Gadgetory

from pocketnow.com this is PocketNow weekly hello and welcome to episode 13 of the pocket now weekly once a week podcast from pocketnow.com where we discuss what's hot and what's cool in the world of mobile technology smartphones tablets and especially today phablets I'm your host Michael Fisher senior editor at pocket now I'm joined as usual by our editor-in-chief Brandon minimun good morning to you sir good morning and our managing editor is back anton d Naja good afternoon to you from America and greetings from Romania thank you it's great to it's great to share the airwaves with you again Tony it's been a little while it's good to be back I'm still recovering from my vacation but it's good to be back bet you are yeah how did you enjoy your week away I didn't even ask you that it was jam-packed was it yeah indeed it was i thought i'd had some time to defragment my brains and to plug in myself to recharge a bit but unfortunately no plans deferred from the reality oh that that does happen in a good way or a bad way unfortunately in a bad way oh crap I'm sorry that's things just follow up and lots of things to do lots of things to take care of and everybody wants a piece of you so yeah but now I'm back and now I'm recovering from navigation remember the ad the days of defragment in your computer yes how horrible that process was and watching like it cuz I had to run my Defragmenter in das i think was 6.2 i was running on my first pc and like those you know that that cursor like the hard drive was represented by those little rectangular blocks in the girls were the cluster Buster's yeah yeah I and like they would change color as the defragment was awesome and of course today with solid-state wraps we don't have to but but did did max need to be defragged when a mechanical hard drives I feel that every every mechanical hard drive has to be too fragmented in order to optimize the placement of the information I mean it's moving heads on spinning disks the less the movement the faster the hard drive right yeah I I remember there being some Defragmenter apps offered I just figured that it was a good question though brenner because I thought that I may be iOS excuse me OS 10 or the mac OS handled you know writing two drives differently than PC but um let's hope we've got it we've got a ton of stuff going on here today including some really really boss listener mail at the end of this thing I mean the listeners brought some awesome awesome stuff so I want to get to that but there's a ton of stuff between here and then they also at that's some rotten eggs and potatoes no they all know they love us this week it's grid so it's all boss all the time to haul boss that is boss i love i love that word that's gonna be like a new people word like it used to be fat yeah bad he and a fresh as well oh that's that's you think fresh is coming back I'd say it is if I have something to say about it yeah that's a good one not a good one it's very clean and you know fresh what it is and then um what I have no idea what you're talking Oh slang um let's uh both Brandon minim an end Anton today have have some pre news and editorial bits that they want to bring up so that's exciting to me I Brandon why don't we start with you in the editor-in-chief's corner ah it's finally got a name is it sort of got this he a week name sorry go ahead nice thank you um yeah so so real quick or maybe it won't be real quick who knows how it turns out um I was kind of thinking about the galaxy note 2 because there's been so much fanfare about it there have been so many events there have been so many there's been a lot of news about the galaxy note 2 and Samsung is is pushing this i think maybe harder than the galaxy s3 if that's even possible if not as as as you know firmly as they did you know it's gonna be on all carriers it's gonna be unadulterated with with no carrier branding except for on the back and it's a really big device for samsung and rightly so i mean it's it's it's beautiful Hardware it's its innovative it's really really smoking fast Michael's been testing it and we're gonna have a review up probably by the time you you listen to this and I had a thought um I've used the note we all here have used the note to Michael use it the most and there's something unsatisfying about it so I still really like to write stuff down and just yesterday I was writing a list and you know 10 years ago I would write stuff down all the time because we didn't have you know smartphones to type into and so forth but it was kind of different for me yesterday cuz i was writing down a list of topics and i was thinking to myself you know what i would love if i could search this list but its its analog i can't do that i would furthermore I would like to rearrange this list and short of using an eraser that I didn't have on my pen it's impossible to do so so the note 2 is this awesome opportunity to bridge the world of analog and digital and it does it in some ways but and I haven't used it as it as my daily driver so i can't really I can't really say whether this is the case but I think there are some ways that the note 2 could be better and and of course there are some software features and I want to ask both of you what you think would be killer features that would really bridge the analog in the digital but the first thing I want to say is the thing that comes to my mind is the reason I like to write things down is because of the tactile I like the friction on a piece of paper when i get when i get the galaxy note 2 stylist in my hand and I write on the screen and it glides along the screen and it's almost like on a skating rink even though they've increased the coefficient of friction or whatever it's still not like writing on paper and I wish that there was some screen technology some hybrid mode where like when you pull out the stylist the screen like becomes textured like a piece of paper and I think that would be incredible and that would that would not only make it feel better for the user but it would help the software because it would slow down the stylus pen and perhaps let you write more accurately um so so I want to ask you guys what do you think what kind of feature do you think Samsung would have to bring forth or any OEM to make it make the bridge from analog to digital really complete um well I don't have a specific answer it right at the moment I will in a second I just want to say you that was a entirely awesome thing that you just said all of that I agree completely with everything you said regarding phablet in general and the note to specifically what the same person right yeah we are ABI apparently um thank you yeah no I I would never have thought of the of changing the texture of the display even though I wrote a piece on that recently when the stylus comes out and that's entirely possible because you can do that with with the with forthcoming you know touchscreen technology they just apply a voltage you know some kind of current across the display that changes its perceived texture now it does that too for fingertips not necessarily for first I lie but you know that these things are going to be possible if they're not possible right now they're going to be possible in short order so I think that's one of the greatest ideas I've ever heard with regard to a note-taking device or a a stylus equipped mobile device well I'm Tony Tony what do you think I'm not sure about this texture thing I mean it would be a good thing in terms of feeling what you're writing down but I'm not sure it's doable right now because all of our screens are protected by an extra layer of glass maybe how about to include a small vibration rotor rotor and motor and the stylus itself and whenever you are acting with the stylus on the screen it will emulate some vibrations like you you feel on paper but that's not what i wanted to say initially what I think here's what I did a couple of years back when I was running a beach see there was a software which allowed me to create my own font and I've created my own font out of my own handwriting not because I love my handwriting but because i love handwriting fonts by the time i think it would be possible with such devices to create your own font and not only use it device while but creating your own fund from your own handwriting would allow you to search your input in a note brandon said that once you write something down you cannot search it and you cannot rearrange it well you can rearrange it by copying and pasting the bitmap itself how about writing it down the system recognizes it as your handwriting font and it's instantly searchable as a font hmm right right I'm trying to think about how that would work because it will probably be an initial setup process where the system would ask you to enter with your own handwriting a couple of letters may be the entire alphabet and use that just like Siri and s voice are you are learning your voice it would continuously improve and learn your handwriting style your inclination the shapes of your letters that and that way it could transform your input into text and it would be searchable so what you're doing effectively is drastically improving the effectiveness of the conversion to text yes because it already knows what a you know what a Tony a looks like you know good oh that is cool that that seems possible today with software yeah it does it's awesome it definitely does and yeah I like I'll notice when I'm inputting text with the S Pen on the UH note to like I'll make kind of repeatable errors where mistakes were like I draw my e really stupid right and the software always thinks that it's you know about an a with an accent mark over it or something like that yeah but most of the times your input is recognized because as far as I've seen your S Pen lessons video which was a great video and if you guys haven't watched it you go online to our YouTube channel and watch it thank you you can input with your handwriting say you write an email say hi Tony your voice sucks this morning and you write that down with your with your S Pen on the screen it will transform it into ya text above how about it would leave it like that but still recognize it as text and be searchable oh IC which me yeah but just a quick side note there that's when you see me actually writing successfully in that S Pen video it's because I'm trying really hard it's not easy to do especially in a situation where especially in a real world situation in a video those are controlled situated circumstances you know I'm like I want this to work now I don't want it to work now so that I can demo how it doesn't work if I'm out on the street and somebody's trying to give me their phone number whatever and I want to write it down because that'll be faster than typing it in for some reason it's it's really really hard to do I think that's great if it learned your handwriting over time let's not forget one thing guys I'm not sure about you but I can speak for myself in this technology era I almost forgot how to consistently right with my hands because I'm non stop using my keyboard and my devices if somebody gave me a piece of paper to write the statement one page long I'd probably I don't know oh yeah had a sore hand have you try was just gonna say my hand actually cramps up earlier now remember in school when you would have to write all day in hell yeah now it happens after like a half a page I'm like are my mind like writing muscles atrophying and my phone yes ridiculous so that's amazing and then and then once in a while you hear someone like the New York Times there's someone on their radio talk radio mention like the lost art of writing stuff and I'm like who the cares who cares I can type so much faster than I've ever been able to write mitch's who can actually understand what it is that I'm tough and I mean just on and on and on like yeah I understand that there's like an art of calligraphy and you know the handwritten note there you know back in the 50s when they did that 60 said whatever like I maybe just cuz I'm yeah i was born in 1986 i I just I don't care about the death of Henry and I think it's a good thing this is the same an argument I was making with regard to two books and I know that's a whole different argument or whatever and but ultimately what we're talking about is communication right and if you are receiving my communication in a manner that I can compose it faster and I am more comfortable doing I mean then what how what difference does it make how it is delivered listen I guess you know communication might be there might be two facets there's a communication should be effective communication should pass through an emotion or some sort of sentiment and you could argue that writing with your hand you can somehow convey sadness or Alicia more personal yeah sure yeah I mean definitely and I've written note i've received notes that have like certain words it's not very obvious that they were pressed hard into the with the perfumes and the lipstick kisses and stuff i need to start getting the notes that Tony's getting that's a yeah yes I love in me and that sounds exciting uh why don't we why don't we hop on over to speaking of not that had Tony what I understand you want to talk about waiting this morning yeah I've recently became a waiter but not in the serving dishes Garcon kind of waiter but in the type of waiter that the person who waits a lot lately and just to keep it short I'm waiting for ice cream sandwich on my galaxy s3 wait I am image giving therefore for jellybean I'm sorry i'm also waiting for jellybean on my HTC one x i'm waiting for the android update on my nexus 7 i'm waiting for my iphone 5 to be delivered and i'm still waiting for nokia bell featured back to on my 808 PureView so yeah this makes me a waiter but guys just think about this are we why are we so eager to get these updates I know Michael touched upon this to podcasts or free podcast before this but why is this I'm checking for updates every two hours am i paranoid that that's so interesting that's an interesting thought it's like everybody has it and I don't so so either is your question like why do we keep hitting refresh as it let me guess sure okay right right right i think there's two different answers to that I think it's just like when you just a second just like when you copy paste something and you command C or ctrl C like five times yeah it's like enough to do it once but we're like five times yeah well I think that a big part of it is what you said like I mean every you know not everyone else but that we perceive everyone else as receiving these updates like you know it gets talked about the internet take it slow leak there's news stories whatever or dot one dot two is out some people have it it's like there's that instant if you don't have it there's an instant feeling of I'm missing out on something I need to be able to experience this for myself I don't want to see somebody else's video and their hands on and whatever so I think that's that's the that's the geek answer like from a broader cultural perspective that that might be actually that might be the same answer in turn in both cases cie unless there's a feature I'm really waiting for I don't I don't care i still haven't received jelly bean on my galaxy s3 cuz it's a verizon version and I don't you know yeah mines global and I still don't have it really yep Wow but I'm waiting right you're waiting yeah well you're a waiter uh no I don't know you know I think it goes back and forth for me if there's a feature I'm really waiting on then I'm then I'm really excited about it if there's not if it's just like bug fixes and incremental stuff than I don't care I don't I don't even look at that refresh screen you know Brendon how many times you hit refresh in your devices well I go step beyond that I care so much about updates that the day after the announcement of a new version of Android for example and as someone rips around from like the new Nexus or whatever and then they poured it to like a device totally not intended and there's warnings like phone doesn't work Wi-Fi doesn't work nothing works I'll still install it because I I want to experience this new operating system enters crazy and and and Michael you mentioned sort of this this aspect there's there's the geek reason for it and then there's a cultural reason for it and I think we've been retrained in a way I mean people generally generally like newness and change well I shouldn't say people like Jay people don't you people like newness when it's two years is up on your contractor 18 months it's time to get a new phone you take at home you you stare at it from across the room you love it and software has an interesting can can do that in a way and we used to be in this two or three-year release cycle like back in the 90s there's windows 95 windows 98 when we started to get used to this idea of new software bringing new features and bringing newness and then something changed in the 2000s we started to get yearly updates and then in some cases updates that were occurring between nearly updates just that the point zero point zero point X updates at added landscapes support or something like that like on the Nexus 7 and so people have that emotional attachment to software updates like they do with new products that they take home because their two-year contract is up so and then they and they become kind of addicted to hitting the refresh button cuz they want to get that it's kind of like a high of seeing the new features yeah it's almost like it's in the same family of feelings as receiving at notifications all the time where there have been you know stories written after like like story upon story is written where it's like are you experiencing smartphone addiction like because every time you look at your phone and it's blinking you you experience this little my new wave of like oh oh somebody wants wants to what what you know so yeah that's that's it i think it's not a different scale I think I think that's like a micro feeling of getting a major software update it's like that that emotion of you know having some sort of experience that is you know it takes low it's low effort and it's free you know right yeah it did I miss something you did the did the nexus 7 get landscape support did I is that what's rolling out mm-hmm wow I really got up I've been up and I had my head in the galaxy note 2 for a week I haven't even picked up my Nexus 7 um that's uh that's cool that's really a profound thoughts there Tony I hope you get some updates soon man that's a lot of updating on me too yeah and before we go into a note to land I just want to ask you something adjacent to updates did you get that update which enables the multi window feature haha uh-huh uh-huh yeah I sure had yeah how do you like that I really curious about it so if your listeners don't know what what this is that the galaxy note 2 was announced but before it was released samsung was like check out this awesome dual screen multitasking that you can do on the galaxy note 2 and then it was released in south korea and it was released and you know in an unlocked form and you know it didn't have that feature so Samsung was quick to release a software update that turned it on a couple days later and I was so busy that I almost didn't notice it and then it was like oh software update it was like oh good well maybe this will stop TouchWiz from crashing and it did fix that problem TouchWiz now no longer crashes but it also it brought this new feature so that's it's awesome and it is awesome I talked about this interview and listeners this we mentioned this already but the galaxy note 2 review if it's not up it's going to be up very shortly after you hear this so you're getting a little bit of a little spoiler a little preview but the what what you do with this is quote samsung calls it multi screen samsung love's calling stuff stuff like it can't it can't launch a new feature without a name and sometimes they're imaginative and sometimes they're really not but so multi-screen you are called it s window and i figured that's what they were going you know it's like s window s pen s voice what you do is when you're you're running the device like say you're in at the home screen you just press and hold the back button and it opens up this little dock on the side of the screen which is scrollable and it contains about I don't know maybe 10 or 12 apps these are the only apps that are available for multitasking it's kind of like the kyocera I don't want to say this at all but this is a little this is true it's ads them true in the best way possible it's like what the kids have tried to do with the echo except it actually works well there are more apps available for it like for example Twitter and Facebook are supported and what you do you if you just pick one of these apps from the dock you just tap on it it opens the app full screen but if you click if you press and hold and then drag one of the apps onto the screen while another app is running it will open it up in half the screen so all of a sudden like right now I just did it and I've got my gmail running on the top half of the screen Google Maps running on the bottom so if somebody has sent me an email with an address I can look it up in maps I could essentially it's using the the bigger display size of the note to very intelligently because this 5.5 inch display is more than big enough to to display two apps at once so is it like be like having two displays two separate displays in landscape like I don't know hvga or 2w vgs one above the other in landscape mode well well what about the other or one next to the other like its portrait Nikki type you have either one and you know what it's like it's like the snap feature in Windows 7 that they brought in in vista or 7 or whatever it was so you've got you know one app on one side of the screen another app in the other side of the screen and they both the best part about it is they both run like butter I mean there's no lag there's no delay there's no indication that the phone is struggling at all even though both of these apps are not only running at the same time they're both in focus at the same time like jumping between them you don't have to like you don't have to specify which one you want to work with they're both active all the time I wonder why they weren't able to do that on the note 10.1 which like literally pauses the app and then restarts it after 35 seconds uh oh yeah that's right i forgot about that in the review i don't know i will have to to act like maybe leave this for deficiencies yeah maybe they will Mabel brings the note to 1001 the only thing that I have found is that when you're jumping into this for the first time like after a fresh food I think maybe like I'm pretty sure and I haven't verified this so this might not be true at all but it seems to me that this would be the kind of activity where the phone would clock that XO knows you know quad up to the full 1.6 gig hurt you know it seems like a pretty intensive application right and i'm sure it's using almost all that 2 gigs of ram but i feel like maybe there's an initial delay when you first enable multitasking after a boot because there's i was trying to take notes in s note while I had the like Facebook up in the other pain and for like the first five seconds I tried to do that the pen inputs were lagging by like five seconds mmm I was like what are you doing what would to know you're you're so good what's the matter and then it was like oh yeah no I'm awake now so it was just to that but that's that's the closest I've gotten to erroring this out on our multitasking no question yeah uh these kind of features excite me because anything to increase productivity while on the go is awesome can you give me a couple of use case scenarios where this has improved your experience on a mobile device yeah this particular feature like like in what cases is the split-screen helped you um the the first time I ever used it right after i installed the update i had just i had facebook open and my buddy just moved to chicago and he was he took a picture of this like logan square sine I don't know where Logan squares in Chicago so I kept facebook open I dropped maps into the other pain and i just typed logan square chicago and while maps was figuring that out i was back in facebook like re looking at the picture and then it popped up and so on one pain i'm looking at where he is on a map in the other one I'm looking at the photo he just took from that location you know what i mean so it's not that's not necessarily a good productivity example I mean it's more like social it's entertainment I know but it's you know that was that was really cool to me for the first time being able to do that um but you can have your your email application in one window and your by donal browser and another one so you can just he send an email while you're browsing we're checking out the URL and vice versa where you can have YouTube you've only got 10 or 12 apps that can use this is this gonna be open the third parties or well new ones be added you know I think that yes Samsung there's been some some noise made about that and I hate it when manufacturers kind of do that because I don't hate it but it's like oh yeah we're gonna open this up and devs are gonna be able to write stuff forwarding them whatever and then kind of wouldn't nobody wraps it says nobody writes yeah exactly but I think that as a solid chance of happening with the note 2 if it is in fact opening devs but the apps that are that are enabled for to chat on Chrome email Facebook gallery gmail internet Maps messaging s note google talk twitter video player and youtube so honestly that's a really really neat exactly and another thing i was doing was I was watching YouTube I started a YouTube clip and I'm just watching YouTube in one pain while in the other one I'm like you know reading email from Tony you know it's like it's it it brings the experience of using this device so much closer to a desktop computing experience I think we lost more things I lost you for the last five seconds oh you did Brenda news you lose me as well uh yeah I lost you but it's it's recording on your end so it should be fine right okay um well so I'll just say it again and maybe I'll get it back it's it brings the experience of using the galaxy note 2 so much closer to the desktop computing experience in in a good way which so so I asked you in what cases would you um would you benefit in terms of productivity just to answer that question just look at what you do on a laptop or desktop so you have your chat running while you're on the web or you have your email client open while you're on the web or um you've got your twitter client open while you're you're I aming but yeah you know it sounds like you know because of that limitation of the 10 or 12 apps and I wonder if like if the system checks for some sort of um parameter before allowing it to show up in that menu because like google voice and that would imply that Google worked with Samsung and I doubt that's the case it's got to be something about google voice that allows it to work in the multi window mode that's uh it's talk not google voice sorry oh yeah so even the applications are being tricked into believing that there is a smaller resolution available and they max out to that smaller resolution which is depending on portrait or landscape the width and half of the height or vice versa that is as close as I get can get to a normal explanation you know you might be right on that I mean that seems like a simple solution and it seems like maybe that's what they're doing here I'm not sure what the nuts and bolts are I just the implementation is really really good and another thing that's kind of in the same family as this and some people probably think this is less impressive I think it's really cool you guys remember pop-up player from the galaxy s3 how you you know start a video and then pop it up into like a little screen on screen window and you could watch your video while you were doing other stuff yeah on the galaxy note 2 they have samsung has has taken that concept and applied it to the browser so i have my default browser set to the pop-up browser meaning that if i'm into twitter feed which i'm always in i'm always looking at Twitter on the phone and there's always links in tweets cuz you know it's like us we post stuff in it's like hey I just wrote the story here's the link you can click on the link and that pop-up browser will open but it won't take over the window it just pops up in a little window by itself you move the pop-up browser window over wherever it's out of the way while it's loading the page and while it's loading the page you just continue in the twitter feed and when the page is ready you go back to the pop-up browser you read the article and you can make it full screen or you can exit it when you're done is this bubble browser a the special browser or is it grow more to stop browsers I think it's the stock browser it is the stock browser in in a smaller form the only kind of downside to this is that when you maximize it if you want to go fullscreen it always has to reload the page uh-huh I don't know what that means though I don't know why it would have to do that like it loads the full page it's not like it's loading a you know a mobile version or anything like that it loads whatever you click on in that smaller window so I don't know why it has to reload every time you you take it into full-screen mode but that's a minor inconvenience it's just another one of those things where it's like hey we have this huge display let's not just scale up Android elements and make it into a huge phone let's actually use it for something useful and that they're both really really handy features and I love it it's just just just just a endlessly surprising to me how much more utility this device has then I kind of expected it to how much you were against bloods I'm most against you I was only against him if you were a commenter looking to pick a fight with me and then I became against phablets magically I think for some some guys are so enthused about the phablet concept that even using the term like they they seem to think that it is a a pejorative term like it's an insult and it's like no it's just a phone tablet hybrid it's a cute name for a for actually what was it what I thought was a lame concept when I first heard of it but which actually makes a lot of sense and let me tell you guys you cannot take this device out in public this without being asked about it Brandon you remember this we i met Brandon in New York City last week from AT&T event we were not out of the subway station 25 seconds I'm walking down the road with the galaxy note 2 because Brandon wanted to see it we're kind of playing with it and this like woody was heated red traffic cop yeah its traffic I was like oh is that the galaxy is that the new galaxy which has become the default thing for any Samsung Android products like yeah and then we like he wouldn't let us go like we talked for like six minutes about this he's like taking out his s3 is like ha man yeah i mean i got the s3 but man look at this see i was out at a bar last night because it was a horrible night and i needed to go to a bar late at night and I'm and fortunately there was no iphone 4 incident but I'm playing with the galaxy another burner that's like three people talk to me inside the space of three minutes I'm at dunkin donuts the coffee shop this morning waiting for my sandwich to show up I'm somebody's like hey wow that's that's big what is that I was at a brewery recently a girls there's absolutely nowhere you can go where people are not going to ask you about this device because it is huge and you get to a point where you're so comfortable holding it that you're like wow I forgot how huge this devices and the public has to come along and remind you so funny it's amazing it's uh but yeah you definitely can't have a moment to yourself when it's out in public because it'll be funny for you to get back to a 4 inch rise up 4 inch screen I don't know if I want to I think it well yeah yeah you're right it and finally because I know we have to move on it makes the experience of holding my galaxy s3 it makes the galaxy s3 feel like a miniature phone now and I'm not even being like I'm being a little jokey but that is entirely correct it when I hold my galaxy s3 now it feels small and it really only took me about a day for that transformation to happen and that's strange I think that says something frightening about us that was so so instantly adaptable but yeah anyway look for the look for the full review listeners it's going to be on the site very soon if it's not up already and it's uh it's quite an impressive device I like it quite a lot what does I'm just checking again again for my update on my Nexus 7 and it's still not here so I took that opportunity to check all of my updates nothing yet but I'll keep you posted and and Anton and tony is still waiting nice to the waning can you just tweet that periodically like every hour you just tag every om so while we're talking about galaxy products and high SPECT ones at that I just read the story this morning the galaxy s3 alpha has been unveiled or galaxy s3 a which apparently is a galaxy s3 variant that is physically identical on the outside but has the same specs internally as the galaxy note 2 which is to say it's running that X knows what is it 4412 quad running at 1.6 gigahertz instead of the 1.4 of the original yeah and then 2 gigs of ram instead of the one that shipped with a lot of versions of the Visigoth history wow I guess I shouldn't be surprised but look at you go Samsung you're like uh what you I mean III don't I don't I don't get it I maybe is it they're just doing this because they can or what well I it's is it coming to Europe or us I this is this is in Japan on carrier NTT DoCoMo but as Tyler settings and commented cheers man and in the comments it's also available in Australia that's right so what I think of this is that whenever Samsung came up with the galaxy s3 the Exynos processor in that format didn't support LTE and this is why US carrier Ryan's went with a Snapdragon processor dual core and LTE but as the as they continue to improve and they launched the knell to that quad core 4412 processor which is the same processor by name but I think they made some tweaks that supports LTE and the faster speed and now they're just using that for samsung galaxy s3 which is okay for them but as I said myself and I will repeat it I will be so pissed if I had a u.s. Bryant with a contract on a US carrier but that's whatever yeah whatever we do in this world will you buy something now and the two weeks from now it will be old ya know it's true and I don't know how I feel like Tony ends this post don't you wish us for a variance packed the 4412 quad and LTE instead the dual core Snapdragon you know I don't know if I do I it seems like every instance I have and I talked about this little in the galaxy note 2 review because there is a little bit of lag on the note 2 at points very minor don't get don't get all crazy but it seems like every single time I test an ex anos quad-core chip and then I test the the Qualcomm variant with the s for the dual core one outperforms the other one and I'm not talking benchmarks I'm talking you I it seems like i don't know if it's this crate versus cortex thing you know or or what but you know it's just i'm always more impressed by the qualcomm running version so i don't know i i'm not i don't have a massive desire to get more quad-core hardware in the states because it's android even do we even know if android is fully optimized for quad-core yet and in jelly bean that is a good question yeah knows knows i don't know i mean that's actually there's actually even more to talk about with that because in a second with this with another nexus device announced with it with it with a Qualcomm processor but before we get there can we just touch on the the galaxy s3 mini oh my god I'm so disappointed apparently everyone is so I'm yesterday I've got my head I'm banging away in this review and I just noticed Twitter explode for a second I'm like what why is everyone mad on Twitter what's going on apparently samsung is guys correct me if I'm wrong Samsung has created a device that looks like a small galaxy s3 but packs and none of its specs is that right yeah that's true what's the deal here we're looking at you love the big disappointment is all about I don't think it's about the specifications it's it's about the samsung executive going on record one day prior to that or I think it was the same day the specs got leaked and he said on record that the s3 mini will pack the same specifications as the S free so normally everybody gets excited and in-your-face Apple 4 inch higher specs here's the iphone 5 killer and then a couple of hours later we see the leaked specifications and it's just mini so it's s3 mini half of everything yes free hats yeah it's got a dual core associate from erickson from st-ericsson at 1 gigahertz 1 gig of ram a 5 megapixel primary camera vga webcam 16 gigs of storage with microSD battery is 1500 milliamp hours and it's jelly bean and it's expensive oh yeah it's 515 bones Wow and then there's a picture of it in the wild yeah um yeah it's such an opportunity to do a killer device here yeah I mean ninjas another like industry to our category defining device like a of a pocketable really fast really well done hi res screen phone but yeah woge wvg come on WCAG a come on I could build a better phone in my garage yes I did you wanna yeah we should have a video segment on that can we do that a 10-week video series Brandon minimun builds a mobile phone in his garage you know what really pisses me off not the fact that the s3 mini has lower specs because it's a smaller phone probably the the target audience is different what this is me off is the fact that they are using heavy dog who's barking here is not my dog the s3 they're using the s3 moniker they're trying to capitalize on the success of the galaxy s3 by naming this little fella the s3 mini and to get back to your post Michael with the dilution of the galaxy brand this is the perfect example on that you're absolutely right I mean they're not satisfied simply with with diluting the galaxy brand name now they want to dilute every iteration of the galaxy brand name and actually they started doing that with a note to at the note 10 dot one which I I get that's a different thing I actually kind of don't mind that because I understand what they're doing with that but look at this yeah that this is absurd nice what happened with that I'm sorry you guys what happened with that naming convention we heard from Samsung last year with the s being the high range high-end the M and the why why couldn't they just name this the galaxy I don't know why to or or M something they're naming it as an S phone which is high-end but this is far from high-end it really is I use a surprise us it's getting announced today and you know maybe yeah maybe the maybe they put misinformation out there to lower expectations that would be crafty of them I that's it's you know what though it's not the only tiny phone samsung is bringing to market I was originally gonna talk about this in a second but let's just let's just get out of the way now the the galaxy music looks to be a phone that's kind of in the same size range so this is it's called the galaxy music once again it's another galaxy product and I love Steven shanks headline samsung announces galaxy music one weird little android because it really is it's this um I thought it was a music player I thought it is i think i think it's an mp3 player which makes phones right but which one calls right yeah it's but i thought it was that um the 5-inch the galaxy player with the top and bottom speakers because it kind of looks like that in the photo until you realize that it's totally small its listeners if you haven't seen the story it's a little tiny little device that has cool colors and it has speakers top and bottom of the display which is cool and also a rumored or so far unconfirmed projector I've heard some reports that there was something on the press release but not in the renders the world did that get the bunt it hasn't been updated but it yeah they from the story it says it gets weirder the official specs samsung released also mention a galaxy beam style wvga PyCon projector but yeah I think that's probably a slip up on somebody's you know somebody didn't take that out of their galaxy beam document when they converted it to the galaxy music but it's a very unusual phone I think the most interesting thing to me besides the fact that it seems to have a hardware music button which is interesting is that it is a phone like it looks like a little personal media player and they tacked a phone onto it which of course begs the question as we asked first at Berlin Tony and then in New York City last week Brandon why can't why couldn't they just put a phone on the galaxy camera yes then then things would have made sense the world over mm-hmm then then they would have called it the 808 PureView they're true yeah 808 PureView s now that galaxy camera that that's how i'll refer to it that galaxy galaxy camera we stop there God yeah yeah yeah keep on wondering about this music but I mean you you get a phone in your hand and you press the dedicated shutter button then you take a picture and you somebody of your friends has this small little music phone and you get it from him or from her you snap the button and it starts playing music yeah it starts plate like the other trying to take a picture of you and it starts playing the most embarrassing track it starts playing like did the spice world album from from the Spice Girls oh that was I mmm that was a pretty good album i have to say anyway okay did you get see the movie i was horrible horrible horrible a favor that's that's that is true uh let's talk let's stop talking about samsung galaxy products because it's getting confusing the next Nexus device one of the next Nexus devices probably going to be an LG made device and you know what what I feel a lot better about this than i did I I was yes need you yeah yeah I think I think Tony has an i-told-you-so moment when I first heard about this I i let out that long grunts of displeasure and I use a filling a lot of negative emotions here but you know what it looks pretty awesome I love what they did with the backing I love the fact that the front and back panel look to be completely flat it looks like a Galaxy Nexus and and it it's it's got a design that I don't think we've ever seen before and plus it's going to be running stock android lg cannot screw this up the designs good the software is going to be I think it's gonna be an awesome phone wow wow bold bold words I i think it's i think it does look like a Galaxy Nexus I think you're right to a degree it's like a galaxy nexus with a shinier bezel and a back that that is actually really sci-fi and really really cool yeah um but it's not like when the Galaxy Nexus was announced I was like oh bullet that's a cool design it's not but you know it's not really doing a lot it's it it's not quite minimalism either it's just like there's not a lot here to look at so okay whatever who tell me what were you gonna say I'm sorry when I usually protect or defend Apple everybody calls me a fanboy but I've been known to protect and defend LG and I'm a fan of the brand and I keep on giving them one more chance one more chance and my last one more chance was the optimus G I'm yet to see how that phone performs but from what i see this nexus 4 or whatever name will be is a modified version of the nexus of the Optimus G and it looks good LG has improved a lot in terms of their build quality and materials used and as Brandon said it's it's it has no applications or user interfaces proprietary to LG to run on top of Android to screw it up so it's google software on a nice I wouldn't say very nice design because it looks exactly the same as the Galaxy Nexus and the nexus s so I think this might have a chance of succeeding but then here's the but I think and this is my personal opinion this will be the only Nexus phone will see you do you think yeah there won't be any other Nexus devices long snout this at least not officially wearing the Nexus brand good i think google might or might not adopt other phones in the AOSP project like they did with the sony but officially Nexus phone I think this will be the only Nexus phone we'll see i'll leave my words but this is what I think right now that seems reasonable it seems confusing for the consumer that watches the Nexus brand if there were like two or three of these things yeah um and and I I would Oh God well there are there are several Nexus devices on the market already though right I mean you've got the tablet you know that the end and there's usually like the nexus s and the Galaxy Nexus did coexist for a while on the market there so but I get it I I know you didn't want to pull a galaxy right is what you're saying yes but never the same release in multiple OEM made fights yes if they are that different generations but from the same generation there's always one very true yep I have a theory on why Google went with LG on this nexus I would love to hear it cuz I'm confused me too yeah yeah it would seem like an unlikely combination to given that it given that LG's sort of a fourth-place player here but it's in google's very much best interest to have a strong LG because right now samsung is owning and then behind them we've got HTC we've got motorola who you know is now owned by google of course and we'll probably see a nexus phone for motorola soon but it hasn't been that long since they bought the company and then we've got LG and and right now I don't think LG has a has a good a good brand image generally speaking and if they can improve LG's brand image they create a stronger fourth player or maybe third or second player and competitions really good an Android and in and it's in sync Google's best interest to have as many strong partners as possible so you think they're well and look at what they did with with a sous yeah you know outside of tech circles and and people who buy you know note windows notebooks not a lot of people knew the ax Seuss brand name before the nexus 7 came out you could probably make the argument that they still don't that as sous branding is very minimal and very tiny on the on the nexus 7 but you know there they have a stronger market position mindshare position than they did before so that's completely valid I think you might be right they might be going a little out of its way to be like hey LG build our next awesome thing so you can be a little more awesome so that this ecosystem can continue to thrive because with that good that and not only that i think google is them is making the smart move here they're showing some love to every OEM for what thirsteth was HTC then it was samsung twice and not sure what happened there now it's LG i'm not sure if Motorola will ever have a nexus phone again this is my personal opinion I'm not sure why but I don't see any motorola Nexus devices and it got too they've got I told you this will not be the motorola Nexus and I'm right again maybe next one but I think they're showing some love my money is on Sony for the next Nexus yeah well it wasn't sony for the next thing now no way let's actually make it can we make a bet at some point because i get we will i will just say it we will see a motorola Nexus device before we will ever see a sony Nexus device that's what I that is what I believe what would it okay do you want to bet some palinka did you say I'll bet you some American West Virginia moonshine against some Romanian polenka okay you're on it's a long story long story Berlin tales oh not the topic of the topic of the podcast now haiyan mother'll on a related note or so lose weight on a related note i'm drunk know what guys evidence to the the I have to remember these things LG Nexus 4 has a 1280 by 768 screen apparently resident of 720 so it's it's higher res than the most android phones out there the vast majority of them which i think is it's not that early pixels it the the difference will be taken up by the on-screen buttons right but if you compare it to the Galaxy Nexus which already has like you know the bottom 40 pixels taken up interview you know you can you get maybe you get back maybe you have a true 1080 x 720 and then the buttons that's probably what it is oh I just and I missed a little bit of a speck here I thought that the LG Nexus 4 here was shipping with a Snapdragon s4 just regular but it looks to be possibly shipping with the s4 pro bro ya encore oh man that's that's another gonna get excited yeah yeah well in we we haven't seen one of those or handled one of those in the wild yet right I devices i only own the device powered by this bro chip at the moment is the LG optimus G which was announced like one and a half weeks ago yes it would be it'll be really cool to see how that performs cuz um yeah anyway well we'll have to see what that what happens there to to wrap up the the android news of the of the week google has done this really interesting thing and i'm sure the timing wasn't explicitly intended but it certainly is a happy accident if not google has implemented their biggest street view update ever this is tony this was your story you've got it like a ton a list of countries here that are now supported in Street View I think they were working on this and they were planning on gradually releasing it but seeing that Apple is right now writing little bit drowning a little bit I think they just stick their hand place it on Apple's head and push them below the water again yeah I completely agree I mean that normally this wouldn't even be a story I'd want to talk about but the fact that Google is doing it now well and while Apple is like embarrassed it's like little look this is what you all missed exactly it's kicking them right in the face and like go ahead go ahead run oh how I was gonna say something you do you did that you do that sharp intake of breath youryour it is very easy to tell when Brandon the man has says Reeve when we livin I was just gonna ask if you guys have ever seen a sighting of a google street view car several you have yep several no I never have oh that's cool it's got to be creepy tena that thing looks like a robot doesn't it didn't have that big ball on top yeah without making any any commercials or ads here I've seen a couple in my hometown they were some opel corsa small cars they had those 360 camera that on top and the glutes of cables and strings and on the sides they had some cameras too and then I saw them and Hungary and Poland so I've traveled a lot in Europe and I've seen like four or five times the google street view the google maps cars wow wow wow imagine that job just try to drive around oh yeah 1,000 miles this month i would love being even either awesome or terrible horrible it would be like being a trucker I imagine except without as much stress probably well yeah but imagine this if you are making the maps with your car how do you get how do you find your wave in a city that's uh that's a solid point there until then I take this opportunity to tell you that I still have no updates thank you for being the thank you for the persistent updates on your lack of updates um let me just scroll through here this did the thing this is this actually kind of nicely segues into into iOS because I'm tired of I don't know about you guys I'm tired of talking about mapple gate I I hate that term but when they'll be invented it Stephen did what Stephen did oh I didn't know that oh that's awesome you have to love it well now I like the term now I I just I'm just sick of it I don't hate the term based on it its merit I'm just you know so tired of it continues to be newsworthy and I got my first real taste of it this past weekend when I ran into my whole family and many of whom you know a couple of whom have apple products and my sister as asking Blake is like carrying her iPad around the house and is bothering me while I'm trying to talk to somebody else just like how do I down how do i downgrade and I'm like what are you talking about Lexi know and and and she's like yeah I'm like what do you mean and she's like I hate the the maps they got all messed up I'm like oh wow really hold on let me let me see what you're talking about because I now she's got your attention exactly and she just would not stop hating on it and then I go to the brewery that same day we're having and we're in the tasting room of this beer brewery people are asking about my galaxy note 2 conversation turns to smartphones and these total strangers are just talking my ear off for 15 minutes about how much they hate the maps on their new iPhones and until this past weekend until these experiences it didn't really register for me just how much regular people were annoyed by this I just thought I didn't necessarily think it was just geeks but I know geeks tend to be a lot more vocal we tend to really you know hate on stuff very loudly but no regular people really really hate this stuff so it's really interesting to see it's really interesting to see that this story that we're developers apparently tried to warn Apple about these problems with maps before iOS 6 officially dropped which this was a this came to us from cnet via BGR it looks like we're developers actually were just emailing Apple employees directly saying you know finding all these bug reports and they either didn't get acknowledged or they got acknowledged very rarely and it seemed that Apple was just really well aware of these maps issues and was just dead set on going ahead with iOS 6 anyway what what do you think happened here I mean you think this was a planning failure do you think this was a stubbornness did something specific go sour with Google really quickly like what no i think is i think that apple back back back tout from the google relationship in terms of maps and that particular discussion probably happens somewhere way before iOS 6 got gold or public and once they started seeding beta as to the Uber's and testers their relationship in terms of maps was second to none so I mean no this was non-existent mmm still late for them to say okay our maps suck let's get back google maps because they already burned that bridge down all right yeah that I don't know it's it it's a shame to see that happening I keep thinking that I keep telling people in between telling them like yeah listen here's this leaked app that gives you google maps functionality but only about a fifth of it or you know download bing maps or you know whatever i keep kind of trying to give people hope with their new shiny iphone 5s i'm like no it's a great device just you know Apple has no choice but to make maps better as fast as it can so that's what they're going to do so it's gonna take some time but I feel like you know I feel like they're gonna do that I feel like they're gonna really bring it because they have to what are you going to do you you can't have a smartphone a top to your smartphone without without a good mapping program no they will definitely improve the question is how will user survive until then and I yeah I I here in my home city in in Romania I'm using navigation only when I want to compare phones or applications and there is no problem with iOS maps here in my city I mean navigation is okay the streets and their names are accurate I can navigate without a problem from point A to point B the problem is you cannot find point point A or point B by searching so the p.o eyes are the problem because if you long tap and hold on the on a certain point and you navigate to that point it will just get you there without a problem the problem is when you search for something like museum like the shopping center there's no POS so if you know you're going from this point to this point it will route you but if you don't know where you're going you're just tapping in I want to go to the museum it doesn't know where the museum is this is that's interesting because I think Brandon and I ran into that issue a couple times in New York City last week then we had talked about wanting to do this maps off right where he I'm running at an android phone he's running an iphone and we're like let's try and navigate to the same thing but I couldn't do it because i was on 18 tease 3g network in the city on whatever that was a Thursday afternoon near rush hour and there's just no network capacity no room for me yeah but but but a good indication i was on 18 t2 but over LTE and it was working so that's a good indication of course ya know AT&T LTE LTE network is rather boss if you don't mind my saying so I I love that word using it I am so surprised by how quickly ATT at that's kind of silly because verizon is absolutely everywhere but um it was around here where I live it went from like in the course of two days it went from being nowhere to everywhere it was like two weeks before the iphone 5 came out and now i can't i can't go somewhere in my day-to-day commute that doesn't have LTE which is just great they're not great yes it will be nice to get back on LTE the the speaking of the iphone just got to wrap up this the iOS segment here which is very short this week not content apparently with beating up Apple over its Maps issues some people started reporting this Purple Haze nonsense which is I don't know brand drugs yeah it's it's actually a really good beer too but essentially what this is is lens flare and I don't know why people just decided to start hating on the iphone 5 4 4 experiencing lens flare problems when as consumer reports did demonstrate it via some testing every single smartphone camera is susceptible to it even regular cameras are susceptible to it all you need to do is watch the 2009 JJ Abrams take on Star Trek to understand what lens flare is because it's in every single shot as a stylistic choice I think the problem is not above the lens flare itself but the purple haze but in what the hay is surrounding the flare like yeah whenever you get a bright source of light just a little bit outside of the frame it will of course turn into a haze now whether it will be purple or pink or another color depends very much on the sensor depends very much on the glass or material used to protect the camera lenses itself right I i've been i've been taking out my phones like a moron and shooting into the light like against every photography principled out there just to prove my point that i'm not defending Apple every smartphone does that and I have no no doubts to say every the word every because cameras and these smartphones are still not high end okay dado a curve you aside the problem with the apple purple haze is that somebody somewhere somehow shot a picture into the light if that happened with another phone we wouldn't be talking about it but it's rattle yeah and we need and we need the community needs to bash Apple at all costs and this is what drives me crazy what idiot took a picture of the Sun like imagine that how the desert like why don't you just go into a dark closet take a picture Billy I can't see a thing it's so dark in here this is this is amazing like I mean it is stories this is a maybe 150 word piece from you Tony about the purple a support document says it's normal and common there are like there's just endless endless threads of comments after this like people yeah you hit it on the head time people love love to just destroy apple and each is a reading our sort o tons a flagman in my direction you know that's true too yeah you're as you what did you say in the email this morning you are the the sacrificial goat yeah the sacrifice goes right man I tell and there's it probably ask you before I forget I'm sorry let me ask you on those other cameras that you tried it on Tony is the haze the same color is it that's exactly what I was going to say the problem is I have proven to them that the haze is there on the galaxy s3 the haze is there on the One X there is a slight haze also on the 808 PureView the haze will be there and in this case it's the same purple haze on every smartphone I've tested what what the first is the amount of color and discoloration which this induces into your final image is and the iphone 5s don't have that right you don't afraid because you are waiting I'm still waiting yes well I think the moral of the story is besides you know stop looking for excuses to beat up on Apple is everyone don't take pictures of the Sun right or a menu that you just live with the consequences right because if if i recall well every camera manual which i have read says that it's not healthy to point your lenses and your sensors towards the Sun because your pixels might die eventually exactly exactly just like your retinas so leave it be let's jump into Windows Phone before we get to reader mail we have seen what we've now seen what Nokia is doing and what Nokia is doing with the US carriers I think it can safely be said we have two stories of carriers announcing windows phone 8 devices t-mobile usa's and is releasing the Nokia Lumia 810 which is correct me if I'm wrong the Nokia Lumia 820 just yet with a different number and probably as support for those AWS bands that t-mobile uses and then verizon is also announcing their nokia lumia 822 or not announcing i think that one's just leaked but in any case that is 820 right with a different number and this jives with what someone told me at at in a discussion recently somebody who I don't have mentioned but who had some knowledge of Windows Phone plans who is kind of very very careful in saying nokia has only announced the 824 you know for blah we have no comment on any other model numbers or names for other carriers it's like oh this is what you guys are doing you guys aren't this exclusivity flap with the you know the 920 on AT&T maybe we'll see how that plays out but really if they wanted to and if things worked out they could very easily just release a 925 on verizon if they wanted to ah that feels good I know it's true isn't it I hope it's true too it seems I hope that pans out that way but it looks like initial indication so that that's they're going to be playing the model number change game depending on what carrier they nokia has not only that if i was a verizon customer waiting for the Lumia 810 or a 20 or a 22 I'd be pissed because this thing is ugly like sin oh that is just good pointing look at the 8 and windows okay the 810 is is nice sharp corners rounded edges but but the 822 I'm sorry I'm sorry and that's not my money um at the exactly this is what the this is the other thing Twitter blew up about the other day where I was like why is the boys the feed moving so fast o people are complaining what are they complaining about oh this ugly phone oh wow yeah this is not pretty it looks like a hobby man hey it's not that it's got a chin I mean Chin's are like not cool anymore makes it look tall and CLD i like i like chins but not a chin like this where it's got those two nested curved lines in the corner if listeners if you haven't seen this device like the back of it actually makes it look like okay what it's another rounded pebble with Myrtle yeah we haven't really seen the rounded pebble design aesthetic in Windows Phone so I'm like okay whatever that's that's okay and then you look at the front and it's like oh well that those rounded edges don't really work too well with the tiles do they and yeah but imagine this they will at one point complain or ask themselves why on earth aren't they selling phones why isn't Windows Phone catching up because of this well it was just verizon just surprised mid-range right yeah yeah but again when your Microsoft and your platform is Windows Phone and you're the third one with four percent market share you cannot just say that's just one carrier man you need all carriers you need sure all forces in yeah well I mean that they also released the HTC surround remember like I mean they can't all be winners yeah I don't be like 19 bucks yeah I believe Michael Owen this is a great free phone too would be yeah yeah I agree yeah that could be a good theory um yeah I don't know any case we'll be able to order them soon because the we have this rumored announcement of Windows Phone 8 presale like the presale pre-order dates going to be what is this opening over a week prior to the launch event in October 21st is the rumor at least that's when AT&T is planning to open pre-orders according to that looks like this came to us from the verge this would this would be cool I don't do preorders usually but I might do a pre order if if this just opens up yes it's called Lumia I think my freak on the number is 928 because Lumia 920 yeah yeah well you know I finally got a chance to hold one Tony in New York City really oh this is a funny story yeah I wanted to bring this up that you did wait which which which part is it to talk about and what you thought about the 9 20 points sure yeah we were at the eighteen t of n in New York City that a whole lot of devices from a whole lot of manufacturers was really really cool and the Nokia guys first of all everyone was so nice to us because as Tony pointed out in a couple emails is a lot of commenters pointed out that you can see in the reflection we were we were not we got there in a real hurry and we didn't have the proper equipment so we're shooting a lot of this on mobile devices i think i was shooting a lot of these hands-on videos with iphone 5 we're shooting someone at least make the 808 PureView man for that i wish i had a PureView me yours but we were we were challenged because it was such a loud event they were playing some great music so we had to go up on the rooftop to the roof deck every time we wanted to get some hands-on time of the device and narrate about the device and be heard on the video and everyone was so great to us HTC nokia samsung AT&T seriously everyone was like yeah we'll just step away for a second will go up to the roof and and you know we'll give you ten minutes of our time so you can do this so that was really awesome just a public thank you to all them but i finally got my hands on the on the nokia lumia 920 and I got to play lossy or Matt uh that's what I was so jazzed about so that's it is at this event but that I found out even though we had posted a new story i just missed it that there is going to be sian variant of the 920 and furthermore first of all that just made my whole week and then furthermore that the science is a matte version the glossy ones like the red one in the yellow one or glossy yes but there are Matt editions including the Scion one and it's just the same as the 900 in that material and I'm just I'm just so excited right now I just wanted to want to go pre-order at the moment so they it was really great to get our hands on that I think Brandon and I had a slight disagreement about the heft I think we had maybe like a 20-minute in-depth conversation about heaviness of a device versus its perceived quality and somebody that wasn't a disagreement it was just a discussion it was the deepest discussion remember anything right sperry it was profound I was changed changing I remember Michael when when we were in Berlin and you held the 808 PureView for the first time oh yes Tony said it's heavy and when you held it for like the fifth time you said that this feels so good it does that yes and that's to be honest the 920 has shades of that yeah I don't think it feels as good in the hand is the PureView 808 but God it feels great so um yeah it was it was very nice to have an have now a more informed perspective on it having actually held the thing it's a shame we still couldn't play with the software because it's there still hiding something from us thanks um yeah like deity vests because if you guys check the landscape there are two nakia devices to HTC devices we were hearing of an alcatel device and the samsung atif s was announced at IFA and there's nowhere to be seen no reports no hands on there was one which was yanked of course but there's no buzz around it they didn't have one at the New York City event um yeah I don't know what's going on with that what are they up to hmm I don't know um anyway it's yeah we just don't care about Windows Phone I guess but but you know they obviously care about Windows 8 cuz they've got all those at Eve tablets that we saw yeah but that's different it is yeah I don't know um so the 920 um so so Michael you found it to you liked its heft right you you like that theft that high quality it still is the weight in your hand I do yes yes ah well well as we were talking about I should say that the hardware on the 920 is pretty boss it's uh it's extremely high quality it's unique it's gorgeous and kills good in suppose it's I'll use as much as I can and it feels good in the hand the screen is just stunning yeah um but uh it's thick and heavy oh oh yeah I I I don't like that right that doesn't mean I wouldn't use it and what it liked it but it reminds me i was telling Michael gives me this anxiety of the of the back in the day when every phone was thick and heavy he had devices like the HTC touch pro2 which was just like a deck of cards but longer and taller and thicker and and the Lumia 920 is like a deck of cards but a little bit thinner and a little bit taller a little bit wider and it's just to me it just gives me this weird sense and and I I long for the lightness and the thinness of a galaxy s3 or iPhone 5 and so it's just a difference of opinion but it was interesting to see how our responses were so different to holding the 920 finally yeah yeah no you're right and I forgot about that it you know and I think part of dealing with that thickness part of the reason I can deal with that thickness okay is because I saw a tear down which we talked about a little bit or maybe a leaked internal component shot whatever it was maybe just a first-hand account of the PureView the new PureView and I'm making air quotes the new PureView cameras for the new Lumias apparently regardless of how how not 808 quality they are there's still rather hefty units and the hardware that is required for that is a lot more akin to a sugar cube like it's a it's a big it's a big component so I think that is probably this is just speculation on my part that is probably why the Lumia 920 needs to be that thick that's not a problem with me I like heavy phones I don't have that feeling that I'm gonna drop it just because it's too light right and well I mean I think though that like it's easier for me to take if you can justify like I'm willing to make that sacrifice I'm willing to carry a thicker phone in order to have better camera quality right like I wouldn't be I wouldn't be willing to carry a thicker phone if a manufacturer was like yeah we could have made this as thin as X or whatever but we just wanted to throw in an extra half pound of rubber for no reason it's like okay well then no you know I don't know I think if there's a good reason for it then I can live with it so fine well you know we'll have to see we'll have to we'll have to get some hands-on time with the with the devices and maybe a cyan one and we'll see I just watch like with that oh i was gonna ask michael so what'd you think of the ad the headaches okay so yeah that we also got our hands on the HTC windows phone 8x and the that was i I was pleasantly surprised now that was quite a bit lighter than the 920 and also bigger in the hand somehow but with a bigger bezel so the 8x guy I think I do like it and i was very tempted by it the design from a design perspective i really really like the way that device looks and feels to an extent but without the added without the the kind of special nokia touches like the the wireless charging and the nokia software suite and the really nice well engineered feel of those buttons on the Lumia 920 we're like this clicking response was as good as an iphone 4 volume keys which are kind of the best we're good really get into those finite d to those fine details i think the HTC windows phone 8x just becomes less and less impressive to me personally by comparison yeah i don't know that's the best but if you like thin and light you know and if you like that soft touch feel instead of polycarbonate org or gloss then that's gonna be a better device for you especially if you don't care about wireless charging we know i'm a giant fan boy for wireless charging so there's that let's just to wrap it up speaking of HTC is sad story again if CC is third quarter net profit down seventy-nine percent from last year this is in the windows phone category because I think those with that Windows Phone 8x and 8s are now they now make a bit more sense why HTC em so much noise when they announced them and why Microsoft is you know obviously standing firmly behind them because the company is not doing well and that's really scary because I like HTC so much that's part of the reason I made a special effort to call out one of their commercials the you campaign in that post from a couple weeks ago about the best mobile commercials because I like HTC like what they do I like the direction that they drive the industry and in this kind of innovative hardware direction you know doing things differently and I don't want to see them go away I don't want to see them do poorly so I really hope that they're able to pull out of this death spiral do you guys think the windows phones are going to do that I'm sorry Tony go ahead no I was about to say that I think right now HTC is experiencing the consequences of whatever they did 11 and a half two years ago when we wrote like three or four dear HTC editorials and HTC was just releasing phone after phone after phone with the same outer aspect and when you are in this business you cannot allow yourself a period of one year one and a half years when you do not innovate and the the the perception of the brand has shifted a little bit and of course Samsung was great to capitalize on that and they just shifted and Samsung became the number one Android the OEM of course we can debate if it's the world's number one OEM but yeah and I think HTC is now struggling to get back there where they were the one family which was launched in Barcelona the excess and V are part of HTC's new direction which which we like I just hope they need I think they need more innovation and to keep going on this road which they started to to switch back that perception to whatever it was before they lacked innovation yeah and and don't forget that every company rises and falls and literally every company throughout history has gone through periods of expansion and contraction and Samsung's killing it right now and it's very possible in 2014 or something they they'd make a lot of errors you know apples been on top for a long time and there's a lot of indications that they're they're having some problems and an HTC will probably find there's again and they have a good brand and they've got a heritage and they've got relationships and they've got a place in a lot of our hearts you know as a company that was there in the beginning and you know they I guess they just need to say they know what they need to do everyone yeah but here's here's a free tip from me fire your marketing department and hire new people because back in the day I remember seeing HTC thats everywhere when was the last HTC had you guys saw well that's yeah um we're actually going to touch on that a little bit in in in reader mail too but ok ok let's leave it to death yeah actually why don't we just want to use that as a little segue here to jump into that so cuz we're running short on time this is a really good point this is it comes to us from Jon luttrell or I hope I got close to your pronunciation there from not so sunny Scotland who loves the show thank you for listening John um I was just wondering what your thoughts are on how HTC can improve sales I think the one x+ will be great especially with jellybean to me the main issue at least in the UK is that most people have no clue about the 1-series because the advertising just showed some guy jumping out of a plane take pics and videos I think they need to look at marketing and get their products known again that it is exactly what we're talking about I completely agree I loved the you campaign when HTC was focusing on its brand awareness and we've talked about that I've kind of talk that into the ground but I think if they could get something like that back this aspirational quality of like reminding you how important your phone actually is to you and oh look by the way look at our one series it does this stuff well for you and then you can we can talk to wear blue in the face about how the camera's not as good and blah blah blah but man yeah they're just needs to be I think more of it is the consensus right more of the advertising never better advertising more advertising and more innovation on the products of course yeah yeah which-which I think they're doing though I think that's the thing i think the 1-series really could have been a bigger hit if only and i completely agree with John here that does that guy jumping out of a plane is eye-catching but when you're doing these commercials I don't know what they're called in the marketing world whether you're just calling out one feature and each commercial is calling out a separate feature for some reason it's working out for samsung with their what they hold the phones back to back and they do the tap would have written about it what do they call that tap tap to share something like something's do but like you use it once two years exactly right with this is one of these features that's I catching but no one ever uses and probably is never gonna use but it works out for them because they're just saturating the market with it and and and they have five or six different other commercials an HTC you just got this one kind of gimmicky commercial you're like I don't cool i can take photos while i'm taking video well now everybody can do that yeah that's not a thing anymore put out more ads and i put them in the right places I when I when I Drive into philly um I see at every major place where I might be looking at a billboard it says in huge letters that next big thing is already here in the picture of galaxy s3 and like I constantly am reminded about this next big thing concept and somebody samsung marketing figured out that they should place a billboards very strategically if they want to remind people I mean it's just smart marketing and Samsung's in a great job yes marketing that this oversaturation can backfire but until it backfires it will just drive sales like nuts so I just think HTC didn't find any empty spots to place their banners on because of Samsung because Samsung would like be able to punch on all of them wrong yeah well it's I you know we'll see I that's um it would be so wonderful i think the battle between the i was expecting at the beginning of this year a great giant apocalyptic fight between the 1x and the galaxy s3 it's just you know and we didn't get it because Samsung just rolled up like hit HTC right in the face at the beginning and he hasn't really gotten back up maybe the one x+ I don't think that's it I don't know so I think maybe whatever this the five insurer is gonna move yeah that could that I could not all think the galaxy from its star exactly because what I think is gonna happen i think the note 2 is going to increase public public awareness of phablets to a pretty large degree and i think HTC if they play it right they can come in and kind of try and milk some of that well just don't forget guys 5 inches is not phablet territory these days it was one year for this but the galaxy s3's 4.8 inch and the 1x is 4.75 inch could be the same outer aspect and dimension as the 1x or the s3 well that's true yeah um well we'll have to see how that goes i let's uh let's jump into another another piece of mail here this is from mike bates who wants to send us some well-deserved praise and thank you and a question thank you first of all this i love hearing this you're podcast is awesome and makes an early morning bus ride much better that is awesome yeah i love hearing about where people listen to us like in their commuter at home whatever the second mike is wondering what your favorite phone is not based off what is the best but the one that you like the most just in terms of unique looks or features just curious keep up the great editorial videos articles in the podcast thank you Mike um guys do you to something leap right to mind it's Danielle sides 808 PureView time yeah I'm looking at it right now damn that you're such an 80 a peer of your fanboy that's awesome i love it yeah and anybody can say anything about symbian or nokia bell right now it's a good little platform too bad they killed it it can do anything i need and with this camera I always think it with me so it's my main driver right now cool what about you Brandon I'm kind of in this weird spot right now I've been using the iphone 5 as a daily driver but gosh I am so tired of iOS it's just making me depressed and and and we're in this weird fate of time period where we've got these awesome windows phones coming out we've got some new android phones coming out so I really don't know I mean it's either right now I'd be using galaxy s3 or an iPhone 5 i'm skinnies an iphone 5 right now because a little bit newer and i'm enjoying the camera and some other features but you know I this isn't a good time to ask me that question what about you Michael this is not a good time to ask me either I'm kind of between stuff obviously the Lumia 920 I talk about it every podcast I'm kind of like backed into a corner unlike in that though because I i I'll of the features and I love you know from the camera to the wire charging to the polycarbonate build to the whatever but I as far as unique looks goes um you know aside from the nokia smile design it's not bringing a lot that we haven't kind of already seen in the in the n9 / lumia 800 / lumia 900 so I think the HTC 8s is kind of my current favorite as far as a visual standpoint goes fisting yeah I mean you know yes its mid-range but I say it over and over again i really respect and admire it when companies decide to take a bold design step and making a phone with a fluorescent color band around the bottom is bold especially when one of them makes it look like a traffic cop you know with the gray and in neon green so that's in his bowl yeah tennis ball right yeah so that's that's mine that's that would be mine for looks obviously the 920 still wins on features for me thanks for the question Mike that was that was an awesome one and to sum it up the last piece of reader mail from Philip who lives in Cardiff UK the UK will be getting LTE at the end of the month and the major roll out of LTE over the next two years I was wondering if LTE is a major leap in technology and is it worth me selling my six-month-old 1x to get an LTE device thank you oh my god yes there's it is a major leap in technology we've written a couple pieces on LTE I wrote one pretty recently about how it's how it differs from 3g if you want to look it up Phillip it it has absolutely changed the way I use smartphones here in the states when I am not on an LTE network I actually have a measurably less pleasurable experience I don't like it whenever I come back to Boston after having traveled I'm very very pleased to be back in LTE coverage it is the most major leap in technology I have ever experienced personally and if I had a six-month-old 1x that didn't support LTE I would absolutely get rid of it in favor of an LTE device once it came to my neighborhood I my answer would say it depends I agree that LTE is amazing and awesome and faster as always better but you know your phone still relatively new only six months old and it's possible that you spend you know of 24 hours in the day you spend 10 0 10 at work and and the other 14 at home and may or may be 13 at home and maybe one hour commuting and so LTE for you isn't that big of a deal because you're always on a Wi-Fi hotspot at work or school and at home um so I guess it if your phone is a year older a year and a half one it's a yet definitely but since you just got your necks you gotta have you got kinda have to look at what your internet needs are and where you're using your device well that's of you know that's definitely a smarter answer I agree if you want to be more fiscally responsible the 1x is still a great device and if you're on Wi-Fi all the time then maybe it doesn't matter but man you know what having LTE everywhere like not having to jump onto a Wi-Fi hotspot because you don't need to because you're actually getting better speeds over LTE especially on a new fresh network that nobody's on that's a feeling that's tough to replicate I mean that's that as far as geeky pleasure goes I think I think it's tough to to beat that so I don't know and and and Tony if I'm right you you are you've not used an LTE network I have not unfortunately in my region LT is not present I've been reading some reports that one of the major carriers here in Romania will skip LTE and start implementing the next thing after LTE okay banga no it's called differently i'm gonna get some info and i'm gonna get back to you guys on this okay i still have an answer for for Phillip Phillip you said LTE will be implemented over the next two years so at the beginning will be probably problems with coverage and speed and stuff like that so by the time LTE will be stable you're now six months old 18 1 X will be probably 11 and a half years old so we're gonna change it anyway yeah that's that's the probably the best answer out of it yeah it doesn't depends on how big the itch is to to get a new phone is this the Everything Everywhere probably the the new carrier oh really that joint venture there yeah a new so yeah but by the time they start with coverage and the fix all the problems at the beginning you'll be fine cell because by the time you'll sell you one x you'll not sell it because of LTE you'll sell it because there's something better on the market you'll want that wasn't all the all the listener mail that we received this week but that's all we kind of have the time for we have a really detailed question that actually I want to get to next week I'm going to send an email to that person about wireless charging is we have to do a little research answer that question really good question so stay tuned it guys please Mike Philip John thank you very much for writing in those are all great question explain comments thank you for your comp how do you guys say boss UK's boss this week oh the UK listen yeah the UK was bringing it yeah um but bring it on lads please do write in lads yes indeed a podcast at pocketnow.com is the email address before we wrap it up here gents have you got anything else to add to this hour and a half of techno goodness absolutely I'm still waiting hey it comes full circle they'll leave it there does it does all right well that is gonna wrap it up for us for this week on the pocket now weekly podcast lucky 13 was the episode and I had a great time feel free to throw a tweet our way we are on the twittersphere at Brandon minimun for Brandon minimun at Anton d Naja that's a and T 0 ND na gy for Tony and at captain two phones for me captain the number two phones Michael Fisher follow pocket now official twitter account at at pocket now tweets where if you have not you should enter our giveaway I meant to mention this the top of the pop yeah you should definitely edit we're giving away 3 Nexus 7's in a partnership give away with amzer it's a lot of fun you should enter the contest it's easy don't let anyone tell you it's hard after pocket now tweets is the name of the account you can also follow us on facebook and google+ just search for us there the itunes reviewers we continue to adore you please leave us thanks guys thank you so much please leave us more reviews if you like the podcast on itunes it does actually helped us out quite a bit and if you have a topic question or suggestion for the podcast follow the example of the gentleman from the UK it if you just want to say hi email us once again podcast at pocketnow.com thanks so much for listening as always we'll see you next week Billy