Gadgetory

this episode has been sponsored by LastPass so here's one that I didn't expect you know bouncing around the web looking around looking for stories trying to figure out what am i doing today I'm gonna help you out you watch a lot of YouTube you watch unbox therapy you watch it on your smartphone but is your smartphone the best way to watch YouTube or is your smartphone the best smartphone to watch YouTube what are you talking about loo it's working really well I hear you I see you what more do you want from me here well here's the thing not all smartphones are created equal when it comes to interacting with the YouTube app I didn't know this at least not to the degree that YouTube is now sharing they recently published a list of devices that they're calling signature devices in other words YouTube themselves went out of their way to hand select certain devices that are the best at taking advantage of all YouTube's features including but not limited to HDR video immersive 360 video fast video load time and less bandwidth usage so better video higher bit rates higher frame rates where available higher resolution where available but then also with less of a hit to your data usage you can utilize less of it while still getting the same quality through using YouTube's more advanced video codecs vp9 profile to decoding this will give you the same resolution with 30% less data usage ok not all phones can do this now part of me feels like when YouTube put this list out they were also looking at other attributes of devices the device they have at the very top of their page is this brand new device on the far right that's the reason I have it out the new note 9 nice AMOLED display 1440p lots of resolution big battery Snapdragon 845 according to YouTube themselves the best phone to watch YouTube on is the new Galaxy Note 9 but there are other signature devices and I've got a couple of them on the table here this is a 1 plus 6 it's also considered a signature device by YouTube but in this case of milliamp hour battery another thing these also have in common is Android Oreo 8.1 I've also got an S 9 plus over here it's another signature device for 2019 and then on the far left here has some bad news the iPhone is not on this list not capable of taking full advantage of all of these features it may be able to do some of them without checking every single box it can't be selected as a signature device for YouTube so YouTube actually physically tested all of these they had to verify that the device has met or exceeded their performance expectations now one thing that kind of bugs me about these signature devices is audio they didn't really talk about audio performance and I know of course there's a huge variance in in speaker quality across smartphones every year YouTube publishes a set of criteria required to achieve the best-in-class video experience YouTube has to offer they invite all qualified device manufacturers to collaborate directly with their team to pass rigorous testing criteria let's go ahead and see if we can spot a difference here so I have a video here suggested by YouTube on the signature device web page 4k HDR content at 60fps the iPhone is capable of playing it back in HDR at 60 frames but at 1080p confusingly the oneplus which is on the list it also taps out at the same resolution because it is a 1080p display not having the iPhone on the list but having the one plus 6 is a little bit strange neither can possibly be the champ because they tap out lower resolution then the other two smartphones here the s9 plus and the note 9 these ones on the other hand go up to 1440p which surprisingly you have to enable entertainment mode so 1080p60 HD are on the iphone we can switch the s9 plus two 1440p just like the note on the oneplus device will do 1080p 60 one thing I can say is that all these devices look great though I will probably agree with YouTube themselves if I had to pick one I would probably select the note series just looking at it just straight glance but they are more similar than they are different okay should we do audio now now I know on the YouTube device report page they don't mention anything about audio but if I'm gonna say or suggest that one of these smart phones is the best way to watch YouTube or media in general then the sound coming out of it is gonna be big for me from my ears in this particular scenario I'm gonna take the the Samsung stuff I just find that there's just a little bit more detail there I like the little punch that's coming out of the iPhone but there's certainly more clarity on these two devices you could even argue Jack was trying to argue that the s9 plus may have sounded a little better than the note 9 it's possible I mean I know YouTube themselves they didn't state anything regarding audio but it'll be hard to imagine they wouldn't take that into consideration at all I'm definitely taking it into consideration so I think I'm gonna agree with them the YouTube watching champion the media consumption champion smartphone is in the middle here that's this guy this is the note the new note the note 9 it also has the advantage of being the newest device it's very expensive too when you stack it up against something like the 1 plus 6 so not exactly a fair fight in that sense you're spending more dollars here but if you want the biggest baddest for watching video you get a six point four inch screen you can playback 1440p content with the low data consumption codec the latest stuff you can go check out their entire device report and all of these signature devices you can see if your device is listed on there or not there you have it you want to watch video on a smart phone you want to watch on box therapy in all of its glory 1440 key a couple inches from your eye this episode has been sponsored by LastPass LastPass relieves the trouble associated with remembering passwords you have so many passwords for all those different websites and services and so on so you get LastPass it's like autopilot for your passwords it removes the obstacles by having a master password that unlocks all the others and then that particular password is far more secure than the ones you likely set up for those various other services anyway you'll never have to write down or remember that wide variety of passwords because they're all locked inside of your LastPass account also has a built-in password generator which can create long randomized secure passwords so long strings of characters alphanumeric they're much tougher to guess 13 million people trust LastPass and 33 thousand different businesses use it it's a plug-in for your browser it's gonna make your whole password lifestyle much easier than it is go try it out thanks again to them for sponsoring this episode click the link down in the description there's a free trial I think you guys are gonna like it