Gadgetory

hey listeners if you haven't joined stitcher premium yet now's the perfect time stitcher Premium gets you completely out free episodes of hundreds of shows like comedy bang bang WTF with Marc Maron and how did this get made you also get 21,000 hours of exclusive content new exclusive originals like Marvel's Wolverine and ISA raised fruit are launching every week for Stecher Premium Members if you love podcasts you aren't missing out when you listen to ad free apps in stitcher premium your favorite podcasters get paid help support your favorite shows and join stitcher Premium today for a free month of listening go to stitcher premium calm and use promo code pocket I was like I was sure that said like zero and then and then I made it okay okay take this can I start over I guess I should I'll just say it out loud and and we'll see what happens okay ready Microsoft came rip warned ready this week with a small convertible tablet that starts out at 399 unfortunately unlike an iPad if you really want to take your computing somewhat seriously you're going to need to spend upwards of eight hundred dollars on a surface go does it makes well sort that out and look into the five camera trend that seems to be cropping up for the future plus a lesson on case design why if you don't care about the blockchain you should probably care about HTC and the impending death of the 4-inch iPhone again all this and more as we unfold the week's news and then get a bit of dust in it and then make the keyboard not work but at least the keys are quiet and the chipset is updated I don't know what do you expect from the MacBook Pro it's the pocket now weekly episode three one three recorded on Friday the 13th of July 2018 this is the show from pocket now in conjunction with xda-developers that delves into everything that moves and is technology from smartphones as tablets and wearables it is the stuff you probably couldn't make up even in your wildest imaginations as a kid i'm jules wong news editor at pocket now joined by editor-in-chief still anton d nudge hello together morning good afternoon good evening everybody good to be here how are you I'm doing just well if it wasn't for that little flood that I did on the technical side here but hey we apologize we all make mistakes and we'll live with them I apologize too and we'll just move on from that how was your week by the way my week was busy but that's nothing out of the ordinary although my weeks are busy but it's been an exciting week but I can't say this much I'm glad it's over or it's about to be over because as soon as I hang up this hangout I'm gonna be out of here you're gonna have dinner you're going to be out on the town it's gonna be great anything just to get out of the office indeed definitely a busy week for us here as we make the transition obviously you've probably seen the posts by now that we are working with xda-developers in a very obviously synergistic capacity here so sooner or later you'll be seeing changes they're gonna be for the good and both of us are gonna be a part of it to lead on the transition and and it's gonna be a fun time I guess exciting at least at least yeah it's gonna be the base level exciting and then who knows what will happen after that so a lot of stuff that we want to talk about this week and we encourage you to chime in as well I have phones over here that have Twitter on them and we want you to speak out on that social platform using the hashtag P and weekly P and weekly is the hashtag you're looking for comments on some of the news of the week and again if you happen to be on emails if you're not listening to this live at noon on this particular day well fine and head on to your email clients and then go to the podcast at pocketnow.com and just ask any question you want we'll try and see if we can answer it so lots to look forward to and in the meantime we shall start off with the surface go so this happened this week cuz it happened on a Tuesday night I believe a hardware chief Panos Panay of Microsoft kind of just leaked well not really leak because it was official but just put out little pictures videos everything about the surface go which is what he says to be the smallest lightweight surface yet of course I think he said that about the surface laptop it seems like everything is getting smaller you know just more miniaturized this is seen as the iPad competitor here or the Chromebook competitor as opposed to the surface laptop which was 999 dollars not euro dollars and this is going to be kind of a well it has the Intel Pentium Gold processor which is a good step up from Celeron and it gets and the everyone was yeah the m's yeah yeah definitely but there's a lot of interesting kind of catches that you have to look forward to especially what I'm talking about a 399 base price here because well first of all the base part the base model has four gigs of RAM but the storage here 64 gigabytes that's emmc if you upgrade to the one with the 128 gigabytes that's an SSD and that's certainly going to give you faster performance and memory and it's $549 and that's not even to say that you don't get the type cover which they're heavily promoting and you don't get the surface pen those are separate costs just like if you get it with the iPad you get the Apple pencil for $100 you get the covered with the keyboard for $130 and it's the same thing over here so if you really want a pretty okay computing experience with the surface go you're looking at $800 ish so um Tony I just want your kind of first blush first reactions to all this I'm trying to make a sense of why this product exists why it's out there and I'm I'm having a hard time figuring it out because there is the surface which is the most the pros which is the most the more powerful unit and whether it's tablets or the laptop version it doesn't really matter and then we have this lower end entry-level ish model which is indeed cheaper but as you said if you add a keyboard if you add the storage option which is the SSD version with 128 gigs you're pretty much up in the $800 zone and it's it's running Windows version which is the s-1 grant that it would be upgradeable to Windows 10 home but for $900 you can get a MacBook Air which is a full-fledged computer with a more powerful processor so I guessing it all depends on what you want to use the device for if it's some lightweight web browsing some emails or maybe some multimedia then absolutely if you're a Microsoft or Windows fan you can go for that and you can even save a hundred bucks off of the MacBook Air but if you want to do anything more serious not that the MacBook Air is such a powerful computer but I myself and mr. Mobile can probably testify we have rendered lots of videos of MacBook Airs and V until until his one blew up four years or three years after doing a lot of video editing stuff it really held his ground so and trying to figure out what exactly is Microsoft Microsoft strategy here who are they targeting because it doesn't seem to be neither the simplest kind of device to compete with Chromebooks it doesn't even seem to be the kind of device to compete with full fledged computers it's an in-between product and I guess that that's that might be its niche well I think it was a particularly bad week to be announcing this especially because we got word last night from Bloomberg that they're working on or at least Adobe is working on Photoshop full-fledged Photoshop for the iPad which kind of takes away more of that air that the surface co would have in making the argument to lightweight computing which I mean well does this really mean that Apple was getting in the right sense of marketing its iPad with like what could be what computer what's the whatever that girl was doing on the bus and whatnot and then kind of making that kind of glib claim as something as it might be I am I am trying and and so far I've succeeded but I'm trying really really hard to not compare a computer with the iPad or the iPad with another computer because at the end of the day the iPad powerful as it is with the powerful and strong ecosystem of apps that it might have it is still a tablet it is still running a mobile platform and Windows 10 whether it's an S or Home version or Mac OS it's a desktop operating system so limitations are there of course for the iPad due to its operating system there might be some limitations on Windows s as well but in my mind they just don't compete so I wouldn't compare the the newly newly announced the surface go with the iPad I will compared it against the the MacBook Air or or something on though along those lines really that may be that may be something I mean Chromebooks I guess would be the other branch of things especially as we see a lot of push towards enterprise or education fleets deployment what is this provide Android is also getting its app games up and they're becoming more fully featured as well yes sure true again but with a Chromebook correct me if I'm wrong I have not used one and isn't your operating system basically isn't your your device basically booting off of the web it's not putting off of the web it's it's its own contained device but it's really all the family relying on the web yeah except they've really taken the integration with Android apps pretty seriously so if you run them off your local storage of me and that's totally fine and that's kind of their way of cheating into an ecosystem I guess then I guess there's your competitor for for the surface go it's grown books on one end and it's the MacBook Air on the other head interesting well we'll definitely want to see where this goes and if the sales kind of even out between that kind of I'd like to hear from listeners where do they think this product is is situated what's Microsoft targeting with this product because it can be a poor-man's laptop and it also can be a poor-man's iPad it's it's for me it's not really clear yeah it's not really clear to me either especially if they're taking the Apple route of accessorizing and additional cost so definitely chime and hashtag P and weekly on that we'll get to your comments in a little short order in the meantime staying with the Microsoft theme we are gonna talk about the surface phones a glass a dram but a slash whatever and it's only in terms of sentiment here because I mean I don't the story is that there are 15,000 are fans that are writing a petition for Microsoft to keep this secret project alive where I mean renders have pictured it to be this kind of switch-like thing just Nintendo switched like thing where you're able to combine two screens and then turn off one and then have the other one turned into as like a work surface where typing and whatnot but um well the fact is is that the story is that 15,000 people have signed a petition and uh so this fan base is really really weird in terms of mobile I think there's always been a concern or at least an insistence that Microsoft needs to have skin in the mobile game if it wants to compete past the second decade of the 21st century and this they've been trying so many ways so many times they've done it through many iterations of its Windows Phone platform they've left behind a whole bunch of people along the way just because you know they didn't develop bridges between the version you know from mango to eight from eight to ten some of them want some of the phones weren't gonna be supported on the way up and some of them some of them in making the transition to the Windows 10 mobile were promised to make the upgrade but eventually did not get that grade and there was also the whole debacle of acquiring Nokia for its hardware and devices services and that didn't end up going well they wrote off the whole investment so I'm wondering what these people see in Microsoft that I don't necessarily see as strange to use your words as strange as this fanbase is I think they deserve our entire respect and Microsoft's respect which is in the first place because if it were in for or whatever's left of this so-called fanatic fan base for a mobile platform which its maker killed Microsoft wouldn't have had half of the success it had a couple of years ago so there's that but on the other hand everybody has moved on from from Microsoft's operating system on a mobile even before Microsoft officially killed it off because they entered the game late there was this entire conversation back then whether Microsoft is late to the game and there were any saying they were they were many hoping that they are not as it turns out they were late to the game but that's not what got them to lose at this game I think that they made some some decisions some strategy decisions which got them to this point they were trying to a completely different approach and oh my god yes Windows Windows Phone the the original version Windows Phone 7 I think with the live tiles was a great concept but then again along the way it just they didn't necessarily manage to keep up with the demands on the market and it's a circle back to et or Microsoft Nokia analogy yeah Microsoft managed to acquire Nokia but not yet didn't manage to to save Microsoft so there's that I don't think that 10 15 or even a hundred thousand people would be enough for Microsoft to actually manufacture a product or to get back into the mobile game I do think that the the market still needs Microsoft as a player but Microsoft I don't think is willing to play again at least not as in terms of software OS and hardware maker they are really really still deep in the game with with collaborations with with Android manufacturers on their services Microsoft is pushing their services really hard now whether that's Outlook or word or the entire office package for for mobile but I don't think we'll soon or ever well let's never say ever but I don't think we'll soon see Microsoft a key player again neither in the in the smartphone manufacturer nor smartphone mobile operating system game would be cool to have a phone from Microsoft again especially if I'm looking at the renderer right now the Andromeda it really resembles the I'm not sure which model it was the Xperia which was the the foldable Xperia back three or four or five years ago ZT I think has something similar it would be cool but I don't think that it would self enough to justify its existence maybe you know very limited supply would a huge price tag attached to it just for bragging rights but other than that still commendable effort from people who are still supporting Microsoft I think just the cap off the past here that they made Microsoft at least ambitious one-time moves that were not supported by a sustained software development and support and that was really just unfortunate for the ecosystem in general and it didn't really work out for them so moving forward I mean everyone is working on convergence even though Apple is kind of the you know Dark Horse and saying that oh we're not gonna merge iOS and Mac OS together they're still kind of working strange behind the scenes as evidenced by the Photoshop rumors for iPad and there's also Google which is working on its own thing that was formerly called Andromeda OS but is now kind of I forgot I forget the name of it fish' fuchsia and it's gonna be this multi form factor kind of thing that can form fin so Andromeda OS for Windows yeah is said to be going to be the same thing just multi form factor windows full-fledged power wherever you go so I mean it makes sense but it will be a couple years at the very least I would think - before we get to that point so if we ever if we ever do it sometimes if you like it feels like we're going so fast we're kind of like the Road Runner and read easily do a whole bunch of little tiny progressions like bezels and whatnot but we don't really take a look at the big picture that often and sometimes it feels like we're kind of like the background does it move and we're just Keaton we just keep running up the stairs and it's like there's no end in sight but eventually we'll get there I think that that Microsoft has been aside from the fact that they had those decisions which got them to where they are now I think that they or Microsoft's competitors let's say that Apple and Google and if we talk about device manufacturers all the rest whether it's ham song LG Huawei you name them they're so far ahead that I don't think that there's anything Microsoft could do at this point they had they had like what when was Windows Phone first launched 2012 2013 somewhere around that they had five years half a decade to do something meaningful which leave it up to a point still not enough to catch in several regions double-digit market share but it's it was still a starting effort they should have built on that but now after they completely gave up on the approach and they took a step back if they are missing from a game for for a year or two the gap would be so so big that Microsoft will not be able to just Bridgette it's like a boxer who just sits back home and eats pizza and drinks beer for six months and that his first match the opponent is just fit and in best shape I think Ben Folds wrote a song about that I'm not sure if you've ever are familiar with his work no but I will definitely look him up I didn't quote him but if that's a quotes then I will give credit for credit you well it's it's good music in any case let's talk about the iPhone se in the iPhone 10 a couple of analysts here from bluefin research say that they're gonna cut Apple is going to cut production of the iPhone 10 in iPhone se at some points to make way for the new iPhones for this year and from what sounds like it doesn't seem like we're going to get a continuation of either model iPhone 10 that's the stock here and again an iPhone se a two-year run I guess you could say and it just served we talked about sequels for the whole like from all the way from fall up until maybe like a month ago and I think it was me yeah things have fizzled out from Alex are the case manufacturer because they always seem to have the inside track on these sorts of things and they say that iPhone se 2 is not going to be happening so unfortunate for those fans that really wanted an updated version of the 4-inch iPhone I guess kind of maybe it's not right to say let's do a post-mortem but what do you think the legacy of the 4 inch size at this point while I have the utmost respect for or for all analysts I have never trusted analysts I don't know why it's it's just it's just if the problem is with me not with them I think they're a bunch of people who are just defining on something and claiming knowledge of something just like us granted we've been doing this for 10 years and closely monitoring the industry analyst or analyst anyways I think it makes sense for Apple to kill the iPhone se because apples habit of releasing a new smartphone every year makes last year's phone obviously a cheaper option and the other phone which was a two-year old phone now so for instance in this particular case the the model from 2016 will become the lowest and the cheapest phone having an even cheaper se phone granted in a four inch form factor no longer makes sense because if you look at the entire market right now I don't think that you will find many phones which are 4-inch big 4 inch small you name it I think that we are now at a point where the standard is pretty much getting closer to four point seven and above maybe five plus so any people who would probably use it and buy it but once Apple draws a line and they make their calculation it probably makes a lot of sense for them to say ok we're not going to sell hundreds of thousands or millions we're just going to sell a couple and it makes no sense for us to just hold an entire production line captive because of a unit which might or might not succeed so we're just going to free it up use it repurpose it for something else and maybe ramp up our production yields to support production for whatever model is selling best and for the iPhone 10 there were rumors I'm guessing it will pretty much be certain at one point soon that the iPhones hand will not have a sequel in its current iteration as we know the iPhone 10 which you could make sense because the iPhone sent was a anniversary edition an anniversary release the next iPhone will probably take a lot of design cues and elements from the iPhone 10 so there's that there's that that means that the iPhone 10 as expensive as it is now will become even more expensive once nobody will produce it so if you will have next year a top-notch iPhone 10 it'll be a lot more expensive yeah or you could just Apple could use that as a paradigm shift for their design and just make everything kind of that weird design that they had with the notch and and the super Retina display and whatnot so aside from aside from our our own ex colleague Juan Carlos Wagner who really was the only person enjoying the iPhone se I haven't seen any in the wild as strange as it may sound I've seen people with very very small hands even ladies with even smaller hands use iPhone 8 pluses at one point I even made a joke that the iPhone 8 plus screen size is in many cases as big as their entire head but I think that what I'm trying to say is people are no longer looking for a a small device they're looking for a big device because number one they're consuming a lot of media they're consuming they're watching a lot of movies streaming YouTube Netflix they're there showing off their pictures and a bigger phone speaks for maybe a bigger ego I don't know [Laughter] we're getting get in trouble with the people's small hands and big no III was I have huge hands and I was using the HP veer so there it couldn't get any more awkward than that well I was about to only just mention someone's name who rhymes with Ronald dump I'm just not gonna I'm not gonna get into that so a couple of comments from the hashtag peon weekly on Twitter I do want to give a shout out Peter Hagan says do you want to give a shout out to Tony and Jules for getting through this week you have both done a great job and I will continue to support PocketNow in any capacity I'm able to do a transition like this is rough but all my thoughts are with you thank you for that usually report says what I cannot understand is why call it surface for the surface go up until now the surface was a more more like a premium product so it seems Microsoft wants to take down wants to take down on the mid-range market but I don't see what good this does to the service name I think it kind of did values it in the sort of sense or well maybe if because they had the surface 3 for the longest time and that was kind of the entry level to the market but I don't remember any kind of critical kind of really take downs of that device it was just it served its purpose and just I'm just happy to see that then we are not the only ones not understanding what Microsoft is trying to do with the surface because this is kind of layers on layers of a surface or the space surface device like I feel like the surface name encompasses a whole experience yeah lock in stock and this doesn't provide it so yeah the correct if I'm wrong but I think that's surface as a brand as the word as as Microsoft first used it didn't refer to that huge touch capable table which you are able to interact with either via touch placing stuff on it wasn't that the initial surface and then we went into the surface computers and the surface thingy on a wall that did come first I think it was the surface big ass full table yes yeah yeah totally it's I'm not sure whether it was called a surface hub or something else but nonetheless it was a surface it was a surface a large surface literally so yeah well we'll have to see how the surface co develops and if consumers will take to it at the very least so talk more about that in just a bit in the meantime we'll take a break here and tell you a little bit more about one of our sponsors the PocketNow weekly is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs now you probably know LinkedIn as a networking site that helps you connect with colleagues references and potential employers but if you're one of those employers looking to hire the right candidate for your specific position why not consider LinkedIn jobs after all seventy percent of the u.s. workforce is already on LinkedIn with 22 million professionals looking at new listings every single week and all of them are already sharing the skills experiences and geographic reach they've gained over the course of their careers why not put that data to work for you hundreds of thousands of businesses have already posted their positions and they rate LinkedIn jobs 40% better than the average job board for getting them the person they needed actually you might just find someone that you would have otherwise missed elsewhere and if you're not with LinkedIn jobs already you don't have to miss out get $50 off your first job posting by going to linkedin.com slash weekly that's linkedin.com slash weekly for $50 off terms and conditions apply welcome back to the pocket now weekly and we have a little bit more for you in terms of the phone side of things I know we're kind of going into the well the middle of the surf of the phone and tablet space phablets more than that I'm not sure but and then we also talked about the death of a phone and I really want to encourage the the mobile industry to keep on living at this point so why not have five cameras on every single phone that you produce just the thought so last week I believe all right maybe a couple weeks it was there was two weeks ago yes because it was the episode on which I was here and I have such an issue because I will have to probably just repeat everything I said two weeks ago about the LGD forty but nonetheless it's an interesting conversation one that I'm going to pull out the script for you and you can just read it off right there so we're talking about the gout cs10 even though the galaxy note 9 has not been released yet and we're gonna just say it and the biggest bouncy s 10 variant will have five cameras three rear cameras and two selfie cameras of course we we have less of an idea of what that was that's gonna be about because we had some sort of reporting for the LGV 40 which is supposed to be out this fall where the we had an idea that maybe LG was gonna do its usual kind of wide angle and then super wide angle for the back and then do some sort of stereoscopic facial authentication for the front and with over here we mom we don't really have much of an idea there - selfie cameras maybe one of them was gonna be wide angle and then the three on the back is I well they say they're it's gonna be the zoom wide and it's super wide but and because we saw I saw the p20 Pro review or the in-depth camera photographers guide from Adams Elaine and he found that the 41 megapixel sensor or whatever it was was really just the best all-around camera sensor that he used and I agree I have to agree the sensor didn't really you know do its job the best and then the regular kind of monochrome sensor was didn't really do its job too well or at least I mean I guess Adam would sort of characterize it differently but you know that's the takeaway I got from this so it all depends on whether or not samsung gets its gear together and makes each sensor the best at what they can do I just just to be very very clear in my opinion I still don't think that it makes sense for Samsung to release three Galaxy S models even if we're talking about s S Plus s Pro regardless of the name beyond zero beyond one beyond two not that it wouldn't sell because Samsung is at a point where regardless of what they put out just like Apple just like there are there are not so many companies which can pull this out but Samsung and Apple can pull this out if they would have probably five models they would sell like hotcakes as well it doesn't make sense in my mind from from a strategic point of view from from a product family point of view I touched up upon this and I talked at length two weeks ago so I'm not gonna reiterate this but again I was wrong before so don't take my word for it I'm just saying that in my opinion that makes no sense but let's just play with the idea of having a pro or plus or whatever you name it five camera phone again I can only say what I said two weeks ago if it makes sense if that added camera brings value to the customer brings value to the user then sure please slap it on and make it do some wonderful things for you but just don't add it for bragging rights because every component you add to a smartphone dramatically increases its price point and phones in 2017 and 2018 have already come so expensive of course they bring tremendous value to your life now nowadays you can basically live off of your phone but just don't add something which will further increase the price point if that something will not bring value to your life and when it comes to cameras of course we all love our smartphone photography but but I don't think that maybe instead of just doing one extra camera for I don't know one added feature or a single feature whether that's zooming in or wide-angle or anything maybe invest in something else battery life or any other feature which a user could find useful on a day-by-day basis because the camera yes of course you use it daily but how many times do you actually use a specific mode of the camera or a specific lens in the dual or triple and setup so that's that's just my two cents on the front it's okay it makes sense whether it's stereoscopic four for phase detection or for extra added bouquet effects that we so much love because we all love our beauty shots with bouquet effects especially from a selfie perspective I can't live with it without it I'm sorry the yes it's it's a natural evolution it's an extra level you should know what really young man say what you rewrite here pouring up my soul to you guys seriously face recognition is indeed the the next step we are heading towards that Apple kicked it off he was not the first one but they made it mainstream we had the iris scanning we will have face mapping of course that's definitely doable but others have done it with a single camera as well so I'm not saying it doesn't make sense I'm just saying that please guys if you do this if you add five cameras or six cameras just make them useful everything is an adventure reality man everything is gonna be five cameras six cameras and whatnot I think I think it's going to be why there's a you know trend of the year things that doesn't get carried on into the next dimension well I've got an idea of whoever whoever's a smartphone manufacturer because I know that they all listen to our podcast just slap a single 360 s against it 60 camera on your smartphone and boom you got it you've got front you got back you've got left you got right you got up you get down there you have it you solve the problem I wonder what that would look like and what like a feasible design would be for that kind of thing if just copyright and Trademark my idea and just give me I don't know two cents on a dollar two cents I'd own that's a pretty reasonable royalty rate yeah I think that that'll do good all right deal all right let's talk about well let's talk about an anecdote here let's talk about cases let's talk about the one plus six so it's one of these little went off stories on reddit that seems to have gotten a lot of traction in terms of the one plus six and that involves the nylon case that you can get with it and I was actually talking with one of our PR relations with a PR representatives excuse me over at one-plus about the story here and it starts off with this guy who got a one plus six recently has always had on in that nylon case that looks pretty snazzy with it we saw a little bit that with Jaime Rivera showing off the red colour last week and it looks pretty good and he's only had about a few days he's let he he has a daughter and you know how kids always seem to get their hands on things and then sometimes you know they drop those things and things happen after that but you know you would figure you would figure with a case on at least that covers the full surface of the back that it will probably protect the glass back of the oneplus 6 from cracking well after what three drops you said the picture that we see on the rundown here or at least on this story which you can get onto the rundown at pocketnow.com but the story here is not pretty we got some spider webbing going on some chipped glass coming out of there and you know the design of the case comes into question here because it there is not like a full but it's a full blown per case but it's it doesn't cover the buttons because I mean they could have installed like proxy buttons where it's like a plunger and you could just like you know press the plunger in order to press the button and whatnot but there's actually just negative space instead you know where the crack originates from that little bit of negative space between the volume rocker and the glass that really it's like really annoying really like just horrible and I hate it and well I guess there's always a lesson to take out of this because even with cases like you know there's always that debate of naked and case and whether or not you use either or go with either of lifestyle but like your expect for a case that this would be okay that this would you know you'd be able to get some protection out of it and but I mean I don't know what do you think because I do have a the follow-up to what the original poster of this said I'm trying to do phrase this in a way to which would not offend people but I'm I'm not going to be the the likable guy now and I'm probably going to play the devil's advocate a phone is not a toy a phone is also a thing especially nowadays which breaks easily so I'm not trying to point fingers or put the blame on anybody but just how many times does your kid need to drop your phone in order for you to no longer give it to him or or for you just put it one shelf higher so the your kid cannot reach it I'm not saying that that it couldn't happen it could have broken at the first drop what I'm saying is that these phones are not meant to be abused especially since the trend nowadays is is glass and we have an editorial on the on pocket now written by Nicholas gray about how he's tired the glass back phones and actually when when we we played along with the idea of running this editorial I asked him okay why why are you so much against against glass backed phones because he broke his glass back HTC as well and I told him that yes glass breaks glass is birth is pretty but glass breaks I personally have not dropped a single phone in my life but that is me but at one point where you are spending so much money so much dollars euros you name it on a on a phone you'd expect to take more care of it now I'm not saying to just put it on the table I never use it but just don't don't drop it don't throw it around and especially if you do have a kid you might wanna Chur buy him buy him a phone if you want your kid to have a phone in its early ages I wouldn't give my kid a phone until he would be probably almost 14 15 16 years old because I really think that that's not what kids needs to do but if you decided that your kid needs or wants a phone just buy them either a rocket phone or something really cheap which he can toss around just cherish your your flex your toe that's my two cents I'm pretty sure many of you you will not agree with me but this is my strong belief that it's it's the users fault if this would have happened I don't know because of overheating while charging or a design flaw yes but any phone made out of glass if you drop it once or twice it'll break and there's no case on the planet that will probably save it save for the smart phone airbags which I've seen that were invented like one or two weeks ago yeah that's an awesome invention but that's that's the truth act of it even if it's even if it's an aluminium phone it'll get a dent it'll not break but it will still look ugly or maybe a couple of other boxes I don't know like yeah a couple of them but like I agree that I case is not an insurance policy you don't get anything back from the company just because you were able to break it with the case and yeah I guess you know there's also the reasonable use kind of parameters that we have to look at oh it dropped like a couple of feet because you know the child's from a couple feet tall or and it just happened to hit that kind of area where that kind of cracking could happen like there are a whole bunch of factors here but the fact is is that no case bats a thousand there there is no 1/2 percent guarantee in terms of the hardware physical kind of protection for that kind of thing unless you actually go out and say hey insurance provider I want to pay you this amount of money and I expect you to give me something back so if I ever break it so I definitely agree it seems like the original poster definitely agrees with that acknowledges his position in terms of getting a repair which I believe the quote was $80.00 and that's not including shipping and handling all right trying to do that for your iphone and see how much oh yeah all the way oh but I mean you could just keep the case on all the time after all it's just a design thing the internals were not harmed the he got a display protector which again kind of goes into what we're talking about in terms of hardware protection but still the the display isn't correct internals are fine and it looks nice with the nylon case so why not just keep it on all the time so I mean everyone will have their kind of philosophy on this I encourage you talk to us hashtag P and weekly because this is kind of the everyday hust sort of thing that we kind of go into whenever we're buying a phone and it's like hey what how should I live my life with Mike and there's there's always the the other side of the coin the other side of the story I have had plenty of phones in my life because I'm a reviewer but I also love tautology and I always always always on the phones which I have purchased myself from my own pocket use cases because number one it offers protection when you drop it it might survive don't rely on your case to save your phone when you drop it but it might survive on one hand on the other hand keeping your phone in a case will ensure that next year when you want to upgrade or you want to sell it your phone will be amid top-notch can and your resale price will be much higher than what you get for a phone which is all jacked up on the back or cracked or scratched so for me that's also an investment air quotes decision thinking long-term that if I have the iPhone 8 plus now if I keep it in a case maybe next year if it's in mint condition I need to just put a little bit more towards it's to buy the new model than if it would be completely ruined but I understand that not everybody is like me and I understand that for some people a phone is really just the phone so there's that Andrew Wallace says well I'm going to stick with my aluminum 8 9 long yes yes yes great that's always always kind of a you know glib responsive again it's a valid one because if you if you look hard enough you'll find something else that you'll want in the phone marketplace so hey I mean good luck to you if you're looking at the marketplace right now in 2018 but if you should be able to find something hopefully let's move on to our final topic which I know everyone has been kind of dumping on and so I just wanted to tackle it just because I wanted to do the whole devil's advocate thing in terms of defending HTC because I think since the start when they announced this Exodus this blockchain phone I was making the case that they're not viable as a mainstream smartphone maker there's only so far that they're able to act as an ODM because Google now has all their hardware engineers that they need and they probably won't be coming back to HTC to continue giving them money so this if there is anything that they want to try it's gonna have to be something that differentiates them in some way and be it this via a blockchain phone be it a 5v our phone which has been kind of hinted at a couple of times I feel like the specialist way is something that's worth trying it and worth seeking at the niche audience if they can the blockchain is kind of a harder argument to talk about here because people are very dismissive of it they don't understand it and it's just like anything if you're talking with your child and they start talking about the latest trend you probably won't understand it but it's still a valid thing because like in the past several months we've seen the blockchain used in China to keep a copy of a manifesto from a sexual assault victim at a Chinese university and in a society where in a government where the government is very censorship heavy and was able to scrub a lot of the references of that sexual assault case against against the allegations against the teacher the story survived and so that's one way that this whole blockchain thing can still work out and even though we're talking about a lot of these typical cryptocurrency crypto kitties which they're partnering with to kind of up the appeal of this thing this probably around $1,000 phone I mean it's there there's some importance to it I think it's a you should be encouraged to look at some of the stories maybe a couple of podcast about box chains explaining what it could do and explaining virtual reality for what it matters because who knows because these are emergent technologies and if they're going to have increasing role in our lives which these experts advocating for those their standards say they are then well you should probably at least take the time to not be afraid of it that's my take what do you think I I was I was hearing your your words and I'm not gonna say I didn't understand everything you said but there were some things I didn't understand and if I found it's funny that you mentioned the younger generation kids and the older generation barons fathers in this particular case it shows that you're like 15 years they're younger than than I am because you're so much into this I need to be into this because this is my job but I'm just trying to imagine a scenario that you need to explain or a kid needs to explain his dad what blockchain is anyways I think it's it could be even as simple as like some of the McDonald's if you go to you know you know at fast-food restaurants they have the start starting to incorporate screens you don't go up to counter anymore and some people sort of have trouble with dealing with the screen so there by the way this this episode is not sponsored by McDonald's but we are but we are welcoming them if they do want to getting back to to the serious topic the issue the HDC I think that HDC sadly and I I say this in all seriousness I'm really really sad that HTC has lost its compass I really feel that HTC is a shadow of what it was years ago and that they're really desperately trying to do something meaningful and I really think that going with a niche product will not be the proper decision to save the company in the smartphone business I think I don't have a major in business I don't claim to have any knowledge of how the market works if you are a smartphone manufacturer but in my mind you can become meaningful if you do a product if you manufacture a product which sells volumes now if you're if you're limiting your options from the get-go and you're coming up with a product which is addressing only a small chunk of the audience granted I think that there in the article you mentioned there are about 30 million blockchain users that's even if each and every one of them would buy an HTC Exodus it still wouldn't be meaningful in the grand scheme of things when Samsung and Apple sell huge volumes and even LG and Huawei and ZTE and so on so I think that having a niche product like this would make sense if it goes in bare or as an alternative to a product which is a flagship product in the top even five which sells volumes so yes granted but correct me if I'm wrong and this is a question to you Jules or to anybody from from our audience who is knowledgeable in the blockchain and mining and everything can't you already do this stuff on your regular smartphone I mean you can mine for four virtual currencies you can basically use any sort of horsepower available in your device whether that's a laptop a computer a phone or a website a server to mine for these currencies do you have to have a special what's special about the set HTC Exodus so I mean in terms of just mining for it cryptocurrencies which is kind of the main attention-grabbing sort of thing that has been associated with the blockchain you don't really need any well it's it's just mainly concentrated on raw horsepower and a lot of it to crack into a lot of formulas and to authenticate certain things and you know whatever but I think the wider applications should be considered here which is access to a decentralized app service and an app store that you know you something like Cydia as opposed to the App Store where you only get verification from other users of that network or you internet traffic like that can act as as its own sort of a VPN in sort of a way so that's a sort of the larger picture that they want to take of this but in terms of cryptic and so you can pretty much do it from any computer it ends there's always a concern that some sites are going to use whatever like they're going to attack your computer and use whatever spare computing power that you have to mine for cryptocurrencies without your authorization so there's a whole bunch of other kind of them worries that you have to make when it comes to using non non specific types of computers well there's there's that I just want to give a shout out I'm looking at the comments here to come on I lost it where are you yes Pedro Pedro and Ronnie thank you I don't think I'm out of context I think that there's a huge difference between the region you are living in and the region I am living in and then there's also a difference between the people you're surrounded with if I haven't seen people use iPhone SES it doesn't mean that the iPhone se is not a phone which is worth selling or buying it it just means that in my life where I live where I travel I haven't seen people use it if you think that that's out of context by all means but please give me some some of your arguments as well aside from the fact that you've seen two people use an iPhone se yeah well I think Mattala port gave an example back on Twitter that the iPhone se was a fairly popular from the Netherlands for some reason I'm gonna have to look that coming up I was trying to look at Pedro's comment so that we could but he just , dated a couple minutes ago now the iPhone 5c was that was a flop poor choice of hardware and design so talking about the iPhone 5c and how it was executed as opposed to the iPhone se and yeah there's a whole bunch of arguments that could be made to say that both of them were framed differently 5cs see a lot of them share a lot of space share a lot of similarities in terms of form factor and like what they did it's just the branding the imaging was not really right for them so definitely agree that case and there's just a whole bunch of other appian weekly comments here I Daniel Mladenov speaking of HTC and cracking glass backs can HTC make another aluminium unibody flagship before throwing in the towel I second that opinion I still well I don't have the HTC ten that I had about a year and a half ago but I still have the One m7 so H do you see if you're out there basically make it an update to this I'll be fine you know there's there's there's one one thing which I wanted to touch on of course you need to have a glass back smartphone if you want to take advantage of wireless charging to me and my mind that makes sense either you have wireless charging or you have aluminum back phones what doesn't make sense in my mind is for a manufacturer to produce a product which does not support wireless charging and still make it glass back and say that this was a decision in order to improve I don't know reception or antenna performance come on guys I mean we've seen photos from 2000 and moving forward through plastic aluminum and all sorts and none of them had great big issues with reception except the death grip of the iPhones of back then this doesn't make sense in my mind to use this particular argument it does make sense if you're going the wireless charging route but if your phone doesn't support wireless charging just maybe consider doing a phone manufacturing the phone which is an aluminum phone and it won't break but then again if it doesn't break you will never repair it or replace it too so there's that nope and finally from Peter hatin given Samsung's past with previous flagships I worried that we could have five cameras for five gimmicks plus the design status it would likely create I think it is difficult even for Samsung to make each a good implementation to stack up to completion Galaxy has 10 a lot of software that has to be implemented with that and unfortunately even with Samsung as big it as it as it is for a chaebol I don't think they have the dedicated team sticking to not only great but maintain those individual features therefore our if we're already going to get like all these features with each lens or each of each little change I don't think that really makes sense so it'll probably just be kind of augmented by the same sorts of a Rai insert acronym here so yeah like I guess I guess that's my that's that's the that's the base the default state that we're in green yeah I really did I want lunch I'm so hungry right now so and you probably want dinner too you want you want to get out of the house so thank you so much for participating in thanks thanks for having me anytime you need me just say the word indeed we'll have you back on pretty soon hope it's later and in the meantime I am going to start leading us out of this podcast so that I can get food be sure to keep the conversation going by emailing us at podcast at pocketnow.com we really want thoughts you want to get out and the questions you need answered also we are all on Twitter hashtag P and weekly Tony is that a nto and D na gy I'm on twitter @ point jewels pocket now is that pocket now on Twitter Facebook Google+ and YouTube in English and Spanish espanol where you can find more news on the pocket nail daily every weekday we also have a lovely site pocketnow.com for all your mobile tech needs we certainly appreciate reviews and ratings on this podcast wherever you happen to be listening to us without them we wouldn't have been making the show for the past six years oh my god yeah believe it or not for the team I'm Jules Wong and peace out I'm going to have myself a sandwich stay safe everyone