#just have a bluetooth camera and speaker why is there a virtual assistant | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

captainsamdrake · 4 years ago

Text

The Car Stereo Installation Guys

We've remained in business of auto modification for over 20 years and you can trust us to deliver nothing brief of the very best services. With services for any type of budget plan or model, our professional professionals can assist you. Car Toys in Plano, Jock the Manager, is really well-informed on the devices they sale for any kind of virtually any kind of spending plan you need aid with. We're happy you located our personnel to be so supportive during your experience at Car Toys. The experience as well as knowledge of the automobile installment service technicians at Independence Audio & Video are the very best in the Kansas City metro area. Larger firms, such as Best Buy, usually offer an inexpensive or perhaps complimentary stereo setup if you acquire the stereo straight from them. However for the remainder of the year, you can really feel complimentary to walk in, look at our great option of devices as well as products, car audio installation near me or simply call our specialists over the phone as well as review your vehicle safety and security setup job or issues. Bluetooth is outstanding for A/V or cellular phone use. Be it auto stereo installment, engine fixing work, or an adjusting task, they will certainly make use of top-grade tools as well as premium parts to give you with a professional service that will certainly meet your demands.

This radio enables double camera use. If you can not find one of the very same brands, Stick to obtain one that is similar to the existing in-dash satellite radio. Don't obtain distressed attempting to mount your own digital devices. Therefor you obtain a quality car stereo setup. You are sure to need the help of a reputable auto store if your vehicle is malfunctioning or you are looking for a personalized auto stereo installation solution. It is compensating to install your own automobile electronics and also once you've efficiently completed this, you will certainly most likely discover yourself installing something else in the future, hence, saving also more money. Extremely frequently, car audio installation yes. Store websites like Crutchfield and Amazon will certainly reveal you what's required to attach a radio you got there to various makes and also models of car. If you have questions on just how to operate an attribute or need some technical service we'll exist to assist. From subwoofers, to amps, to new front audio speakers, we have you covered.

I acquired a JVC KW M56bt head system with Alpine audio speakers version S-S65c for the front as well as S-S65 for the back. So at this factor you can pick whichever head system you desire. Backward and forward to work, to go the grocery store, to grab the kids from institution, and also now that the holidays are nearly below, to the mall, to events, as well as to the airport terminal. You'll never need to give an answer to the age-old inquiry, stereo installation "Are we there yet?" since your children won't even be concerned concerning the flow of time-- their focus will be glued to the in-car amusement instead. There are practically unlimited choices readily available today. Yet automobile security system setup job is not the only point our service technicians are recognized for. We provide setup solutions, repair service job, as well as a lot more. We can quite a lot do it all when it comes to customized automobile audio setup. At Custom Car Stereo, we've been in the company considering that 1976. With over 40 years of experience, you can trust our expertise as well as quality of solution. Though offering them with an one-of-a-kind listening experience, this might also total up to something which might come to be quite a costly investment. Recognized for our professionalism and reliability and also functioning at affordable prices, we have actually been running CLW Stereo Installation & Services given that 2016, giving our clients with viable services for their demands.

What are people stating concerning Car Stereo Installation services in Newark, NJ? This program is the only nationally acknowledged credential that accredits mobile innovation installation specialists as well as sales people on automobile infotech, entertainment, protection, security and also navigation systems. What are people saying regarding Car Stereo Installation services in Seattle, WA? What are individuals stating concerning Car Stereo Installation solutions in Chattanooga, TN? We provide a range of fixing services for most automobiles on the marketplace. We are a one-stop store for every one of your noise system needs and are able to suggest the best products on the market for your car make and model. If it feels like you actually invest more time in your car than you do in the house, why not make the experience as enjoyable as it can be? Why Choose Custom Car Stereo? For custom installment, high quality products, as well as a mobile electronics experience that can not be beat, SK Customs is the shop to call! From fundamental installs, to one of the most intricate personalized applications, you can depend on SK Customs to service your car with specialist grade treatment.

#car stereos #subwoofers near me #car radios near me

1 note · View note

your-dietician · 4 years ago

Text

Best 4th of July weekend sales at Best Buy

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/health/best-4th-of-july-weekend-sales-at-best-buy/

Best 4th of July weekend sales at Best Buy

We may receive commission from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

Best Buy’s 4th of July weekend sale is going strong and the savings are so deep! (Photo: Getty Images)

Folks, it’s been quite a year (make that 16 months!), making this 4th of July feel like an “independence day” in more ways than one. How to celebrate? We have a lot of catching up to do. Surf, sand, pool, play — sure. But also shopping. This weekend brings some of the best deals of the season. Ready to upgrade and save big on the latest and greatest in tech? You’ve come to the right place.

The retailer’s massive 4th of July Sale is dropping deep discounts on just about everything — from 4K TVs and wireless headphones to smart-home gear and kitchen appliances. The savings are massive this weekend, so treat yourself and scoop up what you need (or just really, really want) before it sells out.

We’ve rounded up the top offerings at Best Buy’s big 4th of July Sale, with prices starting at just $10. Scroll and shop below:

Best TV sales

In case you need that summer vacation to the Rockies to be virtual, Sony’s latest and greatest is $250 off. (Photo: Best Buy)

On sale for $900 (down from $1,150), this Sony 65-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV is the latest from this iconic manufacturer. Its massive 65-inch 4K display delivers images you can practically reach out and touch. Sony’s state-of-the-art Processor X1 powers this beauty for true-to-life visuals, while HDR (High Dynamic Range) settings make sure colors stay bright and black levels stay, well, black.

“This is an excellent product. We upgraded our TV to this Sony,” raved a five-star Best Buy reviewer. “The picture is great. Our last TV was a 65-inch, so side-by-side this TV is a definite upgrade. The sound system is great and the Smart TV process is very responsive to our wireless internet connection. The TV connected to my phone and the voice recognition was simple to set up….”

While some streaming TVs come with Fire TV or Roku built-in, this Sony 65-inch 4K stunner features Google TV. This means you’ll have instant access to popular streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube, Prime Video and more, but you’ll also get a wide range of gaming apps like NBA Jam, Fortnite and Crossy Road — you won’t get that with a standalone Fire TV or Roku device. Just sync a wireless gaming controller via Bluetooth and you’re all set to get your game on.

Story continues

Check out more TV sales below:

Insignia 43-inch Class F30 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $280 (was $320), bestbuy.com

Insignia 50-inch Class F30 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Fire TV, $350 (was $380), bestbuy.com

Sony 55-inch Class X80J Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Google TV, $750 (was $950), bestbuy.com

Hisense 60-inch Class A6G Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Android TV, $450 (was $490), bestbuy.com

LG 65-inch Class CX Series OLED 4K Ultra HD Smart webOS TV, $2000 (was $2,200), bestbuy.com

Samsung 65-inch Class QN85A Series Neo QLED 4K Ultra HD Smart Tizen TV, $2,000 (was $2,200), bestbuy.com

Hisense 70-inch Class A6G Series LED 4K UHD Smart Android TV, $670 (was $700), bestbuy.com

Samsung 70-inch Class 7 Series LED 4K Ultra HD Smart Tizen TV, $680 (was $750), bestbuy.com

Best home audio sales

These Samsung Galaxy Buds+ will outperform your Airpods, and for much less. How do you like them apples? (Photo: Best Buy)

It’s easy to get distracted by quirky design flourishes and exotic add-ons, but at the end of the day, earbud shoppers know it’s all about delivering excellent audio. That, and getting them at a great price. Well, get ready to check both boxes: These Samsung Galaxy Buds+ — on sale for $100, or $50 off, at Best Buy — offer crisp, clear sound and punchy bass. The battery life is amazing: You’ll get 11 hours per charge, plus an additional 11 hours with the included wireless charging case. That’s nearly a full day of use! In a pinch? An hour of playback requires just a three-minute quick boost. You’ll love this feature when you’re about to go for a run and your buds are at zero.

Calls sound crystal-clear thanks to three microphones that reduce ambient background noise even if you’re in a busy location. “Good sound quality and noise cancelation can silence a barking dog,” shared a Best Buy fan. Woof!

Check out more home audio sales below:

Insignia RF Wireless Over-the-Ear Headphones, $100 (was $120), bestbuy.com

Sony ZX Series Wired On-Ear Headphones, $10 (was $20), bestbuy.com

LG Tone Flex HBS-XL7 Wireless In-Ear Headphones, $130 (was $150), bestbuy.com

Sony WF-SP800N True Wireless Noise-Cancelling In-Ear Headphones, $98 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Google Pixel Buds, $130 (was $180), bestbuy.com

JBL Club One Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones, $250 (was $350), bestbuy.com

Samsung HW-Q65T 7.1ch Sound bar, $400 (was $500), bestbuy.com

LG 5.1 ch High-Res Audio Sound Bar, $400 (was $450), bestbuy.com

Best tablet and smartphone sales

We haven’t seen a tablet presentation this impressive since Moses came down from the mountain. (Photo: Best Buy)

Been hankering to expand your computer arsenal with a tablet without going into hock? Here’s the deal you’ve been waiting for. On sale for $180 (was $230), the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 weighs just over a pound and features 32GB of storage (expandable up to 1TB via microSD card). That’s got it all over Apple’s entry level tablet, which isn’t expandable. And unlike the iPad, the Tab A7’s 10.4-inch display has a full HD widescreen for immersive viewing.

Also out-Apple-ing Apple? The A7’s camera set is better than the one that comes with the iPad. It has an eight-megapixel selfie cam with a five-megapixel rear shooter on the front for video calls. “Mostly use for mobile gaming. Tried to play PS4 remote play, and it worked,” reported a satisfied gamer. “Sound is great and build quality is better than iPad. Speed is seamless.”

Score the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 in gray and gold.

Check out more tablet and smartphone sales below:

OnePlus 8T 5G, $500 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Google Pixel 4a, $300 (was $350), bestbuy.com

Motorola Moto G Power, $130 (was $250), bestbuy.com

Samsung Galaxy Tab A, $120 (was $150), bestbuy.com

Surface Pro X, $800 (was $1,000), bestbuy.com

Lenovo Tab M10 Plus, $160 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Motorola Moto G Power, $70 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Microsoft Surface Duo, $700 (was $1,500), bestbuy.com

Best gaming sales

Grab a controller and make these your Dogs days of summer. (Photo: Best Buy)

Just because it’s fun-in-the-sun season doesn’t mean you won’t need to keep yourself flush with new gaming challenges. We’ve found a great one. Watch Dogs: Legion for Xbox One (also compatible with Xbox Series X) is now on sale for nearly 70 percent off — down from $60 to just $20. This action/adventure game and third installment in the franchise from Ubisoft takes place in a near future where London is on the verge of collapse. All-seeing surveillance state and private military are in control, while the fate of the city is in the hands of DedSec, a hacker group that wants to fight back for freedom. It’s as fun as it sounds, and an absolute steal at this price.

“This game is very fun to play,” raved a happy gamer. “The setting is amazing and the attention to detail makes it better…. I bought this for my grandson and he absolutely loved the story so much, he accidentally stayed up all night long playing the game. He said the storyline is very interesting and fun to complete. He also says he likes the fact that you get to choose strangers off the streets to work on your team. He has always loved technology so he absolutely loves this game and this view of what the future might be like.”

Check out more gaming sales below:

NBA 2K21 (PS4), $20 (was $30), bestbuy.com

SanDisk 400GB microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card for Nintendo Switch, $100 (was $180), bestbuy.com

Borderlands 3 (Xbox One), $10 (was $30), bestbuy.com

Dying Light: Anniversary Edition, $25 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Nintendo Switch), $20 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection, $20 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Deluxe Edition (Xbox Series X), $15 (was $40), bestbuy.com

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Xbox One), $30 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Best smart home sales

It’s time for an alarm clock that’ll have you starting the day plugged in, wised up and entertained. (Photo: Best Buy)

It’s 2021 — shouldn’t you be asking a bit more from your alarm clock? Elevate the mundane with the Lenovo Smart Clock. It’s powered with Google Assistant for seamless syncing to a smartphone. It can rouse you with your favorite tunes, the weather, calendar reminders and that podcast you love.

“Replaced my old alarm clock and a Google mini speaker with one device,” shared a savvy Best Buy shopper. “…I tell it good night when I am ready for bed and it turns off my lights, tells me the weather tomorrow and what is on my calendar the next day just like a Google Mini can do. Plus the clock face can show the current temperature along with the time.”

Really, who couldn’t use all the help they can get rousing themselves from bed in the morning? So why not let the Lenovo Smart Clock do it in digital style, and for just $40 (down from $80) at Best Buy?

Check out more smart home sales below:

Google Nest Wi-Fi Mesh Router (AC2200) (two-pack), $189 (was $269), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Hello Smart Wi-Fi Video Doorbell, $150 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Arlo Pro 4 Spotlight Camera Security (three-pack), $500 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Learning Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat, $200 (was $250), bestbuy.com

TP-Link Kasa Spot Cam, $40 (was $60), bestbuy.com

Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus, $170 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Google Nest Mini Smart Speaker, $35 (was $50), bestbuy.com

Linksys Max-Stream AC1300 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 5 Router, $70 (was $100), bestbuy.com

Best vacuum sales

Trust us, this Dyson is a beast — save $100! (Photo: Best Buy)

The Dyson Outsize Total Clean Vacuum, which is on sale for $750, or $100 off at Best Buy, may not look like a power force, but this lightweight and cordless stick vacuum is actually a heavy-duty, deep-cleaning beast. It’s a Dyson, after all, so it’s built for powerful suction — but this one is also nimble and versatile enough to navigate the tightest corners. It even has a digital display that features a countdown clock, so you’ll always know when it’s going to run out of juice.

“The hands-down best cordless on the planet,” raved a delighted shopper. “I must say this vacuum is impressive and nothing short of amazing! This Dyson oozes sophistication and innovation while checking all the right boxes for corded vacuum replacement. This vacuum is the gold standard…. Be prepared to be shocked and in awe of the power and efficiency of this cleaning powerhouse. The real-time performance and battery gauge are extremely welcomed to this wireless cleaning solution.”

Check out more robotic vacuum sales below:

iRobot Roomba i3 (3150) Wi-Fi Connected Robot Vacuum, $350 (was $400), bestbuy.com

bObsweep bObi Classic Robot Vacuum & Mop, $394 (was $750), bestbuy.com

iRobot Braava jet m6 Wi-Fi Connected Robot Mop, $400 (was $450), bestbuy.com

Shark AI Robot VacMop Pro RV2001WD, $350 (was $480), bestbuy.com

iRobot Roomba i3+ (3550) Wi-Fi Connected Robot Vacuum, $550 (was $600), bestbuy.com

Shark AI Robot Vacuum RV2001, $300 (was $450), bestbuy.com

iRobot Roomba s9+ (9550) Robot Vacuum & Braava jet m6 (6112) Robot Mop bundle, $1,349 (was $1,550), bestbuy.com

Best home office sales

It’s two computers in one! Tablet or laptop, as you please. (Photo: Best Buy)

On sale for $249 (was $299), the sleek, incredibly thin Lenovo Chromebook Duet is more than just a laptop. It has a brilliant 10.1-inch Full HD touchscreen display (at 1920 x 1200 resolution) that works as a tablet but also attaches to its included keyboard case via Bluetooth for when you want laptop functionality. And shoppers love its long 10-hour battery life too.

“The device is lightweight. The screen is sharp, colorful, and bright,” shared a satisfied Best Buy shopper. “The keyboard has a very good feel, and the adjustment to it was very quick for me. The tablet by itself is very light — a joy to hold and use for long periods…The battery life is insane…”

Chromebook runs the latest version of ChromeOS, so you know you’ll get speedy results. And unlike Windows 10 or macOS laptops, with long loading times and complicated app downloads, you just log in to your Gmail account via Google Chrome and you’re good to go.

Check out more home office sales below:

Samsung Galaxy 4K Chromebook, $799 (was $999), bestbuy.com

Vankyo Leisure 3W Wireless Mini Projector, $80 (was $120), bestbuy.com

Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360, $1,350 (was $1,500), bestbuy.com

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go, $630 (was $700), bestbuy.com

Epson EcoTank ET-M3170 Wireless Monochrome All-in-One SuperTank Printer, $350 (was $500), bestbuy.com

Canon imageCLASS D570 Wireless Black-and-White All-In-One Laser Printer, $150 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Epson EcoTank ET-3710 Wireless All-In-One Inkjet Printer, $310 (was $380), bestbuy.com

WD Easystore 5TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive, $110 (was $180), bestbuy.com

Best kitchen sales

At just $60, this baby will pay for itself with all the greasy, yucky oil you won’t have to buy. (Photo: Best Buy)

Sure, it’s barbecue season, but you can never have enough home-cooking convenience, amirite? On sale for $60 (was $120), the Insignia Digital Air Fryer lets you fry, roast or bake your favorite foods at temperatures up to 400 degrees — whip up anything from chicken to veggies to breaded tilapia!

The large five-quart basket can hold up to five servings, so it’s great for having friends over for hangouts. Its timer features automatic shutoff, so you’ll never have to stress about burning your food or blowing up your electric bill. This air fryer also has a sleek stainless steel finish with an easy-to-navigate digital display, while its basket and pan are dishwasher-safe, so fewer dirty dishes to worry about. If you’ve ever deep-fried something in oil you know how messy your counter and walls can get, but not when using this baby!

“I absolutely love this item,” reported a savvy shopper. “In the beginning, I thought it would be difficult to use and that it would dry my food out. Surprisingly, it’s really easy to operate and it keeps the food flavored after it’s complete. I have several other recipes I want to try with my air fryer. I can’t wait!”

Check out more kitchen sales below:

Margaritaville Bahamas Countertop Blender and Frozen Concoction Maker, $160 (was $210), bestbuy.com

Ninja Foodi, $200 (was $230), bestbuy.com

Frigidaire Mini Fridge with built-in Freezer, $179 (was $265), bestbuy.com

KitchenAid Pro 5 Plus 5-Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer, $430 (was $500), bestbuy.com

Keurig K-Elite Single-Serve K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker, $130 (was $170), bestbuy.com

Bella Pro Series Combo 19-Bar Espresso and 10-Cup Drip Coffee Maker, $150 (was $200), bestbuy.com

Yummly Smart Meat Thermometer, $89 (was $129), bestbuy.com

LG InstaView Four-Door French Door Refrigerator, $3,150 (was $3,500), bestbuy.com

More from David Pogue:

MacOS High Sierra comes this fall—and brings these 23 features

T-Mobile COO: Why we make investments like free Netflix that ‘seem crazy’

How Apple’s iPhone has improved since its 2007 debut

Gulliver’s Gate is a $40 million world of miniatures in Times Square

The 5 best new features of this week’s YouTube redesign

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked

Is through-the-air charging a hoax?

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, is the author of “iPhone: The Missing Manual.” He welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email.

#_lmsid:a077000000BAh3wAAD #_revsp:yahoofinance.com #$AAPL #_author:David Pogue #_uuid:9b33dcbf-7f4e-343c-b5f9-271cfdf12842

11 notes · View notes

josephlrushing · 5 years ago

Text

The LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen Is Something Special

The iPhone ushered in the era of slab phones and quickly became the design-standard for the industry. Companies looking for “the next big thing” are exploring dual-screen phones. Some look more intriguing than others, but all are pricey as hell. With the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen, LG has taken a unique approach and kept the phone affordable.

Do more at once with LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen, and multitask like never before.

That’s how LG describes the G8X ThinQ Dual Screen. As you will see, it is an apt way to capture what this unusual device is all about. To be clear, this isn’t the first time we have been wowed by LG’s approach to dual-screen devices. In February of 2019, Judie wrote about the LG V50 ThinQ and its dual-screen case. And last month, she posted on the LG V60 ThinQ Dual Screen. As both of those posts make clear, LG has settled upon their approach to dual-screen phones and is busy refining it. We have the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen in hand and are excited to share some of our thoughts with all of you.

A great deal has been written about the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen while I’ve been putting it through its paces. Rather than repeat what is available all over the internet, I thought I would share some of the things that have impressed me during the last few weeks using the phone, as well as some things that have not. Before we dig into that, however, let’s take a quick look at the phone itself.

For those of you who are not familiar with the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen, that last statement might seem a bit odd. After all, how do we look at the phone without… looking at the phone. The answer is one of the key things that differentiate the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen from other dual-screen devices on the market. Most dual-screen have a single foldable screen that either fold in on itself, thereby hiding the screen or fold out and, when closed, have a screen on both the front and back. The LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen takes a different approach. It is a traditional slab phone that can be used as you would any other large phone. It, however, comes with an innovative case that adds a second, separate screen. Ideally, this design gives users the best of both worlds. But does it? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since the phone first arrived.

So let’s look at the phone itself. The LG G8X ThinQ has a 6.4” FHD+ OLED screen with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. Inside the phone, there is 128 GB of storage with slightly more than 102GB available. The phone can accept up to 2TB of additional storage via a microSD card. That’s likely more storage than you will ever need on your phone, but it is nice to know it is possible.

Striking Sleek Design: This device is crafted with smooth, contoured glass for a modern aesthetic. Plus, rounded corners and a sophisticated pattern add an extra touch of elegance.

The front of the phone is entirely glass with a small pinhole camera at the center of the top. If you hate pinhole cutouts, you can change a setting and turn it into a black bar across the top. I honestly can’t understand why anyone would do that, but the option is there for those who are troubled by the pinhole camera cutout.

On the left side, there are volume up and down buttons and a dedicated button for activating Google Assistant. I love the Pixel’s innovative approach that allows you to bring up the Assistant by simply squeezing the phone, but this dedicated button gets the job done too. Toward the top of the left side, there is a small hole for the microphone. It is difficult to see, but it is there.

The sleep/wake/power button sits on the right side of the phone. Access to the SIM and microSD expansion slot is at the top.

On the bottom, you will find the speaker, the USB-C charging port, another microphone, and … a 3.5mm headphone jack. Yup, LG has decided to stick with the traditional headphone jack for now. Unfortunately, they didn’t see fit to include headphones in the box, but if you have a pair of wired headphones hanging around, you will be happy to know they can still be used. Of course, the phone can also be charged wirelessly if you have a Qi-enabled charger handy.

On the back, you will find both cameras and the flash. Notably, the cameras sit flush with the phone. And while that indicates that this promises to be a good smartphone camera but not a “great” one, I do love the fact that there is no camera bulge that looks like it was thrown on as an afterthought, gets scratched, and rocks when you put the phone on a desk.

The sides of the back have a gentle curve toward the from that feels fantastic in the hand and gives an otherwise uninspired design a bit of style.

In all, this is a good-looking but not inspired design.

Fast Performance, Bigger Battery: A Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core Processor delivers fast, powerful, experiences—all while providing what matters most: insane battery life, powered by our long-lasting 4,000 mAh battery.

The phone is rather zippy. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core processor and a 4,000mAh battery. That means it is not only fast but that it will last an entire day and then some. (Obviously, your mileage will vary depending upon how you use the device.) When you need to charge the phone, you can either connect a cable, is offers Qualcomm Fast charging QC 4.0, and it has wireless charging too.

A Quick Way to Pay: Leave your plastic cards at home and pay quickly with your phone virtually everywhere at both NFC and magstripe payment terminals. LG Pay is a digital wallet that lets you put your credit/ debit, gift, and loyalty cards in one simple-to-use app.

As you would expect, the phone packs Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC connectivity. The NFC is ideal for using LG Pay instead of reaching for your wallet.

Superb Pixel-Level Detail + 4x Zoom Power: An immense 32 MP front camera gives you superb detail, 4x zoom capability, and the ability to crop photos with the high-resolution quality you expect—and deserve. This is more megapixels than you’ll find in any LG selfie camera!

The rear cameras are a 12 MP Standard with a 78° FOV and a 13 MP Wide-Angle offering 136° FOV. That’s pretty substantial for any phone, let alone one that is priced as a mid-tier device.

The front camera surprised me when I realized it is an impressive 32MP shooter with a 78° FOV. In all, this isn’t the best camera available on a phone in 2020, but it certainly is no slouch. Moreover, if this were just a year or two ago, the hardware being into this phone would be considered bleeding edge. High-end phone cameras have made it to places unheard of until recently, which pushes this phone back into “really good but not the best” territory, but this system will be more than enough for the vast majority of people.

Camera features include:

Capture Every Whisper: It’s your turn to shine. Capture videos with refined sound and detail that tickle your senses and send tingles down your spine.

The Ultra-Widest Lens, Mic Drop!: With a whopping 136? field of view, truly get it all with the widest camera lens out there. Fully capture epic vistas, sweeping landscapes, beautiful architecture, and huge group shots that take your breath away.

Portrait Keep the Focus on You: Add a professional touch by zeroing in on yourself and softening backdrops for an artistic bokeh-blur effect that allows you to stand out.

Action Shot Clear, Action-Packed Shots: Capture crisp, sharp, and clear photos of fast-moving subjects. This feature automatically adjusts the shutter speed to minimize photo blur and keeps subjects in focus.

AI CAM Smart Photo Enhancement: This clever camera recognizes up to 19 subjects and recommends optimized filter options to enhance the exposure, saturation, and more.

Time Lapse Memories at the Speed of Life: Vivid and intricate time-lapse videos help you turn anything from a flower blooming to an inspiring sunrise into a timeless, storytelling film.

Google Lens Search What You See: Get stuff done faster, and interact with the world around you using your camera and AI integration. Copy and paste text, add events to your calendar, find products online, and see similar styles, identify popular plants and animals, learn about landmarks, and more.

Superior Sound Experience: This is what balance sounds like, with 2.4W audio distributed evenly for optimal stereo sound. And with your headphones on, DTS:X 3D Surround Sound lets you get lost in your movies, music, and games with audio that seems to come from all directions.

Finally, LQ wasn’t content to let mobile audio be the compromise it so often is. Instead, they built a 32Bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC and DTS: X Virtual Surround into it. The audio experience from the phone is superb.

So while the LG G8X ThinQ isn’t a top tier device, it is an impressive phone even by today’s standards and an amazing phone if you compare it to devices from just a few years ago. And while many phones, my iPhone 11 included, cost $1000 or more, this device is under $700 unlocked. (It is even less with carrier activation.) That alone makes it a decent choice if you are in the market for a new, large Android phone.

Specifications:

DISPLAY: 6.4”1 FHD + OLED 19.5:9

MEMORY: Internal Memory: 128 GB ROM (up to 102.8 GB usable), Expandable up to 2 TB with Micro SD Card

AUDIO: 32Bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC and DTS: X Virtual Surround

CHARGING: Fast Charging QC 4.0 + Wireless Charging

CHIPSET: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core

CAMERA: Rear: 12 MP Standard, 78° FOV and 13 MP Wide-Angle, 136° FOV Front: 32 MP with Pixel Binning, 78° FOV

CONNECTIVITY: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth Version 5.0, NFC

BATTERY: 4,000 mAh3

BIOMETRICS: In-display Fingerprint Sensor

So that’s a quick look at the LG G8X ThinQ phone. It’s not exciting but, in a world where premium phones are now more than $1000, this is an excellent phone at a mintier-phone price. That alone makes it a winner in my eyes.

BUT… that is only part of the story here.

The LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen

As Judie shared in her posts about the LG V50 and LG V60, this company is taking an unusual approach to dual-screen phones. Rather than develop a flexible screen that folds in on itself, LG decided to stick with the proven technology of large screens that don’t fold. Instead of taking a single screen and finding ways for it to fold, LG simply added a second 6.4” OLED FHD Display into the inside of a protective cover. When closed, you get the same slab phone as we described above, only double the thickness. When opened, however, the user is greeted by the 6.4” screen of the phone AND a 6.4” screen to its left. That provides double the screen-estate without the potential failures we’ve seen time and time again with folding screens. As we will see, it isn’t perfect, but it is a unique approach that solves many of the issues seen in devices with folding screens.

Interestingly, the second screen is the same display panel as the one on the phone. It even has the selfie-camera pinhole even though it lacks a camera. Moreover, the second screen is powered by the phone itself, so there is no need to charge the case separately.

Flexible Point of View: With a 360 freestop hinge, flip the screen around or lock it in place at any angle. Open it like a laptop, use it in stand or tent mode, or do a full 360° flip for a versatile viewing experience.

The Hinge:

To make this screen case work properly, LG had to design a hinge that provided maximum flexibility. The hinge on this device is loose enough to open with ease but tight enough that it will hold any position into which it is placed. That will become important when we look at some of the ways this approach can be used.

The hinge has been redesigned and now can flip all the way around to sit flush with the back of the phone. That means you can have the phone in the case but still use it as a slab phone. Yes, the case and screen make it thick, but the design means you don’t have to remove the phone every time you want to use it “normally.”

The front of the screen case is a mirrored plastic that is a fingerprint magnet. The “LG Dual Screen” logo is embossed toward the bottom but, other than that, it would seem there is nothing of interest and no functionality to this glossy surface. In this case, however, looks can be deceiving.

When the phone is one, this cover doubles as a notification display that lets you see the time, remaining battery life, and a variety of notifications. It is a great way to get a general sense of what is going on without needing to open the case and fire up the phone. (If you look closely, you can see a small slit at the top of this surface. That allows the sound from the phone’s speaker to pass through when the case is closed.)

The right side of the phone remains largely exposed, so you still have access to the power button.

The buttons on the left side are covered by a second “layer” of buttons. These work surprisingly well and, if you didn’t know better, their responsiveness would leave you thinking they were the actual buttons.

At the bottom, there is a cutout so you can access the 3.5mm headphone jack. The cutout should be large enough for most headphones, but thick plugs probably won’t work unless you have an adapter that can fit without the cutout. A second cutout leaves the phone’s speaker exposed.

Between these two cutouts is a charging area that is ready for the included Fast Charge adapter dongle.

On the plus side, this design is the magnetic connection made between the dongle and the case. When the two are brought into proximity with one another, they connect and stay connected until you pull them apart. (The other side of the dongle has a USB-C port into which a USB-C charging cable goes.) But while this approach works … I hate it. I hate that, while the magnets are strong, they can release their grip if the dongle is angled away from the phone. Worse than that, if you don’t have the dongle with you or, worse yet, lose it, you are out of luck. Fortunately, LG sells replacement dongles for the reasonable price of just $7.99. [Were this Apple, you know the same dongle would be $35.] You can still charge the phone directly via USB-C, but you will need to pull it from the case to do that. I hate this design, and I wish LG would find a way to ditch the dongle and use USB-C for charging whether the phone is in the case or not.

Instantly See Notifications: See essentials at a glance. The cover display allows you to view the time and notifications, like when messages are received, while the dual-screen is closed.

At the back of the case, there is a large cutout. It leaves the dual camera lenses and flash exposed and provides space for the G8X ThinQ logo. I don’t understand why they made this cutout as large as they did since it deserves no purpose. It is an interesting design choice but not one I would have made.

There are several ways you can use the dual screens. All of them hinge off of the “360 freest hinge.” As LG puts it, “With a 360 freestop hinge, flip the screen around or lock it in place at any angle. Open it like a laptop, use it in stand or tent mode, or do a full 360° flip for a versatile viewing experience.”

The big question is, of course, why would you want two large screens?

Dual Screen Multitasking Mode

The first way to use the dual-screen setup is to simply think about the screens as individual screens that “speak” to one another.

Tapping the small icon that sits on the side of the phone’s screen yields a “Turn on Dual screen icon.” Tapping it fires up the second screen that sits inside the case.

If you tap the same small icon now, you will be presented with several choices that include Swap Screens, Show Main on Dual Screen, Put Main Screen to Sleep, and Turn off Dual Screen.

You can also adjust the settings of the dual-screen mode by digging a bit deeper with a few taps.

You can now use the dual screens in the simplest way possible. If you open a browser on the phone’s screen, tap the small dual-screen icon and select “Swap Screens” the browser window will move over to the second screen.

This can also be done using three fingers swiped simultaneously on the screen. Now you can select a second browser window or any other app and fire it up on the phone’s screen.

That yields two independent screens that each have their specific app or browser window open. That may not sound like much, but being able to have two 6.4” displays that work independently is far more convenient than you might expect.

Surf the Web in Style: Make the most of your web browsers. Look at the webpage on one screen, and see more details on the other while reading articles, shopping, and more.

But it gets better. In the settings, you can lock which app appears on the secondary dual screen when the phone is fired up in dual screen mode. In my case, I have it set to pull up a browser window with my Gmail. Now, whenever I open up the case, my email is immediately present on the secondary screen, and I can use the phone’s display however I want.

And it gets even better. If I bring up something like the browser app and then activate the dual-screen control and select “Wide View,” the single webpage on the phone’s display is spread over both of the screens. It’s a cool trick, but the gap between the two screens that are created by the hinge doesn’t make this very practical. It does work a bit better if you switch the orientation to landscape, but it isn’t ideal.

Gamepad Mode

Control and Compete: Play for the win by using the second screen as a customizable controller, freeing up your main screen for all the action. Choose from multiple virtual controllers or design your own to match your game play needs and style.

Wanting to leverage the potential of their dual-screen approach LG, the company baked a special gamepad functionality into the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen. The phone ships with some built-in gamepads, but you can also create your custom gamepad if not of the stock offerings meet your needs.

The GamePad functionality doesn’t work with every game, but for those it does, you get to enjoy the entire phone display for the game graphics and can use the dual-display to control the action. I’m not much of a gamer, but I can see this functionality being a key selling point for people who use their phones in this way.

Mini Laptop Mode

On-The-Go Mini Laptop: Convert your smartphone into a mini laptop while on-the-go with the LG Smart Keyboard. Use the entire bottom display as a full-screen virtual keyboard to write emails, edit presentations, text, or search the web in full-screen on the top display.

If you pull up your email in either the email app or the browser and turn the dive into landscape position… nothing happens.

BUT, when you tap into a content field and bring up the soft keyboard, you are on the way to something unique. At the top of the soft keyboard, there is an icon that indicates two screens. Tapping, it results in the soft keyboard overlay disappearing and the entire dual-screen display turning into a keyboard.

Now you get the benefit of your entire phone’s screen being the content email screen and the entire dual display screen serving as your keyboard. Best of all, this laptop mode also works with apps like Outlook, so you aren’t locked into the stock Google apps or the browser.

Make the Most of Images Mode:

Add A Personal Touch To Images: Use the second screen to instantly view your pictures without having to exit the camera app. Try out different filters and edit on the main screen while previewing your full-size image on the dual-screen.

If you have ever taken a picture with your phone and then had to jump out of the camera app to check whether or not you captured the image you wanted, you are going to love this.

You can use the phone’s display as your image finder when shooting pictures and set it so that each new image you take immediately appears on the dual display. This lets you check each shot before taking the next. It also lets you test out various filters before going to the next shot. It is a nice convenience, but I’m not convinced it justifies the added weight and bulk of the dual-screen approach.

Dual Mirror Mode: With Mirror Mode, use the second screen to shoot from creative angles, such as over your head during a concert. Or, use the second screen as a live viewfinder to preview your selfies as you take them.

If you fire up the camera app, you will see a dual-screen icon at the upper left of the screen. Tapping it mirrors the phone’s display to the dual-screen dimply, so both displays function as the camera’s viewfinder. This allows you to use the dual-display as the camera viewfinder and get shots at angles that would otherwise be possible.

Fun, but It Still Falls Short

This dual-screen functionality is fun, and there are some neat tricks it can perform, but the design has its limitations. For example, I can watch a Netflix video on either display, but I can’t extend it to appear on both, thereby doubling the image. At the same time, since there is a thick black space between the screens, watching a video that is split in half wouldn’t be all too enjoyable. I’m sure I will find more examples of this limitation as I do more with it.

All of this is rather cool, but I’m still not quite sure if it is worth the added bulk and weight of the dual-screen case. So while I am still fascinated by LG’s approach to larger and dual screens, the thick border between the screens that are created by the hinge makes it a bit of a puzzle to me. It doesn’t double the phone’s 6.4” screen, but it does offer some unique ways to use your phone and your phone’s camera. In a world where phones feel iterative one model to the next, that’s not a terrible thing. It also doesn’t make me want to run out and get such a device. Still, at under $700 unlocked, there is a compelling argument one can make for purchasing this phone on its own. Then, if you think about the dual-screen case as a free add-on, it suddenly makes sense why someone might purchase this phone. It is a solid, large-screen performer that has a microSD expansion slot, retains the 3.5mm headphone jack, and gets good battery life. $700 for that is completely reasonable in today’s market, and the add-on accessory just makes it even more compelling. It is a phone worth checking out. Learn more here.

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample of the LG G8X ThinQ Dual Screen

What I Like: Phone has a large screen and tons of power at a reasonable price; Expansion slot for microSD card; Good battery life; USB-C and Qi wireless charging available; Dual-screen case included; Hinge is solid and holds any angle or folds completely back to sit flat against the phone; Front notification display so phone doesn’t need to be opened as often

What Needs Improvement: Case requires a dongle for wired charging; Dual-screen is fun but not entirely practical, the curiosity will likely diminish over time; Dual-screen works with some but not all apps; With the case, the phone is big, bulky and heavy

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/03/09/the-lg-g8x-thinq-dual-screen-review/

0 notes

instacoders8-blog · 5 years ago

Text

AI and Android App Development Make Enterprise Mobile Apps Smarter in 2020

Emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have found their place in the development of Android apps. These smart technologies help businesses in every way.

They are becoming popular worldwide for offering solutions for business apps. With its great potential for modern businesses, it benefits from digital agencies in many different ways. It is now an inseparable part of business applications.

The role of artificial intelligence in the development of customized Android apps

Statista reports that the global AI software market is expected to grow by 126% by the end of 2020 and reach a predicted size of more than USD 17 billion. It indicates the exceptional growth of the market for artificial intelligence software. AI introduces various other technologies including machine learning, machine reasoning, natural language processing, and computer vision, among others.

It is beneficial for object identification, image recognition and many other relationships for generating revenue. Development services for Android apps such as Message Muse integrate these technologies into your business app and make them more intelligent. AI predicted the next major technological shift and will be used vertically in almost every industry, just like the smartphone revolution.

AI appears to have a broad multidimensional impact on the mobile app industry. Companies are constantly trying to introduce new functions in apps. AI has become a subject of growth among trendsetters in the field. The multifaceted nature of technology opens up a whole new world of innovations. Here AI plays its role and takes the development of your mobile app to the next level. AI solutions accelerate user engagement, with a better understanding of user behavior patterns.

Google has changed its “mobile-first” strategy to “AI first” and introduced new Google AI tools. With these tools, developers can develop advanced mobile apps. Let’s start with one of the useful functions:

Face Recognition:

This function is used as a safety measure in various applications. As the name clearly shows, it identifies the user’s face for surveillance purposes. Real-time face detection helps in following someone’s movements. iOS and Android devices integrate this feature into their face recognition cameras in different frames. Facebook uses this technology in its algorithm to identify the faces of users in the posted photos.

Image Labels:

Mobile app development industries implement this feature to achieve different goals. Using Image Labeler Apps, developers give interactive labels to the images. This technology classifies an image by assigning a label to rectangular ROIs, i.e., the area of interest. It gives the users an interactive experience; as a result, they connect to the images and objects.

Landmark Detection:

This unique function helps in locating the specific points in the 2D images. Experts define these points in a specific research-based domain. Landmark detection is a starting procedure for a complex investigation process. It looks like face detection. It improves security during the payment transfer and makes it safer to do transactions.

Personalization:

AI provides predictive analysis by checking purchase choices, collecting user information, activating the system and displaying personalized recommendations. It plays a huge role in the development of custom Android apps with personalized functions. Personalization in an Android app builds a stronger bond with your customers and increases the conversion rate. With the help of this useful business strategy, companies can increase their sales and excel in the competition.

ChatBots:

It appears to be one of the most revolutionary concepts for the development of Android apps. It collects the interests and other relevant data from customers through interaction with real target groups. Strive for improved customer service. With chatbots, companies have no need to hire a customer service representative. Due to the human-like interaction with the consumer, it becomes part of Android apps for various companies, such as healthcare, e-commerce and insurance companies. It becomes an integral part of apps. There are many apps with a Chatbot function, such as Apple Siri and Snapchat. It improves the audio and video functions in a smart device.

Smart Answer:

The smarter version of Gmail combines AI and ML technologies. One of the important features is the Smart Reply. Mobile app development agencies use this AI-based feature in business apps. It opens a way for easy communication and saves you time. The emerging technologies AI and ML can make a big difference in business applications. The integration of this technology into your business system can increase development costs, but it is worth the investment because of the improved brand reputation and higher ROI (return on investment).

Role of AI in Various Industry Representatives:

AI solutions include thorough market research and analysis. Such solutions collect all relevant data and eliminate the risk of errors. More than 30% of mobile app development companies prefer AI for better marketing strategies and for increasing sales.

Improved Search Experience:

AI improves the search experience of users. Speech recognition technology makes it a lot easier. ML and AI integration suggests new ways of searching that take the user experience to the next level.

Forecasting Marketing:

Marketers must collect, analyze and maintain user information. It takes a lot of effort, time and energy. AI-driven applications analyze and manage data in a systematic way.

Why integrate AI in the development of mobile apps?

With the meaningful impact on growth, business relationships and customer expectations, AI has the most attention. It introduces some striking transformations into the world of mobile app development.

By including AI in apps, smartphones can play advanced technology roles such as text recognition, image delay, recognition of recognition points, bar code scanning and face recognition. Mobile apps with built-in AI functions ensure a great user experience.

Strongly Optimized Search Process:

The search process becomes increasingly difficult and intuitive with relevant suggestions, spelling corrections and spoken searches. Artificial intelligence optimizes the search process.

Study Behavior Patterns:

Retail giants such as Amazon and eBay use machine learning and AI-powered mobile apps. The algorithms can find trends, search data, adjust apps to create context reach possibilities for users. Companies can collect data through point-of-sale machines to provide a strategically enhanced user experience.

Android app developers integrate algorithms into apps to analyze user behavior and make relevant recommendations as they submit requests through search engines. This technical method plays a major role in the e-commerce sector. It contributes to offering personalized products and improved sales experience.

Digital Assistance:

Companies are now incorporating AI to create digital assistants. You can find them on smart TVs, smart speakers, smartphones and other smart devices with an internet connection. It improves service efficiency by 80%. AI assistants accept voice commands, which allow searching the internet, scheduling, setting alarms, dictating messages, and controlling media playback. You can easily arrange things such as WiFi, volume and Bluetooth.

Enhanced Security:

AI is used for security purposes in e-commerce apps. The technology has been successfully included in the development of Android apps because it offers a fast authentication process with improved security.

Use Cases:

Starbucks – Starbucks introduces a cloud-based flywheel program. Supported by AI and ML for personalization. It collects customer data and suggests a personalized routine for buyers.

Amazon – Amazon revolutionized its working process with AI. Smart technology has a deep understanding of recommendation problems based on the buying history and buying behavior of users.

Source Url: https://customwebdevelopmentservices1.blogspot.com/2020/02/ai-and-android-app-development-make.html

Custom Web Design Services, WordPress Web Design Company, professional web design services, web design and development services, affordable web design services, wordpress web designers near me, web design services for small business, Custom Web Development Services, WordPress Web Development Company, Professional Web Development Services, Affordable Web Development Services, WordPress Web Development Services Near Me, Web Development Services For Small Business, Mobile Application Development Company, Web Application Development Company, Application Development Company, web design applications, mobile application design and development, application design and development company, application design and development services, web application design company, application web design, best application for web design, web design email template, email template for web design, email template for web design company, custom email templates, sample customer service email templates, standard customer service email response templates, customer service email response templates

#Mobile Application Development Company #web application development company #application development company #mobile application design and development #application design and development company

0 notes

lindortech · 6 years ago

Text

There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers. Sometimes it’s by design. In the case of the star system Note 9, it’s a little bit of both.

The star system S9 wasn’t the blockbuster Samsung’s shareholders were expecting, so the company understandably primed the pump through a combination of teasers and leaks — some no doubt unintentional and others that seemed suspiciously less so.

By the time yesterday’s enormous event at Brooklyn’s house that Jay-Z built rolled around, we knew just about everything we needed to know about the upcoming handset, and virtually every leaked spec proved exact. Sure, the company amazingly managed to through in a surprise or two, but the event was all about the Note.

And understandably so. The phablet, along with the star system S line, forms the cornerstone of Samsung’s entire consumer reach. It’s a portfolio that expands with each event, to include wearables, productivity, the smart home, automotive, a smart assistant and now the long-awaited smart speaker. None of which would make a lick of sense without the handsets.

If the star system S is Samsung’s tentpole gagdet, the Note represents what the company has deemed its “innovation brand,” the uber-premium gagdet that allows the company to push the limits of its mobile hardware. In past generations, that’s meant the Edge display (curving screen), S-Pen, giant screen and dual-camera. That innovation, naturally, comes at a price.

Here it’s $1,000. It’s a price that, until a year ago seemed impossibly steep for a smartphone. For the star system Note 9, on the other hand, that’s just where things begin. Any hopes that the brand-new version might represent a move toward the mainstream for the line in the wake of an underwhelming S9 performance can be put to rest here.

The Note is what it’s always been and will likely always continue to be: a gagdet for the diehard. a very good gagdet, mind, but one for those with an arm and or a leg to spare. Most of the good brand-new features will trickle their route down the food chain to the company’s more mainstream gagdet. At $720/$840, the S9 isn’t a budget phone by any stretch of the imagination, but at the very least, keeping it to three digits seems a little more palatable.

a good rule of thumb for a hardware review is incorporating the product into one’s own life as much as viable. It’s a beautiful uncomplicated question with a gagdet like the Note 9, which has the merit of superb hardware and program design built upon the learnings and missteps of several generations.

It’s still not awesome by any means, and the company’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink reach to the line means there are plenty of features that never really made their may into my routine. And while, as the largely unchanged product design suggests — the Note 9 doesn’t represent a hugely significant milestone in the product line — there are enough tweaks throughout the product to maintain its place toward the top of the automaton heap.

All charged up

Let’s address the gorilla in the room here. Two years ago, star system Notes started exploding. Samsung recalled the devices, started selling them, more exploded and they recalled them again, ultimately discontinuing the product.

Samsung apologized profusely and agreed to institute more rigorous safety checks. For the next few devices, the company didn’t rock the boat. Battery sizes on star system products stayed mostly the same. It was a combination of pragmatism and optics. The company needed time to ensure that future products wouldn’t suffer the same fate, while demonstrating to the public and shareholders that it was doing due diligence.

“What we want to do is a tempered reach to innovation any time,” Samsung’s director of Product Strategy and Marketing told me ahead of launch, “so this was the right time to increase the battery to meet consumer needs.”

Given Samsung’s massive business as an element manufacturer, the whole fiasco ultimately didn’t dent the bottom line. In fact, in a bizarre route, it might ultimately be a net positive. Now it can boast about having one of the most rigorous battery testing processes in the business. Now it’s a feature, not a bug.

At 4,000mAh, the Note 9 features a 700mah increase above its predecessor. It’s not an unprecedented number — Huawei’s already knocked the 4,000 mark — but it’s the largest ever on a note gagdet, putting the handset in the top percentile.

As far as how that actually translates to real-world usage, Samsung’s not giving a number yet. The company simply says “all day and all dark-hour” in its release. I found that to be beautiful close to the truth. I unplugged the handset at 100 percent yesterday afternoon. I texted, listened to Spotify, took photos, downloaded and just generally attempted to live my life on the damn thing.

Just under 22 hours later, it gave up the ghost and after much notification-based consternation about a critically low battery, the screen went black. Like I said, it’s not insane battery life, but going most of a full day and dark-hour without a charge is a nice little luxury — and the sort of thing all phone makers should try to gain on their flagship products.

The company also, kindly, included the brand-new Wireless Charging Duo. The charging pad is not quite as ambitious as the AirPower, but unlike that product, introduced nearly a year ago by Apple, I have this in my hands right now. So, point: Samsung. Charging the gagdet from zero to 100 percent took three hours on the dot with the $120 “swift Charge” pad. And it’s nice and toasty now.

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to begin. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a time if you need to.

That’s a silly amount of cash if you’re not the starting point guard for the Golden State Warriors. So much for the rumors that the company would be working to make its devices more economically accessible. And while the premium hardware has always meant that the star system line is going to remain on the pricey side, I can’t support but point out that a few key decisions could have kept the price down, while maintaining build grade.

Storage is arguably the primary culprit. The aforementioned two SKUs give you either 6GB of RAM with 128GB or 8GB of RAM with 512GB. With cloud syncing and the rest, it’s rigid to imagine I would come close to that maximum in the two or so years until the time comes to upgrade my handset.

I’m sure those sorts of insane media-hoarding power users do, in fact, exist in the world, but they’re undoubtedly a rarity. Besides, as Samsung helpfully pointed out, 512GB SD cards already exist in the world. Sure, that’s another $350 tacked onto the bottom line, but it’s there, if you need it. For most users, it’s rigid to see Samsung’s bay of having “the world’s first 1TB-ready smartphone” (512GB+512GB) exists for little more reason than racking up yet another flashy bay for the 1960s Batman utility belt of smartphones.

Sure, Samsung no doubt gets a deal on Samsung-built rigid drives, but the element has to be a key part in what’s driving costs up. For a company as driven by decision as Samsung, I’m honestly surprised we’re not getting more options up front here in the States.

Remote command

Confession: After testing many star system Note models over the course of many years, I’ve never figured out a superb use for the S-Pen. I mean, I’m cheerful that people like it, and obviously all of the early skepticism about the return of the stylus was quickly put to rest, as the company has continued to go back to the well, year after year.

But all of the handwritten note taking and animated GIF drawing just isn’t for me, man. I also recently spoke to an artist buddy who told me that the Note doesn’t really cut it for him on the drawing front, either. Again, if you like or love it, more power to you, but it’s just not for me.

As silly as the concept of using the S-Pen as a remote command might appear at first glance, however, it’s clear to me that this is the first use of the built-in addon I could honestly see using on a daily basis. It’s easy-to-use once you get beyond the silliness of holding a stylus in your hand while running, and serves as an easy-to-use surrogate for those who don’t own an accordant smartwatch.

The S-Pen now sports Bluetooth Low power, allowing it to command disparate aspects of phone use. Low power or not, that tech requires power, so the stylus now contains a super conductor, which charges it when slotted inside the phone; 40 seconds of charging should get you a healthy 30 minutes of use. Even so, the phone will bug you to remind you that you really ought to dock the thing when not in use.

The accordant apps are still fairly limited at launch, but it’s enough to demonstrate how this could be an easy-to-use little addition. Of the bunch, I got the most out of music command for Spotify. One click plays/pauses a music, and a double-click extends the track. Sure, it’s limited functionality, but it saved me from having to fiddle with the phone to change songs went I went for my run this morning.

You’ll need to be a bit more creative when determining usefulness in some of the other apps. Using it as a shutter button in the camera app, for instance, could be a helpful route to take a selfie without having to hold the phone at arms’ length.

The entire time, I wondered what one might be able to accomplish with more buttons (volume/rewind/gameplay)? What about a pedometer to track stages when you’re running on the treadmill without it in the pocket? Or even a beacon to support absent-minded folks like myself find it after we invariably drop it between couch cushions.

But yeah, I understand why the company would select to keep things easy for what remains a sort of secondary functionality. Or, heck, maybe the company just needs to hold some features for the Note 10 (Note X?).

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s beautiful entertaining.

Hey man, nice shot

Nowhere is the Note’s cumulative evolution acceptable represented than the camera. Each subsequent star system S and Note release seem to offer brand-new hardware and/or program upgrades, giving the company two disparate opportunities per year to upgrade imaging for the line. The S9, announced back in February, notably brought improved low-light photography to the line. The dual aperture flips between f/1.5 and f/2.4, to let in more light.

It’s a neat ruse for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

breed: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical graphic Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

This time out, the improvements are mostly on the program side of things. Two features in particular stand out: Scene Optimizer and Flaw Detection. The first should prove familiar to those who’ve been paying attention to the smartphone game of late. LG is probably the most prominent instance.

Camera hardware is beautiful superb across the board of most modern smartphone flagships. As such, these brand-new features are designed to eliminate the current weakest link: mankind error. Scene Optimizer saves amateur photographers from having to futz with more advanced settings like white balance and saturation.

The feature uses AI to determine what the camera is seeing, and adjusts settings accordingly. There are 20 disparate settings, including: Food, Portraits, Flowers, Indoor scenes, Animals, Landscapes, Greenery, Trees, atmosphere, Mountains, Beaches, Sunrises and sunsets, Watersides, roadway scenes, dark-hour scenes, Waterfalls, Snow, Birds, Backlit and Text.

Some are beautiful general, others are weirdly exact, but it’s a good mix, and I suspect Samsung will continue to add to it through OTA updates. That said, the function itself doesn’t need a cloud connection, doing all of the processing on-board. The feature worked well with most of the flowers and food I threw at it (so to speak), popping up a little icon in the bottom of the screen to let me know that it knows what it’s looking at. It also did well with book text.

The victory rate of other things, like trees, were, unsurprisingly, dependent on context. Get just the top part and it identifies it as “Greenery.” Flip the phone to portrait method and get the whole of the trunk and it pops up the “Tree” icon. I did get a few false positives along the route; the Note 9 thought my fingers were food, which is deeply disturbing for any number of reasons.

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

Obviously, it’s not going to be awesome. I found, in the case of flowers that it has the tendency to oversaturate the colors. If you agree, you can disable the feature in settings. However, you have to do this before the shot is taken. There’s no route to manually override the feature to tell it what kind of object you’re shooting. That seems like a bit of a no-brainer addition.

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

Flaw Detection serves a similar role as Scene Optimizer, helping you elude getting in your own route as an amateur photog. The feature is designed to alert you if a shot is blurry, if there’s a smudge on the screen, if the subject blinked or if backlighting is making everything look crappy. In the case of lens smudging and backlighting, it only bothers with a solo alert every 24 hours.

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more absorbing additions on the whole of the gagdet and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the gagdet in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

That’s perfectly fine. Samsung’s done a great job cramming a lot of screen into a manageable footprint over the past several gens. The only major change (aside from the lovely brand-new blue and purple colourant jobs) is the migration of the fingerprint sensor from the side of the camera to underneath it.

This was a clear instance of Samsung responding to feedback from users frustrated by all the times they mistook the camera for the fingerprint reader. The brand-new placement helps a bit, though it’s still fairly close to the camera, and the fact that both are similar shapes doesn’t support matters. Thank goodness for that brand-new smudge detector.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important route to distinguish the product and reach from a world gone dongle ludicrous.

Note on Notes

Oh Bixby, you non-stop bastion of unfulfilled potential. a full rundown of brand-new features can be found here. Overall, the smart assistant promises to be more conversational, with acceptable concierge features. That said, Samsung’s once again tweaking it until the last time, so I can’t offer you a full review until closer to the phone’s August 24 roadway date.

So stay tuned for that, I guess. I will say that the setup process can be a bit of a slog for a feature designed to make everything easier. Playing with Bixby voice required me to navigate several pages in order to connect the two. Thankfully, you should only have to deal with that the one time.

Samsung’s continuing to tweak the internals to make its gagdet more suitable for gaming. The water-carbon cooling system tweaks the fluid cooling system found on the gagdet since the S7, to support diffuse heat more efficiently. The huge, luminous screen meanwhile, is well-suited to mobile gaming, and the 6GB version handled Fortnite fairly well.

a final note

The next smartphone revolution always seems to be a year away. The potential arrival of a samsung gagdet with a foldable display makes the notion of carrying a massive gagdet around in one’s pocket almost quaint. For the time being, however, the Note remains one of the best methods for transporting a whole lot of screen around on your person.

a lot has changed about the Note in the past seven years, but the core of the gagdet is mostly the same: enormous screen and stylus coming together to walk the line between productivity and entertainment. It’s enormous, it’s bold, it’s too exorbitant for a lot of us. But it remains the phablet to beat.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers.

0 notes

smartecky · 7 years ago

Text

There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers. Sometimes it’s by design. In the case of the Galaxy Note 9, it’s a little bit of both.

The Galaxy S9 wasn’t the blockbuster Samsung’s shareholders were expecting, so the company understandably primed the pump through a combination of teasers and leaks — some no doubt unintentional and others that seemed suspiciously less so.

By the time yesterday’s big event at Brooklyn’s house that Jay-Z built rolled around, we knew just about everything we needed to know about the upcoming handset, and virtually every leaked spec proved accurate. Sure, the company amazingly managed to through in a surprise or two, but the event was all about the Note.

And understandably so. The phablet, along with the Galaxy S line, forms the cornerstone of Samsung’s entire consumer approach. It’s a portfolio that expands with each event, to include wearables, productivity, the smart home, automotive, a smart assistant and now the long-awaited smart speaker. None of which would make a lick of sense without the handsets.

If the Galaxy S is Samsung’s tentpole device, the Note represents what the company has deemed its “innovation brand,” the uber-premium device that allows the company to push the limits of its mobile hardware. In past generations, that’s meant the Edge display (curving screen), S-Pen, giant screen and dual-camera. That innovation, naturally, comes at a price.

Here it’s $1,000. It’s a price that, until a year ago seemed impossibly steep for a smartphone. For the Galaxy Note 9, on the other hand, that’s just where things start. Any hopes that the new model might represent a move toward the mainstream for the line in the wake of an underwhelming S9 performance can be put to rest here.

The Note is what it’s always been and will likely always continue to be: a device for the diehard. A very good device, mind, but one for those with an arm and or a leg to spare. Most of the good new features will trickle their way down the food chain to the company’s more mainstream device. At $720/$840, the S9 isn’t a budget phone by any stretch of the imagination, but at the very least, keeping it to three digits seems a little more palatable.

A good rule of thumb for a hardware review is incorporating the product into one’s own life as much as possible. It’s a pretty easy ask with a device like the Note 9, which has the advantage of great hardware and software design built upon the learnings and missteps of several generations.

It’s still not perfect by any means, and the company’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the line means there are plenty of features that never really made their may into my routine. And while, as the largely unchanged product design suggests — the Note 9 doesn’t represent a hugely significant milestone in the product line — there are enough tweaks throughout the product to maintain its place toward the top of the Android heap.

All charged up

Let’s address the gorilla in the room here. Two years ago, Galaxy Notes started exploding. Samsung recalled the devices, started selling them, more exploded and they recalled them again, ultimately discontinuing the product.

Samsung apologized profusely and agreed to institute more rigorous safety checks. For the next few devices, the company didn’t rock the boat. Battery sizes on Galaxy products stayed mostly the same. It was a combination of pragmatism and optics. The company needed time to ensure that future products wouldn’t suffer the same fate, while demonstrating to the public and shareholders that it was doing due diligence.

“What we want to do is a tempered approach to innovation any time,” Samsung’s director of Product Strategy and Marketing told me ahead of launch, “so this was the right time to increase the battery to meet consumer needs.”

Given Samsung’s massive business as a component manufacturer, the whole fiasco ultimately didn’t dent the bottom line. In fact, in a strange way, it might ultimately be a net positive. Now it can boast about having one of the most rigorous battery testing processes in the business. Now it’s a feature, not a bug.

At 4,000mAh, the Note 9 features a 700mAh increase above its predecessor. It’s not an unprecedented number — Huawei’s already hit the 4,000 mark — but it’s the largest ever on a Note device, putting the handset in the top percentile.

As far as how that actually translates to real-world usage, Samsung’s not giving a number yet. The company simply says “all day and all night” in its release. I found that to be pretty close to the truth. I unplugged the handset at 100 percent yesterday afternoon. I texted, listened to Spotify, took photos, downloaded and just generally attempted to live my life on the damn thing.

Just under 22 hours later, it gave up the ghost and after much notification-based consternation about a critically low battery, the screen went black. Like I said, it’s not crazy battery life, but going most of a full day and night without a charge is a nice little luxury — and the sort of thing all phone makers should strive to achieve on their flagship products.

The company also, kindly, included the new Wireless Charging Duo. The charging pad is not quite as ambitious as the AirPower, but unlike that product, introduced nearly a year ago by Apple, I have this in my hands right now. So, point: Samsung. Charging the device from zero to 100 percent took three hours on the dot with the $120 “Fast Charge” pad. And it’s nice and toasty now.

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

That’s a silly amount of money if you’re not the starting point guard for the Golden State Warriors. So much for the rumors that the company would be working to make its devices more economically accessible. And while the premium hardware has always meant that the Galaxy line is going to remain on the pricey side, I can’t help but point out that a few key decisions could have kept the price down, while maintaining build quality.

Storage is arguably the primary culprit. The aforementioned two SKUs give you either 6GB of RAM with 128GB or 8GB of RAM with 512GB. With cloud syncing and the rest, it’s hard to imagine I would come close to that limit in the two or so years until the time comes to upgrade my handset.

I’m sure those sorts of crazy media-hoarding power users do, in fact, exist in the world, but they’re undoubtedly a rarity. Besides, as Samsung helpfully pointed out, 512GB SD cards already exist in the world. Sure, that’s another $350 tacked onto the bottom line, but it’s there, if you need it. For most users, it’s hard to see Samsung’s claim of having “the world’s first 1TB-ready smartphone” (512GB+512GB) exists for little more reason than racking up yet another flashy claim for the 1960s Batman utility belt of smartphones.

Sure, Samsung no doubt gets a deal on Samsung-built hard drives, but the component has to be a key part in what’s driving costs up. For a company as driven by choice as Samsung, I’m honestly surprised we’re not getting more options up front here in the States.

Remote control

Confession: After testing many Galaxy Note models over the course of many years, I’ve never figured out a great use for the S-Pen. I mean, I’m happy that people like it, and obviously all of the early skepticism about the return of the stylus was quickly put to rest, as the company has continued to go back to the well, year after year.

But all of the handwritten note taking and animated GIF drawing just isn’t for me, man. I also recently spoke to an artist friend who told me that the Note doesn’t really cut it for him on the drawing front, either. Again, if you like or love it, more power to you, but it’s just not for me.

As silly as the idea of using the S-Pen as a remote control might appear at first glance, however, it’s clear to me that this is the first use of the built-in accessory I could honestly see using on a daily basis. It’s handy once you get beyond the silliness of holding a stylus in your hand while running, and serves as a handy surrogate for those who don’t own a compatible smartwatch.

The S-Pen now sports Bluetooth Low Energy, allowing it to control different aspects of phone use. Low Energy or not, that tech requires power, so the stylus now contains a super conductor, which charges it when slotted inside the phone; 40 seconds of charging should get you a healthy 30 minutes of use. Even so, the phone will bug you to remind you that you really ought to dock the thing when not in use.

The compatible apps are still fairly limited at launch, but it’s enough to demonstrate how this could be a handy little addition. Of the bunch, I got the most out of music control for Spotify. One click plays/pauses a song, and a double-click extends the track. Sure, it’s limited functionality, but it saved me from having to fiddle with the phone to change songs went I went for my run this morning.

You’ll need to be a bit more creative when determining usefulness in some of the other apps. Using it as a shutter button in the camera app, for instance, could be a useful way to take a selfie without having to hold the phone at arms’ length.

The entire time, I wondered what one might be able to accomplish with additional buttons (volume/rewind/gameplay)? What about a pedometer to track steps when you’re running on the treadmill without it in the pocket? Or even a beacon to help absent-minded folks like myself find it after we invariably drop it between couch cushions.

But yeah, I understand why the company would choose to keep things simple for what remains a sort of secondary functionality. Or, heck, maybe the company just needs to hold some features for the Note 10 (Note X?).

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

Nowhere is the Note’s cumulative evolution better represented than the camera. Each subsequent Galaxy S and Note release seem to offer new hardware and/or software upgrades, giving the company two distinct opportunities per year to improve imaging for the line. The S9, announced back in February, notably brought improved low-light photography to the line. The dual aperture flips between f/1.5 and f/2.4, to let in more light.

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

This time out, the improvements are mostly on the software side of things. Two features in particular stand out: Scene Optimizer and Flaw Detection. The first should prove familiar to those who’ve been paying attention to the smartphone game of late. LG is probably the most prominent example.

Camera hardware is pretty great across the board of most modern smartphone flagships. As such, these new features are designed to eliminate the current weakest link: human error. Scene Optimizer saves amateur photographers from having to futz with more advanced settings like white balance and saturation.

The feature uses AI to determine what the camera is seeing, and adjusts settings accordingly. There are 20 different settings, including: Food, Portraits, Flowers, Indoor scenes, Animals, Landscapes, Greenery, Trees, Sky, Mountains, Beaches, Sunrises and sunsets, Watersides, Street scenes, Night scenes, Waterfalls, Snow, Birds, Backlit and Text.

Some are pretty general, others are weirdly specific, but it’s a good mix, and I suspect Samsung will continue to add to it through OTA updates. That said, the function itself doesn’t need a cloud connection, doing all of the processing on-board. The feature worked well with most of the flowers and food I threw at it (so to speak), popping up a small icon in the bottom of the screen to let me know that it knows what it’s looking at. It also did well with book text.

The success rate of other things, like trees, were, unsurprisingly, dependent on context. Get just the top part and it identifies it as “Greenery.” Flip the phone to portrait mode and get the whole of the trunk and it pops up the “Tree” icon. I did get a few false positives along the way; the Note 9 thought my fingers were food, which is deeply disturbing for any number of reasons.

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

Obviously, it’s not going to be perfect. I found, in the case of flowers that it has the tendency to oversaturate the colors. If you agree, you can disable the feature in settings. However, you have to do this before the shot is taken. There’s no way to manually override the feature to tell it what kind of object you’re shooting. That seems like a bit of a no-brainer addition.

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

Flaw Detection serves a similar role as Scene Optimizer, helping you avoid getting in your own way as an amateur photog. The feature is designed to alert you if a shot is blurry, if there’s a smudge on the screen, if the subject blinked or if backlighting is making everything look crappy. In the case of lens smudging and backlighting, it only bothers with a single alert every 24 hours.

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

That’s perfectly fine. Samsung’s done an impressive job cramming a lot of screen into a manageable footprint over the past several gens. The only major change (aside from the lovely new blue and purple paint jobs) is the migration of the fingerprint sensor from the side of the camera to underneath it.

This was a clear instance of Samsung responding to feedback from users frustrated by all the times they mistook the camera for the fingerprint reader. The new placement helps a bit, though it’s still fairly close to the camera, and the fact that both are similar shapes doesn’t help matters. Thank goodness for that new smudge detector.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

Oh Bixby, you eternal bastion of unfulfilled potential. A full rundown of new features can be found here. Overall, the smart assistant promises to be more conversational, with better concierge features. That said, Samsung’s once again tweaking it until the last moment, so I can’t offer you a full review until closer to the phone’s August 24 street date.

Samsung’s continuing to tweak the internals to make its device more suitable for gaming. The water-carbon cooling system tweaks the liquid cooling system found on the device since the S7, to help diffuse heat more efficiently. The large, bright screen meanwhile, is well-suited to mobile gaming, and the 6GB model handled Fortnite fairly well.

A final note

The next smartphone revolution always seems to be a year away. The potential arrival of a Samsung device with a foldable display makes the notion of carrying a massive device around in one’s pocket almost quaint. For the time being, however, the Note remains one of the best methods for transporting a whole lot of screen around on your person.

A lot has changed about the Note in the past seven years, but the core of the device is mostly the same: big screen and stylus coming together to walk the line between productivity and entertainment. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s too expensive for a lot of us. But it remains the phablet to beat.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/10/samsung-galaxy-note-9-review/

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers.

0 notes

chicagopdlover · 7 years ago

Text

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review Big and stylusly stylish, with a price to match Brian Heater @ / 2 days There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers. Sometimes it’s by design. In the case of the Galaxy Note 9 , it’s a little bit of both. The Galaxy S9 wasn’t the blockbuster Samsung’s shareholders were expecting, so the company understandably primed the pump through a combination of teasers and leaks — some no doubt unintentional and others that seemed suspiciously less so. By the time yesterday’s big event at Brooklyn’s house that Jay-Z built rolled around, we knew just about everything we needed to know about the upcoming handset, and virtually every leaked spec proved accurate. Sure, the company amazingly managed to through in a surprise or two, but the event was all about the Note. And understandably so. The phablet, along with the Galaxy S line, forms the cornerstone of Samsung’s entire consumer approach. It’s a portfolio that expands with each event, to include wearables, productivity, the smart home, automotive, a smart assistant and now the long-awaited smart speaker. None of which would make a lick of sense without the handsets. If the Galaxy S is Samsung’s tentpole device, the Note represents what the company has deemed its “innovation brand,” the uber-premium device that allows the company to push the limits of its mobile hardware. In past generations, that’s meant the Edge display (curving screen), S-Pen, giant screen and dual-camera. That innovation, naturally, comes at a price. Here it’s $1,000. It’s a price that, until a year ago seemed impossibly steep for a smartphone. For the Galaxy Note 9, on the other hand, that’s just where things start . Any hopes that the new model might represent a move toward the mainstream for the line in the wake of an underwhelming S9 performance can be put to rest here. The Note is what it’s always been and will likely always continue to be: a device for the diehard. A very good device, mind, but one for those with an arm and or a leg to spare. Most of the good new features will trickle their way down the food chain to the company’s more mainstream device. At $720/$840, the S9 isn’t a budget phone by any stretch of the imagination, but at the very least, keeping it to three digits seems a little more palatable. A good rule of thumb for a hardware review is incorporating the product into one’s own life as much as possible. It’s a pretty easy ask with a device like the Note 9, which has the advantage of great hardware and software design built upon the learnings and missteps of several generations. It’s still not perfect by any means, and the company’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the line means there are plenty of features that never really made their may into my routine. And while, as the largely unchanged product design suggests — the Note 9 doesn’t represent a hugely significant milestone in the product line — there are enough tweaks throughout the product to maintain its place toward the top of the Android heap. All charged up Let’s address the gorilla in the room here. Two years ago , Galaxy Notes started exploding. Samsung recalled the devices, started selling them, more exploded and they recalled them again, ultimately discontinuing the product. Samsung apologized profusely and agreed to institute more rigorous safety checks. For the next few devices, the company didn’t rock the boat. Battery sizes on Galaxy products stayed mostly the same. It was a combination of pragmatism and optics. The company needed time to ensure that future products wouldn’t suffer the same fate, while demonstrating to the public and shareholders that it was doing due diligence. “What we want to do is a tempered approach to innovation any time,” Samsung’s director of Product Strategy and Marketing told me ahead of launch, “so this was the right time to increase the battery to meet consumer needs.” Given Samsung’s massive business as a component manufacturer, the whole fiasco ultimately didn’t dent the bottom line. In fact, in a strange way, it might ultimately be a net positive . Now it can boast about having one of the most rigorous battery testing processes in the business. Now it’s a feature, not a bug. At 4,000mAh, the Note 9 features a 700mAh increase above its predecessor. It’s not an unprecedented number — Huawei’s already hit the 4,000 mark — but it’s the largest ever on a Note device, putting the handset in the top percentile. As far as how that actually translates to real-world usage, Samsung’s not giving a number yet. The company simply says “all day and all night” in its release. I found that to be pretty close to the truth. I unplugged the handset at 100 percent yesterday afternoon. I texted, listened to Spotify, took photos, downloaded and just generally attempted to live my life on the damn thing. Just under 22 hours later, it gave up the ghost and after much notification-based consternation about a critically low battery, the screen went black. Like I said, it’s not crazy battery life, but going most of a full day and night without a charge is a nice little luxury — and the sort of thing all phone makers should strive to achieve on their flagship products. The company also, kindly, included the new Wireless Charging Duo . The charging pad is not quite as ambitious as the AirPower, but unlike that product, introduced nearly a year ago by Apple, I have this in my hands right now. So, point: Samsung. Charging the device from zero to 100 percent took three hours on the dot with the $120 “Fast Charge” pad. And it’s nice and toasty now. Memories Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to. That’s a silly amount of money if you’re not the starting point guard for the Golden State Warriors. So much for the rumors that the company would be working to make its devices more economically accessible. And while the premium hardware has always meant that the Galaxy line is going to remain on the pricey side, I can’t help but point out that a few key decisions could have kept the price down, while maintaining build quality. Storage is arguably the primary culprit. The aforementioned two SKUs give you either 6GB of RAM with 128GB or 8GB of RAM with 512GB. With cloud syncing and the rest, it’s hard to imagine I would come close to that limit in the two or so years until the time comes to upgrade my handset. I’m sure those sorts of crazy media-hoarding power users do, in fact, exist in the world, but they’re undoubtedly a rarity. Besides, as Samsung helpfully pointed out, 512GB SD cards already exist in the world. Sure, that’s another $350 tacked onto the bottom line, but it’s there, if you need it. For most users, it’s hard to see Samsung’s claim of having “the world’s first 1TB-ready smartphone” (512GB+512GB) exists for little more reason than racking up yet another flashy claim for the 1960s Batman utility belt of smartphones. Sure, Samsung no doubt gets a deal on Samsung-built hard drives, but the component has to be a key part in what’s driving costs up. For a company as driven by choice as Samsung, I’m honestly surprised we’re not getting more options up front here in the States. Remote control Confession: After testing many Galaxy Note models over the course of many years, I’ve never figured out a great use for the S-Pen. I mean, I’m happy that people like it, and obviously all of the early skepticism about the return of the stylus was quickly put to rest, as the company has continued to go back to the well, year after year. But all of the handwritten note taking and animated GIF drawing just isn’t for me, man. I also recently spoke to an artist friend who told me that the Note doesn’t really cut it for him on the drawing front, either. Again, if you like or love it, more power to you, but it’s just not for me. As silly as the idea of using the S-Pen as a remote control might appear at first glance, however, it’s clear to me that this is the first use of the built-in accessory I could honestly see using on a daily basis. It’s handy once you get beyond the silliness of holding a stylus in your hand while running, and serves as a handy surrogate for those who don’t own a compatible smartwatch. The S-Pen now sports Bluetooth Low Energy, allowing it to control different aspects of phone use. Low Energy or not, that tech requires power, so the stylus now contains a super conductor, which charges it when slotted inside the phone; 40 seconds of charging should get you a healthy 30 minutes of use. Even so, the phone will bug you to remind you that you really ought to dock the thing when not in use. The compatible apps are still fairly limited at launch, but it’s enough to demonstrate how this could be a handy little addition. Of the bunch, I got the most out of music control for Spotify. One click plays/pauses a song, and a double-click extends the track. Sure, it’s limited functionality, but it saved me from having to fiddle with the phone to change songs went I went for my run this morning. You’ll need to be a bit more creative when determining usefulness in some of the other apps. Using it as a shutter button in the camera app, for instance, could be a useful way to take a selfie without having to hold the phone at arms’ length. The entire time, I wondered what one might be able to accomplish with additional buttons (volume/rewind/gameplay)? What about a pedometer to track steps when you’re running on the treadmill without it in the pocket? Or even a beacon to help absent-minded folks like myself find it after we invariably drop it between couch cushions. But yeah, I understand why the company would choose to keep things simple for what remains a sort of secondary functionality. Or, heck, maybe the company just needs to hold some features for the Note 10 (Note X?). Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun. Hey man, nice shot Nowhere is the Note’s cumulative evolution better represented than the camera. Each subsequent Galaxy S and Note release seem to offer new hardware and/or software upgrades, giving the company two distinct opportunities per year to improve imaging for the line. The S9, announced back in February, notably brought improved low-light photography to the line. The dual aperture flips between f/1.5 and f/2.4, to let in more light. It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right): Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front: Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS 2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom Front: 8MP AF, F1.7 This time out, the improvements are mostly on the software side of things. Two features in particular stand out: Scene Optimizer and Flaw Detection . The first should prove familiar to those who’ve been paying attention to the smartphone game of late. LG is probably the most prominent example. Camera hardware is pretty great across the board of most modern smartphone flagships. As such, these new features are designed to eliminate the current weakest link: human error. Scene Optimizer saves amateur photographers from having to futz with more advanced settings like white balance and saturation. The feature uses AI to determine what the camera is seeing, and adjusts settings accordingly. There are 20 different settings, including: Food, Portraits, Flowers, Indoor scenes, Animals, Landscapes, Greenery, Trees, Sky, Mountains, Beaches, Sunrises and sunsets, Watersides, Street scenes, Night scenes, Waterfalls, Snow, Birds, Backlit and Text. Some are pretty general, others are weirdly specific, but it’s a good mix, and I suspect Samsung will continue to add to it through OTA updates. That said, the function itself doesn’t need a cloud connection, doing all of the processing on-board. The feature worked well with most of the flowers and food I threw at it (so to speak), popping up a small icon in the bottom of the screen to let me know that it knows what it’s looking at. It also did well with book text. The success rate of other things, like trees, were, unsurprisingly, dependent on context. Get just the top part and it identifies it as “Greenery.” Flip the phone to portrait mode and get the whole of the trunk and it pops up the “Tree” icon. I did get a few false positives along the way; the Note 9 thought my fingers were food, which is deeply disturbing for any number of reasons. [Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right] Obviously, it’s not going to be perfect. I found, in the case of flowers that it has the tendency to oversaturate the colors. If you agree, you can disable the feature in settings. However, you have to do this before the shot is taken. There’s no way to manually override the feature to tell it what kind of object you’re shooting. That seems like a bit of a no-brainer addition. [Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights] Flaw Detection serves a similar role as Scene Optimizer, helping you avoid getting in your own way as an amateur photog. The feature is designed to alert you if a shot is blurry, if there’s a smudge on the screen, if the subject blinked or if backlighting is making everything look crappy. In the case of lens smudging and backlighting, it only bothers with a single alert every 24 hours. The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year. Design Note The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9. That’s perfectly fine. Samsung’s done an impressive job cramming a lot of screen into a manageable footprint over the past several gens. The only major change (aside from the lovely new blue and purple paint jobs) is the migration of the fingerprint sensor from the side of the camera to underneath it. This was a clear instance of Samsung responding to feedback from users frustrated by all the times they mistook the camera for the fingerprint reader. The new placement helps a bit, though it’s still fairly close to the camera, and the fact that both are similar shapes doesn’t help matters. Thank goodness for that new smudge detector. Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad. Note on Notes Oh Bixby, you eternal bastion of unfulfilled potential. A full rundown of new features can be found here . Overall, the smart assistant promises to be more conversational, with better concierge features. That said, Samsung’s once again tweaking it until the last moment, so I can’t offer you a full review until closer to the phone’s August 24 street date. So stay tuned for that, I guess. I will say that the setup process can be a bit of a slog for a feature designed to make everything easier. Playing with Bixby voice required me to navigate several pages in order to connect the two. Thankfully, you should only have to deal with that the one time. Samsung’s continuing to tweak the internals to make its device more suitable for gaming. The water-carbon cooling system tweaks the liquid cooling system found on the device since the S7, to help diffuse heat more efficiently. The large, bright screen meanwhile, is well-suited to mobile gaming, and the 6GB model handled Fortnite fairly well. A final note The next smartphone revolution always seems to be a year away. The potential arrival of a Samsung device with a foldable display makes the notion of carrying a massive device around in one’s pocket almost quaint. For the time being, however, the Note remains one of the best methods for transporting a whole lot of screen around on your person. A lot has changed about the Note in the past seven years, but the core of the device is mostly the same: big screen and stylus coming together to walk the line between productivity and entertainment. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s too expensive for a lot of us. But it remains the phablet to beat.

from Christian David Biz https://ift.tt/2w8JJz5 via Article Source

#Christian David Biz

0 notes

sheminecrafts · 7 years ago

Text

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review

youtube

All charged up

youtube

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

Remote control

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

[gallery ids="1689899,1689901,1689903,1689904,1689932"]

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

A final note

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2OsHyhb via IFTTT

#IFTTT #iraidajzsmmwtv

0 notes

webdevelopment010 · 7 years ago

Link

All charged up

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

Remote control

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

A final note

Source link

The post Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review appeared first on Fadsmedia.

0 notes

roberttbertton · 7 years ago

Text

All charged up

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

Remote control

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

A final note

Source TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2OsHyhb

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review – BerTTon There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers.

#AI #news #tech #TechCrunch #technologies

0 notes

jimivaey · 7 years ago

Text

All charged up

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

Remote control

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

A final note

Tech Stories Are Here.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review There are no secrets in consumer electronics anymore. Sometimes it’s the fault of flubs and flaws and leakers.

#Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review

0 notes

fmservers · 7 years ago

Text

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review

youtube

All charged up

youtube

Memories

Okay, about that price. Again, we’re talking $999.99 to start. There’s also a second SKU. That one will run you $1,295.99. Take a moment if you need to.

Remote control

Oh, and the Blue and Lavender versions of the phone come in striking yellow and purple S-Pens, with lock-screen ink color to match. So that’s pretty fun.

Hey man, nice shot

It’s a neat trick for a smartphone. Behold, a head to head between the Note 9 (left) and iPhone X (right):

Here’s what we’re dealing with on the hardware front:

Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)

Wide-angle: Super Speed Dual Pixel 12MP AF, F1.5/F2.4, OIS

Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS

2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoom

Front: 8MP AF, F1.7

[Without Scene Optimizer – left, With Scene Optimizer – right]

[Super slow-mo matcha under the flicking lights]

The blink detection worked well. Blur detection, on the other hand, was a bit more of a crap shoot for subjects in motion and those that were too close to the lens to get a good focus. The feature could use a bit of work, but I still think it’s one of the more compelling additions on the whole of the device and anticipate a lot of other companies introducing their own versions in the coming year.

[gallery ids="1689899,1689901,1689903,1689904,1689905"]

Design Note

The more the Note changes, the more it stays the same, I suppose. As expected, the design language hasn’t changed much, which is no doubt part of what made Samsung CEO DJ Koh think he could get away with using the device in public ahead of launch. The footprint is virtually the same in spite of the ever-so-slightly larger screen (6.3 > 6.4-inches, same 2,960 x 1,440 resolution) — from 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm on the 8, to 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8 mm on the 9.

Oh, and the headphone jack is still present, because of course it is. For Samsung, it’s an important way to distinguish the product and approach from a world gone dongle mad.

Note on Notes

A final note

Via Brian Heater https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

0 notes