Gadgetory

and oh hi oh hey how's it going it's that is the first bubble show or so it's our 21st on your 21st you totally got a party as so you should you should totally stay tuned there's a virgin mobile show i'm dan seifert i'm chris sigler and to be very clear i am stone-cold sober just by the fact that this is the 21st episode of the virginal show for the week of october 15 2012 I have to say dieter your your head dan and I were just talking about this earlier your head is like enormous it's like that's really really frightening I am you know I have a big head but what can I stay so uh so would you say it was a big weekend news i would say that it was bigger than I expected we know that the end of the month is crazy um and it seems like it's just gotten started early so we had lots of nuts remembers the Nexus the we had the LG sprint got bought like out of nowhere this week has been chock full of stuff to talk about yeah it's you know I don't know what this leaves for CES we were just talking about ces a second ago and I get I mean I got CES is never a big show for mobile I guess we'll see it start to pick up again at mwc in late februari but yeah this is going to be the biggest news cycle for mobile of the year in the next three to four weeks I think yeah it's gonna be pretty insane and it's it seems like it's already starting what they wanted to or not coming so why don't we jump into that the unwanted thing this is kind of crazy this supposed LG Nexus device that has been fully exposed given a complete revolt review treatment before it's even been officially announced and that's that's kind of kind of insane if you ask me well I yeah it's crazy presently I mean you know the software apparently is super buggy and that's no surprise given this is like a crazy League device but you know if this does in fact turn out to be the next what what blows my mind about it is how much it looks like the Galaxy Nexus like we expecting it to be big on the lg optimus G but it looks like the Samsung it really does well what's what's kind of funny about that is the Galaxy Nexus was kind of you know in the vein of the galaxy s2 at the time but with a more rounded shape and more rounded corners and like this is exactly the kind of the same thing with the the the optimist and this LG Nexus it's in the vein of you know the optimus G but much more rounded and so that it ends up looking almost exactly like the Galaxy Nexus I think if you go all the way back to the nexus s you can tell that there is a certain aesthetic that Google is probably asking for from the OEMs that it's signing up for nexus devices and and yeah it certainly seems that that's continuing here yes well I mean I think it looks fine it I think it certainly looks better than the Optimus G which you know is actually actually I've gotten both here the 18 teen and the sprint it's actually kind of a squat square little phone especially compared to say the Galaxy Nexus or the the the 1x it's sort of you know I'm not going to call it stumpy but it's it's a little bit shorter it's a little bit closer I don't know if it's exactly for my throughout me and I'm sure it's not but it's not quite as tall and so that I think that putting sort of the Nexus styling on this Hardware would make it really handsome yeah I mean that the photos and I mean don't get me wrong whoever quote-unquote reviewed this device took some decent photos of it that that potentially made it look better than it actually looks IRL in real life for those of you who don't follow the internet lingo but ya know it looks like a like a pretty attractive device I don't know I you know I think I commented last week that my galaxy nexus feels huge after using an iphone 5 and I'm not sure I want to phone I like it just give me a 4 inch neck like give me a modernized nexus s right you know exactly and I think if Vlad were here he would be screaming from the mountains and agreement with you yes uh you know it's funny that you mentioned the I hope I because I feel like every single phone I've picked up in the past two weeks since i started using my iphone 5 has felt like a heavy brick yeah so there's there's kind of that now as far as the the hardware of this LG Nexus obviously it's very pre-release at this point and you know that it's definitely doesn't seem like a finalized device but the hardware more or less seems like it's kind of in the vein of what it's going to be and if this thing launches with 8 gigabytes of internal storage I just can't imagine using that as you know a Nexus device if you you know load three games on there you can suck up you know fifty percent of your your internal storage right away so I mean I guess Google could tentatively or theoretically offer this in multiple capacities but it seems kind of odd to me that they're starting at eight gigabytes eight gigabytes of internal yeah that's nothing right yeah I'm concerned about that I'm concerned about the fact that we haven't seen we saw the HSPA version but not an LTE supporting version 9 18 te go through the FCC we actually got an email from a listener who was talking about the you know the rumors that there might be multiple Nexus devices and you know he's a little bit worried that what's going to happen is that you know you're not going to get your choice of Nexus on your choice of carrier that you know you're going to get stuck in a situation where like verizon will get the HTC nexus and AT&T will get the LG Nexus and you know there'll be multiple devices and multiple carriers but it'll still you're still going to be stuck in this weird world where you know you have to pick a carrier and that totally limits what phone you can get I could completely see that happening as cynical as it sounds I could I could totally see that happening just you know given the the incompatibilities between the networks for LTE service yeah I don't think that Google or anybody really has the power to to pull off this coup where they have all of these Nexus devices this X number of Nexus devices however many we end up seeing deployed on all four national networks in the US the odds of that happening I think are practically nil that would be amazing if it did happen but I'm certainly not counting on it I'm not that much of an optimist uh well I mean it's coming soon and I'll be interested to see if we do get multiple I mean wasn't there a rumor that there was a sony device that maybe it was a Nexus device yeah those pictures I don't know they're pretty really yeah those pictures were not did not have me convinced and we mentioned in our post that like the screen is not aligned correctly the bottom of the of the screen is is I think four pixels more to the right than the top of the screen and don't get me wrong if it's like an early prototype I could certainly imagine that like the components are kind of shoddily put together but still that's that's a red flag yeah and if you look deep or close at the back you can see some evidence of image alterations so it'd be great if Sony did an X except Nexus phone I think a lot of people would be really excited about that but whether the one that we saw this week or allegedly saw this week is it I'm not terribly convinced now what's interesting to me is that we haven't heard correct me if I'm wrong I'm probably I probably have no idea what I'm talking about I don't think we've heard a single rumor of a samsung next-generation Samsung Nexus device is that correct and as and and so I think what has happened is Samsung is is feeling very confident about its position in the Android world right now and feels like it doesn't necessarily need Google's help anymore to do what it wants to do and that has certainly borne out with the galaxy s and the s2 before it really in the note note 2 so I you know makes me wonder if we're ever going to see a Samsung Nexus again I feel like the Nexus is sort of the safe haven for downtrodden OEMs that want that want to do something cool on Android and need Google's help and guidance and you know their their their muscle to make carriers carry it and Samsung simply doesn't need that help anymore they've taken Android and made it their own and now it's going to be somebody else's turn in LG certainly I think falls into the category of downtrodden Android OEM the LG and you know HTC as well even though GC has said some really impressive devices this year that's still having trouble actually selling them and and turning a profit on them so yeah having Google's help behind it like it did way back when with the nexus one certainly won't be a bad thing yeah yeah yeah the next is one I mean for many people the nexus one is still like the ultimate Nexus device you know like if if if the nexus one had a 720p display and LTE I would probably still consider carrying it to this day not never mind it's it's 512 megabytes of storage yeah it could install any apps and glossing over that stuff yeah and the nexus one was pretty great yeah is is is one of the first android phones definitely that took a lot of people's focus off of the iphone as far as you know a high-end phone that can really compete and that's what it defined the Nexus line going forward yeah it hasn't always fulfilled that I think the Nexus S was kind of a misstep but the Galaxy Nexus was a lot better but so hopefully if we do get four of these or more than one of these Nexus devices we're not going to get like a low medium and high type of thing but we're going to get high-end versions from all of them all the manufacturers that participate that would be kind of great and it's still we're still gonna have to wait a few weeks to find out exactly what happens I think let's uh let's talk about the the optimus G I reviewed the the sprints and the 18 key version and I mean really the most interesting thing is that you know LG has got a you know a flagship top-tier phone on a couple of US carriers instead of just you know shipping low and mid-range stuff and that I'm not even admitting that the LG intuition exists and that assessment but like they're good the screen is incredibly good and surprisingly nice i think its second in the android space only to the One X in terms of its viewing angles brightness its color fidelity I'm really happy with it and I'm holding up the the sprint version now which matches very closely to you know the international hardware with the exception of a sealed sim card which is pretty annoying and like it's I keep saying like it's not the lake prettiest phone in the world but it's you know it's fine it's pretty good and then the lg's thing is they've got trying to get this to have it on the camera but I can so the back panel which is glass I think but it could be Polly in one glass and another like LG is both some people that it's not class everybody else that is so I don't know why they can't just have a story straight but the deal is is that it's actually polarized and so if you're looking at it at an angle it looks like it's black and then once you get straight on then you can see that you know the pattern finish underneath which reflects the light a certain way so you get a black slab then you get this Julie looking thing when you're looking at it at the right angle which is kind of neat that that pattern totally reminds me of the original live wallpaper on the nexus one with the lace that i mean the the the squares and then the the different colors that would shoot horizontally more yeah that's what it totally just I mean if when I first saw that that was like the first thing I thought I can see that and then the AT&T version is a little bit wider actually because it's got like this like curved rail on it and the deal is that accommodates the sim card and microsd slot but otherwise they're basically the same and um it's so fast it's got this s4 pro processor from Qualcomm it's a quad-core device or quad-core processor and like everything is really fast except screen rotation which is LG software's fault which takes basically you know 20 minutes for the rotate the screen ok it's like but other than that like I don't know why that's so terrible because everything else is really good although I do need to I spent a long time talking about this in the review somebody needs to take a TNT behind the woodshed and make them stop putting crap on phones the the amount of like there's 11 like AT&T apps that are crammed onto this thing I stuck them all on a folder 18t code scanner AT&T family man AT&T locker AT&T Navigator 18t ready to go AT&T smart Wi-Fi live TV my ATT messages YP mobile and device hall on top of that I since you know just some of the extra stuff that they did like there's you know this quick setting thing in the notification area and like they don't let you put mobile hotspot in there really why what's the problem why are you afraid of a lot in quick settings that doesn't make any sense oh I can tell you exactly why they're afraid of mobile hotspot in quick settings because they they want to discourage anything they is it's for this the exact same reason that they're trying to discourage people from using facetime over cellular they're they're deathly afraid as they should be of their of their glass network shattering that that's what's going on here well that stinks so so is the is the software situation the the main or only explanation for the slightly lower score in the eighteen t version uh yeah i mean the software is knowing enough that i had to give it a lower score on the MTT it's just like it was just too much the other interesting thing is a tMT's camera is 8 megapixels wheres princess 13 and I'm much prefer 18 tease camera um I was talking to a married woman engadget she prefers the 13-megapixel camera honestly I think the difference is just like one of like pure ability I think with both of these cameras you need to do a little more work and be a little bit better at taking photos from phone than you do with say the galaxy s3 or the iphone so you can get good shots out of these but you can't just you know hold the phone up and click something the way that you can and the other phones you need to that you need to spend a little bit more time and in that sense Sprint's 13-megapixel camera is much less forgiving of you know my shaky hands and terminal ability to frame shots and check the lighting whatever yeah once you get above eight I I feel like it's definitely a gimmick thing like either the carrier or the OEM was like we just want to have this giant number on our spec sheet and blow everyone away and it's it's not I mean this is an able an age-old argument right that the fact that when it comes to cameras particularly camera phone cameras it's much more about the optics and about the quality of the sensor than it is about the the raw pixel count because you're not going to blow up an image from your sprint optimus g2 poster size I mean maybe you are I'm not you don't know what it'll do man yeah when I when I think about this argument I you know I think about you know I've got I think it's two years old now a canon s95 which I deeply love and I you know I thought about Lee that we could have camera phones that hit that quality I mean let's talk about computer view right but if you can't get there yet I think that wow I was so hot in here I think that you know you should stick with what works for the majority of people and right now that's an 8 megapixel sensor yeah heck I take five if it meant that I had better low-light sensitivity i would actually be more than happy to take a 5 megapixel sensor the problem is that i think that because eight is widely perceived as the standard for high-end camera phones right now you'd have a very difficult time coming to market with a five in convincing people that you're not short changing them on a key spec so I think you know that that's just a non-starter um I just want to point out and nobody's going to have any idea what I'm talking about but the the NFC logo on the 18 teen model which I'm assuming has something to do with Isis um looks is up and sorry so that this is weird double end yes and it looks exactly like the nests the nespresso logo go ahead go ahead and Google that and again be ready to agree with me it looks exactly like it somebody is doing somebody yeah yeah that's it is so we uh we finally got price and release date yesterday for a little spread eighteen t actually need update through view with thinking Tinky's information the Gulf 199 on contract Sprint's releasing on the eleventh eighteen t is releasing on the second and why couldn't they just have said this when they like announced and made the big releases of the phones at mobile con like last week what what's the hold why wait a week at this this whole thing about we're gonna announce the phone but not give you official price and release date I'm tired of it the one rule it the same thing with the razr HD HD max um everybody's doing it lately and you know is is it I'm starting to think that it's not that like they can't do it I'm starting to think that they know that if they don't do it that we're going to be forced to write about them again they'll get you know they'll get it up there once they announce the price or at least eight in all of it later that's interesting I have another theory which I would like to run by you guys I think that it's a domino effect created by Windows Phone 8 I think that Microsoft put pressure not put pressure just flat out said to OEMs and carriers that they can't talk specific dates and prices until their launch event on the twenty-ninth and then carriers were like well we want to plan all these other launches of flagship devices around those windows phone 8 launches so we just kind of have to I mean like we we want people to know about them that we want people know that we're getting them but we we want some wiggle room to play with those dates so they're kind of in a holding pattern until they can talk dates for the windows phone 8 gear I would I would agree with that theory except that none of this behavior is terribly new yeah I mean I mean carriers and manufacturers have been doing this for a long time yeah well I feel like it's particularly bad it is as well this particular this fall has been particularly frustrating but I think a lot of that does have to do with the windows want something is a lot of the phones that we've covered recently and have been announced have been windows phone devices that were just like oh here's another phone it's coming to t-mobile can't tell you when can't tell you how much right so yeah it seems like it's it's it's been exacerbated but I don't think any of it is new behavior necessarily no no yeah i mean this has been going on for years i just think that like we've had like what probably some between five and ten phone announcements in the past six to eight weeks that have all had this mysterious you know pricing and available the availability to be announced in the coming weeks at the end and it's just it's super frustrating not just for us but for readers who are trying to plan their purchases and trying to decide what they want to buy and when and it just you know i say one more thing about the optimus G and that is as great as it is that LG is sort of like come into its own and found its own identity as far as Hardware goes in terms of software and also their launch party at mobile com they have huge Samsung envy it's a ridiculous they like their special features there's there's qslide which lets you put this alpha and make video semi-transparent so you can watch video at the same time or do other stuff in the u.s. video they've got a think it's called why screen or something that that way cracks me up you continue but obviously I had to say that the camera watches your eyes just like you know the Samsung thing so that it will screen will stay awake while you're looking at it they have the states you can do stuff just by tilting the phone instead of dragging and dropping in like random to places like moving an icon on the home screen nobody wants to do that I don't know why Samsung insists on I'm offering an option and then LG just does the same thing they offer again I really wanna had a feature called el voice now I mean I I would be shocked if it didn't happen it's likewise cream is like they looked at the smart screen feature looked at its name opened up a thesaurus it was like we'll call it that yeah I mean and it's it's like the same exact feature I mean correct me if I'm wrong dieter but it's like the same exact feature right and and it just like I hate to say this but it just makes LG terribly feel like a poor man's samsung think it's like everything is just like trying to do what Samsung is doing but it's not really pulling it off as well right gonna do like this is a good phone on its own and so this is why it makes me super excited for the whatever we're going to call the next Nexus Nexus 4 I think is one of the rumors I mean it looks great I think it'll be really good news LG has managed to put together some really solid hard worker but this off this is messed up because these phones that these two oughta messages are coming to market uh in in early November which is right around the time that we think that this nexus stuff is going to happen so you're going to have this this train wreck this collision of two very different philosophies both LG branded products and you're going to have this mix of carriers I mean you know is is the nexus for whatever it's called going to be offered on ATT indoor sprint I would assume it's going to least be offered on sprint because sprint has been very very Pro Google going back to the the nexus one which was canceled at the last minute but then they ended up offering the s and the the Galaxy Nexus and you know they're very tightly partnered with Google on google wallet so how is that going to play out what is the message that they're going to deliver to customers who are cross shopping these products I don't know well I think you have different customers shopping these products is what it is and and just like as it's always been with Nexus devices they're not huge sellers they're not huge market share grabbers somebody who's walking into a carrier store in the mall to buy their cell phone isn't going to look for the Nexus on display they're going to see flashy software features and things like that and whatever you know the sales reps are incentivized to sell at the time so I think I think that you know if if LG is able to deliver these without bugs and and deliver them timely as it seems that they're there more or less doing they could sell a good amount of them maybe even more so than a Nexus device because the the people that are looking for a Nexus device are going to be very different yeah yeah they're going to have to be very careful about that messaging in the store in the store though because you always I mean there's there there are always two aspects right there's the PR line there's the official company line and how this product is positioned who's being sold to and then you have the very often very different message of what the sales rep is actually saying to the customer in the store and historically i mean the the thing that all of these OEMs particularly microsoft and and their partners but but everyone has been fighting for the past couple years on verizon and AT&T is you know you're fighting the reps that are saying just buy this iphone but now you know what are they going to say just say this is a purely hypothetical situation but say that sprint ranges both out miss G and then also ranges that the nexus 4 which for all practical purposes looks like a slightly nicer optimist tree also by LG and the software like from from like you know completely uninitiated customers perspective it just looks like a different software not better right like if you put them side by side in the store you can say oh yeah this nexus software is obviously better look at you know you have to use and then make the call for yourself I just don't know how they I mean that's a very complicated question that these carriers have to end well I think it's funny it goes back to some of these software features that LG and Samsung are customizing their their their phones with a lot of these look really flashy in the store when a you know sales rep is demoing a phone and it's like oh look you can watch a video and text at the same time they're not saying that you'll never do that in real life they're saying look at how cool that is and you know and and and look how I can tilt the phone and drag an icon around and something yeah where as you know actual features that are usable in day-to-day use aren't necessarily as whiz-bang and flashy to someone who's buying something in the store I think if you know and it may very well come down to this if you know sales reps are incentivized to sell some the optimus G line more there show it off more there you show off the things that it does more in and they're going to show in a favorable light those types of things yep that sell the phone in the store yep nothing else to say so it's always so so so dieter so dieter what's what's the final verdict should should a sprint or AT&T customer strongly consider buying this phone in early November no you should wait to see if you're gonna do this like that's it and if you're on ATT I think the galaxy s3 is a slightly better phone unless you care deeply about not having an AMOLED screen you know it's slightly faster but there's not it's not that much faster there's not that much that takes advantage of the the processor on this thing in terms of software so like it's weird like this is a really good phone that I'm probably am NOT gonna recommend any it's it's sad how often we yeah and it's happening more and more often now so yeah yeah which is a good thing it means that they're making better products but it's also making it much more difficult for the best products to bubble to the top and stand up and you also feel bad I mean you can't help but feel a little bad for LG because you know they're trying they're trying to I'll say this the optimus G is like like dita was saying the beginning is the first one of the first that LG is getting on sprint in a long time as far as a high-end device but it's also one of the first high-end devices that the company is released that's actually making it to the US market in a timely fashion yeah the optimus LTE took months and months and months to get to the US market the LTE to the same exact thing the 4x HD I don't think we're seen in the top in the US market at all and the you know the view and the intuition that took nine months to get to the US market whereas these ones are they're coming out their high end their still high end when they get to the US so I think that's a big step for LG that they've been able to accomplish that at least yeah plus at their their launch party of the the roof of the hard rock hotel in San Diego they they put a woman and I mermaid outfit and put her in the hot tub like I had to go to this thing I had to go to this thing it reminds me of it reminds me of life it reminds me when I tuned in to the the live stream of the the galaxy note 2 launch event and there was just some Buster like doing like card tricks and I'm like what what is with cut these companies and their non sequiturs at these like this has nothing to do with that like why is this happening right now and I'm sure that the same thing is going through your mind either like why is this happening to me right now like why is there a mermaid in this school the other the other Samsung anything that i forgot to mention i'm going to see if I can get the the audio for us right now but I have to take my unlock pattern off the screen in order to do it so I mean listen listen to this oh oh man dude dude any yeah that samsung envy that that is the inspired by nature get water droplet that everyone is such a big fan of yeah yeah also makes me want to I want to pee a little bit so I just start on the the video of our very own podcast feed so i could see this thing that chris mentioned about my giant head and yeah it's a big giant head between you two it's really nice to see you in the studio Chris and this didn't get mentioned on the show last week so if you only listen to the audio version of mobile show you don't know this but dan has grown an amazing beard in blades record it's really lush and its really lunch it's it still needs a little work I'm still in the you know looks like he's trying to grow a beard scruff scruff stage I think no it looks like the you know I'm a rugged like I might be a lumberjack kind of like you know like you don't know my story but like I'm definitely mysterious and right I really should have worn some flannel or but I guess that's a good luck well thank you oh ok sorry I hadn't mentioned that and now I have no transition but we got to talk about softbank basically whether they bought seventy percent of sprint defying okay so they're buying a seventy percent stake and what they're gonna do is they're gonna form a new company called new sprint it's going to all really creative name by the way that's they could come up with like this deal is surreal to me like I get that sprint like straight up knees capital because they're not building our LTE network as quickly as they need to right now in order to stay competitive so like I get that what I don't get is a softbank like me I mean I'm not very smart about Japanese carriers but I mean is it is you know sprint that good of an opportunity that they want to drop how much was it 600 no uh 12 billion yet you have to wonder why they didn't I mean I'm assuming that if they had gone to dt they probably could have like you know they probably could have talked about a deal for t-mobile USA yeah and so yeah you like I'm really curious about the specifics of the conversation that occurred between sprint and Softbank and whether softbank approached anyone else because I'm totally on board with you it's an interesting deal and I'm sure that there are you know softbank is a company you you know you look at their comments from the from the press conference and it's very very clear that this is a company that really wants to be recognized as like a global like they want to be the next vodafone right they want to have cousins on every continent and they want to grow aggressively they joked about like acquiring docomo at some point which I thought was was funny um and also like a really like you would never hear I don't think you would ever hear an American CEO joke about acquiring another company like because they just instantly get arrested by the SEC like just not allowed to do that so I thought that was funny but you it's an interesting deal i'll be very curious to see where this leads and it'll you know I mean sprint has been looking I love Dan Hesse dan has he's a great guy he's just like I don't know if he if he's actually an effective CEO or not but he he certainly he talks like he doesn't be asked like he doesn't like he's a very straight talker and I think that that's a very important quality for a CEO of a somewhat downtrodden company to have and I they've they've been in many cases over the past several years they've been a victim of circumstance and of course a victim of the terrible next I'll acquisition that almost deep-six the company altogether which dan has he was not a part of he came in after that deal was was finalized so maybe this is just the break that sprint needed to really finally turn their luck around for good we'll see yeah I mean it is a huge influx of cash and there's been a lot of a lot of analysis and speculation going on since then since this was announced or made official I guess you could say and you know it it was it's hard to see what sprint was doing was going to plan to do before as far as its LTE network rollout a lot of it seemed to still hinge on clearwire and you know relying on that that 2.5 gigahertz spectrum and it'll be interesting to see what sprint does with this money this newfound wealth that it has from softbank will it try to pursue purchasing 700 megahertz licenses which is essentially buying them from other carriers that are any on them or is it going to try and take that 2.5 gigahertz spectrum that it has access to that nobody else is really using and spending the the insane capital needs to turn that into an actual usable nationwide network so be interesting to see how sprint plays us out I think I really can't comment too much about how this is going to help softbank because I'm just not intimately aware of the Japanese carriers financial situations and things like that but you know I imagine they saw sprint as an opportunity to that is a company that's kind of been down on its luck but it has been sort of turning things around but it needed some help so and I guess off being saw an opportunity to make some money with it I really think it's just a prestige thing for them I really do but I like I said before I think they're they're hell-bent on becoming a global brand and sprint was a really like clear and present opportunity for them because this was a company that you know they've kind of been like looking to be acquire that you know it's it's readily apparent to anyone who's been paying any attention to this for the past probably two two and a half years that they've they've been dipping their toe in the acquisition water it's like they've definitely been open to discussions with people so that opportunity was there but yeah I mean like we were saying before why they didn't talk to or why they didn't end up acquiring t-mobile instead I don't know it's entirely possible they had those discussions and they ended up deciding that sprint was the better value I I don't know I just hope that sprint is able to use this money complete to beef up their LTE network and you know even though 3g network i would i would really like to see them compete and get on par with verizon and AT&T when it comes to having 4G LTE in the u.s. broadly and deeply with really good speeds because like I really think that more competition that space be great and you know Sprint's overall strategy of being the nice guy of offering unlimited data of you know being a nice guy letting Google exist on their network it's easy to be that when you're you know the loser but when you actually start competing if they can hang on to that nice guy philosophy I think really good for the market and we'll finally get press releases that have actual dates attached to when the LTE will be available so that's crazy talk dan don't don't get all crazy on me Sam is coming months stuff yeah do I talk about the galaxy s3 mini didn't we talk am I am I completely insane or did we talk about the galaxy s3 mini last week on the show yeah it was rumored we didn't have a phone right minh we show right before the actual announcement the decks it was the next day and the announcement fulfilled all of our concerns it solidified all of our worries in that this was going to be a total disappointment and yet another just run-of-the-mill mid-range smartphone that Samsung cranks out seemingly every other minute and and there's there's really nothing to get excited about here which is hugely disappointing because I think the whole industry was like it's got a galaxy s3 name in it it's going to be high powered but it'll still fit in my hand and you know it's it that's not the case in the least bit so here's what I think is going on with this device I I think that certain very influential European carriers went to Samsung and said hey guys we have a lot of customers who identify with the galaxy s brand and identify with Samsung and want to own a galaxy s3 but they're you know they're not quite their income wise you have this huge opportunity to range a device with us that keeps the galaxy s3 name but it's down spect and you know let's make this happen and Samsung you know as usual is like okay well good so I got all these galaxy s advance parts lying around yeah yeah so so I you know I don't think that they hesitate particularly because this is a somewhat limited release device I don't think that they hesitated to recycle the galaxy s name which is something that for the at least the past year and a half or two years they've kind of shied away from doing they've tried very hard i think to keep the galaxy s name at least focused on the high end product the galaxy is used everywhere like yes well that's their android brand i think tom warren actually sent his best he tweeted out that when samsung has done is the equivalent of taking an iphone 4 and branding it in iphone 5 mini it's totally bizarre like this should not be called an s3 I it's ridiculous right yeah I mean the only thing that it shares with it is its general shape everything else is different as far as the screen the camera the processor the internals a front to back are different and it it doesn't support LTE I would be shocked if we ever saw this thing in the US for that reason alone but you know it might pop up with a variation to carrier variation that has LTE for you know fifty or hundred bucks uh with some weird name that you know yeah yet another forgettable that's exactly it like this is going to end up being called like the galaxy conquest LTE fan and that might be a real product by the way I don't know and then it's going to lunch on sprint and like three people will buy it and like we might write a news post about we certainly aren't going to review it and no one will it like it will disappear in three months that is what was happening Samsung is control you with a girl yeah oh I'm telling you right now the mega mini mega mini we yeah we need to make mega happen that needs to take off wait I I'm looking up I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a galaxy con well there's a victory okay oh there's a android game called galactic conquest very close yeah I guess there's no okay so carriers there's an idea for you gal conquest I'll bet you there's a Galaxy victory there is on Sprint Galaxy victory 4g LTE or something like yes yes there is okay so conquest is pretty close to victory anyway um so let's talk a galaxy note 2 on sprint October 25th for 2 99 99 I be just there it is I what else you hey what else what what else you want to say it's common to spread its it's coming to sprint but so I actually just got my first opportunity to touch a note to last week i sat down with t-mobile and they showed me a note to and like it you can't appreciate in pictures how flipping day let's make like it is like it is hilariously large like well I don't have it here to show I guess other phones yeah it's gigantic it like in pictures it just looks like a galaxy s3 like oh whatever that looks pretty cool but no it's like it's huge but no do not be confused yeah this is a monstrous I mean and that's fine I mean like the Galaxy Note sold very well I'm sure the note 2 will as well but don't like don't buy it thinking that you're getting a galaxy s3 with like a couple extra tenths of an inch of screen real you're not you're getting like a small tablet yep in fact in glad through you he's like he aggressively refers to it as a tablet instead of talking about it as a phone or a phablet or whatever else you want to call it yeah right which-- which bothers me to no end because of the lack of actual tablet apps but I think I made that point last week so right why does God ask I'm how it does have the and it's got snow yeah excuse me so I snow is hey our question is the optimist views Penn called an L pen no it's called the rubber DM ok cuz it should be called an L it would be great if it was called an open yeah that's the one thing that LG has not latched onto is taking the el initial and just putting it in front of various name yes well they've got cute somebody in the mole show chat was referencing a rumor that they might do a cute voice or something to me ok no right hang on that's a thing q voice is a thing now intro yeah oh yeah create hey yes yes a back in July LG renames quick voice tool q voice with English version set for early next year perfect so boom so yeah the Q pen you have yeah this is great this is perfect yq word what like whatever I think it comes from the quick like they were like they're like we're gonna do a quick voice and then like oh wait no we don't need the rest of the UI CK just drop that link AQ voice and and makes perfect sense yeah and I guess the last thing is we speaking of like finally getting release dates and prices we've got the razr HD and razr HD Maxx October 18th in the US and it's 199 299 which I don't think those prices performant that's exactly what we expected yeah we call now they're sliding them into their price points yeah so yeah and and by the way the notion of paying a hundred extra dollars for the max is insane yeah you're paying 100 bucks more for battery life that's it which is like you know or it's insane but like why would you buy the other one and the same token yeah it's got internal memory all right dhoni matter does it so the max has more more internal storage is that what we're okay Oh double lke I see double the internal storage okay still it's 100 bucks but like then again why would you buy the other one is like on a two-year contract you know a hundred bucks to to you know make a big stink over a hundred bucks between a phone when you're paying you know two grand over to your contract is kind of like you might as well have that phone at least last all day you say that but it's like I really feel that I mean like think about any other product like there's a big difference between 199 to not like I get the logic that was spread over two years it's nothing but you think you have to think about it in terms of like I'm going into the into a store and spending either 200 or 300 dollars today right so that that's still I I think that for a lot of buyers that's still like a major factor you know it's for the same I mean like for the same reason that there's an iphone 16 32 and 64 me of course you'd like the 64 but I bet the 32 and 16 both out sell it oh yeah well the most best-selling one it's a 16 yeah and and fry it personally I can't bring myself to spend four hundred dollars for a phone on contract so yeah I guess that proves the point yeah yeah I used to go for the the 64 on the iphone and I used to care a lot about having a ton of internal storage I don't even know what I've got on my anymore cuz I don't care anymore because I don't load it up with me music I just use audio and I don't pay attention exactly I guess I'm to a point to point that makes sense but when you've got big big apps and big games if you want to have some like you're not going to go down to an eight gigabyte device yeah I've got 32 right so you you really want to have some space but it's not as big of a concern as it used to be that's for sure the only time where it's it's a problem for me because I I'm with you a hundred percent dieter I got the the 16 gig and didn't look back use mog exclusively for music now and in fact like I was only using like two gig of the internal storage the only problem is that that I can see is that if you're going like on an international flight or something and you want two or three movies to rent each one is between four and five gig so that's where you start to run into problems but otherwise this till I like there's no problem with this that was the exact reason that i bought the 16 gigabyte nexus 7 was because i was like i want to use this on movies or auntie on planes and i want to be able to watch you know one or two movies yeah that was the exact reason that yep can I point out two things three things I want to point out three things one skype is the worst and it switched my mic input to the wrong microphone randomly which is awesome too it's insanely hot in the verge West office and I don't know if I can handle it anymore but normally it's not insanely hot in the verge West office and if you want to work in the verge west office we just put up a job listing you're hiring out here re are you gonna hammer out I am gonna pass out I'm uh that would be very entertaining to do it during the that makes for drinky a nice uh you know book bookend to the opening where I you know pretended that I was it's like it's like where they're not forgeries in San Francisco again is that what's happening yeah it's that's I because we have crossed here New York this week like it is yeah it's 75 degrees right now and since I have to have everything all closed up here for the show it's probably like approaching 90 in the office so here's what happened somebody saw that you were about to die like they were watching the show like oh D der's about to die cuz it's really hot so we're gonna put his job on the board right now so ready replacement as soon as he dies that's that's what's going on here yeah um I'm not even gonna call attention to what's happening in the chat right now so okay RAZR MAXX HD like if you can spend the extra hundred bucks you should because I've held them both and unless you're actually holding them and feeling their weight if you're looking at it from more than a foot away you literally tell the difference like it is the the razr HD is not that thin and the razr HD max or is it magic maxx HD whatever is like a millimeter thicker it's barely thicker so uh you know despite you know the fact that it's a penthouse screen and you know a few other problems that I have with the software but not that many surprisingly it's not launching with jelly bean which is insane and annoying because Google owns this company I'm actually kind of like the idea of a phone that has literally 22 hours of talk time is pretty exciting for me because I'm iphone 5s LG the 1x the galaxy s3 if i push any of them a super hard I can't get through a day and the idea that I could just not care is pretty exciting like I'm imagining having this phone at CES and just not worrying about my battery life well to your point dieter uh you know wouldn't when the original RAZR MAXX came out and people would ask me I'm on Verizon what phone should I buy I don't want the iphone i want something with LTE i inevitably told them to buy the razr maxx because for an average user it provided a good enough experience and like i would not hear them complaining that the battery life was terrible like they would with any other phone and so I think that with the razr HD max is going to be a lot of the same all right where you know if if you want an android phone on verizon right now given what we know because we don't know exactly what nexus phones are going to come out or how they are going to perform you know the the HD Maxx is very tempting for them that you just don't have to worry about it if you want any phone on any carrier that's not the iphone you should wait for like a couple of weeks to so that we know exactly what's happening of Windows Phone we know what's happening with the Nexus you know because right now like there's there's some really good stuff that has been announced and that's coming out but there's stuff that might be better like significantly better that could be coming out relatively soon I I mean yeah you should not buy a phone today unless it's an iphone and that's what you really want pretty much period yeah and even even then you might want to just wait a couple weeks if you desperately can yeah you never know I mean I'd like maybe the galaxy s3 is still a safe recommendation as a solid aunt like if you absolutely had to buy an android phone today it would probably be the gs3 right yes if someone put a gun to my head it was like I'm walking you down to the store and you're buying an android phone it would be the gs3 that would be the weirdest hold up everybody I totally got about the PadFone yes like the rest of the world but it's the padfone 2 glad went and got a preview of it and it's like it's not bad right you know glad I think really likes this it's unfortunate that he's actually traveling back from the padfone 2 event any-any hasn't been yet been able to join us here but if you read his preview of the the device he actually really likes it he really likes the screen he says it's right up there with the 1x um you know as a phone he likes it I think he's still and he made this point that as a tablet uh and then eventually as a laptop it still got some really software issues and kinks that need to be worked out just like the original iPad phone did but if you're buying it just as a phone you're getting in the same quad-core chip that was in the Optimus G yeah a 13 megapixel camera again yeah the 720p display that is actually using sharps eggs Oh technology which is the first one of the first devices that we've seen to use it and then you know a really solid looking device it's super thin it's got a nice build quality so I mean there's a lot to like here what kind of bizarro world are we in now we're asus and LG are making phones with you know the latest processor that other guys don't have yet and incredibly good screens and decent software like I I'm really confused well what what was bizarre about it for so many years was that LG made somebody the screens and it couldn't put a good one bones right so now it's finally just like well we're gonna put them in our own phone but yeah as far as like a sous is concerned this is is not something I would have expected to see 18 months ago or even a year ago for that matter so so I I hate to be the yeah the wet blanket on this love parade for the padfone 2 and vlad could probably shoot me down here someone effectively but from the pictures that that he he posted it looks to me like there's just an enormous amount of black area below the screen I you know I thought the same thing to be honest with you when I saw the pictures yeah and above for that especially decide by sudden exit that way yeah from the front of the phone it looks like a mid-range device just because the screen looks very small relative to this to the outline of the device itself that's complaint number one complaint number two is that I still don't understand this concept like WTF like why why are we putting why are we putting phones in tablets when we can just have a phone and a tablet like no one has effectively explain I know you guys have tried it but I'm gonna try again okay because it just carries it carries your day the tablet it carries your dealer right tell me the tablet yeah yeah if you can tell the tablet for like a hundred bucks or like 75 no more tried to do that with the laptop and it like Phil as early I mean this is the lap doc idea right where you eventually get your phone all the way to a laptop and the phone is powering the whole shebang because it's got this really you know modern up-to-date processor but the software steps to get there don't exist really to make it a viable platform right yeah it's just it's it's so like so i think that the that shared data plans kind of alleviate some of what you were talking about dan like you know a year ago that may have been more true but now like if you're on a mobile share plan or whatever verizon's equivalent is called i can't remember then that that becomes less of an issue but then also some people say well you know you have the giant battery and the tablet that can power that can you know charge the phone yes that's true but they're also like a million other ways to charge your phone so i was thinking about mobile share over the weekend and i got really really angry did you start through why do I have yeah why do I have to pay an extra ten bucks to put another device on I'm mobile share plan or 20 bucks oh it's a great question Jeff just charge me for the data that i'm using like could you imagine if you had to pay comcast an extra ten bucks just to turn on another computer in your house well you know for to that point comcast will charge you more money if you want another cable box in your house but but it's their equip your rennet you're physically running above yeah that's a good point yeah um yeah I mean it's it's it's outrageous uh but so is a lot of what 18 teen tries to do so I mean well I mean nobody's doing it nobody's offering you know here's pay us 100 bucks month and we'll give you you know four gigs of data that you can use on whatever you want however you want like nobody's doing that I mean it's likely technically if you want to get really technical about it you can use that data wherever you want on 18t by moving the sim around which actually what they're trying to make they're trying to make difficult on you yeah I know I I have a forum post with that I actually have a statement from ATT I just haven't written it yet but provisioning phones in eighteen t is a huge pain now because you can't to have all the features on the iphone five work you need to be on a mobile share of a plan and you need to call them and have them provision it to the imei the unique identifier for the actual phone hardware so that mobile hotspot and FaceTime will work if you take that SIM card out and stick it in an android phone or I don't know a palm pre I mean whatever whatever other smartphone they use the data that you want a windows phone the phone calling will work with the data will not you need to call them and have it be provisioned off of the special iphone plan and on to the android or you know other generic data plan so that data will work there now let's play it's actually always been but what seemed and I thought it was dit was different before but 18t tells me it's not is if it's provisioned as a you know generic data device to Android Windows Phone whatever you use feel to stick it in an iphone and have those other features work but that's not the case now and then I guess it wasn't the case before so if you want a like officially sanctioned mobile hotspot on an iPhone in eighteen t you've got to be on an AT&T plan and if you want data to work at all on a non iphone smartphone you need to be provision there so what used to be really simple swim sim swapping is now you put the sim in you call AT&T you wait for 10 minutes you talk to somebody you say hey I'm in a different phone now provision me now like I'm all worked up about this but this is not a problem that 99% of people have but it's still like I mean they're not just one percenter problem there dieter that you write but it's it's the the principle behind it is you know ATT isn't treating their devices agnostic Lee it's you know you need to call them and get the provision for the specific data plan for the specific phone that you have and that's like it's in the same vein as why am I you know having to pay for each device going on you know my data bucket I get that there's a certain amount of load that goes on the network for having another device registered on it etc etc etc so like I know it's not going to change anytime soon especially because it's a big revenue stream but i want the carriers to be more like dumb pipes and i want them to treat the stuff that connects to their network equally and this is a tiny little step in the wrong direction yeah i mean it's it's really like just the carriers are fighting becoming that dumb pipe that you know we would like them to be and would hope eventually that they become but they're going to do everything they can to stop that from happening and having you requiring you to actually call them to interact with them to switch a device is just one more way to do that and the funny thing is that they carriers fight so hard to reduce the amount of time that customers need to spend on the phone with them like it I remember at mwc I had a discussion with oh the name of the company escapes me what what is the shoot what is the come all the way they made that hotspot thing that when you talk about no no that the the company that that got into hot water for transmitting all your co Carrier IQ Carrie I think right here your IQ so you know they're they're real business model is not being able to actually you know coming up with these metrics that carriers can use to like tweak service and like fixed hours that are performing optimally and this and that and the other thing and they were in the process of rolling out these new tools that were actually customer-facing tools so that a Kerry Wood roll these out to its customers and they would be able to log into like this portal and see all these stats on like how many dropped calls you've had and like why the calls were dropped things that like you know customers probably calling the customer service for all the time and it's just there's nothing that customer service can do is just it's kind of like wasting their time so that was carrier iqs proposition to carriers is give them access to this information they will they will call you less and carriers are always looking for ways self-help tools those sorts of things to make it so that you don't have to get in contact with them because that costs them money every time you do call them so here you have a very seemingly a really easy thing for them to say you know well we're just going to use one APN for all of our devices and then that way like we stay true to the spirit of GSM you can move your sim around just like you're supposed to be able to and what do you know we also don't get a we don't generate a support call like and instead they're you know they're they're throwing that advantage away just because they want to I mean I'm sure they have some technical some you know random technical reason why they're doing it this way but in reality let's be honest there's no reason that facetime over cellular can't run over the existing APN well i mean i would i would like to know how european carriers would handle it because that's a perfect example like yeah people can switch from an iphone to galaxy s3 as they want in the UK i highly doubt they have to call 02 to switch it over right um so yeah maybe there's a technical reason but does it really need to be a technical reason right and on that depressing note I have nothing else you guys there anything you guys want to add we won't talk about Isis I don't really want I mean adult you know it's coming finally maybe the logo looks like the nespresso logo but I already actually I don't think that's the ISIS logo that's just the that's the NFC logo that 18 he is using it's awful yeah I guess I'm just looking through our other news items for the week yeah oh you know what we should touch you guys are going to kill me for this but I do think we should touch briefly on the ipod touch review because okay um you know that there used to be this running joke that like a really really common like device combo for business people was a blackberry in one hand and ipod touch and the other or an ipod not not even an ipod touch but just an ipod of some sort and and I you know this is still I think a really compelling product for a lot of people who for one reason or in either front or another either want a non-iphone or need to have a non-iphone probably for business but still want you know still want access to all that iphone stuff and and this looks like a really sweet device i'm really excited that the bringing colors to it you know I I think it's incredible yeah yeah it's it's a gorgeous device and it's really well made and the it's like incredibly thin with insane how minute you can't like appreciate how thin it is until you actually hold it which is we say every single time but it's really that the truth here I think with the colors i think that Apple identified a target audience for this with that you know this is a huge device that teenagers love and parents love for teenagers because they don't have to pay for a data plan on it and they don't have to pay for another line on their cellular plan they can give the kid a prepaid phone take the school in emergencies and then their kid has all their games and apps and I message and everything on their ipod touch and I think these colors you know just speak to that as well that you know the kids will eat this up right so what makes what makes me wonder about the ipod touches why aren't we seeing these colors on the iphone and i think the answer is probably it's probably just like everything else bad that happens in the world is probably the carriers right i I don't think skills I don't I don't think it's the carriers because you die I think I think Apple would do it regardless if it wanted to not if they wanted to put colors on the iphone I think it would do it i don't think the carriers have that kind of clout over over apples design philosophy but yeah it's a good question as to why we don't see it in the iphone unless they're just trying to separate a premium versus a slightly less premium line but i think that the number of phones that they need to produce is huge and they want to bring costs down by from that volume and i think it's also multiple skews you know it's it's one thing to offer you know four different colors I best buy it's another thing to try and you know get verizon to have those color stocked in their stores it's it's a it's an entirely you know if you get you don't have the color you want at best buy it's out of stock you know whatever but if they don't of the color you want to verizon i mean you know the idea that they would have to stock all those different multiple models when these you know all these companies have done such a good job of minimizing the amount of inventory that they have to carry i think that it's you know it's possible but i think that they say of a ton of money by not doing it yeah both Apple and carriers that is very good point yes yeah yeah but it's kind of bad that I want a own an iPhone and I carry an iphone but I still want one of these ipod touches can you man can you imagine if the iphone 5 was the thickness in fact i can already tell you not the 5s but the iphone 6 they're gonna be like good news we made the iphone as thin as our old ipod touch now and and chris is just gonna die inside because he just really wanted more battery life yeah i mean like i would still rather have and I well maybe not now like now that I'm used to it but like a couple weeks ago I just wanted a phone that was the thickness of the 4s with more battery life and now they've gotten me used to the stupid 7th know like you know they're gonna keep making it then and I'll be like oh this is stupid then I'll use it for all be like oh this is actually pretty cool and then yeah you know like it's it's a vicious cycle anyway I'm just I'm I'm saying nothing of important we talk a little bit about the loop cuz I would kind of love the loop on my iPhone the way you would katha could be rad yeah I don't know let me sir a big deal man Oh in what circumstance just explain to me and under what circumstance you would use the loop you know what i would do is because the button depresses to go it's a push push button yeah i would just play with it all day long I would be sitting on my desk and I'd be like click click click click clack click click and that's probably the real reason that I wanted yeah that's fair that's that's totally fair yeah I'm just realizing looking at the bottom of the ipod touch here they physically can't make it much thinner because of the the diameter of the three a half millimeter jack they're almost getting to the point where they're they're hitting that limit and what really worries and st. Pat where they had like a jack that was like half rubber and half metal and then it could it could expand out when you plugged it in but it would reduce down to the thinner form factor I swear I saw patent from Apple on that like four years ago probably yeah one surprise me but but I can totally imagine apple just going with a proprietary I mean they basically went with a proprietary headphone jack with the first generation iphone for all practical purposes I could see them if at some point they decide they really need need to make like a four millimeter thick phone I could totally see them saying well we're just gonna have to go with a 1 millimeter wide jack and everyone's gonna or the you know they would eliminate the wire entirely and use some sort of wireless yeah yeah yeah they could use apt x or something but for build I'm just trying to think about that I would say that would be we got no laces Howard that came out last year in 2011 what did um the 3.5 cutting a 3.5 jack and half oh the the padding right yeah yeah okay so you're telling me is that this is going to happen pretty much that's a virgin mobile show everybody we want to thank you so much for watching or listening but preferably watching because the men in the studio are quite handsome if you want to email us you can it is mobile show at the verge calm if you want to follow us on Twitter you totally should i met back on chris's etsy power dan's at DC seifert spelled e I we are together at Virg and we'll be back next week hopefully we lose hopefully it was glad yeah who is vlad sabbath i believe on twitter and you should follow him too and we'll be happy to have him and goodbye thanks for watching thanks guys