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iPhone X pre-order day and the October mailbag! | #PNWeekly 276

2017-10-27
now did you get your iPhone 10 pre-order in were you one of the few lucky chosen producer Jules is gonna ser some thoughts share some thoughts on this topic especially after a fun Twitter conversation and also is Microsoft working on yet another folding tablet design a Verizon is gonna be taking the cap off a 4k streaming video and we have a special guest this week shaman das from joyed now will join us as we open the pocket net weekly mailbag to tackle your top questions we've got a lot to talk about so make sure you're charged and ready for episode 276 of the pocket now weekly recorded october 27th at noon pacific time this is the weekly podcast where we discussed de-sect and discussed those gadgets that make our lives mobile I said where we discussed I combined two the two words and that's an actual word that doesn't mean what I need it to mean smartphones tablets and wearables it's all the stuff you wish to when you were a kid and Andromeda was just a Star Trek knockoff starring Kevin Sorbo I'm Juan Carlos back now senior editor at pocketnow.com joined as always by plucky podcast producer mr. Jules Wong on the East Coast how's it going buddy boy I mean it's also the nearest galaxy to us and they look away like don't it's true disrespect that don't I know that Star Trek is all up and not about this in it's all about my love of Kevin Sorbo I don't believe I've shared that enough on this podcast just how dreamy I think that dude is and I also reason Kevin supporters alright I really really enjoy his work I really wish he were in other projects but that's neither here nor there because we also have a guest this week mr. Shimon das thank you so much for joining the pocket net weekly thank you so much for having me it's great feels nice I would hate for you to be like I'm here under protest man yeah or well I mean he's also doing the best he can under like it's 12:30 on a Saturday he could be sleeping that's true you living in our future I I when we're offline I hope that you'll share what happened with the stock market so that I can take advantage of some insider trades of course only during the pot for you all postulates they're copies cut real quick before we jump into some of the top headlines come on can you tell us a little bit about what you do over on dried now and I know you've been particularly active in various htc communities yes so a little bit of myself I am sh'mon if that's kind of a tough name to pronounce it's easy you can incorporate it with Pokemon if that makes any sense at all so I consider myself as a content creator specifically towards tech because I love technology and so basically I take over content writing creating some videos fun videos some really ridiculous ones which I find funny so there's that and then about the agency thing you've said yes I do contribute towards their communities it's fun excellent and I did catch your your Oreo video recently so I very helpful tutorial on how to get Oreo on any Android device I would highly recommend looking forward to the butter chicken flavor of Oreos coming out in this limited edition yeah I'm some butter chicken last night there like I I love this dish and I think it needs to be in all things but between me and mom so oh and I just walked right into your inside joke in his joke to everyone basically - okay well I apologize for ruining your joke and I will endeavor not to do so again I'm completely clueless as to what's happening in this exact moment but before we well just so that we don't turn this into an inside joke food podcast again hey the joke's on you and it should be on you that's we should get the questions from today this podcast this hour right now you can contact us through Twitter with that PN weekly hash I know we were trying to get to that and I made it very painfully slow in the transition going onto that hashtag P and weekly on Twitter your questions in well we have Shimon on the air and also talked about emails and sweep and piling up the mailbag a little bit we're starting to do this thing where we just pile it on for the end of the month the last week of the month if we can I'm Jess or whatever and the address to do that is podcast at pocketnow.com so podcast at pocketnow.com or hashtag p and weekly while we're live here at 3 p.m. Eastern it's all wonderful it's all we want to hear from you gorgeous and we've got a news block run down Jules do we want to just blitz this or do you want to go story by story what's this through and I want to get to rants I have for you don't I mean I woke up to Twitter this morning and it was just so for the week of October 24 I believe this is all the news that the podcast and we did get to see a little preview of sorts for the 1 plus 5t that we're expecting out soon obviously we have an event queued up at least in India for sometime in November but the Oppo our 11s was pre announced in China today with 4 gigabytes of RAM Snapdragon 835 I believe is the question here and it also 660 thank you and 6d for you even the storage also with that 2x1 display that everyone's been talking about sprinting over and said Oppo and into perhaps one plus dual cameras at the back and more well expect to hear more from opera soon enough and meantime still waiting on that one plus Andromeda do you remember the Marcus the Microsoft courier from be sure to years ago folding notebook displayed two screens and it's totally not like the Keith Perrett no because that's a bigger thing and it's it's it's huge and okay so basically there's this device very vague details just it's the same form factor we would hope that as opposed to 2009 we would get like yes lesser bezels microsoft inc working with that surface there hopefully it's a surface note or surface journal or something like that and it's targeted towards 2018 you know and we might be talking about a snapdragon ish deal here because Windows 10 on arm has been a big development in the past year or so Plus let's talk about LG getting a smattering of phones on to Amazon circuit it's a prime exclusive program where you have ads on the lockscreen and suggestions throughout the whole interface of Android and if you want to get save 50 72 bucks son those phones you can partake in the prime exclusive phones they'll be on the new just added to the program g6 g6 plucks the q6 and the ex charge haven't that we have some fish to talk about one fish two fish albacore blue line and getting the cross hatch is that it we're talking about here pixel through the article is you've got a lot of questions sounding here well I was trying I was trying to give them like a dr. Seuss thing good wonderment in excitement all that well I'll save it I'll save it we've got it we will talk about the stories sorry I'm gonna shut up ahoo to you that so those three devices are what we're talking about for potential pixel three phones there's also something that was referencing to a last year phone and that would be the codename wahoo although we don't know if that will end up coming up in 2018 so we'll talk about that once we get to it for Aizen is asking its customers that if it they want 4k video they're gonna have to pay $10 more per month and that is the very complicated Verizon unlimited plan situation going on because when they'd launched Verizon an illuminating it was just one plan with the full unlimited streaming initially before they started capping it often and then they split it up into two plans go unlimited which is 480p and then beyond unlimited which is 720p which is even worse so there's a whole bunch of this convocation and then better yet you can pay more you can line Bryson's pockets and get 4k streaming and Verizon has made the case that it's basically doesn't really benefit those customers who have phones quality and there are only so few of them out there but it's still worth something to some people that they get at least 1080p quad HD perhaps mobile streaming who knows let's talk about Steven Rose niak he was the former eyes was wise was pounding Apple and also D founding the whole iPhone X thing because he's typically a pretty pretty close first a day actor of new iPhones and he said to CNBC that he was just gonna keep his iPhone 8 for the time being of the iPhone X he knew 10 he told them I'm just worried about what it provides me I'd rather that one and I'm happy with my iPhone which is the same as the iPhone 7 which is the same as the iPhone 6 to me so I'm doing pretty well those are his words um and apparently if he's gonna stick to them at least through the opening period of iPhone X iPhone 10 pre-orders so look to see what happens with that and then there is the big Bloomberg story this week that the face ID component manufacturers have low apples lowered the accuracy specification for than that so that manufacturers can send more them over to get to finished iPhone units that accuracy SPECT by the way they mentioned it it was a million-to-one as opposed to today's fifty thousand to one I believe that the speculative number or the like the ballpark number that people have been tossing around would be in the hundred thousands area to one still pretty good but it's a compromise nonetheless and Apple responded to that reported rumored compromise by saying that Bloomberg's claim that Apple has reduced the accuracy expect forests face ID is completely false and we expect face ID to be the new gold standard for facial authentication so definitely when we're talking about supply this has been the component that has been causing a most trouble for Apple and it's part of why we're seeing backups even twelve hours from the start of pre-orders at 3 a.m. Eastern twelve Pacific and it says six weeks of shipping now that with the iPhone 7 the jet black finish that was a pretty hot item in the 128 and 256 gigabyte storage models those who are waning that the prompt at least eight weeks all the way to November from pre-order time so as bad as that but just give it a few more hours maybe even a day or so and we might be talking about a different situation which leads me into what's I've been talking about this morning with Michael Fisher mister mobile and Andy cannot go pretty a Chicago Tribune I believe was he from yes well he's not gonna as made a name for his spots on Apple and in any case he said in a tweet morning that an environment where consumer feels lucky did an iPhone 10 or a Nintendo classic or any product is toxic to dignity and the salt Mike Fischer retweets that and an aunt is own commentary where he says an environment where people are made to feel a sheen for being passionate about something that excites them is worse I mean I get it we're all victims of consumerism we've lost sight of what's important life the corporations have won whatever but I spent way too many years taking crap from people who don't understand my love of tech and willingness to spend money on it like what they like and I was kind of ticked off about the whole situation because it's not just about one person it's not just about the persecution of tech geeks which hello but it's it's more about the market and what it wants and what it needs out of Apple Apple seated CEO Tim Cook went on America's most popular Morning Show Good Morning America to sell people on the iPhone 10 you wouldn't think that this $999 value-priced phone his words not mine would appeal to the mass market about being yeah it's a bargain and but bank analysts have said that this is gonna be the phone for Apple that this will trigger as the so called super cycle where people who have held onto their iPhone 4 4 s 5 5 s all those to this newest this most changest iPhone in quite some time and you heard it from was iPhone 8 iPhone 7 and 4 sister all the same so remember contrasting that situation here and you think about what quarter were coming into it's the holiday quarter and it's the busiest by far for upgrades for exchanges and all that and you see the supplies draining from that iPhone from that a face ID component you got to be wondering does it really suck does do people have to be lucky in order to wake up at 3:00 a.m. or do whatever it takes to get to 3 a.m. to just get something that they would consider is a mission-critical device that runs their daily lives and you know it's nice to have this changing thing and you know instead of the iPhone 8 where the kind of it's it's okay it's all right but it leads to more of a malaise just by owning it and going through the same ol same ol you know maybe maybe it could be we could be leading into that and I guess well what do you think I mean it's well what I would just what I would just kind of question well you you seem to have some really strong feelings on this exchange between two people talking I think talking through each other sort of addressing different aspects of tech and consumerism and why why did you feel like you had such a strong reaction to this exchange because I feel like were ignoring the bigger questions around what the iPhone 10 is to mmm not only technique because tech geeks have always been on that front edge and there has always been that product that has surrounded them it's always been a niche and what everyone else had product but this is being marketed as a main product to people so yeah I guess I guess my feeling would be I I don't I don't see or I don't understand the individual who's going to get upset with Apple for a marketing or a strategy that they've employed since the very inception of the iPhone everything the the iPhone has kind of been built up on a notion of exclusivity and premium consumer consumer experience so this is sort of par for the course I mean to Michael Fisher's comment there I mean yeah they're gonna be people who genuinely excited about getting this new phone but Apple has always Apple in the mobile strategy has always been consumer facing not tech geek facing they don't really care if tech geeks are on board because that's not their bread and butter and that's not where any company makes makes their money it's can you cross over into some sort of mainstream lifestyle commentary and you know I I don't know that I'd put it so derisive Lee as I forget the the first guy you you mentioned tweeting all this is such a sad day for consumerism when this is literally the main way to launch a premium product is to make it feel like it's exclusive you can't make the regular iPhone feel exclusive because it is very largely the same phone we've had since the iPhone 6 so this goes hand-in-hand with Apple probably has bitten off more than they can chew just for manufacturing the device and it really just plays into the narrative that this is gonna be an ultra luxury premium experience that not everyone gets to have right at the very beginning right at lunch and it's gonna end up making it even more desirable this is all marketing this is all you know peeler you see what they'll do they'll talk it'll off yeah look we've seen them do this so often that it's it shouldn't be a surprise and we shouldn't take it as a shock should we be having conversations with consumers about like how their dollars and entertainment dollars and their their lifestyle dollars can be better spent we're here to have those conversations you folk with your wallet basically because if you're going for the iPhone in any ways then it's going to continue it's going to sustain that kind of a just conservative a great moment motion and it's not going to allow we've seen all these new concepts from moto with the modular smartphone and when people are allowed to jump away from it people in are not at all to jump away from the current platform and do all that when they're walked in regardless you know we don't have a contract anymore but we have these two-year agreements none yeah right but but a bit I think the point that I would I would sort of wrap my my feelings on this story up with I feel that the thousand dollar iPhone era is only going to accelerate general consumers getting off of the smartphone excitement bandwagon i I really feel like you know and to a large degree this also kind of goes for note eight in every other ultra premium smartphone out there where the phone is a commodity the phone is a necessity but that doesn't mean you need to buy the most expensive one to get something that's gonna achieve everything you need it to do and I think it's just good perspective from here so you will be knowing how to show me right so they call flashes flash sales all the time it is that's their own business model right so they have like less number of stocks and then they hold flash sales where you have to be really quick and lucky to get the phones right so that's the same case with the iPhone X in the u.s. like you know you have three orders and you like get up early and get those pre-orders in and then uh Xiaomi also gives out F cohorts which is like friend code which literally just means like the invite system from the oneplus you remember that like what does one you need it anyway to purchase the form so yeah Xiaomi also gives out like F course to buy new devices and the kind of gives you a feeling that oh this phone is premium in some source that there's a shortage of those phones and you need to buy them yeah I understand I understand that you're very market leader but I don't think buy much because they're I mean they're they've been up surging since when they debuted in the market in 2014 but they still have a lot of competition from Samsung and Motorola and all that so these other strategies employed in other ways too I mean like obviously not a market leader but look at how much we used to trash oneplus for their lottery system where it wasn't even just could you get your presale and it was you got a ticket for the you know the raffle of being able to buy the phone and III guess like if we're really gonna ballon the situation I think it's um just a little bit disingenuous from someone in certain traditional media to be complaining about this kind of consumerism when literally it's newspapers and TV that are the main aspects of reinforcing this kind of consumer relationship like I'll have conversations I'm gonna be on a good day LA it's a local Fox affiliate for the Greater Los Angeles area in a couple weeks to talk about unlocked phones and the producer who's working that segment was telling me like it's actually really difficult to do a segment like that because it doesn't have an iPhone in it you know so it's this traditional media mentality that's reinforcing why consumers find this so exciting you know iPhone 8 launch day and it was kind of a shock that no one was out lining up for these iPhones and it caught news departments local news agencies by surprise because that used to be a major aspect of their coverage for an iPhone launch but you would never see that for an HTC launch for an LG launch for a Samsung launch and so it's sort of a never-ending cycle of consumers respond to I phone stories let's do iPhone stories oh they're not responding to LG stories let's not do LG stories and it's they are complicit in this conversation as well III again I don't know the work of this gentleman who's complaining about the dignity of consumers by this is this is why we have these kinds of conversations I think we need to move on we've got so many other news items to talk about and I'd really like to bring Ramon more into these conversations so let's let's jump into just immediately I want to talk about well yeah well do we want to talk about the pixel we haven't even finished our pixel review let's talk about the future right have you gotten the handle of pixel - now that it's already crazy obsolete and we're gonna talk about the pixel three and how everyone should buy that phone instead no one I am literally waiting to get my hands on and the pixels through or pixel to itself and literally waiting like hey come on it's time oh yeah well if I do I'm shoving this in this face right now wow that's that's dirty apologies Oh God only because I had to pay for it myself in its project 5 so we're talking I mean this is nice to actually have your perspective on the podcast though sh'mon in that there are certain phones like for example I feel this kind of ennui when Huawei launches a phone and it takes it a lot longer to make it to the United States then it's an initial launch partners here we're showing off the Google phone you know the company that makes Android this is the hardware that they want to display their forward facing software technologies on and do you have an idea of when the phone's going to be available in your area yet vixen yeah on the pixel in the pixel XL yes I do have a specific date if I'll go correctly the pixel 2 is coming on 5th of November and then pixel to XL is coming on 15th of November thanks if I recall correctly yeah so that's the timeline when you're looking when you're looking at that kind of timeline and obviously from there all of the early reviews are gonna be out in in more western markets what does that do for the coverage locally or for the fan base that you're writing for does that does that seem to help build anticipation for the phone launch or does it does it kind of halt you know like we're not getting a perspective so it's less exciting by the time you guys finally get it yeah so it's kind of a double-edged sword on the one hand as some people are like okay come on if you're part of not just outside of India so it has to be on the same page like companies should see those devices to Indian you know to viewers also but then it's kind of a phase view like some people in India one watching condemned from people outside India so once the content starts rolling in India then they start watching it so it's kind of a double-edged sword so one comparison and well and specifically for the pixel do you think that this is emboldened like Google strategy here or do you think that this is some somewhere where they're vulnerable against more local competition yeah like this similar it may be launched kind of early like last year it took them like about a month or so to bring it over here in India but this time like pixel to launch party was literally held today like if the party is still going on it's somewhere until going on oh yeah they launched it officially today yeah it will be available from November the aforementioned dates do you think that local plants will be making pixel to units because we did see them making them for the original pixel I'm not too sure I'll have to check with my friends who have an Indian legit Indian retail unit I love to check it's because we like to see these dates moved up just a little bit so that I mean even with localization it'd still be nice to have somewhere closer to a simultaneous launch going on around the world mostly you know there has been make some discrepancies some differences in the package contents if you remember the u.s. pixel doesn't have earphones the Indian one does but I'm not too sure if that's if that's the same case with the pixel - I'm not too sure about that I'll be really curious to see if that plays out because I don't know that Google has any strategy for a data port set of earbuds unless they're gonna include 3.5 millimeter headphones with your adapter so that would be really just slightly bigger box that's all come on no I think it would be hilarious like again the headphone jack is obsolete but you still need one it's such a mixed message right now I want to shift gears over into Microsoft and dromeda dual screen tablets I feel we're back on another trend where we're trying to get consumers excited about mobile computing and there's the science-fiction idea of the device that I hold up and then stretch and now I have a super big display you know ZTE put out there their axon and my Kyocera echo on the table so that you know I can talk about dual screen wasn't this movie songs well you know I got this really over engineered hinge system I'm sure I'm sure would have lasted for the life of the phone a some Armenians have just gone crazy okay so I'm sorry I know this this came in a box from Michael Fisher when I joined the PocketNow team and I basically got like a ton of his hand-me-downs and this phone was pristine like it had not been touched or used at all just to show you how much how much confidence in how much faith we had in Keo Sarat experiment there but I digress so again I'm we're talking about these companies that are gonna be coming out we're pretty confident Samsung will probably launch some kind of folding screen device we saw an amazing concept piece by Lenovo a foldable phone that did the same thing sort of thing yeah exactly yeah in that the screen actually kind of folded around so that you it wasn't just two screens sort of stuck together i but also in like the intermediate level the yoga book which that kind of semi screen which I've been using a lot in fact on episode 2 of the new egg now live broadcasts that's actually the the system that I'm using for all my show notes is my is my Lenovo yoga book because I really like that thing I don't love the keyboard but um so we got we've got all of these sort of various experiments coming out which which look and and feel exciting but do they really address what I what I think consumers are needing in a daily mobility device is this really gonna be the next phase of mobile hardware or is this gonna be just like another one of those fads that we kind of walk through before we settle down and say like you know people didn't really need this stuff and now we're all gonna go into neural link interfaces anyway so the phone I don't know I mean we're still few years from neuro-link into four phases and we sir need at least two at least two years away from especially of butterfly switches as opposed to the standard switches on the netbooks where you're not getting as much travel you're not even getting the sensation that you would like to get anyways from just typing so why not just go all the way and try your best at haptics next time so with that you can be apples started with the touch bar - using a little secondary tasks on that bar it's just trying to see how much stuff and into one screen and how much display it's a control like your or your display content whatever in another screen just like the Nintendo 3ds that was a well but but sh'mon I mean are your readers or your viewers like looking at their phones and going all but oh if only I could double my screen size for a couple times throughout my day when I need a mini tablet is that something that you think you know I don't know it's like people are already moving towards tablets like five point five inches is like the hottest screen size right now so everybody's like okay I'm fine with the phablet but I didn't think that people are really you know looking into something like a bigger display like even more bigger display or even folding this place for that matter I don't think there's a market for it right now until unless someone else they literally bar just threw in a slew of products and saying like hey look our products you can fold them and everyone's gonna want it and then so or someone just goes in and says it slices it dices and it also my phone makes me julienne fries I'm not gonna be happy but but come on I was curious like what is the tablet market looking like in India right now is is this a computing solution that that took off or is it still more the phone and traditional computer solution for a lot of consumers there it's totally binary right now I do get an iPad or you don't or you just get a phablet instead type of my girls like totally dead now so this is almost any opportunity for like like a Chromebook or something in that space Chromebook are almost like negligible oh I don't know I mean when we're talking about education sector because that's the biggest thing for tablet likes and cheap laptops it was it's between the Chromebook which is actually gaining in popularity despite hearing on glass yeah here in the u.s. at least and you know and as opposed to iPads but worldwide I would assume that people are more accustomed to aya pads for educational purposes anyways more more than that you know the main factor for people over here is like for Chromebooks if you don't have access to the engine and you can't do much on Chromebooks so you're gonna give it options so so in I guess like you'd like just to kind of wrap up and this this notion that we're gonna get like a courier tablet or something like this do you think that there would be Sherman do you think that there would be an opportunity in India for Microsoft to make more headway showcasing a more fluid or more modular version of Windows you know the ability to pare it down into a simpler more streamlined workflow the ability to have like a full desktop OS for the products that that needs to work on or do you think that the mobility market has kind of taken over for most people's computing needs that's very interesting because Microsoft is really lacking in the department that they're really slow in launching products over here so even the surface is like a generation behind in India yeah and on surface even the Xbox 1s was launched a week ago oh yeah okay imagine that like wow if there's anything that can kind of cross all regions and all cultures it's like I won't play games yeah coming back to the topic I don't think they would be able to you know diversify into India with all those mobility things because smartphones have really taken over here and I don't see people you know what you think I mean they're going to carry another device just for the mobility purposes if they want they can carry a MacBook or they laptop I don't see them getting it up at any time soon catch him yes I was just gonna say sad trombone um I wanna I wanna loosely before we get we do need to hit our sponsor block before we do that though I want to wrap up with the the up Oh I actually got to go and visit up was manufacturing for the r11 and was right before the 1+5 had been released so I'm feeling pretty confident we're gonna see that same divided on the r11 s versus the five T or whatever one plus is gonna call their next all screen phone and even down to the little particulars like the Qualcomm 660 in the r11 you know moving over to the Qualcomm 835 for the the oneplus variant what what is what is a pose a pose position in India I have to believe that they're a much higher profile brand than their in the United States yeah they have like deep pockets so they're like everywhere marketing over here there they even likes one ticket teams and you know shows like that Wow so yeah the presence is strong over here yeah the ring is just all over the place yeah totally this is this a product because you know here in the United States we get into these visceral debates as to like what's a flagship phone what's a mid Ranger I usually rely on price you know if something is a thousand dollars well that's the top of the market if something's 500 that's literally half so that's in the mid-range so with something like the r11 you know opposed building it as one of their sort of selfie expert phones it brings um it brings I think a nice build quality if maybe a little too I phony in some respects but yeah we look at things like the chipset in the RAM and the storage are those conversations that factor into what consumers spend over in your market or does I mean would they look at the r11 inside well that's a flagship phone from elbow or do they have the same kinds of conversations where it's sort of mid pack but we don't get the CPU or we don't get this this storage okay so here's where things get very very interesting so and the whole smartphone market is divided into three sections one is like ultra low budget phones it is captured by Xiaomi which would be like about 10,000 rupees okay okay and then then comes the mid-range where again Xiaomi and Motorola they're with about 15 to 20,000 rupees and then straight in the high-end market oneplus is there with their one plus five at thirty three thousand rupees 33 to 37 thousand rupees right so whichever flagship phone crosses the price of one plus five is deemed as overpriced like even Nokia 808 was launched at 36 triple nine so literally 37 thousand rupees almost matching the price of one plus five so okay so note if I okay eight then get scrutinized for the price but let it be like some other phone Galaxy Note 8 or the HTC u 11 and LG G six they will they're deemed expensive over price because they were like 67 thousand rupees 78 thousand rupees suspensful right and pixel to even that is pretty expensive I don't recall the correct price but it's a force of 25,000 rupees or something like that so those imports get hit really hard so the premium market I mean I'm sorry and I'm trying to do these conversions in real time for our audience to just because I I can't convert rupees dollars in but so you're saying like the premium market over there around 30 to 35,000 rupees is that that's kind of considered the high-end of where people know that the the thing is that um since 1 plus 5 has like literally the high-end specs and they price it so closely like close to 30 to 40,000 rupees bracket so whichever phone crosses that price mark everybody deems it as overpriced gotcha okay I understand so there's a mental cause well it's five has been that standard-bearer because I knew I know there was they had a big ad during the cricket bash and it was they tend to cause a little controversy whatever they do but it's seen like how you put it it seems like this is the standard now yeah it's a very price sensitive market so people literally they have like two options specs and price and they have to find a middle ground between those two so show me only the same nobody can beat show me in offering the specs for their price I mean I still don't know how to make money it's very surprising how they make money but yeah they offer really good specs for the price so just for our audience somewhere around 35,000 rupees is is about 540 American dollars which I mean that's that sort of feels like it's in keeping with one plus a strategy here maybe a little on the high end but what were you saying that the pixel was probably gonna go for uh yeah I'm just taking out the press release as we talk let me search for the exact place yeah so pixel to 64gb version is priced at sixty one thousand rupees Oh 150 yes and the 128gb version is priced at 70 thousand rupees yeah so you're not joking I mean you're saying it's literally twice the price of one yes so people are like why not just buy one plus five if it breaks I can buy another one for the same time or you really just right atop I'm just gonna buy two and I'll have a backup like this all this discussion is for Android phones but if you go for the iPhone market people will buy crazy like they don't see any price value or anything they will just buy it yeah well I mean obviously that kind of works for us here in the United States too I just pulled up I just pulled up the press release the the pixel to XL 128 gigabyte variant in India is the equivalent of a one thousand two hundred and seventy dollar excel 128gb version cost eighty two thousand rupees yeah so why there's a lot trying to I'm trying to see like I'm looking at the iPhone 10 for the Indian market and it's not showing me anything for the iPhone 10 yeah I put then 1500 bucks much of a premium but it's still a 50% premium it's not much of a premium it's just a 50% premium I need you to understand what just there giuls and on that note we gotta pay some bills ourselves we should probably jump in to our sponsor break here real quick this week's episode of the pocket now weekly in this rambling discussions with exchange rates in Indian and US currencies is brought to you by app River yeah I'm gonna go to my script here because this is gonna be a train wreck if I don't the most successful business owners out there are people who enjoy what they're doing more than just enjoy it whatever their thing is they love it but here's what they don't love when they have to stop doing what makes the money to handle something that does not make them money especially when it comes to email and that's one reason why a privy shines a prover keeps your inbox free from spam and by you don't have to worry about all that junk cluttering up your day if you're running your own email 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pack now weekly and every so often sending us mail hello get some good ones yeah let's uh you want to just dive right in and just go through this yeah I'm sorry like I was expecting the the the audio cube the chime mic we don't do that anymore so let's go let's jump in that's not a good email transition let's not do that come on I apologize for Jules so start right at the top of our list this is from Jessie Trujillo and Jessie's asking about sort of the state of reviews and reviewers what do you guys think about reviewers and the media somewhat focusing more on what companies don't do versus what they choose to do when it comes to the features and design choices that are made in any given device an example would be choosing to give a phone a better camera but the trade-off that it means there also be a small bump on the back whereas that bump could be avoided altogether but it would mean a lesser camera would have to be decided upon and almost feel like these companies can't win because no matter what they do no one is ever really happy and the same might be argued about a phones thickness its battery size just things in general like that we'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions thanks guys love the podcast thanks Jesse and actually come on let me let me jump in right there cuz you know we see some sort of you know like we're talking about Oppo and oneplus and that was something we criticized camera bulge on the back of the 1+5 what do you what do you think about the commentary that surrounds things like those kinds of design choices so you know there is a sudden influx of smartphone camera bumps recently so now like people have gotten used to it like okay you have to accept that a phone in 2017 will have a camera bump and it was kind of surprising like how pixel one didn't have a camera bomb because it had a veg kind of design because it was thick at the top and top ten at the bottom so - I'm like what what happened but I think there's a logical reason for that because in the pixel 1 if you drop your phone the whole visor on the back would crack and that costs about 12 thousand rupees to repair it and it's pretty costly so if you dropped your pixel - only the camera lens would crack and not devisor that's my project but I mean so outside of just like you know specifically on the pixel - I think that there's this general eye there's this general feeling that you go to a certain reviewer and you have an expectation that they're they're personally going to prefer something is their favorite daily driver and that all other devices seem to be judged against that phone like you're not really reviewing the sony xperia x z1 see you're telling people why the sony xperia x c1c isn't like your favorite phone the LG g six you know what I mean and so how do you think that commentary sort of influences consumers or do you think it's just a byproduct of consumers looking for validation on what they already like yeah that's the thing I would go with the latter because each and every consumer has his own thought process and his own opinions devices so he kind of coordinates with each and every content creator like how the content is provided to him so heinous correlates in the content well Jules I mean like you can jump into because you're totally a pixel fanboy now like everything else that's crap now that you have your pixels yeah well yeah I thought Jules commentary is gonna get super pixel super fast here okay well in that case I love the speed and that's pretty much good so back to just in regards to Jesse's question here I mean the the battery question has always been the biggest one everyone has been time oh it should be just we can take an 8 millimeter thick kind of thing and that's after we've been using even like five millimeter devices six millimeter devices for a longest time even seven millimeters like just that extra bit I feel like it's gotten like hard to just to but people will like if there's no good reason for it people will kind of just eat at it and not really want to take the dive initially I think that's that's how I feel in terms of that to me in terms of other omission negative space kind of stuff going on it was a trend way back in like 2014-15 where like every om was going towards thinner and thinner phones even gionee launched a phone it just like 5.1 mm thick or you know like when one of them thin nonstick that was the ark was at the Apple or three or five or something like that with smart phones at once multiple oh Jesus yeah moto Z that was a another like ridiculously thin well that was also a five I think Rosie let's give Ricky viewed as a plug five point eight point two millimeter yeah but it's just I mean in terms of other features that might or might not go sometimes we talk about the like the fingerprint sensor it's it should be it should be in the background front or should it exist at all in terms of you know getting a facial recognition there are all these other device yeah but this is all like kind of wrapped up in a commentary though and I think what jesse is trying to get at is I mean think about how many times each of us have written an article or produced a video where someone leaves this comment which i think is genuinely well-intentioned like oh you're talking about this phone I would totally buy this phone if it had a different screen and the headphone jack was better and it had the camera from the Lumia 1020 it was super thin and it had three day battery life and I only had to spend $50 and a half a ham sandwich to buy it you know then I would totally buy this phone and you're like you've just described something which is exactly not this phone exists it really was like people people have an idea of their winning team in mind and then they'll go back you know so that's an emotional thing that's an emotional attachment to a brand or product and then what they really need to join the conversation they'll sort of rationalize after the fact and they'll say oh you know take the El Samsung you needed to do this this and this and this to get my money but had Samsung done that that net you still would have found some reason to buy your preferred brand over the Samsung at the end of the day you have a purchase decision to make and they're not in the business of making just you happy they're making it's like a whole bunch of people happy talk about millions of people at least fairly happy for the next couple of years right that's that's also why I think we see a certain flavor of conversation when we're talking about the review space as well like I I I'm I've been guilty of this on some of my reviews to where if you call something a review and more than like five percent of that piece of media is comparing that device against another device you really haven't shot a review you've you've produced the comparison and you're telling someone why another product is better as opposed to judging the reviewed product on its own merits that's a really difficult line to walk but I think it gets reinforced when then the audience responds and you know you can look at some of these some tech blogs where you could build the channel that's literally just iPhone right you can't build a channel that's literally just LG yeah and survive on that and so that sort of reinforces it's kind of like I was saying with local news here it kind of reinforces because I need the clicks I need the eyeballs I need the comments I need the shares and I will get them with LG and I will get them significantly more if I just cover Samsung mm that could be also but Apple also makes and knows how to make something work out because they have the events they have the shows and LG knowing its place doesn't so part of the problem is like I think any company can play the media game it's really only Apple and Samsung and now Google I would say Google is actually joining the conversation with some some savvy I mean like again you've got to go to where the people are and if you don't have boots on the ground and signs and TV ads and radio ads then you don't exist but let's move on to the next email here and thank you Jesse for sending that in this is from Timothy Timothy Bayer and this is a little bit longer I'm gonna try and blitz do this I might cut part of this email I'm doing this in real time it's live aha thank you for what you do I find the information very informative like most of us I depend heavily on a smartphone I am physically disabled I'm a physically disabled consumer who was not interested as much in cutting edge features and specifications as I am in ruggedness and durability as a result I am considering buying the Kyocera dura force pro on Verizon it came out near the end of last year I wanted to get the opinion of the team in regards to this device he goes on to say he's looked at YouTube reviews a lot of people have seemed fairly positive on this phone we did not unfortunately get to cover it on Pocket now but uh-oh finally a very oh and he's talking about some of our Aoife coverage t we don't need to get into that but um so the Kyocera der force Pro not a high-end or high spec phone and not a high-end or high spec phone for its initial release last year what do you think Jules is this something that might make for a good fit for someone at the end of 2017 moving into 2018 yeah in terms of being able to survive an hour a year just if you're you depend on it but for like text you use it rights and you're able to treat the processor right so that doesn't slow down bog down on you then I guess yeah control with this Kyocera you gotta treat that baby right you got a treatment I'm trying to see if this will register but any probably try to rub that you're sort of struggling back I usually go to the I'm gonna rub it against my beard because you have to treat because if you have to treat one part of it with care at least if you're not gonna treat the other part care so so not specifically the the queue of the the dura force probe Verizon variant but is is there a big market for rugged phones in India right now no okay so I'm glad that you had just a simple one-word answer for this um I am a huge fan of Kyocera is like armored build quality I loved the Brigadier that phone was such a badass rugged and the cool thing about the dura force pro is that it also has the sapphire shield screen so it's a synthetic sapphire that is very scratch resistant you do have to be careful it's a little bit more brittle I have a huge caveat for recommending someone pick up a dura force Pro today and it has nothing to do with Kyocera it's really the chipset in the dura first pro is the Qualcomm 6:17 I want to say 615 or 617 I can't I remember at the end of 2017 and looking at where we're gonna go for 2018 that is not a chipset I have a ton of confidence in if the majority of your use is very simple getting to done checking your email and pulling up you know a couple social media type apps or you know simple simple interactions with a phone that you need to protect your data on that could be a good fit for you I would not expect a lot of software support I would not expect a ton of updates in fact I don't know that I would want an Oreo update on a 6-1 6-1 X variant chipset this year Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 or 617 I so then that's where I have some concerns if in any way you can find another less expensive phone that takes you up into I don't know at least Qualcomm 625 territory you get 625 is way better 5 is so much better performance is so much better so much better and and if you can find a device and see that's what's tricky is I'm actually not as well familiar with Verizon's lineup right now but it even if we're just cresting into that tier of performance and you can find a good rugged case and you can get yourself a screen protector I think the overall enjoyment moving into 2018 will be higher than the actual smartphone use on something like the juror force Pro I don't want to talk to you out of the dura force Pro because that Sapphire screen is baller but what you actually do on your phone is really gonna decide how much of a compromise you're willing to take on that on that processor and to shame that Kyocera doesn't really make more phones or keep them up to date because no I'm like make these little step ups they had him it was during the Brigadier and the original dura force on AT&T we had this great like Kyocera was getting on top of it great mid-range solutions and some cool tech like I loved their tissue conductive screens so you didn't have an earpiece speaker it was just a vibrate the entire screen the entire display was a vibrating membrane that would be your speaker so when you held it up to your face you could hear so well in loud environments and then you know so they do they a little bit of progress and then I think it just took them a little too long to iterate for their next their follow-up phones and then they sort of back slid in the market and it's just the pacing they need to find some way of kind of keeping keeping their presence known in the consumer space for those kinds of niche solutions because they could definitely be the kings of those of that in each you know they should be synonymous with durable phones with rugged lifestyle or rugged work requirements Kyocera Stephanie of Samsung Galaxy s8 active right what I like - ain't active but there's something so awesome about the the Brigadier I freaking loved that phone Jules why don't you take the next email indeed all right let's talk about Co job on it is email a high PocketNow team I'm gutted I no longer get to listen live like I used to in the past I always catch it on stitcher hey I have been eight pebble steel owner for two and a half years and I need to replace it soon that's the question here I would budget between 230 and 270 pounds and I don't need features like GPS a heart rate monitor or NFC I'm interested in the new fossil Q Explorer stand was wondering if there was a review and this are the excuse me there was a review for this in the pipeline or what watches you would suggest he's an HTC 10 owner I look forward to your suggestions let me think so keep up the great work no Joe thank you for listening what are you so what do you think Jules um fossil fossil q or you're you onboard the state of Android where 2.0 is so bad yes shambles I had to say I don't want to say it I mean and if it weren't for the fact that Apple watch is it doesn't really play friendly still as you do to dump it to Android with 1.5 seriously I mean yeah that would be a good idea that would be great way if someone could make a ROM or a tool for that that would be great in terms of that I would just go for the cheapest wine that you can get because I know that there's a timepiece if you want one for the luxury like the statement piece I don't think I can help you as per my taste my sense of taste is not really here you would have to talk to Kwan for that but in terms of the fossil keel it looks pretty exquisite except the explora stit looks pretty exquisite onion or what I'm seeing like the venture if cubics worst yeah let me just pull up a different fossil you guys keep talking I'm gonna I'm gonna look this up right yeah the Marshall and export you saw the explores right now in our territory it's two hundred fifty five dollars and it has all I mean it has all the standard stuff and even though he doesn't need a heart rate sensor I mean it I believe it had no it has a fitness tracker no I leave it's just step tracking I don't believe they've got heart rate yeah you would you know polar is more kind of a what you want in terms of just solid that but in terms of just explorers you get a metal band I think that would look nice yeah and the state the stainless steel one looks pretty nice even though you pay a little bit more for it but the three-button process of the crown and I think is definitely a more of a UI thing thank you people as your fall in terms of it's like the tick watch but I mean maybe that's not your style but the tick watch was a pretty good the original one yeah it was a nice-looking watch Daniel said though man you were the the I caught them at the India the crowdfunding stage at like when 120 and 180 or something like that they're probably more like 200 and 300 or something and i wouldst maybe the e because i if if we're going conservative and stylish then maybe the was i think it was the e that was more limited it was bluetooth filmy or you know something going on there but to take watch s i feel okay well come on what what what android where are you using right now yeah so I mean I've got my Huawei watch to I'm actually gonna go I think I'm gonna break out my original Huawei watch so much better than the second generation so that's kind of where I'm I'm a little torn you know for a lot of the things that you're you're saying here that edited a from this is from cohhd cohhd cohhd Joe Wilson Kojo SoCo Joe I have the pronounce right there sorry but it was I didn't realize that you had separated first and last name and I was like wait a minute I can't use first name so we're looking at the the fossil queue I really do like the look of fossil watches although I'm a little bit more of a fan of like it's like Skagen design so I actually have a connected Scoggin hog in which I use as my backup watch or my I'm dressing up watch I want something a little bit nicer than my flaw way watch to the the gen3 fossils get rid of the flat tire the screens are improved I don't know anything about whether or not the battery life is looking better but it is generally improved Hardware over where we were on the gen 2 fossil watches which we're all again very sort of just referenced designee Android wear fare you were basically just paying extra for that fossil badging I think they're a lot more competitive now considering what you were asking for and that you don't care about things like like all of the additional features I would be inclined to see if you can maybe find a first generation Huawei watch it's it's a it's more of a Movado look you know in terms of watch design it's really clean you get it with a stainless steel bracelet and I still think it's probably it's me up there with the moto it's up there is I think the cleanest look we've seen since on Android wear it's not the most exciting because you're you're getting an older watch design and I would recommend sticking with Android 1.5 Android wear 1.5 not doing Android wear 2.0 in fact I don't even know if the Huawei watch ever got its full update Android wear 2.0 or watch you say yeah I'm gonna break my back out I've found I finally found the magnetic charger for it so I can charge it back up again I lost it but yeah I'm pretty good about a hundred twenty hundred fifty pounds maybe yeah I mean it shouldn't be expensive and you could probably undercut your fossil by half with the design that is very that is so simple and so striking like I said I think it looks a little like a Movado that that would maybe be my backup recommendation if you can shop one and you can find one that especially we can find one new but if you can find one that hasn't been abused maybe you look at that and then and then if you can't then consider switching over into the fossil territory for the more stylish fare you know because obviously you're not looking at like an LG or something that's what I like about the while we were watching the Moto 360 what they do they don't look like a SmartWatch they look like regular watches nobody even thinks about their smartwatches and I like about that I think that's the best thing yeah I mean like the the Huawei watch 2 has a little bit more of like um well I was gonna say like an entry-level Casio you know like you wanted something that was a bit more rugged but I didn't mind that it looked kind of like a big chunky rugged cheap well I shouldn't say cheap inexpensive watch I don't mean to slight Casio I mean I think especially once you get up into like g-shock territory those watches are ass but that's not my style just slightly quoi way for its choice of design but it is is I feel like moto and Huawei on the the the circular watch faces that they that they helped really usher in there an influence on other watches like I point to Movado as being sort of a reference point for people who are more into watches than for tech but they don't feel like a poor emulation of a Movado whereas while I wear my Kwame watch to a lot it does kind of feel like a poor representation of what a Casio should feel like on your arm it's just that it's the only watch I have right now that that can survive the day battery life wise with constant art rate tracking and I really like that so I continue to wear it but it's not really my best example of style or fashion and the second I want to show you know like I want to dress up a little bit more to wear a shirt with buttons as I move over into something like Ascot my Skagen or if I can charge it go back to my stylish I surround do you want to read the next one from Paul Russell you have the pastebin you have to make the guesswork yeah I mean I'm trying to keep it awake too so it's like yeah here two o'clock I lost my snooze no you're going into the second lap yeah exactly I don't need to sleep anymore now beaultiful says do pocket now since the launch of the Moto e 4 + have been recently being considering purchasing something like it for a long lasting work phone for calls and SMS as I was researching what my options were for a low-cost smartphone with high-capacity battery I came across many handset from Chinese manufacturers that I had not heard of such as do G B and 7000 and he tells K 6000 plus that have a larger battery better mediatek SOC oak or mediatek and display their b4 + then I'm using as my yardstick from sites like le Express and Bangert in your opinion is it worth taking a risk with these Chinese devices that they're interesting take on Android and possibly poor security in OS updates not to mention potential Chinese fiber installed so last year I'm a little concerned about the thing blowing up would I be better off sick Bordeaux or going going for Asus zenfone max or the upcoming Nokia 2 or something else from one of the other major and better recognized OMS and the name thanks you so the advice here I think it's I think it's kind of great he's he's putting Nokia in is one of the major factors like they're just recently back let's write the first tier name still carries a freaking exactly I want to bring back the note 7 because back when that debacle was happening I got a pitch from elephone which is also a thing in China and they were pitching their own note 7 s7 kind of design their phone and they've made the point that they've gone through multiple multiple stages of testing for their batteries and basically that it would not explode and that's what there's always this one spec that every manufacturer wants to focus on or like the even have phones that focus on just that one spec II may - all about the selfie selfie phone selfie apps they've been pretty progressive on that one and even made a splash in the u.s. earlier this year so when it comes to just this unified aspect this unified focus they're just throwing things against the wall and see if it works and sometimes it works sometimes I get picked up on a slow day and I think well I mean but I think I made you so come on like you know our people do you think that this feels like a risk though are people risking when we're sort of an ultra-low cost phone because these specific smart phone Virginia has mentioned and/or very say these OMS they're not trivalent in India if you want to get those you will have to order by any Express or bangle so yes you do have a risk but I'm more concerned about these software risk other than the hardware risk okay software yourself that you won't be getting any updates or anything it's the only software you get out of the box is you think mostly you're going to be stuck with that software ideation like it's either going to be marshmallow I don't hope nuga but oh god oh maybe Ice Cream Sandwich why not let's just go all the way back well and then also III guess like you know it's it's one of those situations too where I would be a little nervous again I mean if you're contacting our show I have an expectation that you're probably more in touch with what's going on in the smartphone space so you're probably a bit more likely to be able to handle a certain level of your own tech support the hardware tech support and software tech support at least more than the average bear but I if you're worried about you know the the quality of friends and you're worried about support then I really do think you're you're looking at needing to stick with a brand that is is a little bit more recognized in especially in your local area I'm sorry I don't know exactly where you're writing from them you know if you're Canadian or from the United States or something like that and and especially when you can kind of consider some of the deals like the new Moto e for plus you know we're talking about creeping up on that price point but it's a Qualcomm 427 snapdragon 427 chipset paired with what is it's like a five thousand milliamp hour battery is that what they've got on it yeah close to that yeah five thousand milliamp hour battery on the newest generation of cual comes ultra low power chipset I don't know that you can find a combo like that at that price point from a pretty decent label it's not like Lenovo and Motorola haven't been free of their own issues with things like spyware and bad software and stuff on their own products but like that's a pretty solid combo that I wouldn't be too afraid from in the knowing that especially in Western markets you probably have a a slightly better Avenue for support if anything goes wrong with that phone even before you mentioned like the Asus zenfone max I used it personally it was good laying it you'd use it for battery purposes and it lasts are they easily like you can even pass and go past like two days or something if you use it judiciously yeah that's like if his concern is only battery life yeah even zenfone max is a pretty good choice or get the BlackBerry key one and just triple your budget I'm trying to look up what is the chipset on the zenfone max 40 okay this is kind of tough but hey alright we have one more if we're looking at just sort of you know the covering the basics and get calls it ok causing SMS but anything more than that even if you're trying to go through say like I need to be able to play 3d games 60 frames second you know we want to spend $50 and maybe I'll give them a hand just just a little bit more of that reception because once we get into the 400 600 series you're talking about reception issues and that's kind ok 600 small I'll agree with you there I'll take this last one here this is from Zane and this is your bondage or Shivaji it's from Zane hey Zane I recently read the Verge's V 30 review and they dinged the phone screen as a low point many people on reddit were saying either it's a rough screen or compared to Sammy it doesn't stack up nearly as close some comments even went into LG's TV panels and lows if you could can you share your experience with the V 30s display and how it stacks up to current flagships thank you and keep paddling paddling along in the SS pocket so you have the smaller pixel rachels yeah I do okay so you've got the one with air quotes too good screen on it and has there been any no I'm literally waiting for energy to launch me 30 but there's no no signs of it okay yeah I mean we were kind of in the same boat for a while here too like they announced the phone and then it was it was almost six weeks it took six weeks they had like the actual release now it's six we clears the release it was pre-orders and then another two weeks and then also don't forget about those prototype units that we've been carrying around for months and months and so so here's my experience with the V 30 I my V 30 and I am very lucky is pretty good um I think we showed a screenshot I don't have it handy now where I I did this low-light test one of the problems that we have in this is kind of going back to that first question that we got from Jesse you know we we instantly want to start comparing as opposed to really reviewing a product on its own merit so the first the first things that we start seeing are I put this screen up against a galaxy as a screen and look you can see it's terrible and that I wanna caution people against jumping into that echo chamber on just one or two samples of of a display because I think there is a very different conversation where most people when they're scientifically examining an OLED will probably be disappointed by some aspect of that OLED as opposed to the people that we see in some of those screenshots on the reddit conversations that I've been seeing who have legitimate problems so that those are two very different audiences I am oh when it comes to the V 30 if you can pick up a V 30 and and while you're using it in an app like you've got a web browser open and to the naked eye under normal usage conditions you can see variants in your backlight in the in the brightness of the screen that is a situation where you need to go and replace that phone if you are putting a static gray image on a phone screen and dialing it back to its dimmest conditions in a way like would never use that phone you were you will see variants between different Oh leads and that's sort of within a certain range of fault tolerance that's within a certain margin of error it happens on every single screen and especially if you're looking at photos where they're comparing the V 30 against Samsung Samsung Samsung screens get dimmer than LG screens do at their lowest so if they aren't matching the brightness of the Samsung screen and the LG screen then you're not really getting a fair comparison as to what those displays look like when they're driven at the same at the same brightness levels so my V 30 screen is brighter at the top and the bottom it's it's actually it's funny it's it's it's pretty consistent where the the forehead and chin edges are brighter and then it just sort of gradually meets in the middle at something that's sort of an average brightness I got very lucky so what I liked about the the LG screen though is that it's a little cooler color temperature when you don't have some kind of adaptive color mode on and so I think my V 30 screen is far more accurate than my Samsung screens are when you turn off adaptive color on Samsung both of mine is eight plus and my note eight are super ruddy red and so you can talk about this all LG screens have this blue color shift well yeah when you look at any screen off axis like at an angle you're going to see some change in the color represented on that screen when I am looking dead on my note 8 screen it looks like I'm on Mars [Laughter] so what are you more bothered by 50 dollars for it oh my god hey you you love bad screens when you learn that screen and obviously I'm an LG shell fanboys paid by LG and you know all of that brought to you by LG because LG is the greatest life is good with friends now the the the the situation you know again if I put my Note 8 screen to the same brightness at its lowest level against the V 30 it is less consistent but it is it's a softer gradient so the top right corner is dimmer than the bottom left corner of my note eight again I'm never gonna use it that way so I'm not really that bothered by that kind of performance on my note eight so ultimately I'm sorry I know this has been really long-winded and I I'm using a chunk of what we've already done on last week's podcast when we were talking about the pixel two also this is some of this is a little repetitive but the the thing that I think consumers need to be concerned of and why this is a bummer for LG is the variance is now just high enough that it takes some of the fun out of your smartphone purchase I think everyone would agree LG seems to have yet again another issue with their QA as to what products are actually making it into the hands of consumers and this is affecting not only LG phones but the pixel to excel and so it makes it just a little bit more of a crapshoot when you get the phone in your hands and maybe something's a little wonky or something's a little off that's gonna make you feel less good about that purchase I've had the phone for a couple weeks I'm not having any burnin mice my back lighting is pretty consistent and I like the color hue on my PL LED better than I have on more recent Samsung OLED x' to the same token I think so far I don't think any phones have bested the galaxy s7 era of AMOLED displays I think those are still the most consistent the most accurate color screens I've ever seen so even Samsung in my opinion has taken a step backwards by moving to this new aspect ratio um talking about displays I mean we know that the won't post fat has been a benchmark for Indians shamone what did they make of the whole issue when when the scrolling thing came from proud or something it just I mean you don't have to get much traction over here people just got old with it because price because point to it but did you think it was kind of funny because if you remember way back in the day when Apple started doing like scrolling on phones and there were lawsuits flying about like whether or not you could have a bounce in your screen when it scrolled or Android would have that like color shift so you would get to the top of a list and the the momentum of the scroll would result in like a blue band scrolling up on on the edge of a menu yes we used to make software to enable that kind of bouncy effect right like that used to be a thing that we wanted and people would code into software and like no see oneplus just made a hardware version it's a feature it's not a bug this shill podcast brought to you by the fine folks at one plus and they pay for every word that comes out of my mouth yeah I'll give you a fun fact all those you know the recent leak renders of 5:3 which are being circulated around right those I would be taking names but those are created by my friend oh yeah they still rely on their Indian counterparts a whole lot too like this is a huge corporations with like lots of talented people all around the world that my friend was Indian I didn't mention that just to kind of wrap up thoughts on on the v30 if everything else about the phone is what you're looking for in a device I would still recommend trying your luck you know grabbing the phone and so long as you have a clear route for returning it or replacing it or getting support for any kinds of problems I'm personally not as concerned about some of these these issues until we see and until we see I think a more concerted conversation from people that are having more systemic problems this is this is not like boot looping this is not like exploding batteries this isn't even like bendgate on an iPhone I feel like this is this is something that it's easy to blow out of proportion when we're trying to examine a phone used in an extreme use case again what I would look for specifically and in immediately you pull a pixel 2xl out of the box you pull a v30 out of the box you want to play with the screen brightness under some kind of app usage scenario to see if there's anything distracting about that performance from there and if there is get that phone back asap and if that's enough to kind of make you gun-shy like you don't even want to have to take that kind of that kind of task on yourself then I think you've already answered your question LG this year is not going to be for you but I've been really happy with the camera performance I'm super excited by the headphone performance the microphones are on point it's nice having wireless charging in a water-resistant build in a fairly ruggedized you know shell that can it's supposed to be more you know that's what you're paying $800 for that's what and why and it's an $800 phone I mean like it's undercutting music so so I am willing to put up with the compromise of of slightly less even backlighting when used in an extreme case for me personally and I'll be the first one to say I got really lucky that I do like the screen on my V 30 I like it I know that might not be the case for everybody but I don't feel that this is the big buyer beware situation and I'm really hoping that what this Spurs on especially from Google's perspective is that one Google needs to be way more act if they're gonna say it's made by Google and not made by LG they need to get their asses in those factories and actually doing their own QA first of all that's that's mandatory you know the buck stops with Google on the pixel to excel but under that kind of influence I would expect that LG's manufacturing will improve quickly over time I'd say that the the LG OLED is probably two generations behind what Samsung could do but even like I said even Samsung took a minor step back in my opinion this year so their ability to catch up as a company with some guidance from a menu from a from an organization like Google could could actually result in this generation of phone improving over time yeah and that's another thing too maybe it's not the worst idea in the world to just sit out a couple months and see where we end up at the end of the year like if you know for the g4 we're out throughout the light LG g4 if we're still talking about you know manufacturing defects color shift and you know crazy inconsistent backlighting on the V 30 by December there's a bigger problem at play here and again it's another thing that we'd need to knock LG on in terms of QA but the deals dude the deals by one okay I mean we're talking about like credit freeze and stuff like that never buy a phone brand new ever don't do it I mean even for the note 8 I was saying like I love this phone I don't know that I could ever recommend myself you know anyone in my family buying it on launch day at full price it's like carry on have a trainer or you got to do something you know that's that's that's where these super premium products have kind of again made this conversation more difficult but we could be pretty confident that a v30 at the end of the year I think we'll see some pretty good deals on them just get again 200 mega 200 gigabyte microSD card web the bad LG oh well I you know anything I you know you don't even have to sell me I'm like a 360 camera or VR headset or anything like that because you know okay D guards are new smartphones oh yeah my credit cards well I mean this one's adapter trying to get it out you you you you do your thang you spilling out transy no I I still definitely do and especially when I'm moving back and forth between so many phones as aggressively as I do I'm having a 128 that I know I can just like oh I'm just go straight from like Huawei camera view right into my lg camera review or something like that makes it all really and also because he like I have to send these things back I don't want to have to worry about accidentally deleting something that I liked on that phone and then just lives on my memory card and then I just you know keep tabs on that goes on into your memories for every exhausting I use micro SD card of a smartphone was way back in 2014 or 2015 I guess really way back way back a whole year and a half ago who could even think that far back did I mean I don't even think we had we have language or Hyderabad fan I think we had just defended fire come on I mean just I think it's remarkable how we went from the wheel in 2012 to where we are today so well we also went through that stage where the microSD card was getting shunned by literally almost one so no it's it's it still is for me and and you know maybe I'm still old-school enough on this but media and storage you know like photos and videos I shoot so much that I really want all of the built-in storage on my phone just dedicated for apps and services and so even though we've gotten some some great like I have a p10 plus with 128 gigabytes of built-in storage I kind of still don't want that being clogged up by the tens and tens and tens of gigabytes of content that unlikely to produce with that phone so I try to keep those separate really you know totally relying on cloud because I'm literally a cloud computing student so ditching physical hardware and totally moving towards the cloud like even if I have to transfer like a file or two from my computer to my phone I don't use a USB cable I just throw it in the cloud and then download on my phone so let me ask you because this is something that I ran into with the pixel 2 and you know the pixel - we've got unlimited google photo storage when I did the camera review I shot eleven point four gigabytes of content and that was over a two day period and I needed to have access to that to look at every single photo quickly and you know examine the videos get them into video editing apps what would you have done with eleven gig of data all in one straight shot 11 gigs ah us be given to the rescue I guess so this is exactly why I was I sort of have to preface a lot of these things like I'm using when I do a camera review I am trying to encapsulate what someone would do with the phone over the course of like two months in 36 hours so I am NOT a good test case for this kind of this kind of behavior because personally I have very different requirements for what it is that I need to accomplish on a daily basis but at the same time I still run into issues like with family and friends like they might have some kind of cloud backup solution but something's going on with their phone they've talked to the carrier they're gonna try and wipe the phone out first and to know that they've got everything backed up and saved the cloud suddenly doesn't feel like the safest repository of all this stuff that was on their phone and now they want to talk about finding the cable or plugging it into a PC or something like that I'm still at a point where even in a first world country with pretty good data not not the best but pretty good the cloud to me is still more of a redundancy not my primary favor like I still have a physical you know backup copy of all of my data on my laptop or some hardest space where it's something like that yeah and especially for me because I convinced the wife to upgrade are nice so like you know nice I've got I've got like four massive hard drives under under my feet right now well we both still use Google photos and Microsoft onedrive I think for both of us we have all of our all of our photos and videos backed up in triplicate wow that's impressive yeah we don't want any any photo of the daughter like ever game these are precious memories we're gonna fight to protect them have like tried to exploit the unlimited storage of pixel the first generation I know you mean like trying to spoof a phone ID on another device yeah but like spoofing the phone ID with a loading pictures into the original pixel and then back you got it like external photos like you you cuz I was I have a camera I could just upload to the phone just by having a shoot a lot on my g85 and I could just be using the app to shift that stuff over I need to play with full retinas 24 big all right you know III have something that I need to go play with immediately so I think we should wrap this podcast up break Google at 11 minutes past thank you thank you for joining us your mana and I know we kind of ran this podcast a little bit longer but I really appreciated you jumping in thanks for having me guys it was really amazing and I'm donating I'm going to sleep now we're Jules and I complain about doing the show on an empty stomach and there you have it folks another episode of the pocket net weekly has come and gone the show is over but the conversation continues on Twitter where sh'mon is at chemin IPS is that is that that's a long story but ok shamanic Jules is at point Jules and I'm humbly at some gadget guy pocket now is around the web Twitter Instagram Facebook Google+ YouTube and our home site pocketnow.com and Spanish speakers can check out yes pocketnow.com shows like this cannot exist without your support sharing the weekly with your friends who love mobile technology and dropping reviews wherever podcasts can be reviewed once again we want to thank this week's sponsor app River definitely go check out how you can protect your email but ultimately there wouldn't be a show if it weren't for our listeners and subscribers who have kept us on the air since 2012 the PocketNow weekly will be back next week with all kinds of 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