Gadgetory

to the verge mobile show this is episode 51 for the week of jun 18 2013 i'm dan seifert I'm flats mo and i'm chris sigler and as you guys know if you can count that you didn't have to count to four because unfortunately deters not with us this week he is taking the week off to I don't know do better things what he wasn't he doesn't have let's be very clear he doesn't have a good excuse he was just like I'm just not gonna show up I mean that was am I am I wrong with that was the visit the email right he's just like I mean I don't like to talk about our internal communications you know on a public forum but yeah that's pretty much what he said yeah so listeners if you're not happy with this decision you go ahead and tweet it ed theatre and tell them that you're not happy tweet again i have to say i'm already dissatisfied with proceedings because then blew the date this is the week of the 17th platoon ah so I mean this is what happens you don't have user data and we're out of the bone zone let me for those of you who don't do podcasts or broadcasting very often we call it the cold open when you're just told to go and you're on a live show and you got to start talking and at least for most of us it's one of the hardest things to get right and I constantly screwed up I don't think I've gotten it right yet I really had to ruin it I work better with the hot open personally I'm like I'm like Bill Hader on SNL when he does his stuff on character did his stuff on character because he would crack up every single time he could knock it through it without failing and that's that's that's me on a much less funny level with uh well I i just want to point out one thing that is very near and dear to my heart about today's episode what makes it so very special this is episode 51 like dan mentioned my favorite van Halen album is 5150 which which I know is a controversial choice there's that's very very controversial yeah I mean a lot of you are not Sammy Hagar people I get it I get it that's not even van Halen Mets fan Hagar and I mean I don't want to get into it evolve quickly I will I will I will destroy you haha but I mean from beginning to end I celebrate that entire album don't get me wrong I don't have a prom with David Lee Roth but 5150 I do think is the peak of Van Halen's career and just point out chris is basically using today's podcast is a way to stimulate Twitter conversations nothing like that I like a little Twitter debate i can't i can't wait for the day David Lee Roth fanboys to just attack you on Twitter right now bring it out David Lee Roth fanboys exist on Twitter like is there a generation of people that are on Twitter that are like hardcore David Lee Roth fanboys that oh I think that he has fanboys and fangirls in every segment of the population I think that they're out there I think they exist I do I firmly believe that well all I can say is that I've never seen Sammy Hagar do a high kick like David Lee Roth well I I've never seen David Lee Roth know how to sing so you know six of one half dozen the other and now mobile technology on the verge mojo yes let's uh yeah we could talk about phones so why don't we jump right into today's news there was actually some faux news today huawei announced the Ascend p6 in london had a big event this is apparently the company's new flagship device um it's really thin it's yet another phone that claims to be the world's thinnest phone I feel like we hear this every month or so from a variety of companies claiming to be the world's thinnest or whatever um but you know in any case it's thin it's thinner than the iphone 5 or the galaxy s4 so that's always got that going for it um but it doesn't matter like i think dan I think I was airing this know as having this conversation with tom warren this morning about the fact that like this phone could have been two millimeters thick and like it wouldn't have any effect on the global distribution of the device i mean i understand that it's going to launch in europe is going to launch in asia but no forgiving two millimeters would method you're right hey yo you're right that night that might be a bit of an exaggeration I'm just like a display like a paper like like a display membrane is the entire phone yeah but it would be that as it may I mean we've heard since the p1 which correct me if I'm wrong was announced at CES 2012 we've been hearing Huawei say that they are going to start to be a really big deal in North America and it hasn't happened yet so we'll see well this is a couple of things to be said here now the first is that although you push it too far with two millimeters I absolutely agree that the measurement of this p6 it's called the p6 right uh yeah looks like it which is a really subtle way of evoking the fact that a six millimeters thick this is aaron from my london team he got ahold of it he's written up his hands on impressions on the verge calm which is on my website you can go and read and find out about it it's a words like legit yeah yeah and that joke is about two and a half years old came from josh Topolsky and i'll be rehashing it assists but here's the thing aaron has the perfect photo way he's got the p6 lined up with the iphone 5 they're basically sandwich together and you see them in it's like yes the iphone 5 is thicker but does it make any tangible difference whatsoever not at all and this weather is six millimeters or nine or ten millimeters doesn't really matter and the funny thing about the p6 is because it's so freaking linear on the side he doesn't have the curvatures or something like the windows phone 8x from HTC it actually doesn't seem like is that thin so Chloe has the numerical measurement in terms of thinness but thick of thongs feel thinner in the hand I think but how many thicker phones have beauty shot there you go I mean that's really well it's really the money shot with the p6 is the beauty shop owned yes that's right i mean i have to say Aaron did look a lot more beautiful when he when he turned two beauties no more red let's let's not let's not discredit Aaron he's a good-looking guy yes but you know you make up that that beauty shot mode and like boom you are at UH your monitor you're at David Beckham level and like right I mean you're ready for the runway you're ready to show off John Varvatos is fall winter 2013 collection is nicing Chrysler miss chrysler 200 that's Aaron is is in route to the runway as we speak no it's I mean look that this phone is is I think that this phone suffers from the exact same problem as the Xperia Z which by the way is a statement and Sony so needs mobile situation right now which we'll talk about in a little bit yes but the problem that they're suffering from is that if visa I don't think these companies have fully embraced the fact that it the spec pissing contest is quickly becoming irrelevant we've we've surpassed the point where even a mid-range phone is more than sufficient for any any platform and anything you possibly want to do on the phone so you know it six millimeters doesn't matter and there's nothing else that really makes this phone stand out in a meaningful way in a way that's going to bring people and caused him to button to choose this phone over say an HTC One or a galaxy s work the only thing that it could have going for it and you know we'll know this when it eventually is on shells is its cost while we could bring this at a much more attractive cost especially in the market said it plans to sell it in then say the higher end phones is essentially because underneath that six millimeter frame it's a nexus 4 right it's got a quad-core 1.5 gigahertz processor 720p display 2 gigs of RAM so it's it's it's last year's best specs but in 2013 so uh you know if we're always able to bring that cost now and then then I think that's really the only play that it can make here and that's a really good point in and I think that might be what ultimately continues to keep them out of the US market with their flagship devices is the fact that you know it's not difficult on promotion even even when a device like the HTC one or the galaxy s4 is first launched it's not difficult to find a promotion or you know trade deal or something where it's it's possible to get that device agency is selling the the galaxy s4 and the one and i think the z10 are all like 99 bucks now exactly exactly and if you trade in a phone brought you can probably get it within within spitting distance of free it's my guess so how do you like how do you sell any and because these are still subsidized on contract situations here on these carriers tmobile accepted how do you how do you promote a device that is anything less than that at that point like that the subsidy concept completely takes everyone outside of the game and obviously is a very very different story in in Europe and the rest of the world where they use a much more sane pricing model much more consumer-friendly under subject on the subject I think who are we announce something like 19 mobile partners across Europe or on the show with the region's blur for the launch but there's a much easier reason for why this why we 7 p-6 isn't going to make an a splash in the US and ice doesn't have LT right that's that's the one massive sacrifice in going for that six millimeter apparently I might have heard this song or saw this somewhere that LTE an LTE version is planned right like right but I mean I mean that's the point though isn't it mean we're gonna get around to talking about the Xperia Z but the this phone then you just said it has some specs of yesteryear and the LTE compatible version which for a lot of people is the dealmaker deal-breaker particularly for you guys in the US well for any carrier in the US any carrier that you know has a name in the u.s. is a deal-breaker if it doesn't have all to either not gonna carry it I think even I don't know if t-mobile's formally come out and said that yet but it really feels like if if a phone doesn't support t-mobile's LTE network especially on the high end it's just not even always time with it right yeah and then even in in the UK it's about to become a deal breaker right flat I mean uh within the next few months LT is gonna start to go live with carriers that aren't EE am I right or is that off baby yeah no no you're right right and I'm just kind of looking off to the side because i myself a forgotten about that is it's kind of like the summer this year in the UK you realize it's the middle of June and you're like what this should have been here already it's summer or LTE this stuff should be happening yeah and there's just no noise being made it's just really quiet and really slow I mean but by next year we should have the other networks in the game competing with EE and it they should be using better bands so the better building penetration and you'll be more reliable to you be something like the sort of thing that you guys get in New York where I know from our fellow colleagues you basically a better internet on your phones that I have at home I suppose you tell me where you are sure yeah yeah if you're in midtown Manhattan you are still getting crappy uh data speeds on your mobile device so right although I had to say I'm going to do this on Twitter earlier today 18t did something in chicago in the past few weeks that like completely fix their network issues here is the first time that I can remember in history where I've had nothing to complain about with the AT&T network in Chicago like it I have no data issues at any time of day or night I have no voice issues I don't know if they've just finally caught up with demand or what the story is there were some room there's some rumors going around that they added AWS that they originally said 700 only in in Chicago as in most markets and and I think they deployed AWS recently so that might have something to do with it I believe they they finished rollout of the Z power project which was the goal was to get get Chris to stop complaining about eighteen t in Chicago Oh actually actually guys I want to bring us back to the pricing thing because AT&T just recently announced the launch of something in a bundled something is a Samson yeah the galaxy tab eight-point you can get it for 199 if you in a bundle with a phone contract like the two-year thing um which to me is like a snooze fest because it's just another galaxy tab which isn't much used to people but but it's still interesting to me that companies haven't figured out a pricing model particularly for android tablets is like now that bundling it with things and a Canary's thing is in the UK samsung is doing a similar thing where if you get the galaxy s4 mini i think you get a free galaxy tab 2 or something like that so they're just kind of tossing these galaxy tabs out of people I mean that if you don't get the bundle I think with H&E the pricing it's like 399 for the tab 8 which is a competitive because if you compare that to say the ipad mini the ipad mini with LTE I think it's 430 now so or 460 excuse me so uh you know you are undercutting your competition a little bit there but the problem is that it's only available on TTT right I mean it just I don't know it's like we've had android tablets for at least a good three years by this point right uh when did the original tab come out was that doesn't work yeah i'm playing i'm thinking honeycomb like let's give Google break with the devices or honeycomb honeycomb was 2011 right um just kind of crazed me yeah I mean I I don't think I I think that that Google is a long way off from friend maybe I'm completely off base on this because I'll be honest I'm not a heavy tablet user at this point it's weird actually I I want to talk about this something happened in my life that I haven't been able to identify but something has happened that has caused me to not care about tablets and I used to use my iPad all the time and then I I have a nexus 7 for a while and use that all the time and then something happened that caused me to just completely cease caring about tablets whatsoever and I don't know if it's the way I use my phone or if it's the fact that I switch to an iphone 5 or what it is but something happened where I they're just not a part of my life anymore well clearly it was the extra half-inch of screen space on your iPhone 5 it made all be different totally stepped all over the you know need of a tablet it's its powers personally uh you know I love I carry phones all the time obviously and I have I / I have a nexus 7 right now but as far as tablets are concerned I think that if you if someone would have gun to my head and said you can't use this piece of technology anymore the first thing I'd give up is my tablet and like I use it here and there to do some reading and I use as an alarm clock and when I'm on a plane I use it to watch movies ah but anything else I can do I it overlaps completely with everything my smartphone does and send smartphones and screens that are four and a half to five inches now uh you know I'm perfectly comfortable reading something on on my smartphone or watching a video on my smartphone as well so I am scrambling to think of something less useful than a tablet in terms of technology yeah if somebody gives you the same challenge as you then but you know you were being facetious about the idea that the iphone 5 with a bigger screen is kind of making the tablet superfluous but I'm kind of the same way as Chris it's weird because the one big usage scenario we tablets is actually the underrated period of lounging weather on a couch or in a bed or something like that and I'm finding the same thing I guess is Chris which is that in those situations I'll just pick it up the iphone 5 and I'm comfortable with it I'll content with that I don't need it to be a massive screen and particularly 10-inch tablets like the original iPad just who ungainly now and that was like if I'm going to use a tablet it would have to be an iPad Mini or something of that form factor and let's not overlook the fact you talk about using it in bed and the bed usage scenario that the the full-size iPad is a health hazard because you're going to drop it on your face we've all done it there's no shame we've all done it I and and I can tell you from personal experience I've mention this before the iPad Mini is considerably less painful to drop on your face than a full-size iPad and the iPhone 5 is like you know you drop it on my face all I want doesn't really matter if it really weighs anything so from the face dropping perspective I'll take a phone / tablet Wow I mean that is real consumer advisory I don't want to totally disparage tablets and say like they should be like taken off the market because there are people who that is what he's saying then but yeah it is what I'm saying you know I'm not saying I'm just saying but you know there are people who really love their tablets as their mobile productive thing they've got one of those keyboard cases that they snap on their iPad and like that's their mobile computer but for me and I know for all of us you know we have a laptop that we use for all of our like heavy mobile computing needs uh and I don't at least for me a tablet doesn't cut it doesn't replace that even with a key yeah i mean that's actually really good point because at the airport just yesterday i saw somebody doing exactly that using the 10 inch ipad with keyboard attachment and i was thinking well dad has its benefits because you can tuck it into a lot more compact bags than a regular laptop and there's also the extensive better life you know usually usually your laptop wouldn't be able to stretch as long as an ipad particularly for that sort of form factor but then Apple just introduced the new macbook airs and Neil I reviewed the 13-inch and he's like yeah I don't have enough things to do with so many hours of battery life right so a blue is kind of eating its own tablet market via both the laptop side and the phone side I guess well but lately I don't know that the ipad falls in a nice price point yeah yeah no I'm with the Medicare I mean just just working with what i just said myself the fact that matter is i think we're kind of a not the regular customer because when you when you look at the actual sales the biggest driver for revenues right now for i push through the ipad right biggest growth sectors to the ipad so people buying these things up and still using them in some sort of fashion it's just kind of a mystery to us just to clarify my point earlier but the galaxy s4 mini that's up for pre-order on phones for you in the UK and that's where you get the galaxy tab 2 for free it is impossible for me to express how little I care about the galaxy s4 mini the galaxy s4 mini is ultimate trol to all of us journalists who have been complaining for years about big size phones and wanting a small phone will give you a small phone here you go but they did the same thing with s3 so we kind of knew this was coming and we felt good okay but you know what I am 100-percent onboard you guys totally agree but I can't even get angry about it because there's a galaxy s4 zoom which is another total trove it's it's like the companies taking all of these good ideas and just completely butchering them and destroying the whole premise of why those things are good ideas but here's the thing that the difference with the zoom though is that I think that's a case that's classic Samsung being Samsung where they were like you know what we can do this so why not whereas with with the mini it's it's like they could make a good small phone but they didn't the zoom is like a pure like Yolo type of product you know like it sure you know maybe nobody can or should already see me maybe nobody should buy it or will buy it but ok I mean it's it's Samsung like once you get above middle management no one even knows this product was being made no they're just making so many products but with the mini it's like I feel like it philosophically it's a slightly different situation do you think that's actually the case I kind of and wanting to believe that like there are Samsung execs is so high up they might just walk into a store and be like oh we do this I do I believe i 100% believe especially when you start to talk about like special versions of galaxies that are made for like prepaid carriers in the US oh yeah like they just announced one this morning what was it called dan you probably know oh yeah that's like is like the galaxy II to exit the ring there's a game really that's what it was get us a ring yet and it's like yeah just it's like the epitome of cranking them out off of the conveyor belt type of of Samsung device yeah but you have to make galaxy tube is a pretty good name for a phone like it or they stole galaxy mega from you so yeah it now watch galaxy two is gonna be next they're gonna do like a video / like you know streaming television focused phone and this can be called galaxy tube mark my words it's gonna happen it's ok Samsung keep stealing my ideas that's fine so with the galaxy zoom I just pictured this like some high-up executive had a fascinating revelation like at 11pm at night and you know he was like we should put a really great camera on a smartphone with like a zoom lens and he fired off an email from his like note 8 and sent it down and then like some poor product manager was tasked with making this happen and like that was the last oversight and it just like went into production from there yeah sounds about right all i can think of right now is that 11pm notification that the poor engineer received 11pm you trying to kick back relax with some Korean TVs you see what's happening with Sian is Gangnam style still thing and all of a sudden your phone starts whistling at you it's like no I love how you say whistling too because it's exactly what a samsung phone does it whistles at you yeah I really again I have to reiterate the thing I said last week I don't hate Samsung at all but it's just that particular notification is so freaking annoying for it to become just this widespread popular default notification is one of the atrocities of our industry dieter loves and you need to be stopped dieter will defend it to to his dying breath Peter loves that notification it has an orange iphone I don't think he's qualified to judge the truth comes out why does not like a deters orange I I don't like every dealer is not here to defend his port orange iphone no reason so while we're on samsung i get came out this week that the s4 active is coming to ATT which I find super interesting because it's like kind of maybe a better built galaxy s4 that's also water resistant b2b I mean j-just just by virtue of making a water resistant as you say you should gain in terms of durability for the fully entire phone to that point Samsung is holding some sort of pseudo mysterious jun 24 then we're at least us Londoners should be able to get ahold of yes for active and then we can report to you guys and tell you how Samsung should have made that the galaxy s4 and stop fiddling about with all these varieties and isn't isn't the rumor for this London event some crazy interchangeable lens camera that's powered by Android nothing crazy about it understands the rumor is a galaxy NX but the thing is Samsung's NX series is well established the mirrorless camera range they're doing their own lenses which is really the thing that's holding them back cycler yeah I'm going to rely on something to build out a range of super excellent lenses and then invest myself in them and by like five of them you're just not going to happen no it's like maybe Sony with the next series canonical an obvious ones but Samsung do its own lenses it's all its own everything with the NEX series it's just kind of a dicey proposition and they have a proof I mean they do the biggest synthesizes they do aps-c cameras exercises just like Sony with the NEX series for mirrorless cameras which is totally a good thing is the best thing about these cameras and now they're gonna presumably combine it with Android at least a software hopefully this one doesn't come with a freaking earpiece on it come on please but it's really just going to be an NX camera with Android slapped on it and it's going to plug into that ecosystem which I consider a weak one I don't really see it growing into a legitimate one before we come up with whole new camera form factors acknowledges etc I mean yeah the shoes exciting but doesn't feel like it the zoom has not been announced for any US carriers right I don't believe so so mark my words Samsung will release a version of the zoom without an earpiece for verizon and/or AT&T yeah that's very likely I if it comes to us I was how it's going that's how it's going to come to us but remember so i had heard this is about a month ago a good source of mine a good samsung source of mine told me very mysteriously without elaborating that he said for this June twentieth event galaxy is not just about phones and tablets and and when I pressed him on it he kind of insinuated that it would not be a SmartWatch so that leaves I mean cameras is one of the very few categories that he could be referring to I'm sure it's not PMPs um so yeah it makes total sense that this would be some crazy new camera that is not the zoom I guess since that was already noticed yeah yeah the other thing is for that event is the Samsung promised some from their teeth brand which is their windows / windows phone range and the presumption is it's kind of early when you windows devices well early I don't know but it seems like Microsoft to go to make a big push a build which is like a week away so and that's where Samsung might want to introduce new windows laptops tablets whatever so it kind of seems like we might get a new windows phone out of Samson coming up on this plane give it given the windows phones we've seen from Samsung color me not very excited again it should be exciting like I think this galaxy NX camera is should be exciting but it just you look at it and you think it's not going to turn into something that people are going to love and get years and years of service Adam it's just going to be commodity product again it's part of Samsung's throw everything in the wall see what sticks approach which is how we got the galaxy note so yes there's some success there as faces against you know was a product a lot of focus group research but then I presume that the Kin was a lot of focus group research as well you know well actually let's let's talk let's teach or to the kin really quickly because I feel like mens rea this has been in my twitter feed for the past week because there was this website last week that was selling the refurbished kin one for like twenty five dollars so so much everyone bought them up uh and and you know people have been getting them in and they've been playing with him and they're like I don't remember the kin being like I remember the King being much worse than this or I don't remember the kid being this good of a phone and and I think the point is that the kin was never a bad phone on its own it was just priced out of oblivion it was it was marketed towards a younger kid who you know his parents have to pour his or her parents have to pay the phone bill uh but verizon insisted that it be Pat paired with a thirty dollar a month day to play at the time and like that just instantly nerfed it but otherwise you know it's a cool little phone right am I crazy i I've wanted nothing gauges being nostalgic so the kin one form factor is the bomb.com and I there's no disputing that but the kin to never excited me but the kid one form factor is awesome also wasn't the kin like basically the only phone to launch with tegra take her one that is take everyone Wow and too far back me to a cool damn it Dan you want to be a one well I'm gonna blow up tom warren spot because this is actually Tom Warren skin that he had me buy for him because he was in the UK uh-uh but yeah I mean look how cool this form factor was it it's like it's not I i have i also own a pixie or i mean a beer and yeah you know it's it's the same ideas of ear but it's not so microscopically small that it's it's unusable like this keyboard is actually a decent sized for your thumb if you have yeah I mean I mean what I'm seeing right now is literal rerun of Dita hold up is very good news nice so purple shade thin things I Tom because this is not mine um I haven't even power design I'm letting I'm letting Tom Tom enjoy that I think the the market for pebble shade cute little phones like there is just just severely answer we obviously in love with him we need somebody to come back and actually deliver something on this form factor no one obviously when I was saying online before is that if I don't care about the cdma kin but i would buy a gsm can in a heartbeat and the promise that they were never released at their very hard to come by yeah I mean well they were they were a few of them showed up on ebay right for like ungodly sums of money right well there was a but you know what I was thinking is with that kind of a form factor you could squeeze in a really chunky camera sensor just because it's supposed to be pebble shaped you know so if you if you decide as far as your design is concerned you don't care about thickness you go for a nice pillow shape to use my key terminology then you can squeeze it a massive camera sensor a day and I mean imagine that imagine some sort of a mix between the kin the veer and nokia's pureview camera technology oh I smaller transition I smell so evident in that every sleazy mana where you can tell is happening but we're not talking about it because it would embarrass about so the flat did you know that that Nokia hadn't announcement this past week that it's going to have a nice revenge in New York City is a lie and it annoys us to zoom in yeah well I looked up freaking flight prices and it's like you know you could put down a deposit for a house for how much it would cost for me to come out for that event I really enjoyed our cave any of those guys that you try really hard you know it it's like they're fun they're fun of it so why so so yeah let's at least say what this event is we got an invite this past week from nokia for an event in july that in the only thing it says is like come watch us reinvent zoom but you know the writing between the words say that this is very likely going to be the fabled Windows Phone device that has an actual proper PureView camera like the original 808 PureView it code name is cos we've heard about it a bunch Tom Warren has written a ton about it its leader sighs we've seen it uh you know and and and Nokia's PR team on twitter has not been shy in or not been aggressive and denying that this is going to be the the PureView Windows Phone in fact it's they've been pretty uh pretty almost open about that this is what this is for this event so and you know what you know that that's actually annoying because when I did when I lost interview see your new york i was like give us a hint for this thing here's just like no we're not talking about it we're talking about edit and then things you start leaking now and then even the PR people kind of making jokes about it themselves because it's I mean let's face it the jo harlow i think it was the previous IAM that we see not this year in fact we're saying we're going to bring p of you yeah but he says it previous year's MWC way back in February we're gonna bring the PV technologies to Windows Phone then there was the let down with the Lumia 920 because it was like yeah you're calling it pew of you but it isn't the same technology at all and now finally you know second i'm a long time and i don't really know why second in this long because it's just software either the tweaking way when you look at this a two-way p of you running Windows Phone which essentially talking about it looks to have more or less the same factor its kind of slimmer so you kind of presume technology cajon shrunken down a bit but other than that is really just software that seems to have held this thing back but still it's exciting it's I am probably going to put this in my or pro my phone my mouth here but this has been been rumored to come to 280 and if AT&T does in fact announce this and release this and put it at a competitive price I might have to buy it like I wanted an actual phone that I could use as a smartphone with a PureView camera since I touched a pier view year and a half ago like in the quality i know chris is shaking his head right now and like like the quality of the camera is like so insane but like when you had the 808 PureView it was carrying a proper smartphone and then carrying the PureView because like the PureView was right a point shoot camera I mean listen be too you know osun be too full of praise for windows phone but the fact of the matter is that platform lets you check your email it lets you find when I how you are on the matters unless you have flown in their browser yeah yes you can actually post an image to facebook yes I these are all just really fantastic thoroughly modern capabilities this is not damning with faint praise at all this is very this is genuinely impressive look I mean is a true that the 41 make here oh god where do I start the camera is yes it's good uh but I'm sure it will be good but like who cares like I don't know any simpler way to say that like at the end of the day you're still and and I think that people have pointed out that it appears to be as then or possibly even thinner than the 920 which is cool but it's that would be insane if it actually happens like that means and when you look at how big the 808 is because of how much room was needed for the lens if they're able to bring that down in size to something that's even as thin as the 920 right that's pretty incredible but but the fact is you no one is buying a phone to be like a cam they're not going into the store saying I need a camera and it'd be cool for made calls to like no one is thinking of it that way and so when you when you walk into this store a device like the one or the GS for the iphone 5 takes great pics cheers and the the difference in quality between an iphone 5 or a gs4 and and I'm sayin curse you was it and a trooper say you going to say to the difference is small it's not it's really not it's like not even close especially unlike the video front no no no the point I'm trying to make though is that the difference between those two is not what selling phones no yeah so I I don't think I mean it's it's cool that they're getting this point they said they would in its and I think that it's a really important thing we're no cuter do because it is a core differentiator for them but I don't I I just don't want anyone to be under the impression that this device is a savior in any way because it's not no no no I mean I wouldn't definitely not go that far I mean okies financial situation is far too severe for one successful phone to turn it all around but you know it's about freaking time the Nokia did have one successful phone talk about price well I mean we say this all the time and you know we might as well just say right here right now we have the Lumia 925 review go up this past week as well and it's like Nokia makes great Hardware in great phones but that's not what's holding these phones back right it's you know it's unfortunate to say but it's still the Windows Phone platform that has not changed not evolved since it was introduced in October of last year um and it still has the same complaints in the same situations that we were complaining about in October which we were also complaining about a year earlier with Windows Phone 7.5 uh it's still the same thing that's that's preventing these phones from taking off as as much as they should and uh you know Chris and I have said this before and and Tom agrees with us as well I think in his review that the hardware on the 925 is fantastic its head and it's slim it's good to look at it feels great to use the screen is really nice and bright and sharp and everything that you could ask for but it's unfortunate that Windows Phone is is the one that's holding it back and that's not something Nokia's really at least at to this point we haven't seen nokia able to change that see I actually would the 925 for for whatever reason excites me way more than uh than this PureView device I don't know why may I maybe it's just that I really like the design of it when I felt it but yeah I mean if I'm if I'm going to buy Windows Phone device in this next round of hardware it's going to be this one I think well just to counter that point Chris I think if if Nokia delivers exactly what we expect and hope from it which is a slimmer a two-way p of you running Windows Phone and you know has all the other good aspects about you know good battery life strong people quality etc etc kind of the automatic things you expect to knock its take care of the physical details that gives nokia device that is pretty much unique and it's deal with industry cliche of having a unique selling point everybody wants one everybody has on its list of strategies which are actually kind of more wish lists is like let's have a USP let's say five USP so we I think then that's how Samsung approaches things like when I have five different made-up nonsensical gimmicks AKA usps we're not gonna sell this thing but we will knock it with this device it would be a unique device here we would have a unique selling point and and then it will be the case that if somebody asked me okay I want the best camera on a phone what should I get and then it's really easy you know because windows phone as we were saying it has its ups and downs plus and minuses but it is a modern operating system and you know you can trust it to serve the basic needs of somebody so you can't say to people automatically get the 808 PureView lumia windows phone whatever is called and and that is the thing that should be able to drive more sales for nokia the 925 the trouble with it is that it's it's good but it competes with everybody else in in in the mainstream you know whereas I think Nokia kicking out of the mainstream doing its own unique device it was going to be more positive camera I I think I think just to add on Vlad's point like the prior windows phone devices the 9 29 28 etc people weren't looking at those and being like man I really want on a Windows Phone device but you know this hardware is not pretty enough for this hardware is not thin enough uh you know and now that the 925 is out it's it's great Hardware it looks great but it's also up against the iphone 5 which is great hardware the HTC One which is great hardware both of which are paired with great ecosystems and great platforms where the 925 is still doing the same thing at least with the the PureView model when that comes out at least has its own special thing that separates it from the prior windows phone devices and separates it from the other phones that are on the market right that's exactly that's it at the point is the 925 is just an incremental upgrade on the same experience that people weren't buying already whereas this camera based phone can give them something new and different and special and it will probably allow them to take some amazing self portraits I just imagine a 13 megapixel self-portrait dinnerwire use selfies in its PR today I think I think while we actually use the word selfies in its POS edge and elegance that is well ways tagline for this new phone it's it's just like let's randomly pluck words out of the dictionary and let's let it move away from the e just you know ok I'm on de comment below to this through the rest of the pages as an elegant steger alliteration boom we're done and I don't know what to say yeah well I can tell you that Sony went all the way to the end of the alphabet for the name of its Xperia Z which is finally coming to t-mobile and now that was it that was a dieta class terrible dragon this is one of the Ford where worst forced segways every but yeah t-mobile finally announced today that its t-mobile us i should say finally announced that it's going to be carrying the Sony Xperia Z in the coming weeks we don't know the exact date we don't know the price yet um but we know it's officially coming and III know I've been tweeting it I've been tweeting about this today and I don't think a lot of people understood what I was saying when I might when I was tweeting so I'll say here sony showed off the xperia z at CES this year which was in january the beginning of january and then it launched it internationally in February we had a review up by early March so it was it was it's been a long time since we saw the Xperia Z introduced and now we're fine it's finally coming to a US carrier uh in the US market and it just feels so past its point of relevance um and you know it's just like I can't I can't picture sony selling even a handful of these Chris do you have any thoughts on this hold on i'm digging up an image that i need to send to dan to visually Express when I'm feeling about this phone right now I've been working as I was hoping it would be ready by the time you guys were done talking but it isn't it so are you talking about it so so back so had said Sony gotten together with t-mobile and launched this back in February and even if Sony was only able to score deal with t-mobile and forget about 80 and forget about sprint and all the other ones uh it if at launch in February it would have been on the shelf with the galaxy s 3 and the Galaxy Note 2 and I something else on tmobile but it would not have been against the iphone 5 it would not have been against the HTC One and when not a bet against the galaxy s4 which is what it's all facing now ah now that it's launching here mid summer or whatever it end abduct hitting shells all of which are more compelling devices so I mean sony completely for whatever reason whether it was supply issues or just couldn't work out the carrier deal it's like it was like totally shot in the foot yeah yes yeah that's good I was just gonna say that the gal it had it not been for the galaxy s4 active would have been a much more compelling device yeah I mean it has the walls for future but but I mean you you being a bit too forgiving what can say thinking back to that buri time period i mentioned it's a case of when the HC one was announced with smaller screen but the same 1080p resolution it was like one of the huge selling point because let's not forget CES was the the time with the experience he had the advantage and everybody at least in terms of being an announced product but 1080 display it's the only phone that I could think of that was actually announced to see yes so yeah a phone news that was the phone news from CES and in the trouble is that by mwc in the last half of februari everybody was catching up you had the upper 55 there was the city something something I mean there's just basically that's the way I feel about every ZTE product by the way it's a ZTE something something yeah I mean by by mwz we're talking about a class a group of five inch 1080p phones it was becoming mainstream is becoming commonplace which is kind of crazy to me because you know we see only five months for me from that point in time which to most people who come to that again most people not most of our listeners or viewers you come to think about therefore when upgrading it maybe once or twice a year it seems like a really fast period of time but yeah you know that doesn't doesn't think what else is when you do come to look at it you look at the very latest you don't look at who had the advanced you don't look at who came to market first I think like what was saying like window key did it's a snarky PR about Apple and iOS 7 and say well we feel I was probably was really Oh finally finally catches on that nokia music yeah that was facing tells thing who the hell cares if i go to the shop tomorrow that nokia music was out in 2011 and apple was just introducing it it doesn't matter the better one moose out today right and Sony had waterproof 1080p phone with really cutting-edge design like I don't think the economics on that phone anything great don't recommend it to most people but in terms of just good frickin looks it's one of the prettiest phones around and I've written three thousand words about I wrote the review for us so if anybody cares to learn more about it go ahead and read that free muffled review whose age pretty much tells you all you need to know about sony strategy which is so freaking frustrating because i love that company I love the ps4 actually like I'm really excited to buy that new console but you know this is a hilarious thing when they announced the ps4 one of the leading press images with a ps4 right next to PS vita extra tablet Z and Xperia Z and I thought why are you doing this here so the ps4 I she has a chance to succeed why associated with these failures man seriously I'm loading up your xperia z review because if i remember correctly you had one of the best lines i've ever read in any piece ever in there i'm trying to find it it's a pro quo it's in big orange text like I know exactly exactly what line your friend confirmation from the Maffei trucking book yeah be rocking black yeah absolutely brilliant absolutely brilliant Bravo you had a good speaker on it yeah I I born I mean that that may be true but I would doubt that this was before you got your hands on the on the one right yeah I don't think the HD one has a good speaker and I think it has a what are you high instructive one every case an overpowered one and look man I'm a man of subtlety where's easy one is like the woods big is like the best speaker I've ever heard on a mobile device like that's hands down without a question like you know you could talk about how great the screen is in the build quality and stuff but like the speaker is like above and beyond or speakers I should sakes it's tonight yeah you know you could replace like a jam box with an HTC One totally you know I can I have it next to my my macbook air at times and like if I was playing the same content through them the one could most cases i think overpower the air speakers which is like a lot a much larger laptop versus a mobile device yeah yeah just peek or in the air isn't that big I mean I'm just thinking it it's like it's does the other thing tell me something how the hell is Apple over to improve in a macbook air design when you think about I can tell you how it can get rid of this freaking three-quarters of an inch bezel around my screen by either putting a bigger screen in it or making the holes things footprints more wow you so demanding I thought about this but well because I thought about it too and I the only thing I thought is like it's built like a freaking tank it's as thin as a paper pad you can't really make it any thinner and do include computer components in it uh Apple I don't think apples got a photo redesigning this form factor ever well I mean obviously apple doesn't find much wrong with it because it's it's held the same design for three years now so yeah yeah but I mean think of how long it it had the pre unibody macbook pro design I mean that it carried that design on for a long long time and I mean I think that will continue to see this design until week down like one year at will have a completely different macbook air and we'll just deal with it you know but really I want I want a thinner bezel like that that's my my one gripe with the airs design otherwise you know it's chris what's going to happen Apple is going to come out with a plastic macbook air and they're gonna be like you know we have this revolutionary new like you know polycarbonate dominance and and it's like you know it's thirty percent lighter than aluminum and it's twice as strong and it's scratch resistant and we just blew your mind that's exactly what's gonna happen if Apple does that Odin again fanboys I'm gonna be like it says incredible it's incredible and then Tim Cook is gonna say incredible like 500 times if you guys haven't if you guys didn't catch for last week's on the verge opposite we we had a super of all of the superlatives that Apple use during its keynote at WWDC and like Tim Cook says incredible no joke like four dozen times it's great you should find it on well there's a lot of incredible stuff during WWDC let's be on credible incredibly incredible and then it will all be sort of capped off by a really touching video featuring Johnny I've where he's going like this yes yeah exactly where he's against a white background and he's wearing a black v neck he's dressed like Dom Toretto and he's like yes he's dresses they will did she hear he's actually going to be he's going to be the the next member of the the heist true in fast eight so would be good be I look forward to hearing about this on the next fast cast yeah hey while we're talking about Apple I think we will talk about one more topic today there's this rumor from Reuters this past week that Apple is considering quote a 5.7 inch iphone and then the regurgitation of the rumor of a cheaper iPhone in several colors so we've kind of been hearing all year so this is completely not the news to me wait so Reuters a rumor a 5.7 inch iPhone and Apple is actually go to call it an iphone this is what the rumor said they're considering it now the thing with considering is like a lot of people take that as like you know they're making it you know Apple considers things all the time right like they consider doing this and they consider trying that and every company does this a they it's a called rd and they test the tons of things the fact I mean this doesn't mean that it's ever going to come production but right yeah that's exactly right I mean it we've heard countless stories over the past ten years of Apple trying things out internally and shelving them in fact iOS started as a tablet OS right and then they ended up making the phone first and then revisiting the tablet several years later I this means nothing until there's a product on on shelves or at least next as far as I'm concerned right especially now I'm to import it just seems like a really weird that's basically Samsung made by taking this thing was knock out the same song would be like oh yeah they're gonna do it like this is gonna be a real product it's got a house in a week and what underscores the fact I mean look there there are two things that that happen right one is that Apple wants information to get out so they leak it to somebody to is that there's information that may or may not be correct that's just a pure rumor and I think this falls into the latter khattak reuters has a track record of leaking information fed to them by Apple so but roids is has a track record of accuracy I mean it's not perfect writers has a track record of being Reuters yeah well yeah we yeah we don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole but the point is I i think that i would put much more weight into this if it had come from The Wall Street Journal I would set you The Wall Street Journal women Bloomberg because I haven't seen Bloomberg room or something well have never really half of this rumor of the the lower cost model the iphone the wall street journal's talked about a bunch of times and I you know this is just yet another big source that's saying that you know we're going to see a lower-cost iPhone modes I I still don't see that making any sense whatsoever because like I don't see the 5.7 inch of ice making any sense that I don't see the cheaper device make an innocent so I disagree the only place that the cheaper device makes sense to me and that's in emerging markets like obviously they're not going to release a cheaper device in the US or the UK or establish markets where they're selling the iphone four for free on contract or yeah well make some time prepaid to write because even an iphone 4 if you get it from like Virgin Mobile I think God's like 400 bucks or something right its aim price so and in emerging markets where that are much more price sensitive they don't have you know this exact same thing that we were saying with Huawei earlier you know in the areas where you know they don't do contracts all the time and people are having to pay up front hundreds of euros or hundreds dollars for a phone um you know the cost of the iphone 4 is still very high okay okay i mean i can see that like I can't dismiss that it's a it's a good premise but what I was going to say is that Apple is a company that's shown itself comfortable to have major gaps between these products major differentiation between its products so you know filling in the gap between the ipad mini and the iphone with a 5.7 inch device doesn't make sense filling in the gap between the ipod touch which is essentially i mean people said it before I'm not the first one to say it say it the ipod touch is essentially apples entry-level iphone a cheaper iPhone is the same thing at the moment it has a much better form factor and it feels so much nicer in the hand it just doesn't have the set of capabilities but then the camera's not as good but you know right put it there and now there's the camera free version 2 to get into the cheaper version to cheaper market which actually appeals to me I like the idea of how the device without a camera instead of having a crap camera but you know your promise the sound because people in these developing markets would see a lot more attraction like they can't afford to buy the proper iphone but you can see a lot more attraction to an ipod touch with seller capabilities and with them you don't need to have LTE right so you can you can do it relatively cheaply and then overcharge them which is or less what I point everybody else does anyway so that makes sense section make sense but the thing about the wall street journal I haven't been able to pick up a physical copy of that paper without finding a typo on his front page for the past four or five times it's pretty disappointing I had to had to get it out it is disappointing but I don't want to be the one to throw rocks at a glass house no glad there's some wine and also physical paper so but we don't realize is that color is actually spelled co lor there is no you and an aluminum doesn't have a mysterious extra i see i was wondering right because there's all these reports about you know afghanistan its neighboring countries and i think one of these guys will learn yeah there's a you in there yes they're they're hiring these two big copy editors you don't understand the Queen's English so uh you guys want to talk about sprint dish Clearwire's oh I had one more point I have to go ahead what I have to offer up a counter argument with the iphone stuff and this is purely theoretical but if Apple does a 5.7 inch device of any kind I think the primary reason would be the day managed to nail down and get exclusive access on some really sexy high res display like that would be my theory if Apple does a particular weird form factor like that even because in a old high res display and it can pitch people on a Retina Display of some sort and again have the tech lead on others that's just thing that comes to mind maybe I don't know I don't want to carry a 5.7 I don't know yeah I don't know ik my uh upstream supply chain sources aren't what they used to be let's guys go go move downstream yeah I think that's a wrap unless you guys want to talk about sprint ditions near wiring the neverending story never ending so proper that is between those that I like I'm dying to know when it is that 2.6 gigahertz became like pure gold to every company in the world it's like I I don't understand why clearwire is suddenly the holy grail in the wireless industry that's not it's it's it's sprint in dish right like right yeah haizen doesn't care right it's a good sir yeah it's a strategic pawn for these companies and I I think the dish is sorely mistaken if it if it thinks that it seriously wants to get into the wireless business spectrum co tried and exited for for you know the same like all the right reasons the fact that they you know they bottled the spectrum they're like oh wait starting the wireless companies actually insanely difficult and it's a bureaucratic nightmare and this was a huge mistake a source cannot load all our spectrum so so we're gonna stick with our another beer cut nightmare of cable TV service like this blows your mind that that was an easier route proposition right so I I i think that uh if if dish you know I just don't know if dish really understands what it's trying to get itself into here especially at the prices that they are I'm going to be forced to pay to get into it because it you know the price for clear where I keeps getting driven out by these two but the one thing I know for sure is that all three of us will be retired and possibly dead by the time this soap operas resolve so we don't don't really have to worry about it too much it's for for our sons and daughters and and grandsons and granddaughters to worry about which is a really great segue to the fact that dance ah spring was protesting this entire topic he could you guys hear her yes like no no get out my new blamer damn dent your your generations legacy is going to be this clearwire mess and she's gonna have to clean it up yeah that sounds about right absolutely that your father of the year that's right all right I'm not note I think that's a wrap this has been episode 51 of the verge mobile show for the week of jun 17 2013 if you want to follow us on twitter I'm DC seifert with an e I Vlad is vlad savov chris is e power dieter who will hopefully be back next week is back lon um and you can of course follow you know at verge to so thanks for tuning in guys we'll catch you later bye right