episode 05 five of the pocket now weekly the once-a-week podcast from pocket now where we discuss smartphones tablets and the state of mobile technology in 2013 I'm your host Michael Fisher editorial director at pocket now and today I'm joined by everyone's favorite instagram jogger multimedia manager Jaime Rivera good morning to you in Honduras Instagram jogger is that my category is that it that's your new title enough good morning to everybody how are you I'm sure they're very well now that the weekly has begun and we also have on the air the man who keeps our front page humming with new hotness all the way from the pocket now headquarters bunker somewhere beneath media Pennsylvania chief news editor Stephen shank good morning to you good morning Michael yay we have a great team assembled as we were just talking about on the other side of the podcast before we hit the record button Taylor Martin has some kind of BS excuse as to why he can't be on the air today so whatever whatever he's doing those are three comparisons he's shooting at once I don't know what he's up to but it is great to have you guys here and we've got a ton to talk about don't we boy howdy yeah we do let's make some announcements real quickly I want to say that there will be some listener mail at the end of this show we are not going to get to all of it but we have a tentative and then this is news to you guys we have a tentative arrangement set up to do this to have a special listener male-only episode of the pocket now weekly hopefully next week is not exciting letters from you yeah donnelly and in addition what we might do is we might have as many podcasts excuse me as many PocketNow editors on board as possible so what might actually happen is instead of just three people from pocket now on the show we'd have I don't know five six whoever can make it so it might be a giant circus it might be a complete it is going to end up like two others of the way into an episode of always sunny in philadelphia where's the entire cast is shouting over each other for exactly 90 seconds straight right it'll be like it'll be like I don't know what eighty-five percent of the other podcasts on the internet and yet you know the cool thing about listener mail is you can sense her whatever you want so all those Jaime or Windows Phone hater mail you know you just know just right throw them off yeah all the other don't cover Jackson with the spam filter that's right I'm gonna do what else is just another couple brief announcements the the you review the pocket now you review will also be coming back next week prim may be on the same day if we do both these on Friday there has been an unplanned hiatus of the pocket on you review but we have so many cool devices particularly in my office I'm the spoiled brat this month so I've got so many cool phones want to share them so that'll be coming back and this month come on well well we can't all live in Honduras seriously you sent me a photo no maybe you posted an Instagram of like where you live where you live next to that amazing vegetation covered mountain and the fog was covering in the Sun was come he was just so idyllic and I was like well now I don't feel bad about getting this sweet sounds like Michael lives next to like a train paddock in the high voltage switching station exactly exactly that's exactly the first of all this is pocketnow.com this is not like mountain and calm so let's just switch by and now do let me bring you over to my world of vegetation and I could take over your mountain of phone guys deal with that listen I'm number number one no we need to negotiate further on that exchange number two mountain now calm is available you can buy it so why don't you go ahead and do that let's uh let's start a sister site seriously it'll be about hiking will it be about mountain mountain bikes just just your Mountain a phone just Mattoon that's all right well you too can experience my mountain of phones next pocket though you review anyway all that cool stuff is coming up and blah blah blah blah blah but of course the most exciting announcement because it is the most the one that's coming up most recently is that tomorrow is the Moto X event yes yes the motorola event in new york city announcing the motorola x officially and i will be getting my hands on it i'll be heading down to New York City for that tomorrow morning at an absurdly early hour from from a Boston train and I believe our appointment is somewhere in the mid day this is they're doing it kind of differently this time around i'll be telling you all about it and then what are we doing immediately after hi May we're to have this special round table as we always do but this gonna be interesting and unique on its own because usually we do the round table while the event is happening live and we get your feedback while you're at the event but this time it's like you know I still find it weird that Motorola's not having you know they they've made us really weird yeah yeah I mean they've created so much expectation for this phone and now they're not gonna have a press event for it they're just gonna have a hands-on so that's kind of interesting well you know I mean it's I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not a press event like it's it's an invitation only thing it's a you know it there is no stage is what you're talking about right they don't everybody into an auditorium and say here's a big show you know what I appreciate that the first event I ever attended was for the HTC One X last year and it was an ATT event they invited us into a hotel room and like that's basically what it was but it was it was a nice hotel room no get me wrong but it was nice and intimate and you just got to sit and chill with people well yeah it was the quest Oh what but the 1x had already been announced in Barcelona yeah that's a good point what they did when I did get the galaxy note it was just a little you know three or four people in the room looking at it but this was the US law after two already been available for you know three or four months internationally Moto X should be a way bigger deal exactly right and but I think that probably Motorola is very aware that this phone is not going to capture the the hearts and minds necessarily of a large swath of the tech sector you know I think they have a very concrete consumer plan in place for this but you know I don't think they're I don't know maybe I agree with you gentlemen it is unusual I don't think it says anything that I don't think it says that they're doing anything wrong right out the gate I mean we'll see you tomorrow no and listeners I guess the point we're trying to make here is where the the good thing is Michael's gonna have his hands on during midday and then he's gonna be joining our our round table so I guess the closest you can get to a live keynote of what really went on with this phone is if you join our special roundtable happening he had at four-thirty p.m. eastern and if you haven't joined one of those before it's a it's a google hangout based discussion and just the parkin out team on the air but you can leave comments you can ask questions you can do a lot of stuff and i'll be doing it from i guess from a sidewalk gents i don't want to be doing the hangout from the venue because i'm sure i'll be thrown out by then ever before 30 before hours later but by that point i should also have some comparison videos up a hands-on video a few videos posted if i can get if i can get coverage wherever i'm gonna be in new york city so i might be joining you from a bench at a bus stop near 10 square but i will be joining you and it'll be fun aisle three in a Duane Reade yes exactly in the in the vitamin supplements aisle next to the 5-hour energy yeah for sure so but while we're talking about that so yes join us for that but let's talk about what we can expect from the motorola x from the Moto X tomorrow we have a lot of links in the podcast post here there's just you know people call the Lumia 1020 the most leaked phone in recent memory but you know I don't think Motorola is that all interested in keeping the ex terribly secret you know we know a lot of the features here we're seeing a lot of leaked photos we're seeing photos of the devices in the wild you know google execs have had it out there and we've just got so much information can we just can we just like run down the highlights guys I mean what isn't on my mind is that this is going to be a highly customizable phone right it's going to be one that not only can you customize the base color but probably also the bezel and trim like there's going to be maybe some interesting materials used in the construction I don't know we haven't seen any pics of that alternate bezel color action we see white and black but not you know the green we've seen for backplates I'm not sure how that's really gonna play out you think we would have seen something given all the leaks there been exactly and honestly I think it's just gonna be a back plate thing it's not really gonna be a well what else can you customize from the phone I mean well so they've got that what is that that magic glass which wraps around the sides of the phone which would make customization more difficult right if the glass obscures the bezel well and that's the thing I mean magic glass we've seen it on the One X we've seen it on the witch Lumia was it that had this like rounded edges i think it's the 920 in the 900 well this it's supposed to be something weird about how the where the edge of the glass blends into the plastic i know the first leak about it mentioned like a special epoxy and it wasn't really described in the manner of detail like like so i have this you know fuzzy picture of my head even after seeing the images of the the faceplate but i don't think it's something we've seen before exactly like in these other phones but i still i'm not sure what to expect yeah i also have no idea what's going on here i mean the tonys news post for it just says it's what Motorola calls the front glass of the phone which according to reports will wrap around the sides of the device and it's like all right well if that's the case then we've sort of seen that before but we haven't though right we've seen the glass blend in like kind of pool at the edges and meet up with a plastic or a metal bezel right we haven't seen it like actually go all the way around the sides of the phone so boot and there's a good reason for that because if you drop it yeah I was about I was about to say that's not really code for something smart but I will see you guys let's see will well as far as things we haven't seen before either i guess wanted to note those new pictures at Tony posted at the glass I think is the first time we've seen the upper right corner of the phone it's always been blurred out in previous leaks and now we can see a couple numbers and a little 2d barcode i don't know people guess cuz we're getting so close to release date they no longer care about being the one identified as leaking this or what but oh yeah it's something interesting right yeah that's interesting right below the cut out for the front-facing camera there yeah yeah i'm still don't know if I'm sold on that new motorola logo in the upper left either that's you know we talked about this a couple weeks ago on the show and like I don't know if we don't have to go over it again but that well what new then it's not gonna look like that on the finished one is it where's yeah yeah because because it's the pits a motorola batwing in the center but it's surrounded by the Dozen batwing I'm pretty I'm pretty sure that the broken up ring is another identity thing because it's been different on different leaks we've seen oh and there is a company that does little it's a QR code would rip off but it does a company's logo and it has a circle around it and you scan it in a magazine or something and it's some pretty sure it's that identifying mark okay and that's not a brandy well we'll see tomorrow we will yeah what else now this is going to be made in the u.s. we're pretty sure right it is gonna be well assembled in the US all right yeah so components imported and then assembled in the US yeah and you know it's kind of interesting that they're able to so I guess one of the one of the points that's been happening with his phone is that apparently it's gonna be an affordable phone it's not gonna be a flagship expensive phone so it's interesting that Motorola has figured out a way to build a phone in the United States and keep the cost to the point where they can sell it as a mid tiered phone mm-hmm well yeah and but in a mid-tier phone instantly conjures up images of these like kind of forgettable designs but with some of the posts that we some of the pictures we saw on Steven your post from the 26th with the Moto X hardware rumors delving further into Andres design like this kind of it looks almost curved I mean not almost it looks completely curved on the browser back yeah people are worried it's gonna be wobbling around but then other week say no no it's just flat enough that it'll stay put it's so funny because I mean if it wobbles around it'll be no different than the HTC One the motorola the nokia lumia 1020 a bunch of phones i have here and an iphone with a case yeah because nobody nobody uses bear now how may you carried a Galaxy Nexus I actually have your old Galaxy Nexus right here yes you do what it was like to carry a curved phone it feel it feels great it feels great to talk on it feels great to use in the hand I'm very excited about this and when samsung released the galaxy s3 with the suggestion of a curve on the bezel but no actual curve in the hardware I was like get out of my face for example one phone that I love the curve on is the Xperia ZL it's it's very very easy it feels really good in the hand because of that and because of a of the choice of the the pattern texture at the back it just feels really good in the hand and I think that I noticed that there's this sort of a pattern in the Moto X as well what a texture on the zacks a little bit of one yeah yeah well and that'll change right because we some of those more outlandish rumors we saw early on what the Moto X was that it was gonna have like you could have not yet denim back on it or something bring is I first I was willing to dismiss those as he has mild speculation but then recently Taylor Wimberly has been all over the place with these really spot-on Moto X rowers he nailed that are GBC camera before we heard about it on the the droid ultra stuff uh-huh and he reiterated this multiple materials things like you know wood or ceramic everything else he said has come to pass so I'm really curious to see if he nailed that one too I am too because I mean this now that would be compelling right if it's not just colors it's not it's not just like here's a different colored polycarbonate you can slap on there like if it was legit you know bamboo or yeah or yeah denim or whatever you know if we don't like people and paper right now rhinoceros skin yeah yeah exactly seal tusk you see us in tusk's did I get that wrong I don't know i guess i guess um let's just hope these are not let's just hope these are not cases because if they're just gonna you know they're replaceable back plates then it's gonna be cool yeah yeah i'm backing up a second i think it's really interesting that you two are so gung-ho by this idea of a curved back because everything i've seen in commentary online has been people hating on this idea I it's so funny because I will never understand the sum of the eddies and currents in in comments and then commenters like we're in this technology field right and we're all good really excited about new stuff this whole industry runs on novelty but it seems like the minute somebody breaks away from the traditional like slab form factor that's got all the rest of us falling asleep everyone's like know why isn't it just like the last one I don't know it's very very curious to me love curved stuff yeah I love curve backs I mean if you asked me if I prefer you know the iphone 4s or five design in comparison to the 3gs i prefer the 3gs oh don't look at you boldly go home that's interesting I i love the curve back for me it was it was extremely easy to handle it didn't slip off my hand I don't know I just felt comfortable it felt really comfortable should we should we touch on that camera real quickly that our gbg twittered vote what is it yeah our 10 megapixel RGB see and I saw something yesterday apparently is going to have pretty large not super large relatively large pixel size i'm not sure the actual sensor size but the pixels are supposed to be are smaller than the one but larger than the gs4 is our friend like that yeah friend of the show of stefan constant constant and SQ at android bead posted something really cool last night with a very very click worthy headline Moto X to have a bit of nokia pureview magic where he was reporting on I think he was reporting on a Taylor Wimberly yeah he was reporting on each other when Billy rumor that you were just talking about Steven I'm talking about how this device will have a 10 megapixel sensor but we'll use pixel doubling like the oh yeah yeah repeat slow video to 1080p 60 frames that's awesome which is awesome it's great frame in the still category though the important difference being that the Lumia 1020 uses 7 pixels the data from up to 7 pixels to make one super pixel and because this is a smaller sensor rumored on the Moto X they'll be using for 2 1 pixel enhancement sorry but that was about 12 1 which is better than 11 but it also would result in a two point five megapixel photo unfortunately yeah so that's it's a Facebook photo man I mean look at the banners look at the ads they're trying to focus his phone on teenagers apparently so no I get it but I mean do you remember how much heat the HTC One caught for having a 4 megapixel camera and I was still deserve and I'm still gonna give it some heat now the question is the question is does this camera have optical image stabilization I real don't think so yeah because it you know that would completely explain the reason for the curvature at the back for that hardware to fit in there and that you know it happens in the one it happens in the line 20 and I would totally accept it on this phone you know if you get good low-light photography and if you get all the all the bells and whistles I mean 2013 is not a year for you to just bring out any camera that I think I think we're looking at exactly the same component on the droid ultra Maxx mini and if we didn't hear anything about image stabilization when those were launched I wouldn't expect to hear it for this guy I would agree especially considering that this is still you know google-owned or not this is still motorola we're talking about and motorola has never ever been one to lead the pack on cameras you know and that's such an irony because in the old days I really loved photos from from any water Olaf own meaning from the feet from the v6 35 and from the q 9h I had really awesome photographs from that phone actually yeah go ahead no I guess back in the day of the v710 of the v8 800 on verizon had they had some of the first 2 megapixel cameras you could get on a phone the image quality image quality was great the color reproduction was awesome I you know bad been for the four phones that old you know I I remember that Motorola used to lead that pack back in the day so hey it's great that they're coming back maybe well yeah we'll have to see i once again we'll see you tomorrow I don't know but since they've started with the modern smartphone iterations it like that everything from the razor on to the razr m to the Atrix 2 i've just never been really overwhelmed with a modern motorola camera so a lot of noise in those photos definitely yeah yeah yeah and same kind of wild swings and exposure and oh yeah and the video stuff yeah so anyway we'll see go ahead and see so you are you optimistic this is finally going to reverse course for them you know it is so hard to say if if if we were seeing tomorrow as a huge event like you guys were saying before I think it would be really interesting I think I would be a little more confident that the camera is going to be something but no not let me let me let me just backtrack there yeah I don't know with this rumor of this this pixel doubling and I think they're going to bring something interesting whether it's going to be buds buzz-worthy crap or actual improvement I don't know but it'll be interesting to see what they bring and I have more Hope than I have had before for their products thanks to the Google centric nature of this thing you know if all that software you know that whole turn your phone on calling it okay processor you know honestly as gimmicky as it may sound you know I think of that feature and I'm like what's the point of google glass if I'm able to talk to my phone right there on the table and will tell me whatever I want without the need of having something stupid on my face so that I thank you for making awesome on your face exactly right jerk no I you are absolutely right hi man that's something that I want to touch on before we move on we've talked about this time and time again with voice commands and a device that can intelligently listen to you all the time wait for that cue and just let you talk to it without hitting a button is definitely the next thing that's going to drive voice interface forward is it creepy yes my destroy battery life yes but god it's the it's the future it's it is the future of sitting in a room and saying computer and then there's something like that well apparently that processor you know we're talking about the specs of the phone apparently the processor was designed to be able to do that so this is a dual core processor but the point being is you know quad core processors aren't really that create anyways and apparently apparently this processor has the specialty of allowing you to have tremendous standby time in order to be able to do that it's like what we'll be seeing the Snapdragon 800 but without being as expensive or as otherwise powerful as the 800 what kind of chip is inside this thing this is that weird when they made is like 8x five say yeah yeah it's got a quad-core GPU dual core application processor okay and then to specialty cores one of them's this voice one one of them's something else wow I actually I did not know that so I have once again I have a four hour train ride into the city tomorrow during Katrina during which i will i will be prepared for the for the experience but i have been immersed in other phones for the past few days so let's move on speaking of other phone unless you guys have a closing thought on the Moto X because we're gonna talk a whole lotta better tomorrow so yeah let's go let's go yeah yeah the LG g2 as Stephen shank says in an hilarious headline is destined to disappoint and i don't mean hilarious because it's inaccurate I just mean it's it's quite it's quite on the nose and I i find myself sad that i can't immediately disagree with you Steven it's unfortunate i'm getting some flak for it in the comments there but i think it's ultimately going to be true I mean LG important LG phone not to disappoint would have been a huge accomplishment they always seem to find some way to just Ana build quality or the software lacks the polish of something Samsung comes up with it needs to have this huge selling point I'm just not seeing that for the g2 it looks like the phone that anyone would make in this current smartphone climate this is a phone you make with the pic opponents available at the moment there's nothing nice and I think the timing of what LG has been doing recently has been just bad i mean if you remember when the Galaxy Nexus was launched um and I'm going back a couple of years here you know it was it was it was not a groundbreaking phone but that 720p display was unique and so it was still an innovation happening but then when you get the nexus for the nexus 4 is pretty much late first time in just about everything so that small opportunity that LG had to live some top of mine on their on their quality just totally went berserk with this phone and so I feel that they lost a good opportunity with that nexus 4 which is not going to push that g2 into into a higher top of mine sadly let's uh let's make the point right now that the g2 has not yet been revealed officials is true now that will happen on August seventh and once again I will be in New York City this time joined by our very own Adam Lane it'll be wonderful to cover an event with that I'm I haven't done that before and that's when we're actually going to see the g2 for ourselves we'll definitely hopefully get some hands-on time but we'll definitely see it and that's when LG is going to either blow us away or disappoint us but I think the point is that everything we're seeing coming out now and LG has not been shy about sharing it's just like the motorola it's ridiculous this summer it is it's like well you know yeah we're officially gonna announce it you know sometime the future but hey here's all the information in a link wink nudge nudge dress and the in addition that includes accessories and I think that's one of the annoying things about this to me this halo accessory that LG has started at putting rip wall yeah exactly what do we always criticize LG for ripping off samsung and this isn't the same thing as Samsung ripping off Apple it's completely different because at least Samsung tends to tends to put their own spin on their ripoffs but LG boy and I mean they're not subtle about it I snow and the results I want to make clear the results are not always bad I will say for probably the 55th time on this podcast I really really liked the optimus G I still like the optimus G we just gave one away not only because Brandon was bored with it but because it's a really great phone it got a really solid score on the review and it's it's it's beautiful and it runs well and it does a great job so for that reason yes I'm excited about the g2 but man this flip cover that they are pushing it's like you took a galaxy s4 flip cover turned the window on its side and release it in like two more colors and I've gotta give them credit that the the touch response do is I'm asleep that's because that's an 800 thing I assume what's that again what does it do is that you can just touch that window without you know pressing the wake button and the phone's gonna start responding to you okay so there's a window cut out on the flip cover and right you if the displays off you touch the you touch it in the window and the display wakes up but with the samsung's if I'm not mistaken you had to you know press a hardware button to wake the phone didn't you you do or you can just open the flip cover in or open okay yeah so this is it so it's you know better but it's still like you said it's a shameless ripoff of this yeah yeah and listen I will probably love this flip cover because as we determined with the s4 I'm a flip cover fanboy for some reason when they have windows in them so yeah but it's just actually it's especially in that price tag right oh yeah actually at a very affordable 7999 that samsung was trying to charge that you know you know it's interesting about that whole concept of that window it's like in the old days of the flip phone where you can somehow you could read your messages from the small display out so that's probably why I like it that's probably because I hang out in the nostalgia section of our forums all day long thinking about the past that's probably where I like flip covers yeah I haven't even had a chance to be at our forums forums pocketnow.com visit us shameless blizzard us and and and if you asked nicely i have this video of a guy named Fisher snoring down to it it's snoring like an animal in Vegas you know if you're nice enough i could probably upload it mr. Rivera have you ever heard of the concept of mutually assured destruction it's called blackmail yeah it may be but you know III uh I have a similar video of a man named jaime rivera snoring his face off in that same city coincidentally in that same hotel room so you know i am never falling asleep around any of you guys don't do it it's suicide anyway this LG device is going to have a snapdragon 800 that's awesome a 1080p screen also awesome and a flip cover that's a ripoff but might also be awesome so we were gonna check it out it's going to be it's going to be interesting to be what it's going to be Thank You Stephen for reporting on it my pleasure and we'll be sure to cover that exhaustively and yeah and see if these rear volume buttons actually worked or they're gonna be completely unusable as I'm worried about yes you know if the phone were smaller those rear buttons would make sense but how well can you reach the back now with your fingers I it's like oh god I don't know i mean like i don't know i don't see that being a problem i actually don't have a problem with the back matter volume keys that that some people do but we'll we'll have to see i think it's a cool idea it's definitely not one of those blockbuster things that sells millions of phones but it's one of those things that makes you take a second look at it unfortunately it won't do that in the retail store because all phones look the same in the retail stores are all positioned exactly the same you know and probably my biggest concern with that with those button is for example in my case I really care about not smudging the cam the camera lens with my fingers because you know i'd like to take candid photos and i don't want my back I don't want the camera to be smudgy and this is just gonna be impossible with this phone yeah also you know in some of the stores they're gonna put the the big old anti-theft bracket right I was just Steven I was just gonna say that like can you imagine all the epoxy that's gonna get into those boys units you're gonna pick up a g2 in the store and it's gonna be just randomly throwing volume windows on the screen because it doesn't know what to do uh that's sad didn't that happen with like ah with the Galaxy Nexus or something when it launched there was a software bug that made the volume keep changing randomly it didn't nobody wasn't there yeah there was a crazy bug I just don't remember what it was but there was it took a second third version for them to figure out how to fix that oh well yeah fun fun with bugs III think you'll win the bugs that were in the optimist view that had like so many typos in it that it couldn't even be described English and some of those dialog box come on Michael that whole phone was a bug I didn't post about it but did you guys see yesterday rumors about the view 3 no no no no I mean serious they're saying one it's gonna exist to it means gonna have a hi-def screen but it's gonna keep that damn 423 aspect ratio 1280 x 960 and I just want to say it here I find that absolutely ridiculous and we have a worst gadgets ever episode on this phone and blah blah blah but um in certain markets as a commenter helpfully pointed out on that worst gadgets ever episode in certain markets like South Korea that aspect ratio is is actually favored what yeah for mobile TV viewing because that's the aspect ratio they still use yeah so that's that's why it was pushed so heavily over there or maybe misquoting that I know LG is is a South Korean company the commenter may have said something about Japan as well in terms of that i'm not sure but at any rate you know maybe that's a justification for a third version of this of the nato stervie river very skeptical of that and if my keyboard wasn't super loud I'd be looking it up to dispute at this moment google in that ish yeah well let's let's move on from from LG and let's talk about the other big news of the week which was actually you know scandal rocks the tech world oh yeah the first indication i had that this story was coming up was brian klug or i don't know how to pronounce his last name klug over at a non-tech who is a very intelligent guy right some some excellent stuff tweeted something along the lines of how much further down this rabbit hole can i go it was like what are you talking about Ryan and then I looked at his feet and I was like oh because I non-tech was the one who first broke this story I believe that Samsung has been maybe or maybe not but probably yes opta optimizing its galaxy s4 and other devices to perform better on benchmarks then then in normal operating circumstances they do this by overclocking right I'm looking at your stories yes you yeah yeah nothing being overclocking but you know extra masks yeah at a higher speed and everything else seems to be yeah so the GPU normally runs up at what 480 and there it due to something called what is it called benchmark booster or something I don't that's the formal name but there were some files on the device that have that text string and also have the names of all these apps where the boosting happens quadrant and linpack and all yeah yeah and the boosting up to its max it's rated max and 532 megahertz and it also swaps over to what would you say to its a15 cores when such an app is running it's always going to be adjusting which cores it uses but when it starts one of those benchmark ones no matter what the actual load is like even if you're just sitting on the menu screen not actually using the processor it's still going to activate all for the f-15s and clock them as high as I go right right and now Samsung after I made the rundown but before the show started Samsung actually officially responded to this didn't they did they did and what did Samsung say yeah nothing that leaves me feeling much better about the situation the response was posted in Korean and the google translate was a little hard to read but some much more legible translations make the case that Samsung saying that no no this is absolutely a 533 megahertz GPU it's just we have to dial it down to 480 because some of these you know games that are really pushing limits of the system are gonna overload the GPU which makes I know some about how these sort of things work but enough to know that if you run the chip faster it's usually going to have higher throughput and give you better performance so i'm confused why slowing it down would avoid overloading it if they're worried about burning more people's houses down or I find the scandal to be interesting I mean I benchmarks have never been like reliable ever since the you know ever since the dual core processor made it back in the day of the single core processors benchmarks were reliable but as it's known I mean every time that we get a new dual core quad core or eight core phone usually benchmarks never really hit the spot on the the real ability of these phones and uh you know I I don't know they're making such a scandal over this and it's I mean it's not like this just because one thing between at the benchmarks not accurately reflecting phone performance and going out of your way to single out these apps as ones for which you will artificially boost phone performance right the thing is I'm a was making a broader point that I will shamelessly hijacked for a second Taylor Martin wrote a piece for us the other day called why benchmark scores don't matter and this was a piece that I suggested based on something else I was reading elsewhere on the web but also based on the fact that I hate guys when we're reviewing phones I hate running benchmarks I hate running them not because it's particularly stressful it's not it actually provides some really interesting animations on my phone screen and it gives me a nice opportunity to film something interesting happening on the phone for the review video but because it does not affect anything that I routinely do with a phone because I'm not often pushing phones to their absolute limit as a personal user and most people aren't either and and with good reason because when you do push your phone to the limit that's when your battery's not going to last you through the day that's when it's gonna get super hot we don't want to be doing that right actually right and and you know more and more are you more and more consistently people of note and not just people who are you know tech bloggers are there there are millions of us now right but you know reputable established writers in the tech space are more and more frequently saying no benchmarks Nolan no longer makes sense to derive any meaningful performance data from benchmarks on mobile devices because of some of the burials we've talked about on the show and it's even you know some of how this stuff works hi may I don't know where you stand I am I know very little about this all I know is a benchmark score has never governed whether or not i personally invest money in a device and I don't really think it ever will because to me it doesn't correlate at all to real life experience for me benchmarks have always been an after-the-fact purchasing thing so I get the phone then I'm gonna install the benchmark software I'm gonna convince myself that I no use my money properly callback phones look it sound all those last year models I feels I'm I'm just gonna give you as we say in in my country I'm gonna give you the change right now out of all the investment um man every time that I would test that Tegra 3 it would look beautiful on benchmarks and then once you started using that thing I would just die you know whether it was like whether it was the nexus 7 or the HTC One X I don't care I mean I don't care about benchmarks I don't even bother to run them because you know honestly it's pointless at what's the point about a processor like the Tegra 3 that look beautiful on numbers and it performs so badly mmhmm yeah it was the same thing with me with the u.s. versions of I think the 1x yeah Brandon had brought the 1x to lunch with him the international 1x when we first met and he learnt play with it I was like wow this thing kind of lags huh and then I got the AT&T one with the dual core s4 in it and yeah like wow this is inferior in most benchmarks and most specs but it runs better and i think that's when the disconnect really started making itself evident to me now that's you know that's crate versus cortex or whatever but i don't know well no not it might was I right on that I don't know yeah you were okay yeah the original s4 was great was the first it was the second iteration which was the version that go to the crate architecture yeah so anyway this is exactly the kind of conversations like that like what this conversation has become are exactly what I hope to avoid by never using benchmarks again unfortunately we still have to run him I think I don't think we've changed our policy on that but I'm gonna hate it I thought it was interesting in that an antec right up on the Samsung thing they noted that they've moved on to other benchmarks didn't even use the quadrant or the mainstream ones so yeah maybe there is something to be gained by analyzing non-traditional aspects of performance but like you said in general I can definitely appreciate your desire to just wash your hands of the whole thing jump um ok yeah you know and you know what's even funnier is better they are important for gaming sorry Jaime but yeah they are important for gaming ok like ice storm and I storm extreme I understand those are the 3dmark tests they're pretty ok try to benchmark try to benchmark an iphone yeah no no but still but still which phone runs me you know we we've been talking about this with Brandon for the longest time his favorite game is asphalt 7 and so is mine yeah we've tested it on every station vinkel phone yeah I'm sorry sorry Steven it wasn't a point game sorry sorry to disappoint you asphalt 7 that's but the point being is it's just funny try to benchmark an iphone it's still asphalt 7 runs best on the iphone 5 then I'm pretty much every phone I've tested it on and that's just the reality so where's thing right yeah exactly I don't know you know I'm I I hope that some some intelligent conversation comes of this not just in the comments or in our forums but from an industry perspective and we're gonna you know we'll have a look at our benchmark policy moving forward and hopefully we can we can find a nice middle ground because yeah throwing the baby out with the bathwater is never a good idea but you know well we'll see it was just interesting to see a manufacturer get get beat up for it in the press and and rightfully so I think but it is also our fault as a as a body as an industry 44 I think you're not leaning too heavily on these benchmarks from time where the waters encouraging them to me exact that decisions exactly yeah and they're the end this is by no means the first time it's happened we many and other manufacturers have done it before but yeah I think we should take a look at this and realize it for the wake-up call that it is but let's move on and close out Android if that's all right with you gents and we'll talk just briefly a better device I think none of us is carrying right the one day it was not as care that I think the one guy who could answer some questions about this is the guy was too good to join us on the air today for due to his heavy workload Taylor Martin's nexus 7 the new one according to jaime rivera is finally an ipad mini competitor why I deny that no iPad competitor Oh an iPad Camaro oh yeah well then well why I'm a you you should tell us why see up to the for example and probably the point that I was making in the editorial is the top of mind right now is that the ipad is the best tablet and you know it i think it android has a lot of fault in that because of the problem there is in the ecosystem and the fact that you know honeycomb was terrible the fact that applications still are not scaling well you know it's just taking android so long the people just don't want the drama and they just end up buying ipads and i remember when the first Nexus 7 was launched I mean they you know even even if even if Google criticized the form factor of a 7-inch tablet you know that was really the smartest solution for the whole app problem the fact that you look for a tablet that has a portrait orientation and the end that scales those smartphone applications and in less of a horrible way and that's even I don't mean to interrupt your bed can just say that was that's my favorite move ever they're like well we can't fix this ecosystem these are just still going to be phone apps scaling up to a tablet screen so let's make the screen as small as possible yeah i mean that's awesome i I remember picking up my Nexus 7 and that's one of the main reasons I wrote that editorial almost a year ago about the nexus 7 being my new best friend because man yeah it solves that problem it's like wow least resistance yeah exactly it did it did but the problem with the nexus 7 was we remember the Tegra 3 we remember the display it was it was just an affordable tablet right um so it did solve the a problem the problem is it wasn't really a high-end tablet it was just an affordable tablet um that it had a pretty design and everything but it wasn't a groundbreaking high-end product and we can't deny the fact that the ipad is high-end I mean whether it's the retina display or the hardware construction just everything about the ipad is high-end from the applications to everything including an ass yes including the mass sadly for now yeah um but I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that for the first time ever um I mean Samsung still comes out with these with this terrible resolution on these on these on these landscape tablets and yes we've got the nexus 10 but we still have the app problem so well and the tabs and the notes no you're right about the resolution problem I my girlfriend of the tab ate last night 38 last night she's like she's the resolution on this thing is low oh my god is exactly and so the Nexus 7 is like the first high-end Android tablet because it's got its got better than retina display resolution it's got better resolution than the ipad it solves the app problem the constructions good the display is finally up to speed they're not using a Tegra 3 anymore and they're keeping that price mm-hmm to 29 99 is all right bosta not exactly either they're they're keeping that price so I'm like okay I have no excuse to buy an ipad anymore that's fascinating that's you know I I can't argue with you i would love to get my hands on it i will say this Taylor Martin is hard at work on the review and that'll be out soon I'm not going to give any spoilers on on what his thoughts are but I don't think he's thrown it out the window I'll say that yeah that's a good thing what about you Stephen notes here and I know you're not necessarily the biggest tablet guy in existing I love tablets um I mostly think it's it's a big improvement I'm a little confused about the choice of soc but if it no like the Moto X we're seeing now doesn't have to necessarily be the bleeding edge to be a worthwhile a ship to power and modern mmm device I am a little upset about the Google Wallet thing though now what will fill us in on the Google Wallet story well it has NFC still you can use you know Android Beam to send files and other device but they removed the secure element it's the hardware component that when Google wallet's talking to a you know credit card terminal it's the part that you know does the encryption it's what stores your card details so you don't have to have an active internet connection to use google wallet and it was there in the first Nexus 7 and it's not there on the new one and this is like and I'm like a 50-cent chip a tiny little you know surface mounted component just why it's yet uh you're gonna hate me for saying this but I you know I think that Google what Google did was just grab the nexus 7 pattern and check on all the historical data of how many people actually use the tablet to make a payment and understood that nobody did and therefore they remove the feature that's a would have said it's a chance yep with nexus 7 the first one they looked at will how many people take pictures with their their tab well so sheltered thank you well that's that's the thing i mean the the the camera of the original Nexus 7 was not bad it was terrible um front-facing camera was just horrendous so they couldn't get any data from the camera because there wasn't a back-end right i think one was terrible but it feels like they already did that you know the trimming of the fat when designing the first one they said well this is a product it's not going to need a rear-facing camera then they're changing course with the the new one it's just weird how they're adding some things taking away others it is weird and I do wonder you you also wrote a piece to even called is the lack of google wallet on the nexus 7 evidence that google's abandoning the project and it's a solid question to ask I part of me says what you were saying no one makes payments with tablets and it was may be dumb to have it on the Nexus 7 in the first place right yeah but part of me is like well we also haven't heard google talk a lot about wallet recently and maybe this is gonna go the way of you know google reader and yeah wave and nylon stand now oh it's a new one Oh googled a log catalogs right what that was that any way who knows by the end of the year I think we'll have a better sense of where while what is heading if it you know doesn't show up on if the Moto X can't do it if the whatever this next Nexus phone is then I'd say we're in trouble agreed the Moto X is definitely the canary a coal mine for a google wallet now the quite the question is does this a droid ultra lineup include the factor or is it gone as well cuz that's pretty much like the first phone that we should yeah as I I wouldn't judge based on that though because verizon's always blocked access to wallet so I don't know if we enter this room bro the droid ultra phones are I consider the more more verizon phones than motorola phones if that makes sense like there's so much carrier interference there there's so much carrier dictation on features and specs and i think verizon just announced recently that the that motorola will be the only makers of droid branded equipped yes yes so that's crazy so yeah i wouldn't use those as a as a measuring stick at all we'll know if the ex has it now I'll ask you one question Michael because I remember that one of your first videos in pocket now was actually an experiment over google wallet yes I was gonna mention that it was a CVS was it yeah there's a CVS the haircutting place the bowling alley the dunkin donuts yeah it was great and i loved actually that was my first video I ever edited myself for pocket now and I used it I edited it on an iMovie on my older macbook air but no I had a blast and that's what i was thinking of what we were talking about her because listen using google wallet is a lot of fun you're paying with your phone is fun as hell or giant tablet as the case may be yeah right exactly how angry the tablet it's probably just like taking pictures with your tablet okay let me go take my tablet out of the backpack and i'll be back to make this payment exactly right now like that stupid but but man paying with your phone as a blast so i really hope just for the sake of living and a geekier as geeky a future as possible that Google Wallet sticks around I really wanted knows what happened Isis this was supposed to be the big like carrier and financial institution backed alternative that was being promoted to push google wallet out of the way it's no wild too because everyone wants their cut as I understand it the big thing that's stalling all these initiatives that this was the card companies wonder but Isis was the cabal of all the credit card companies and the carriers these are the ones who should have been succeeding right I'm sure they can't even agree amongst themselves that couldn't be I don't know it's just for you to be able to hack a physical credit card you know to duplicate the credit card you physically need the card um the problem with phones especially android phones is if you have a rooted phone I mean what are your guarantees that remotely your phone is not gonna be compromised I still I still feel skeptical about making payments with my secure element yeah yeah that keeps any hacker from make it you know if they knew your PIN they could still make purchases but they can't read your credit card number off the phone or anything like that right but I know I'm I think it's I guess it's a cultural thing is what I'm trying to say I I still see it for example I particularly if I had the feature enabled I remember I was with Brandon in philly and that was like you remember Steven when i was there and that was like the first time we went to bestbuy and that was the first time that i had actually ever seen somebody pay something with the phone right I found it cool I was just like man there are more probabilities that I could lose my phone than lose my wallet nah so I don't know I still debated I still think that it's a gimmick it's a cool feature to have but it's still at the gimmicky point well absolutely yeah there's no arguing with you on that it's still a gimmick at this point but but at some point either the you know the industry the financial industry and the technological side of things are going to get behind this or they're going to get behind another form of it and I I do hope it's google wallet because I think Google stands the best chance of implementing it properly but given their current trend of canceling anything they do they get bored with yeah that's true that's that's a big problem yeah or can't monetize it's going to be making any money off of wallet besides knowing what you're spending on right right put in you know but that's value that's way valuable to them it's yeah oh yeah well if if people would use it actually right yeah there's the rub well let's let's move on on that closing note of Google stuff and talk a little bit about Windows Phone we just have two things talkin Windows Phone two things iOS then we can get to listener may land and cruise hi mate how are you on time you got ten minutes for us uh yeah yeah alright cool do I want to let everyone know that the strangest comparison I've ever done the HTC 8xt vs HTC One is up actually that's probably not true i've done stranger comparisons but this one was just particularly in apt but it just hit me in the middle of the head I was like the 8xt it's Sprint's first windows phone 8 device ever it's HTC's newest windows phone 8 device it's the first the only Windows Phone device with boom sound and it's out and i wanted to cover it a little bit before the full review came out so it's compared to the one and guess who wins it's the high-end device it's a video that i recommend you watch yeah the other colorful chassis didn't win you over yeah so here's the thing very quickly this is not a dig on HTC because this has happened with every almost every manufacturer I've reviewed but it's really unfortunate when the first review device you get is defective oh no that's what happened to me yeah so I thankfully HTC was awesome they sent me a new one is like immediately and I just got it today so I've moved everything over but for the comparison i just used everything that was not effective so you know with our comparisons we can tweak them a little bit you know if we don't have enough battery information yet we can say we don't have this yet but check the review you know blah blah blah blah blah so we did the camera we did the hardware that a little bit of the software and blah blah blah what didn't work the it was is it was like the phone was possessed the the yeah like apps would apps would crash it would it was the latest Windows Phone experience I ever had ever and that's why I knew it was broken because I'm emailing other people at other sites like our friends at other sites and I'm like guys you're a texty how is it is it like he or whatever and a lot of them are like well it's a little laggy but it's not like a big disaster like what's your problem I'm like did this thing is well oh my god and I couldn't listen to music for more than five seconds without the sound just exploding in my ears it was horrible it was that's wrong but it because it's a defective unit I want to make it clear once again listeners this is not because the 8xt is that way it's because I had a crappy defective unit but it's it robs a lot of time from your review process obviously when that happens so I have my new one I am getting used to it today I'm testing all the features that were broken on the defective one and the review will be up very soon but the 8xt is beautiful California blue as you say Steven and guys having boom sound on a Windows Phone device is really really cool it is nice having forward firing speakers with a lot of bass and a lot of amplitude on a windows phone so i will psych in in action yeah it's really crowd other other than that is there anything other than that yeah there is actually because um you know how Windows Phone we outside the Lumia 1020 we've always complained that windows phones have the same stock camera viewfinder and that doesn't let you really do a lot and it sucks at letting you know what shooting mode you're in well HTC has ported their excellent view finder app from the one basically to the 8xt so while you can use the original windows phone shooter you also can use the HTC camera and it is heavy software it's it's not terribly responsive but it's got the same you know persistent shutter and record buttons on the screen all the time it's got little filters it's got HDR it's got a bunch of contrast saturation stuff and in video you can shoot at 60fps you can do a bunch of cool stuff so that's pretty cool that's worthwhile mil yeah but this phone probably could should have been called the eighth st not the others no I was about to say I mean that the phone is not really an 8x what's really just it's not really I mean lukien yeah yeah hmm was it wvga yeah yeah yeah it's pretty pretty rough on the screen but uh there's a high-end device that deserves maybe a little bit of our talk before we move on and that's everyone's favorite yellow pocket now sidearm the Lumia 1020 which Taylor I've been using a lot and shadow Oh where's my review unit I don't you let you will have to yeah actually we got our review unit from the good people at AT&T so I cannot having some communication issues with with other people but listen here's the should we be concerned about the Lumia 1020 yeah because of its sales figures on one particular site Stephen shank your thoughts oh man I got so much flak for that post basically given read this it's that you know we're trying to get an early assessment of how the 1020 is doing because everyone's putting so much on its success or failure so an early way to get a look is to check out Amazon's sales rankings so Amazon will show you like a TNT all of the the best selling phones currently and so at the top we have models like the one galaxy s3 is actually higher than the galaxy s4 surprisingly it's chi pricing yeah yeah 900 windows phone yeah uh and the 1020 it was at number 13 on Monday but then you would expect a new phone do you know you know build a little momentum over the first couple days but instead it dropped back to like 20 25 I checked a little later in the day after posting that and moved back up it was at 24 I think it was up to 20 then so it's showing some momentum but it's a lot lower than you would hope a phone that's as hyped as this that has so much you know running on it so what I'm which lists are you looking at because there are many best sellers list on the amazon thing maybe you said this is a second ago but this was just AT&T oh just 18 because cell phones and accessories updated hourly so this is what its at right now the Nokia Lumia 920 ok so the Nokia Lumia 1020 is back up to 13 right now okay that's promising and that's good is I followed immediately by the 920 at number 14 go ahead i was the 900 still higher no the nine huh Thank guy I guess I guess I you know following Stevens concern if you all remember this listeners I mean the Lumia 920 sold out uh I don't know how long it took me I could not okay so I was in the US when the phone launched then I couldn't buy it it was sold out everywhere well it was sold out everywhere and it was just like stir Sunday oh no that was the 900 yeah yeah that was the 900 this was in the fall of last year right and I I went to bestbuy I went to AT&T I went everywhere I tried buying it online mean it was sold out everywhere just a couple of days after the launch so okay what is it what is it phone supposed to be hot it's supposed to be hot in the first days when it's launched that's when the hype is built that's when the ads are there that's when all the investment is happening and oh so our should we be concerned I'm sorry but I am concerned I am I I do feel a sad that this is not gonna be the haven for nokia because this phone really is worth the money one fair criticism had heard of these complaints is that a lot of people might be preferring to get the phone in a brick-and-mortar store or from somewhere like microsoft where they can get the the camera grip accessory for free yeah yes which is I did but I went through the Amazon ordering thing and it has a pretty good discount on the phone you can get it for it was offering it to me for 270 which is as far as i know the cheapest i've seen for just the 300 but 30 bucks less than the on contract price so i'm not so sure that's why people are staying away from amazon but it might be just too early I don't know right and it's also a single point of reference but you know it's interesting when I look back on my history looking at the Amazon bestseller list and like that was what the that was our Haven and the underdog sectors for like webos was like what's the VR doing right now is it on you where's oh it's really high on Amazon that's awesome and like the Lumia 900 was way ahead yes it's that's number 25 it's really high no the veer was high for a bit how high did in here ever guide oh no no no guys hit triple digits 25 oh whatever maybe wasn't a very Merry was the pre it wasn't a pre too because i never saw sale in the US anyway it doesn't matter the point is it's a tough it's tricky thing as you say Stephen to forecast total sales it's just an indication and anyway we'll we'll see but i think the phones high price and its kind of nature as a one-trick pony a very awesome one-trick pony but a one-trick pony will keep it from will keep it from wide adoption over let me just revisit that phrase for a second a one-trick pony could be a very good thing what if that one trick is like I don't know it can poop out hundred-dollar bills that's a pretty good job some trick right or you know or amazing photographs you know that's a great thing to I want to be clear I am NOT regretting my purchase at all but yeah I love my one trick pony or my wart hog is it as it were I was all ready to yell at you about that headline I guess when I was a capitalization I was watching you like write that in draft like is this gonna be about the animal or about the plane animal right so you were only gonna yell at me if it was about the animals i didn't know i didn't want to get ahead of myself okay all right yeah yeah I don't know if I've announced that or not the Lumia 1020 review is up that was up last Friday at midnight so if you missed it go check it out I did enjoy that analogy that might be my favorite analogy i've ever used guess upset you didn't use the picture of the the VW Bug next to the the a-10s giant cannon or scale it's ridiculous in the guns large entire car I nobody but that's well man that they just left to my mind that I love that plane and I love the phone so moving out I OS before hi May has to depart really latest budget iPhone photo is just one of the ugliest things I've ever seen and I hope it's fake what do we think what which photo are you you talking about photo in the of the boxes cuz that was in boston's me they're chasing photo from your store in july 26 with the FCC label we're seeing yes hey it kind of looks like you took the wafers off an ice cream sandwich but the ice cream inside stayed in the same form and selection act it so it's nice and shiny right all right it's like if a klondike bar was white instead of black and and lengthened okay so that looks like it looks like a cheap case I don't know doesn't it it's it's it's tough okay so for the record everybody Apple has never submitted the iphone to FCC approval before it gets approved I mean before they announced it they always we haven't seen the paperwork well okay so AB nobody you know Apple is supposed to go through the process just like every other company meaning you know they have to submit the phone to the FCC and it has to go through the same process where everything is public you know it's its parts legal it has to be public so you know we we would already be getting the documentation that's why I call us fake yeah and it actually has been called out fake by by a bunch of people in the comments some of whom are now blacklisted because they couldn't refrain from calling us in foul names so yeah but the thing is like the I'm glad that this is most certainly not real what about the other one what about the one that's more interesting with me but wait this is only the FCC bit was new here we've seen the same Hardware in previous pics even if the FCC bit is fake the actual phone they're very much could be real well but look at the look at the the one that look at the link that the first commenter is talking about their it links to the images of the I mean look at those letters that looks so cheesy it does it look like an iPhone come on yeah it really doesn't like it's I don't know I don't know I mean that this is why I Jaime this is why I wanted to throw you a bone or two because as our resident Apple expert you know it's it's it's not gonna happen especially with this phone specifically with this phone it's not that's not it it's too early within the process by the way um Apple is definitely not gonna launch phones until October in their music event said late-september early October and usually what they do they announced it they immediately send it to the FCC that that same day when they announced it it gets approved in a week and that's the reason why it takes 10 days for Apple to start selling their new generation iphone okay all right so what's the story on the on the packaging on the on the other 1i cuz okay so it's not interesting to me ok so the packets so the packaging is awake go ahead you know what's even everyone thinks asked me to yeah okay sure a lot of this is not right the packaging is clearly fake but remember that Apple does a lot of prototyping so they most likely did a prototype of the box and you never know I guess I guess probably it's funny because I I asked this question of the day on the pocket out daily yesterday the day before yesterday when this is this news broke and I am not kidding you I have a thousand 157 comments on YouTube overly over what the iphone what the sea of iphone 5c stands for because you know digit times digit times is reporting that the the 5c that the name is real and you know digit times is rarely ever wrong um so it's is rolling all the time well yeah but they're right all right most of the time so I guess the point being is you know and we'll leave this as a question for everybody what does the C stand for Steven what do you think it stands for so for example the iphone that you know ever since the bead and yeah and that's been the face ever since yeah ever doesn't get it that's been the thing ever since the mag the apple to their there came an apple to s that there was no apple to mess there was a Jessie to see and to GS and the two plus well which was the apple product that had an S before there was one they were that's where the moniker was born and that's the reason why we got the iphone 3gs which was speed and you know Steve Jobs actually even mentioned that on the keynote so we got the iphone 4s you know we're expecting the iphone 5s which should be more speed but the question is what the heck does the C stand for everybody everybody was like it stands for cheap it stands for crappy yes that's for kk are we centered here yeah we are that you would rate you would read these comments and youjizz you know whatever it listeners whenever you're having a bad day just go to our YouTube comments please yeah oh that's like the best wait that's like the best way to unstress yourself I've been surprised actually at how civil the YouTube comments have been overall but yeah we will have to see what what this is I think see I think if this is legit this name iphone 5c it has to be for the budget one I you know it can't be associated with a high-end device if all we see for this next Apple hardware iteration is iphone 5c I don't know guys am I alone in this see just sounds like such a lame letter it's cuz it sounds like it's giving it a grade it's the iphone app he died phone try harder next time iphone 5 copyright so whatever i guess i don't know but I'm gonna get excited about it I will say once again this is going to be the first phone I iphone I wait in line to get really yeah well assuming Brandon approves it i think i think he was down with my idea on this but i haven't owned an iphone since the 3gs in 2008 and i think it's going to be worthwhile now that the OS has seen such a thorough revamp or is in the midst of one I think it's worthwhile to explore what's changed since then and what might bring people back to the iphone now that you know not that everyone's leaving iphone but scores of people really have left the iphone ecosystem for the Android one I mean we see it in the number and and still their numbers or keep growing year-over-year it's just it's just drizzling but the thing is back when the I back in the last time I owned an iphone it was the thing to have there wasn't this iphone backlash of like oh it's boring oh it's lame oh it's too small like it was hot the only people complaining about it where the windows mobile dorks okay so for the record for the record when I when you know when I made the announcement that I was gonna be our resident apple guy Ike week I think it was like four hundred I think that's like a record like 450 or 500 comments that where everybody was like oh kool aid right no right that was our audience but yeah we're pocket now the Microsoft fan site right exactly and that's you know that's just I guess the point that I'm trying to make is there's always been the iphone haters that was back in the day of the 3gs when I wouldn't when that happened and that's just the way it is uh yeah in our sector yes what do what do we think about the idea that this 5c might replace the ipod touch and apples lineup oh okay so so here's you know and that's that's a really interesting question that is um so for the longest time you remember when we we had the rumors of the iphone 5 back of the day when the 4s was launched and it turned out that the design that was used and that was being leaked of the phone was ended up being the IPI the ipod touch 5th generation you know so the design was real the prototype that exists but it ended up falling into the ipod touch 5 um so honestly I feel that there there's a market I mean you know right now they're doing this whole facetime voice thing on iOS 7 you know it just seems like of Apple is trying to figure out a way to you know like disconnect their dependency on carriers um so hey I mean if I got a voice over IP phone or I could just buy a data only plan and an apple figure that one out why not I mean I stick a hell of a leap for them it does it does and the technology is not there by the way listeners I mean if you try to make a voice over IP call driving it just won't go through it will it'll go through but eventually that the speed of the vehicle will disconnect you yeah from your image from your daily handoffs are not as elegant as they are yeah yeah they are there they're not as elegant on data as they are in voice even on LTE and we're still not an LTE advanced where apparently that's gonna change so I I do feel that there is a there is a point for that I mean the ipod touch keeps its the best selling ipod yes it is uh but it there it keeps losing a reason for existence as the iphone you know it especially if they drop the price on this phone so now it's just gonna it's gonna have to be crazy cheap to pick up where the the ipod touch left off because always been the you know the budget way to get involved with iOS exactly exactly so you know right now the ipod touch i think it said I think it's 300 bucks you know with taxes and everything but the lowest ipod touch 5 and if you get a cheap iPhone that's gonna be closer to that price what are you gonna pick the thing is the ipod touch used to be my like at home tablet look back before tablets before the first ipad consumer eyes tablets the ipod touch was what i used at home and i wanted an iOS app experience and wife I just wanted to browse around the house right now that the ipod itself as a music player has been largely you know made irrelevant buy iPhones and other smartphones and as a tablet it's just way too small compared to what else is out there including the iPad Mini which is very affordable and the Nexus evolution even more affordable yeah I don't see that it has a reason to exist anymore yeah I wonder what its sales figures are like but I don't have that data so anyway yeah Stephen I man who was that yeah I don't know I think I think that their it there is a compelling reason for that thought to be true there is a compelling reason for that to happen I just think that the technology is not there yet for an ipod touch or a disconnected phone from carriers that you know that you could pretty much just use for voice over IP the technology is being built into iOS 7 with facetime voice which I was I was it's funny don't laugh I was in the shower thinking last time I was like FaceTime voice where do they come up with that name why did they call it voice time or call time was like FaceTime where is the face looks like chat heads I'm like where is the face in the voice call seriously I'm like swap the knave evil come on boys you're getting face time with someone right uh like having a meeting you're getting like some one-on-one FaceTime exactly but you're not really being you know a FaceTime voice you're not being able to actually see the person yeah yeah it's pretty it's pretty wack there's too much going on with that let's stop talking about it oh yeah Oh what I want to do is actually move on to listener melon one ask auntie Rivera if he has to go or if he's gonna join us i feeI let's say I think I could still stretch that ah that's lovely so what's your hearts it's wonderful isn't it a brief note on listener mail for this week we already made the announcement about the special edition episode earlier on I have since gotten an email indicating that I'm not the only one or things that's a good idea so that's probably gonna happen but the three we're gonna read are not the oldest on this episode they're just the ones that fit this group of people as it always is and guys really appreciate you writing in but we do have to get two new people over people who have already written in it's not to say FU to our old followers or to our loyal listeners but it is to say that new people deserve the air time as well so with no further ado let's jump into listener mail hello PocketNow podcast crew says John Blake a first one to say thank you for the opportunity to participate in the LG optimus G giveaway contest John thank you for participating and listeners thank you again everyone for participating by leaving us reviews on iTunes which helped us out do appreciate it my question says John is now that the galaxy note 3 is rumored to have an LCD screen along with the usual AMOLED do you think that Samsung is going to make a galaxy note 3 active in an attempt to make another branch in the galaxy lineup also do you believe Sam side will profit by having the two options or should they just combine the active build into their flagship models from now on I look forward to hearing from you sincerely John Blake John this is a cool question man one the answer is yes that's what that's what's gonna happen well which one uh well there are like I how much was it Stephen like five different variants of the galaxy note 3 you know different device models being rumored and so yeah they're talking about i think it was for um different one like a super premium and then exactly i'll seed exactly right exactly and one of them had an LCD and the other ones were AMOLED and one had and one of these devices had a smaller camera than the other one so this is pretty much an active just that's just the way it's gonna be and do you think that it's it's smart for samsung to profit from these phones yeah I just you know I I feel that all phones should be active but then again yeah yeah but technology is still not at the point where there's this new news post as they were you know galaxy s4 actives are already drowning for users because they you know it's it requires for it to be active it requires special procedures for you to ensure that it doesn't drown and you should watch Michael Fisher's review video for all the specifics on those procedures so yes I want that to happen but I don't think the technology is there yet I am a little confused about this question basically why the LCD versus AMOLED issue factors into it being waterproof or not because the the galaxy s4 active has an LCD whereas the game is but that's not a factor that waterproofing knows any it's a but it might be it might be a clue is the only oh they tended to her with cost-saving measures on the active versions exactly actually exact so what do you think Steve I mean do you do you think that it's likely and is it exciting them I wouldn't bet on it at all I think that the waterproofing is a picture we're just gonna see on smaller devices I don't think that we're gonna see there's probably water group tablets haven't there yeah they're the Xperia tablet Z is water physios okay but I don't think it's something that's going to take on nearly as passionately as user responding to these waterproof phones because you don't want to damage your phone you carry it with you everywhere tablet it's going to be exposed to a lot less and even though the note is closer to phone than tablet I don't see it getting into these same situations I guess don't think is gonna be a demand for it so i don't know i don't know i would say they think about this Michael think about the scenario think about the s-pen being able to work when the display is way so that's that's that's X of the pointer was gonna make so the note 3 first of all is going to be Steven you said it a little bit it's going to be a phone that somebody buys on contract and they're going to carry as their smartphone they're not going to use it as a tablet I would normally agree with you that maybe there is not much overlap between phablet users the phablet market demographic and people who need an active phone I'd probably say that there's there's very little overlap there actually but then Samsung has never been one to two to exhibit any kind of restraint No exactly yeah it's a samsung we're talking about that's not Apple that's the second and the third point is time a very very good good one there people were saying on the galaxy s4 active review in the comments when I'm complaining about the lack of wet finger tracking making that screen useless when it's even the slightest bit wet it just doesn't respond someone very very intelligently suggested well what if it had an S Pen it was like oh my god yes that would be amazing because he would that work underwater I wonder not probably not in its current iteration because you know it uses a mixture of induction along with that the Wacom digitizer and something else but so it would need a modification but wouldn't that be great that way they wouldn't have to implement wet finger tracking if they didn't want to but you could just use the S Pen if you were underwater with the thing and it would work great but i'm saying i'm not sure could even work at all because i don't think the induction is gonna work underwater cheering oh I'm sure it'll require special s-pen yeah well that's the thing just remember that the the actually it's the s-pen that generates the the touch meaning it's the software that text the pen you can't just use anything it has to be a sapphic s-pen absolutely like for example and do this do this do this test get the s-pen close to the display and push the tip of the pen the tip of the pen and the phone will respond to pushing to the tip without at even touching the display oh right right right yeah no I mean it's it would require a special take on the thing but listen I I think that s been theory is probably the most far-fetched bit of it I I you know I don't see Samsung put in the effort into making a special s-pen for this kind of weirdo thing I imagine it'll be a lot like the galaxy s4 active just in a larger size and i'll tell you what guys i would buy the hell out of that okay just just think about this Michael just think about an ad where you have this actor in his in his helmet and boots in a construction site under the rain yeah and he's just supervising what's going on and then he pulls out his note 3 with the S Pen the phone completely wet and the guy is able to use the phone within you know that scenario that is gonna be the ad that's gonna sell that damn phone I mean if they figure that out that's gonna be they're gonna make waterproof use honkers and and also you know I made it be completely accurate you should impose some out of place string music over that and put like a gray filter on it and also put in some unfunny snark and that would be a real Samsung commercial yeah exactly so what would ya well we're talking about waterproof devices for a moment I guess want to mention because it was too minor to cover in news but I thought it was interesting someone over on XDA came up with a neat hack for the Xperia Z to let you take pictures underwater by using the phone's proximity sensor as I shudder know so you can sort of proper you cuz you tap it with your finger it detects a duration of the how long has been covered up for registers it as a button press oh that is very cool very in Anna I mean it's like that as like a commute and evidence of how the community can be awesome sometimes I really like shit and I are playing ahead yeah we're on the galaxy s4 active we just use the volume rocker and that makes a lot of yeah yeah you know the problem the next thing they have to solve though is underwater photos now need to be better because whenever you put these lenses underwater everything's out of focus underwater so one thing at a time you can't and you can't have to focus right yeah it's true so John thank you for that I'm just writing down that a little something there John thank you for your question that is gonna be awesome I really look forward to seeing what comes of the galaxy note the new Galaxy Note family if there is to be a family which we're pretty sure there is and really cool question thanks a lot John next one is from Jamie Somerville High paka no team thank you for answering my previous reader mail question and Jamie thank you for blowing away my justification for not answering the other repeat writers in sorry guys I live in the UK so don't don't know much about us mobile networks so my question is about carrier branding on phones most of the flagship phones from the big companies like Samsung HTC and nokia all have carrier branding on them and also carrier splash screens if you get them on contract from the respective carrier the only exception is Apple they never have branding of any kind on their phones are in the software I wondered how they manage this and other companies have not big fan you know the great work they have videos of all the carrier executives snoring and blackmail them ok so i guess i guess that was done in this world I guess Apple did something that no company had done before and all these companies followed I mean they they would not launch a phone until they found a carrier that was willing to do what they wanted um meanings and said no at first horizon said no you know they first approached verizon and they completely denied and if you remember there was this motorola itunes phone that i believe was launched exclusively on verizon yeah the rocker no yeah auntie ok but because that phone became a flop that's the reason why Apple a bit why Verizon pretty much turned them down so it's really interesting that you know Apple all Apple did was create a business model and sell it to AT&T and they sold it so well that AT&T was willing to invest on the iPhone you know they invested money on that project up to the point where they kept exclusivity on that phone for three generations pretty much for generations and I guess the point being is Apple just proved that the system works that people don't care about the carrier branding that people want a product because of you know other reasons and you know other companies follow the trail with the galaxy s3 for example which was the first one and I guess it's just know how was Apple able to pull it off well they just showed that it worked that was the condition and I'd you're making a good point there like Jamie you should know that in the States it is becoming somewhat more common not to have carrier branding on some devices sprint didn't do it i wrote a small piece about how sprint didn't have any carrier branding on the HTC one right they also didn't have any on the s4 but Sprint's official comment on that was that yeah we're not we don't brand it so that if we want to make it a prepaid phone if we want to give it to one of our other brands you know dispatch some of our inventory elsewhere we don't have to then remove the silk screening and do a whole bunch of stuff so sometimes it's a practical decision on the carrier's part these days yeah and I think that carriers are understanding more and more that you know they should just focus on their network like Apple said at some point do you focus on your network I'll focus on the hardware yeah in the end it's a power play I think it is if you look at those like a bell curve we're the really really low end phones carries already interested in you once you have to buy on your own and bring to the carrier doesn't have any branding and then let ya pick the middle of the phones they're all gonna have the branding and then when you get as powerful as Apple or you know HTC is becoming a sprint once again you see no branding know and then let's remember let's remember something very important Apple wasn't not even the shadow of the company that they are now before the iphone it was the iphone that pretty much made the company what it is you know if you look at apple's stock when the iphone was announced I think the price of the stock was like twenty seven dollars it's currently at 411 but it's already skyrocket to 730 um and this was you know this graze all happened after the iphone so Apple did not have the power that they have right now I guess that what they did was fine found the really nice CEO that was willing to sit down with steve jobs and have Steve Jobs plays magic and you know just completely you know just grab the guy and put him in his pocket but let's not remember let's not forget the fact that you know the iphone was kind of groundbreaking I mean when you pull that phone you started using it you know I'm sure I'm sure that the CEO you know it was just off his blackberry back with his / his role most likely was rough delavega the CEO saying no no no it was it was this other guy a Texan I mean the guy had a really deep Texan accent I forget who the guy was but you know I I can just imagine the guy just putting his blackberry on the table and grabbing that iphone for the first time and just flick scrolling because it was the first phone that did those things it was so stupid but it was III just imagine the guy being so blown away that he was like okay let's do it let's do it your way I trust you yeah i wish i could find that i wish i could do some google magic and find that CEOs name but I can't but anyway while we're talking about splash grains singular CEO Stan Sigmund that was this okay yeah sounds like a superhero I was just gonna say that's a lot of alliteration for one phrase yeah I don't want to miss it out on this but we do have to move on but just finally in with regard to carrier splash screens I've told this tale before but I was floored to find out that when i got my unlocked from the factory blackberry z10 at the blackberry event it had a normal black berry splash screen but the minute I put my AT&T sim in it displayed an AT&T splash screen and you know it does that here and i'll do it us your know yeah i'm wrong i brought it is it why i brought it here i put in a GLaDOS sim card immediately it gave me the GLaDOS splash screen nice wander right like unit is yet is the data for the splash screen stored locally on the sim or is it stored on the device and advise displays it it's a missing I mean think about it I mean it's I'm in on dudas man what is blackberry gonna be adding splash screens from a carrier that's all the way down maybe it maybe I had splash pins for every carrier yeah I I'm kind of leaning to them being already on a device there yeah because it like that seems like a pretty big file to store locally on a sim descanse illuminated and it's not like the device is talking to the network to go get it like I put the sim in I power it on it's right there well that's the thing I mean when I when I activated the phone actually hard reset it and I activated on the on the network here and uh you know it just worked immediately I just don't you know and and it gave me all the network connections and everything just like an iphone work so we should find it out oh yeah it's it's cool i find it go i want it i'm gonna spend a whole day doing a deep dive investigative piece on this and have fly and already googling a carrier splash screen all right look final piece of listener mail let's hit it guys Jamie thank you for writing in this one is from mark Hilton mr. Fisher hey pocket now geniuses hey normally when we read something like that it's in the comments and it's sarcastic but i think i was about to say it's a positive genius there are a couple of no name OEMs out there that as of late are planning on putting out some well spec devices as far as internal hardware for about a fourth of the price of the well-known OEMs my question is simply this what is your opinion on unknown OEMs versus a giant like google running stock jelly bean is it tomato tomahto or do giants deliver a better product also would you recommend me purchasing these knockoffs as some fanboys would say much love from jamaica your pupil mark hilton mark thank you for writing it from jamaica our first piece of listener mail from jamaica yeah make me want to take a vacation um so guys I think we're all probably gonna be as one on our answer here no are we my a Michael you remember our experience at the cesspool sorry CES and cool yes I decision being of the fringes of the CES trade floor where not much is there but cheap cases and okay so mark we're gonna tell you we're gonna tell you a little story we were at CES with a with a mission we had a mission of a certain amount of videos that we wanted to film and there came a point where we just ran out of yeah it wasn't much to see it see yes if there wasn't much to see and so then our say that in our sites that in our sector i guess and so Michael and Brandon are like what are we doing okay let's go up to the South Hall where all the cs pool is and you know there are a lot of promising concepts and by the way mark if you didn't know some of these unnamed OEMs actually build for the high companies these are like what's the name of them Stephen they were Oh dm's like HTC that's the way hcc began as a company you like white boxing is that yeah yeah yeah yeah well what's odm i think immediately it's okay so for example hcc was an odm that's the way they started they were note like the i build stuff for utstarcom under utstarcom and exact rocks and for compaq yeah and and then they started with their brands like qtek you remember the brand qtek right yeah the HTC Star Trek was branded eq tech for a while exactly and so will for different markets and so i guess i guess there is a lot of promise but just to give you an idea if no real OEM and vests and actually using these companies as an odm just to give you an idea their android implementation is terrible well I've actually be in my country here in on notice it's very common to see these knockoff phones and they're bad I mean they're bad it's not the cheesy displays and you know they're just cheap for a reason they don't last and so I don't I wouldn't recommend it personally because I have seen them I have not necessarily used them but I have come in contact to a lot of people that do have them you know the fake galaxy s3's that look identical and their software implementation is terrible Steven I am hesitant to completely dismiss these guys guess because I really loved feeling like I'm getting a bargain on something but I have i completely understand i wouldn't buy one myself let's put it that way I understand these concerns about you don't know if you're gonna be getting software updates and you know like I'm a was saying they're just not well optimized on the software side they're not going to perform like kick the same sort of hardware would from a more respectable manufacturer I think the bigger problem now though is that the good stuff has been getting so cheap that there's less of an excuse to ya to spend your money in one of these pieces again I don't know about this four times less expensive that that's about right for someone no no Liz okay no but just remember me just remembering a seventy dollar tablet I guess okay Marcus in Jamaica iphones their cost a thousand dollars for a 16 gig right I know I had I had a lot of Jamaica friends in ups and that's you know they would go ballistic buying phones in the United States because phones were extremely expensive in their country as I don't know to see like the three hundred dollar Nexus 4 for sale in every market no you're not you're not no you're not gonna sit instead right you know I guess I guess mark bottom line if LG can't figure software out the cheap ones won't either they see me truly and then you know i'm gonna go with you guys on this so yeah we are all as one here Steve and I I appreciate that you still have some hope for some of these guys and you know we shouldn't paint with a broad brush all the time mark I think some of these some of these knockoff manufacturers probably do make a pretty good product but due to the factors we already mentioned and this old truism that saving up your money for something of quality is almost a hundred percent of the time much better than blowing a little bit of money on a cheaper product yeah you know all of this militates against throwing your money at these at these knockoff devices because I think you'll just be happier if you can maybe wait I don't know even if it's as much as six months to get off money to get the device you really want rather than the knockoff I think you'll be you'll be better off and I'm gonna give you an example I mean if the price difference was disproportionally insane then you could buy a phone every six months and not care like for example here you know the price for appliances like a refrigerator are skyrocket they're crazy and then there are these stores that will sell you probably an irregular refrigerator or an irregular stove and they'll charge you so I'll give you an idea not quite right angle a regular refrigerator is going to be my new band name but okay sweetheart and irregular android-powered refrigerator I'll give you an idea i'll give you an idea so a refrigerator in my country stainless steel two doors and everything will cost you anywhere close to two hundred fifty to two thousand five hundred dollars but does it tweet no so that's the problem okay that's like your typical price for a refrigerator here if you want to buy the high-end models but you could go to the store and and see the same refrigerator for 250 this is 10 * a price difference so when you have something so disproportionate I'm like damn I could buy a refrigerator every year because these people only give you one year of a warranty for the full high-end 2500 dollar fridge I'd rather buy a fridge every year and save all that money and so that's what makes sense for you to buy something that's a knockoff or cheaper if the price point is 10 times the difference then go crazy over it but the problem Oh buying a new fridge rater every year for even if it's for tentative takes you 10 years to make to spend the same amount of money you would spend on a high-end one do you really wanted like change out your refrigerator every then it you bike tryn refrigerators all at one you step island right in the basement yeah yeah okay so i guess the point that I'm trying to make is for example in the case of bones um the price difference is not significant so that's the reason why I never recommend the cheap Android tablets or now the cheekbones and the second point is listen your experience with the phone is really not necessarily the hardware is month if you know phones are not anymore to make phone calls you know if you want if you really want the experience you need the display you need the quality it's just not the same it's sadly isn't that that's the problem it's like what's wrong with the Nexus 7 oh the viewing angles and they're like all the viewing angles are not bad and the color reproduction is not bad and I'm like wait a second the only thing that's really the only thing you really interact with that on tablet is a display so the display is bad the tablets bad that's just the Pope that's just the point it is that's the problem that's the way I see it yeah I don't know you know I think we can go back and forth in this a whole lot but they're their priorities there are things that militate either direction one thing I think that is probably something we can all agree on is that mark if you were to buy one of these really cheap devices I think after less than a week you would understand why they're so cheap and what you need to do is save your ten thousand dollars for a virtue Android it will be worth ever your head yes yes I think that is exactly right jewel-encrusted virtue running symbian got running android 3.2 yeah exactly yeah running some sweet gingerbread action honeycomb honeycomb on a handset so that's those are some excellent pieces of listener may I want to reiterate that now that the podcast has gone long enough I've had two separate replies to my suggestion and the listener mail only special edition of the pocket now weekly will indeed be happening it's going to be happening next week hooray gentlemen I hope you will both be back to join us for that I hope as many people on the team can join as possible so but definitely listeners do tune in we will try to get to your listener mail we are in the hole though I mean we have tens of tens of backup listener mail in the queue so we might not get to all of them but yeah and although and all those Jaime or Windows Phone hater mail those are going to be censored yeah go to a special go get ready right and but I think for now we are have a lot of work to do and we know that you do too out there in the world folks so we are going to call it an end to this episode of the pocket now weakly hey find us on twitter steven is at Steven Schenk ste pH en SE henc k where he doesn't tweet that often but we still enjoy it when he does hi Mei is that hi Mei underscore Rivera and as always you can find me at captain two phones some of us spend a little more time on the pocket now forums than we do on twitter visit us there at forums pocketnow.com you can also follow pocket now officially at pocket now on twitter as pocket now on Instagram array as pocket now on facebook and google+ and you can leave us a review on iTunes or Xbox music if you want to be a doll and if you have a topic question or suggestion for the podcast you just want to say hello or you want to get in under the wire before our special listener mail edition of the pocket noun weekly next week email us at podcast at pocketnow.com thanks for listening everyone will see you next week nobody no just gonna do the button eat beep oh nice nice always always end on a strong note with it you