Category: Mobile Tech

Today’s Poll: The Motorola X and You

Motorola officially unveiled the Motorola X Android phone in New York today. The company is taking a unique approach with this phone, offering several customization options and adding some clever software tricks on top of Google Android. However, many of its internal components are middle-of-the-road and the Motorola X is priced like a high-end phone. Will the Motorola X dazzle consumers with its color choices? Or will it be snubbed in favor of more powerful Android devices? Kindly vote in the poll below and let me know what you think of the phone in the comments section. In the meantime, here’s a brief rundown on the Motorola X, binary style.

Good: The most novel thing about the Motorola X is that its physical appearance can be customized. Using the Motomaker (video below), consumers can mix and match different components. The front, back, volume-rocker, and camera-lens plastics can be mixed and match, for hundreds of different color combinations. For mainstream consumers, this is a fun and fantastic option.

Bad: Unfortunately, AT&T has a timed exclusive on Motomaker customization. People that want a Motorola X at launch for Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular will have to settle for black or white.

Bad: While customizing the look of the phone is pretty sweet, the choices for internal components are limited. You can have 16GB or 32GB of storage.

Bad: This is definitely not a phone for tech geeks. The processor is considered mid-range now and will seem like a fossil a year from now. Motorola opted for a 720p screen, rather than a 1080p screen, which is the trend for high-end phones.

Good: Motorola wants to get away from the spec wars and focus on the experience. The company is positioning the device as something that just works and is cool, rather than something that beats out HTC or Samsung phones on paper. Obviously Apple has been hugely successful at pushing the “experience” of the iPhone instead of focusing on what’s inside it.

Bad: Unfortunately for Motorola, that’s not how the Android world works. Apple can successfully push the experience because it controls everything — hardware, operating system, and services. It can offer something unique because it’s the only company that has iPhone, iOS, and iTunes. I don’t think you can get away with a mid-range Android phone — at least to tech nerds — by pushing an experience. Aside from customizable plastics, there are too many Android phones that offer experiences similar or superior to what the Motorola X brings to the table.

Good: Some of Motorola’s Android customizations are pretty clever. The Motorola X can pull off some neat tricks with its always-on voice recognition and sensor detection. I really like that you can see notifications by just tapping the screen instead of turning the whole screen on; the “active” notifications take advantage of AMOLED’s ability to only power a certain amount of pixels. It’s fast and efficient.

Bad: Some of the Android enhancements are gimmicky. Some tech pundits are also concerned about always-on voice recognition and sensor detection running down the battery.

Bad: My biggest issue with the phone is the price. AT&T has listed the 16GB model for $199 and the 32GB model for $249 (contract pricing). Considering the mid-range internals of the phone, that’s too much. I’m sure that some people will be happy to pay those prices just to mix and match plastics, but tech savvy consumers will surely opt for more powerful phones.

Your Turn: Anyway, those are my initial thoughts on the Motorola X. I’d love to hear yours! Fire away in the comments section and vote in today’s poll (please).

[poll id=”184″]

Samsung Galaxy S4 Benchmark Cheating Exposed?

Recently, Samsung has gotten some heat over the international versions of its flagship Galaxy S4 phone “cheating” on benchmarks. These phones use the Exynos 5 Octa system-on-chip. Under normal circumstances, the Exynos 5 Octa’s GPU runs at 480MHz. It was discovered in a Beyond3D forum post that the GPU hits 532MHz during certain benchmark tests. The wonderfully technical folks at AnandTech put the chip to the test and it appears that Samsung is guilty as charged.

On one hand, Samsung appears to be gaming the system. The company’s gumption is almost admirable, but this type of gaming can be misleading to a certain type of consumer. For better and worse, benchmark results impact some people’s purchases to varying degrees. They can be a good tool for making informed purchases, but benchmarks — particularly synthetic benchmarks — don’t always reflect the actual experience of using a computer (mobile phone or otherwise). For those that rely heavily on benchmark results, Samsung’s manipulations could lead to people buying phones that aren’t as powerful as the buyers think they are.

On the other hand, the performance gains from the artificial GPU boost are largely meaningless in real-world use. People that live and die by benchmarks (and I’m saying this as a former PC Magazine and Computer Shopper reviewer) should get over it and go buy a bicycle or something. If you think you’re going to have a vastly superior experience with your phone because it scored 800 points higher on AnTuTu than its chief competitor then you have larger issues to deal with.

Speaking of PC Magazine, I remember reading AnandTech with my PC Mag Labs cohorts when Anand Lal Shimpi wasn’t old enough to shave, drive, or drink. We’d make fun of him for being this nerdy punk that PC Mag editor-in-chief Michael Miller would kiss up to. More than a decade later, AnandTech is bigger than ever and has become a highly influential tech site…and here I am with a blog that’s like a geeky and (really) budget version of Grantland. FML…and also hug me please.

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Coffee Talk #595: American Mobile Carriers, Upgrades, and You

T-Mobile shook up the American telecom business with its T-Mobile Jump program. For a $10 monthly fee, T-Mobile Jump offers two phone upgrades every 12 month, as well as insurance. Days after the program was announced, AT&T countered with AT&T Next. This program allows AT&T customers to pick up a new phone every year “with no down payment, no activation fee, no upgrade fee and no financing fees.” The word on the street is that Verizon is whipping up its own program to compete with  AT&T Next and T-Mobile Jump. Some pundits believe that Sprint will play the generous-upgrade game too, while others believe that…more

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Tim Lincecum’s glorious no-hitter, the New York Knicks giving (Metta World) Peace a chance, or bikini girls with machine guns, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

T-Mobile shook up the American telecom business with its T-Mobile Jump program. For a $10 monthly fee, T-Mobile Jump offers two phone upgrades every 12 month, as well as insurance. Days after the program was announced, AT&T countered with AT&T Next. This program allows AT&T customers to pick up a new phone every year “with no down payment, no activation fee, no upgrade fee and no financing fees.” The word on the street is that Verizon is whipping up its own program to compete with  AT&T Next and T-Mobile Jump. Some pundits believe that Sprint will play the generous-upgrade game too, while others believe that it has more important issues to deal with now that Softbank rules the roost.

All of you know that the four major American mobile carriers suck. They just suck in different ways. Initiatives like AT&T Next and T-Mobile jump help them suck a little bit less. While some people are thrilled with more lenient upgrade terms, others believe that these programs are just new schemes designed to get you to spend more money and extend your contracts. The mobile phone market — particularly the Android space — moves so fast that many tech nerds are thrilled with the idea of being able to upgrade phones (relatively) quickly. Don’t mistake these programs as the mobile carriers suddenly “getting it” or becoming benevolent. It’s all about trying to get more money from you every month for a longer period of time.

Personally, I’m not tempted by these programs. My main line is a grandfathered Verizon plan combined with a corporate discount — that’s too good to give up. My second line is that cheapie $30 T-Mobile plan that’s also too good to give up. Additionally, I don’t see myself buying anything but iPhones, Android Nexus phones, or Google Play Edition phones. I hate carrier bloatware and slow OS updates. All that said, I totally understand that I’m an atypical customer and can see why many people are excited about these programs.

How about you? Are you interested in AT&T Next, T-Mobile Jump, and whatever the Sprint/Verizon equivalents will be called? Kindly share your thoughts on these programs in the comments section.

Motorola X Advertisement Boasts Assembled in the USA

While most of the products we buy are made in China, there has been a shift to make (or at least assemble) more goods in America. Apple’s Mac Pro (Texas), Nissan’s Leaf electric car (Tennessee), and a few Lenovo computers (North Carolina) are some of the products that are now being assembled in the USA. You can add Google’s Motorola X phone to the list. The company is on a media blitz that capitalizes on the Fourth of July holiday and proudly states that the Motorola X is, “Designed by you. Assembled in the USA.” Check out the spot below and share your feelings on the Motorola X and other products that are made in America.

In the past, I’ve mentioned that I’d love to buy more made-in-the-USA products. I’m hoping (probably naively) that the Motorola X ends up being an awesome product that’s made in the USA. I’d love to rock a phone like that. How about you?

Coffee Talk #593: Should Google Make an Android Console?

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to make its own Android videogame console. The reason behind the alleged move is that the company wants to compete with Apple’s alleged videogame efforts that will allegedly be in the next version of Apple TV. (That’s a lot of alleging, hey?) While the strategy makes sense using broad and basic strokes of logic, the videogame industry is complex, intricate, and changing rapidly. Do you think that Google should make a home console? Or should it…more

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the surprising picks in the 2013 NBA draft, the crapiness of Wimbledon 2013, or Mayim “Blossom” Bialik reentering the singles scene, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to make its own Android videogame console. The reason behind the alleged move is that the company wants to compete with Apple’s alleged videogame efforts that will allegedly be in the next version of Apple TV. (That’s a lot of alleging, hey?) While the strategy makes sense using broad and basic strokes of logic, the videogame industry is complex, intricate, and changing rapidly. Do you think that Google should make a home console? Or should it skip out on a costly effort that would be difficult to “win.”

While Android has been a very successful mobile operating system, Google has relied on many hardware partners to make it so successful. Although the company has sold and marketed a line of Nexus products, those phones and tablets were meant as hero products. They were more for developers and tech enthusiasts, and definitely not for general consumers. A videogame console is a whole other ball of wax (not to be confused with the whole enchilada, the whole nine yards, or the whole shebang). I don’t see the point in making a hero Android console; Google’s game box (G-Box?) would have to be aimed at the mass market. Additionally, products like Ouya, Nvidia Shield, and GameStick will have a huge (in gaming years) head start on Google’s machine. While the videogame market is very different than it was five years ago and changing more every year, it has traditionally been unkind to hardware newcomers.

Then again, Google can learn a lot from the companies selling Android gaming systems and avoid several issues. Microsoft has shown that bullying your way into gaming with tons of money (original Xbox) can lead to amazing success (Xbox 360). Google certainly has tons of money and probably wouldn’t mind losing lots on a console that gives the company more data to target advertisements with. Lastly, a videogame box branded, designed, and marketed by Google is a potential powerful thing that could resonate with consumers.

On the third hand, a videogame console would need great hardware marketing and Google has shown to be incompetent with hardware marketing. A console would also require strong customer support and Google is really, really bad at this. After thinking about the WSJ article for several hours, I can think of 10 times as many reasons for Google not to enter the console business as I can reasons for the company to enter it.

What’s your take on the rumored Google Android console? Should the company get into the game? (*snicker*) Or should the company let its Android partners handle things?

Nvidia Shield Delayed to July

Bad news for gamers looking forward to Nvidia Shield — the company’s portable videogame console has been delayed to July. It was originally slated to ship this week. The delay was caused by a “third-party mechanical component.” For those of you not familiar with Shield, it’s a mobile gaming console that can play Android games and stream PC games. It’s the first product to use Nvidia’s Tegra 4 chipset, giving it a tech-spec edge over other Android-based gaming systems on the market.

Here’s more on the delay from Nvidia senior product manager Jason Paul:

While we announced last week that Shield will go on sale this Thursday, we’ve taken the hard decision to delay shipping until next month.

The issue relates to a third-party mechanical component, and we’re working around the clock with the supplier to get it up to our expectations.

As a verbal entertainer, I was really looking forward to the release of Shield. It’s certainly a powerful and interesting product, but I don’t know if it’s something gamers are clamoring for. Arguments can be made that its features are interesting in a good way, but some will counter that this is a case of interesting being more curious than good. The product will definitely lead to some interesting discussions…and I kind of want to watch them while eating popcorn.

Any of you disappointed by the delay of of Nvidia Shield?

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HTC One, Galaxy S4 Google Play Editions Available

“Google Play Editions” of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are now available on the Google Play Store. The phones list for $599 and $649, respectively. Both have ship dates of July 9, 2013. Unlike the original models of these phones, the Google Play Editions use a stock version of Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). This means that they’re free of manufacturer skins and carrier bloatware. While some enjoy the features in manufacturer skins like HTC Sense and Samsung Touchwiz, most hardcore Android users prefer the stock operating system. Stock Android is generally leaner and cleaner, while offering better performance and battery life.

While I’ve enjoyed HTC Sense in the past, I greatly prefer stock Android. Some of the features in manufacturer skins are clever and useful, but most of them are superflous to me. I loathe the bloatware that most American carriers install and won’t let you take off. I really loathe carriers and manufacturers that take forever to upgrade to the latest edition of Android. The Google Play Editions help ensure timely updates.

Although I’m perfectly happy with my Nexus 4, the Google Play Edition of the HTC One is so tempting. The design and screen are gorgeous, while the build quality is stellar. The Galaxy S4 has a little more power under the hood, but I don’t care for the cheap-feeling plastic that Samsung uses. To be fair, fans of the S4 point to its removable battery and storage expansion (MicroSD) as advantages. While I understand people that prefer those features, the design, build quality, and speakers of the HTC One give it the nod in my book.

What do you think of the Google Play Editions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4? Any of you tempted to pick one up?

E3 2013: Nvidia Shield Interview

Nvidia made quite a splash when it announced its Shield portable gaming system at CES 2013. At E3 2013, I interviewed James Wang from Nvidia product marketing to get more details on the system and got some hands-on time with the console. Shield will be the first Tegra 4 device on the market, according to the company. Nvidia’s latest and greatest mobile chip should take mobile gaming to the next level. In addition to being able to run Android games, Shield allows gamers to stream PC games (GeForce GTX 650 or higher required). Of course it runs non-gaming apps as well, which is handy for people that want to update their Facebook status with one of the most menacing Android devices ever created.

Shield sports a solid gamepad that will feel familiar to most gamers. The buttons and sticks are solid, but I needed a few minutes to get used to the flat feel of the system. It was very much a mental thing on my part; I know that portable gaming systems are supposed to be flat, but Shield’s shape and color scheme reminded me of Xbox 360 so I was thinking curves. Of course I need to spend more time with the controller and use it with a variety of games before I can judge it, but my initial feeling was like, not love.

While Shield has a lot of power and a lot of features, it also has a lot of competitors — traditional handheld systems, Android phones and tablets, and several other Android-based consoles. It’s certainly unique, but I’m not sure what the demand will be for a $349 portable Android gaming system. That’s where you come in! As always, I want to hear your thoughts on Nvidia Shield, now that you have more info on it and have seen more footage of the system. Share your feelings like a Care Bear in the comments section when you have a chance (please).

E3 2013: Sunflex UNU Tablet Interview

At E3 2013, I spent some time with Sunflex vice president of business development Nicki Repenning to talk about the UNU tablet. At a glance, this seven-inch tablet is one of the most unique and diverse Android devices I’ve seen. In addition to being able to use it as a standard tablet, UNU comes with software and accessories that help you use it as a smart TV or videogame console.

On the smart TV side, it uses docks and an air-mouse controller. The controller is particularly novel. It features motion controls for menu navigation and for casual games (think Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja). The back of the controller has a QWERTY keyboard for a familiar and comfortable typing experience. One dock and controller are included in the standard UNU tablet bundle, which will retail for $199.

For hardcore Android gamers, there’s a $249 bundle that includes a full-sized gamepad, a travel pouch, and everything in the standard bundle. The controller has a good feel, thought not as impressive as the Nyko PlayPad Pro 2 that I tried at E3 2013. The gamepad makes sense for Android users that play a lot of traditional games ported to Android.

On paper, UNU looks like an inexpensive Android tablet that does many things very well. However, I want to spend more time with Sunflex’s custom UI and learn the exact chipset under the hood before I pass judgement. Hopefully I’ll get to do so before the product’s late-summer release. I’m intrigued by UNU, but I want to see more!

How about you guys and gals? Any of you interested in the UNU tablet?

[Thanks again to Rich Brown for his great camera work in this video!]

E3 2013: Sunflex UNU Tablet Interview

At E3 2013, I spent some time with Sunflex vice president of business development Nicki Repenning to talk about the UNU tablet. At a glance, this seven-inch tablet is one of the most unique and diverse Android devices I’ve seen. In addition to being able to use it as a standard tablet, UNU comes with software and accessories that help you use it as a smart TV or videogame console.

On the smart TV side, it uses docks and an air-mouse controller. The controller is particularly novel. It features motion controls for menu navigation and for casual games (think Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja). The back of the controller has a QWERTY keyboard for a familiar and comfortable typing experience. One dock and controller are included in the standard UNU tablet bundle, which will retail for $199.

For hardcore Android gamers, there’s a $249 bundle that includes a full-sized gamepad, a travel pouch, and everything in the standard bundle. The controller has a good feel, thought not as impressive as the Nyko PlayPad Pro 2 that I tried at E3 2013. The gamepad makes sense for Android users that play a lot of traditional games ported to Android.

On paper, UNU looks like an inexpensive Android tablet that does many things very well. However, I want to spend more time with Sunflex’s custom UI and learn the exact chipset under the hood before I pass judgement. Hopefully I’ll get to do so before the product’s late-summer release. I’m intrigued by UNU, but I want to see more!

How about you guys and gals? Any of you interested in the UNU tablet?

[Thanks again to Rich Brown for his great camera work in this video!]