Tag: gadgets

HTC U11 Review: The Phone Worth Not Waiting For

Paul Fidalgo

With the 10th anniversary iPhone looming, with a second Google Pixel coming soon, with Andy Rubin’s debut of the Essential Phone, and with the release of the Galaxy Note 8, little attention has been given to the HTC U11, other than a few obligatory reviews that range from “hey this is great” to “this is good but I don’t care.”

That’s a shame, because people are overlooking a great device. I know this because after a year with my deteriorating Galaxy S7, I was ready for a new device, and I picked the U11.

The red one.

I could have waited to see what was in the offing with all these other big-name releases, but I didn’t need to. It was pretty clear that the U11 was the one for me. And now that I’ve had it for a couple of weeks, I feel even more certain I made the right call. In no particular order, Here are some reasons why.

It’s so red.

Oh my god it’s so red. “Solar Red” is the name HTC gave this particular variant of shining, liquid, blazing red. The other colors available also looked fantastic, but good god damn, that red.

I mean come on.

The software and performance.

HTC’s Sense skin on Android has been shaved down so thoroughly, that if you use a different launcher than HTC’s, you’d almost never know it wasn’t stock Google. And mercy me, it is fast. Now, the Galaxy S7 I had used to be fast, but it never felt as crazy-fluid as, say, my Note 5 did for a time. But the U11 is in a different league altogether. It’s such a pleasure to just zip through transitions, animations, app launches, share menus, and the rest.

The display.

It’s quad-HD and LCD, which is just what I needed. Yes, I’m a stickler for 1440p over 1080p if the screen in big enough to notice, and at 5.5″, this one is. (Would I notice the difference in normal use? Probably not. But I’m not normal, and when it comes to making imperceptible a display’s pixels, I check. Up close.)

The fact that it’s LCD and not AMOLED like Samsung and OnePlus use means that the colors aren’t super-saturated and my eyes aren’t put under as much of a strain in just, you know, absorbing all that color. HTC’s LCD screen looks gorgeous, bright and crisp and easy on my eyes. It lacks the ostentatious pop of a Samsung display, which can be quite nice, but it’s truer to life and more akin to an iPhone or iPad display. But, of course, with much higher resolution. It does suffer more under direct sunlight and heavy glare than a rich AMOLED, but I’m cool with that.

It has bezels.

Yeah I said it. I like bezels on my devices. I like that I can actually hold a phone with my human hands made of meat and then operate it without the constant worry that I’m inadvertently making contact with the touchscreen on the sides. The U11 has just enough of a border around the conventionally-proportioned screen to look awesome and remove accidental-touch anxiety. Which sounds dirty now that I see it typed. Hm.

Oh, and HTC was kind enough to include a clear case with the phone, but it’s crap. I’m using, and would recommend, the Spigen Liquid Crystal case.

The fingerprint sensor.

It’s so fast! It’s almost too fast. With the S7, making contact with the fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone was all like touch, wait, click sound, unlock, whereas with the U11 it’s more like touchHOLY SHIT IT’S READY TO GO! It may even be too sensitive, waking the screen when any part of my hand comes near it.

The squeeze gimmick.

If you heard of the U11 at all, you probably heard that it is equipped with something called “Edge Sense,” wherein one literally squeezes the phone to activate certain functions. Most reviews have been critical of this feature, but it seems to me that they’re either not making good use of it or were simply predisposed to think it was silly before they ever tried it.

I think its default setting is to launch Alexa, but you have several additional options for what a squeeze does, and you can differentiate between short and long squeezes. Me, I chose the function that seemed the most useful and, frankly, the most obvious.

I made it turn on the flashlight.

I know, right? You’re like, damn, Paul that IS a good idea! I have the long squeeze activate Alexa, but I might even turn that off, since Alexa is also activated by the usual voice command.

The camera.

This is the feature that is being most lauded by folks like Vlad Savov and Daniel Bader, saying the U11’s camera rivals or even bests the Pixel. I have to say, it seems great, I have no complaints, but the S7’s camera was pretty great, too, and it doesn’t seem to my untrained eye to be obviously superior, but that’s fine.

It’s also a lot faster than my previous phone, especially when HDR is turned off, and that makes a huge difference, especially when you have squirrelly kids.

The sound.

I saved this one for last because it’s the area where the phone both enrages and delights me.

Let’s get this out of the way: It does not have a headphone jack.

I always thought this would be a deal breaker for me, the thing that solidified my alienation from the iPhone. I still think it’s stupid and needless to omit the headphone jack, and it will prove, I have no doubt, a pain in the ass for the length of my ownership of this phone. No headphone jack is a strike against it. Yes, it does include a USB-C adapter dongle for wired headphones, but still. (And third party adapters won’t work because of HTC’s proprietary DAC technology. Double-grumble.)

But also included with the phone is a pair of USB-C earbuds. But not cheap EarPod type earbuds (though I think EarPods sound fine for what they are), but truly great sounding earbuds that – get this – have active noise cancellation built in. Now, this is not Bose-level noise cancelling. I think it’s fairer to call it “noise dampening,” but it nonetheless makes for a fantastic listening experience. Ambient noise mostly melts away and the music has the space and depth it needs to shine. I still think I like the sound of my Zero Audio Carbo Tenore earbuds better, but not enough to make me miss them when I have the U11’s included headphones.

(There’s always a lot of attention paid to HTC phones’ hardware speakers and how loud and full they sound for teeny tiny phone speakers. And they’re fine, but I don’t think they’re anything to get excited about.)

The bottom line.

As I said at the beginning, I was pretty sure I was going to like this phone, and while I may be engaging in some post-purchase confirmation bias, fine. The fact remains that not only did I wind up being happy with it, but it delighted me far more than I expected.

The tech press has been pretty unanimous in its warning to consumers to refrain from buying any new phones until the big release season is over. I’m sure the next Pixel and iPhone are going to be stellar, and that the Galaxy Note 8 is a technological wonder to behold. I would simply add to that warning, “unless you plan to buy the HTC U11.” As much as I’ll gaze in a awe at the devices to come, I’ll be happy to do so from afar, cradling my weird and wonderful U11.

And it’s red.

* * *

If you’re so inclined, please support my work through Patreon.

The Alpha, the Omega, and the Google

Paul Fidalgo
25919920651_7de9389015_b
Photo by Daniel Cukier CC BY-ND 2.0

Rumor has it that Google is set to recast itself as a full-fledged smartphone maker, with the expected introduction of its new “Pixel” phones on October 4. I think I understand what they’re up to.

To quickly catch you up, Google has for years offered up phones under the Nexus brand, but these were devices built by other manufacturers in partnership with Google, mainly intended as a “reference” for other manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC, and Sony, and to serve the Android die-hard fanbase. Nexus phones offered the “pure” Android experience, as opposed to the phones made by other manufacturers which usually layer manufacturer-specific alterations to “stock” Android. Nexus phones get software updates as soon as they’re available, and they are usually very well received and affordable relative to Samsung and Apple flagships.

Now it’s being reported that “Nexus” is gone, and the new name is “Pixel.” Pixel is not new, of course, being the brand under which they’ve been producing high-end Chromebooks and one (so far) Android tablet. Google reportedly intends the Pixel line of phones to not just serve as showcases for stock Android, but to assert a new level of control over the entire Android experience. The devices themselves, which will be built by HTC, will not carry any HTC branding. Not Nexus, not HTC’s Nexus, but a Pixel phone. A Google phone.

David Ruddock at Android Police has a piece today in which he ponders what the grander strategy is, and this part grabbed me:

This “Pixel versus Nexus” distinction matters a great deal. By framing the Pixel and Pixel XL as Google products and not as Android ones, and by removing all discussion of “partners,” Google will finally be able to assert that, if only implicitly, it is offering a counterpoint to Apple’s iPhones.

It’s more than a name change, and more than Google simply throwing more weight around. This is part of Google’s overall effort to instill in consumers the idea that it is “Google” that they can trust to make their lives better.

Let’s back up. This past summer, Google unveiled its own take on the digital-assistant-in-your-house thing with Google Home, more or less a googly Amazon Echo. This same digital-assistant tech will also live in its upcoming messenger platform Allo, and already more or less exists in a less-personified form in Google Now on Android phones.

But what’s different about what Google does here than what Amazon or Apple does? I mean apart from whatever back-end, A.I., deep-learning, jiggery-pokery is going on in server farms. When you want to talk to the digital assistant on an iPhone, you talk to Siri. When you want to talk to the Echo, you ask Alexa. When you want something from Google, you just ask Google.

Google doesn’t want to separate itself from its interactions with you. It doesn’t want you to imagine some “character” answering your questions. Google wants you to ask Google. Google is the company and the character.

Google is also the search engine. You don’t look up information at the “Nexus Search,” you google, as in the neologistic verb. Your photos live in Google Photos, your stuff is synced on Google Drive. Google is the agent, the entity, that you look to.

But not with phones. Not now, anyway. Following digital thinking, I’m going to guess that “Pixel” is the name of the phone model. There’s the Apple iPhone, the Samsung Galaxies, the Amazon Kindle, and now the Google Pixel. Not “Google and HTC’s Pixel,” but the Google Pixel.

That means it’s an honest to goodness Google phone, just like the Pixel C is a Google tablet and the Chromebook Pixel is a Google laptop.

And perhaps most importantly, again leaning on digital piece, is that the new phones aren’t “Android phones,” any more than Apple is known for “iOS phones” or Samsung for “TouchWiz (gag) phones.” For years, the tech press discussion has been about iPhone vs. Android, but Android means a million different things in a million different contexts in a million different iterations.

Android is just the operating system, and it’s not the brand that regular consumers seek out. Almost no one other than enthusiasts go into carrier stores and ask for the latest Android phones. They might ask for the latest Samsung or Galaxy phone, but not Android. Again, no more than they ask about the latest “iOS phone.”

I frankly think Android as a brand is more or less alienating to most folks, evoking the image of something geeky and complicated. Notice that the Android device manufacturers almost never mention the word Android in their PR. They know that no one other than techies care about that. Brands like Apple, iPhone, and Galaxy give feelings of bedazzlement over cool, useful things. “Android,” I suspect, sounds like homework.

But you know what people do feel comfortable with? Google. You know what’s a nice, cute, safe word that feels both phone-related and still friendly? Pixel. Androids are semi-humanoid robots who have no feelings and might want to take over the world. Pixels are colorful things that make screens glow!

(Imagine how confused folks will get when their Google phone breaks and and they then google “how to fix dead pixel.”)

Google Home, Pixel, and all these other initiatives are of a piece. They’ve decided, I think, to stop making disparate products under disparate banners. Phones, operating systems, tablets, laptops, browsers, search engines, IOT/home devices, digital assistants – we’re meant to stop thinking of these things as separate brands in various arenas. They’re all just part of one thing, and to integrate them into your life, you just think, “OK, Google.”

If you like my work, please consider supporting it through Patreon.

The Mystery of the Too-Perfect Screen Protector! (Or, Paul is Stupid)

Paul Fidalgo

I am either very stupid, or something strange is going on. I’m leaning heavily toward the former, but, nonetheless, mark me.

I have never liked screen protectors on phones. It used to be that they clouded the display and reduced the sensitivity of the touch sensors. Plus, they were and are extremely difficult to apply without misaligning them, getting air bubbles that won’t push out, or dust trapped underneath that can never be unseen. Eventually, too, they would fray or peel. In other words, a total shitshow.

But clearly they have vastly improved since the time I avoided them, circa 2011. Now there are brands that are robust, invisible, and have no effect on touch sensitivity, and they come in both a kind that is sort of plasticky film as well as hard tempered glass. I once bought a used tablet with the screen protector already applied, and it convinced me that these things were now up to snuff.

Nonetheless, I could never get one on myself to my satisfaction. With each attempt to install one on my phone, with either the film or glass kinds, I would screw it up to the point that the protector became unusable. Usually, even when all other things had been done right, there would still be some dust or crap I’d discover, taunting me from beneath the transparency. Away would go to the protector.

But then a few days ago, I took one last shot with a Spigen Crystal screen protector, of the plasticky film variety, which came in a pack of three. I made sure I did everything very carefully, but not so intensely carefully that I’d make a mistake by overthinking. And after I pulled the front cover off the the screen protector, I was amazed: Perfectly straight, no bubbles, no dust. I smiled from ear to ear. And it looked and performed perfectly.

After a few days, though, I thought that maybe it was too perfect. I found that I couldn’t even tell it was there. Not as in “oh, you’ll just forget it’s there,” but as in, “wait a minute, where are the cutouts around the speaker and the home button?”

I stared and rubbed and scraped and could not for the life of me find the borders of the protector. Was I going mad? I took out the unused protectors from the package to compare, and seeing their cutouts I was convinced.

There was no screen protector on my phone.

What on Earth was going on? I had done this phenomenal job of perfectly applying a screen protector for the first time in my life, and now it’s just gone?? How could that be?? I retraced my use of the phone as best I could until I remembered back to the installation itself – that perfect installation. Was is too perfect?

It dawned on me. Perhaps, oh god perhaps, when I peeled off the protective front layer of the screen protector, I had also unwittingly peeled off the protector itself, and simply never noticed. Could I be that stupid? Could I really make myself believe that I had done a perfect job of installing a screen protector when in fact there was none there at all? And there I had been, using my phone with less concern about scratches on the screen, thinking there was a layer of defense that was all in my head. I am fortunate I didn’t perpetrate any horrors upon its glass.

I am capable of some epic idiocy, but this seemed too much even for me.

And yet, I am forced to conclude that it is the most likely explanation. The only alternatives I can think of would be that someone intentionally peeled it off (and who would that be? My kids? I never leave this phone where they could get to it), or it came off by itself, perhaps in a pocket. But how shoddy could this product be that this would happen a mere day or so after installation? Neither of those explanations seem plausible.

So in all likeliness, I am just extremely stupid. Perhaps you knew this already.

If there is a silver lining, it is that I made a second attempt with another one of the protectors, and I did it pretty much perfectly, again for the first time. There’s a little bit of a “halo” around the very edges where the phone’s glass curves a smidge, but it doesn’t bother me. Otherwise, nicely straight, no bubbles, and no dust. And, again, it performs just fine.

And I have learned something, something about the depths to which we can fool ourselves, and believe things that are not so, despite was is literally right in front of us, in our hands, and under our fingertips.

Leaving the Day Behind (Tablets Re-Reconsidered)

Paul Fidalgo

I have been on a kind of device-consolidation kick for a couple of years now, shedding gadgets that I feel overlap in their use-cases a bit too much to justify keeping around. Last year, I wrote about how the tablet was being made redundant by the big-screen phone and the super-light laptop, and, becoming a phablet convert myself, I sold my beloved iPad, and my Kindle to boot. My creativity/productivity stuff was covered by the laptop, and the reading/kicking-back stuff was covered by the phone. What did I need a middle device for?

What I’m coming to realize, or at least be reminded of, is that there is a lot to the psychological baggage of a device (and really, all objects). I work all damn day on my laptop, and it is particularly tweaked and arranged and fussed over to serve that purpose. It is an optimized and remarkably powerful tool for getting my job done. But when it comes time to pursue some kind of creative endeavor or hobby, or just relax and browse, all the distractions and stresses of work carry over. It’s like trying to read a rich novel in the middle of a noisy office. That stuff stays in my head.

The phone is a little different in that it’s the device I use all damn day for, well, almost everything. It’s always at my side or in my hand, getting used. (I do adore it.) Achieving a switching of gears becomes difficult, because that object you wish to lean back and read something on is also the same object that you were just doing texts, emails, calendar checks, and (of you’re me) Angry Birds 2 on. The tactile sensation as well as the visual data of the display size make it harder for me to get away from all of that.

So I can see, once again, why it’s nice to have a middle device that can take on the lean-back tasks and for shits-and-giggles activities that the laptop and phone can also do just fine. It’s about leaving the other stuff behind intentionally.

Photo by me.

I was spurred to think more about this thanks to this piece at Medium by Tiago Forte (hell of a name) about the benefits of read-it-later services. He points out that other apps and services can serve the same functions as Instapaper and Pocket, but they bring with them their own baggage:

A common response when I recommend people adopt yet another category of apps is “Why don’t I just use Evernote?” Or whatever app they’re using for general reference or task management. Evernote even makes a Chrome extension called Clearly for reading online content and Web Clipper for saving it.

It is a question of focus. Why don’t you use your task manager to keep track of content (i.e. “Read this article”)? Because the last thing you want to see when you cuddle up with your hot cocoa for some light reading is the hundreds of tasks you’re not doing.

On a laptop, and on your phone as well, all your tasks are literally a click or tap away. Indeed, they may be blinking at you without input needed. And both of these devices invite you to act on those distractions. That’s what’s so great about them: they allow you to do so much. Sometimes you don’t want to do “so much,” though. You want to do very little.

That’s good territory for tablets and e-readers to cover, I think. I don’t know that it’s territory that’s worth, say, top-of-the-line-iPad money to cover, but something more affordable? More modest? Yeah, I can see that. Now. Again.

Lurve the Curve: Why I’m Nuts about the LG G4

Paul Fidalgo

Photo credit: TheBetterDay / Foter.com / CC BY-ND

In my last tech-related post, I detailed my year-long persnickety quest to find the One True Phone that I could finally, finally call my own. As I wrote then, I ended up with the LG G4, with a commitment to stick with it for the next year. Luckily, I made very much the right call.

I adore this phone, and I really wish I had picked it up as soon as it was released. Here’s some reasons why.

The most important part of a phone experience for me is the display quality, and this has the best display I’ve ever used. One might argue that it’s Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays on the Galaxies S6 and Note 5 that are the absolute tops, but to my eyes, Super AMOLED causes truly palpable eye strain, especially when I’m doing any long-term reading on the device. (One Reddit commenter suggested it might be due to an imperceptible “flicker” in AMOLED, but I don’t know for sure.) Given that book-reading is one of the primary things I do with a phone, an IPS LCD is by far a better solution. And I’ve never seen a better one than that of the G4. Sharp, vivid, bright, and, importantly to me, very pleasant to read off of.

Now, of course, this phone has the particular quirk of being ever-so-slightly curved. When LG introduced its Flex line of seriously-curved phones, I rolled by eyes. It seemed a pointless gimmick, but now I’m a believer. The curve on the G4, which is far subtler than that of the Flex phones, really does make the phone a joy to hold. It sits happily in the palm, and something about the arc even makes the weight of the phone rest in just the right places. The display isn’t distorted by the curve, and actually feels nicer to swipe around on, with a little swoop you can feel. If anything, I wish the phone had just a bit more of a curve. I lurve the curve.

Like the G3 before it, the buttons are on the back, which is exactly where they should be. It’s so obvious and natural, I can’t believe that this configuration isn’t more common. I can double-click the volume-down button when the screen is off to launch the camera, and double-tap the screen to wake up the phone. Excellent.

The performance is great. It’s not the powerhouse that the Note 5 is, where everything happens absurdly fast, but the G4 is plenty quick. There are occasional instances of lag, weirdly sometimes with the camera shutter, but on the whole, it’s an extremely smooth experience.

Oh right, the camera. It’s phenomenal. I actually like it better than the ostensibly “better” camera on the Note 5, because it looks to me that the G4 gives me more true-to-life images, less saturated, and more finely detailed.

Battery life is fine. I’ve had no problems, and if I did, I can swap the battery out.

And guys, the backs are swappable. The base model I got was a deep blue color, which was okay. The bezel and buttons in blue looked better than the plastic back, which didn’t look great, with an uninteresting diamond pattern. But then I slapped the red leather back on it, and it now looks and feels fantastic. Not like a technology product, but more of an organic object, not unlike a small book. The deep blue buttons popping out of the deep red leather back is really classy looking. It even smells good!

And here’s something I discovered wholly by accident. The other day I had the phone in my hand, I think to grab a picture of my kids doing something silly (as usual), and I needed to deal with a smudge on my glasses. Holding both my spectacles and the phone, I realized that, entirely unintentionally, I had bought a phone that matched my glasses. If you can’t tell from the image below, there are dark-red arms on the specs, dark-blue frames around the lenses.

IMG_0256

It really was meant to be.

How I Learned to Love the Chromebook

Paul Fidalgo

Photo by me.

I’ve been singing the praises of Chromebooks for some time, but none of that praise has come from direct experience. The utility and potential of these devices have been starkly obvious to me, though I’d never had occasion to test them on myself. I’ve always had a perfectly good laptop, a phone, and sometimes even a tablet (I don’t have one of those right now, and I kind of miss it), so having yet another device was not something I could justify. Financially. To my wife, mostly.

Then, like a superhero bursting through the clouds to come to my rescue, my former theatre colleague Tom Loughlin suggested I borrow his old Dell Chromebook 11 and try it out. He knows I’ve been bullish on them, and he wanted me to do some writing about what it was like to actually use one, and I was all what? and he was all yeah! and he shipped it to me.

But this was weeks and weeks ago, and other than start the thing up, I did essentially nothing with it.

Because what was I going to do with it? Like I said, I’m already fully decked-out tech-wise. There never emerged an impetus to bust it out, no need arose. So it sat in the box Tom had shipped it in, and I felt guilty.

And then in one day it dawned on me, weirdly, twice.

I work from home, and my office is upstairs in a big walk-in closet in the back of our bedroom. When my MacBook Pro is in full “work mode,” it’s on my desk, hooked up to power, hardwired to the Internet, and connected to my backup external hard drive. Sometimes it’s also got a microphone hooked up (for the podcast usually), and has at times also had a monitor, mouse, or what have you. And this is how it was a few days ago.

And I wanted to make my lunch. Downstairs.

But still be able to work. Because I’m just like that.

As you can imagine, I didn’t want to unhook everything (and of course “safely eject” the hard drive) and bring my MacBook downstairs, only to run it back upstairs and hook it all up again.

That’s when I remembered the Chromebook.

And here’s the amazing part. I had the idea to use it, I opened it up, logged in with my Google Apps credentials, and that was it. Everything was there, and I could just work. I could do everything that I would normally do for work, too. It was almost entirely frictionless.

But of course I didn’t only want my work account set up! I wanted my personal Google account up and running, too. And it took me literally a couple of minutes to figure out how to have two “instances” of Google accounts running on the device at the same time. So now I could work in one account, click an icon at the bottom of the screen and instantly switch right over to the other account. Again, almost entirely frictionless.

That’s how I worked for a little while. And when I was ready, I closed it, and went back to my office.

That was one. The other happened later that evening. We don’t do cable at our house, so we had to get CNN’s live stream of the Democratic debate, and watch it on our living room TV. CNN wouldn’t allow the video to be cast over to our TV, so to do this I had to connect my MacBook via HDMI, which also meant that my computer would be physically tethered to our TV, which meant that I couldn’t use it do the one thing I love more than watching presidential debates: tweeting presidential debates.

And then I remembered: the Chromebook.

Usually, in this situation, I’m stuck tweeting on my phone, which isn’t nearly as easy when you’re doing so in a rapid-fire manner as I do during events like this. But this time, all I had to do was open up the Chromebook, sit back, and knock out my HILARIOUS tweets in a full-function instance of Tweetdeck, just like I would have done on my Mac. No beats skipped. (I also wrote and published this post using only the Chromebook.)

So this is what the Chromebook is to me, right now: a lightweight extra computer. In many ways, it’s what I’d always wanted out of an iPad; a casual computing device that asked very little of me, was smartly limited in its functionality, but could still do the basics without any friction. The iPad was great for, say, reading and browsing, but not for working. The Chromebook is not my reading device of choice by any stretch of the imagination (my phone is now), but for simply getting shit done without being laden with all the computer cruft, it’s great.

That doesn’t mean I can now justify getting one. I still don’t need it, the same way I don’t need a tablet, and yet would still like to have one. But now its utility for someone like me is much clearer. Simply put, it’d be a great second, kicking-around computer.

And truly, if I didn’t have some particular media-creation needs, a Chromebook would serve as my main computer without a problem.

So right now I’m in a mode of “it’d be nice to have one” for Chromebooks, but there’s still some evolution that needs to happen before it crosses into “oh man I really need to sell off some of my valuables to get one.” I think what I’d really like is for the Chromebook to get closer to absorbing more tablet use-cases, where the keyboard goes away (either by detaching or flipping around or whatever) and the laptop becomes a single slate that can be used as more of a casual reading and browsing device; lean-back instead of lean-forward.

Asus’s Chromebook Flip is the right idea, actually, but there’s one problem I have with it: the screen resolution. I’m spoiled by, and now married to, Retina-level resolutions, and especially if I’m going to use something to read off of, it’s got to be crispy. If Asus were to put one of these out with over 300ppi, I’d be all in.

This, really, was my only real problem with the 2013 Dell Chromebook 11: the display is garbage. Utter shit. Not only is it low-resolution, but it’s washed out, with colors rendered, well, vaguely. The rest of the laptop’s hardware was fine. It’s plenty zippy, the trackpad was acceptable, and the keyboard was fine. But that screen, blech.

The point is, however, that even though I was already a Chromebook booster, I’m now a fan. This is a great category of device, and I can’t wait to see it get better, and then to get my own.

(And sincerely, thank you, Tom!)

The Fear of Being Phoneless, Quantified (Sort of)

Paul Fidalgo

Photo credit: JLM Photography. / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
This summer, researchers at Iowa State University made some easy headlines with a study on “nomophobia,” their term for anxiety about being away from one’s smartphone. I can’t get access to the paper itself, so I have no idea what exactly they found, but according to press materials, they gave respondents a 20-question qualitative survey about the level of anxiety they experience in certain phone-free situations.

Respondents were to rate their level of anxiety from 1 to 7, 7 being the most severe, but they also omitted any mention of what total score, when all 20 answers are added up, qualifies one as a “nomophobe.”

So here’s me thinking, well I must be one! I mean, I’m threatened by the very concept of smartwatches because one of their ostensible purposes is to give me less time with my smartphone. No thank you!

So I decided to take this little questionnaire, even though I’d probably learn nothing new, and to do so in public, with you, right now. Fun? Fun.

Here we go.

* * * Begin questionnaire * * *

1. I would feel uncomfortable without constant access to information through my smartphone.

Paul’s answer: 7

How else would I know about things?

2. I would be annoyed if I could not look information up on my smartphone when I wanted to do so.

Paul’s answer: 7

Look, certain expectations have been built up around the Information Age and the post-iPhone era. I pined for this ability when I saw Penny and her computer book on Inspector Gadget, I lusted after the T-Mobile Sidekick when it brought Google to a cell phone, and now I get mine.

3. Being unable to get the news (e.g., happenings, weather, etc.) on my smartphone would make me nervous.

Paul’s answer: 7

Well first of all, my job is heavily affected by current events, as are most of my hobbies that aren’t strict performing arts. I’m not able to do most of my work or play if I can’t get the news whenever I want. Or at least I’m hampered. I mean, I could get a newspaper or something. Shut up.

4. I would be annoyed if I could not use my smartphone and/or its capabilities when I wanted to do so.

Paul’s answer: 7

I mean, I’m always annoyed, and this would break many camels’ backs.

5. Running out of battery in my smartphone would scare me.

Paul’s answer: 7

This is getting a little cruel. I mean, do I have to think about this? I assume this presupposes that fast access to a charger or backup battery is not available. In which case…guh…guys, I’m a little sweaty.

6. If I were to run out of credits or hit my monthly data limit, I would panic.

Paul’s answer: 5

I mean, I’d just pay for it, and explain it to my wife later. Thus the 5.

7. If I did not have a data signal or could not connect to Wi-Fi, then I would constantly check to see if I had a signal or could find a Wi-Fi network.

Paul’s answer: 7

What, I’m supposed to just give up? Is this not America?

8. If I could not use my smartphone, I would be afraid of getting stranded somewhere.

Paul’s answer: 8

You have to understand, I have no sense of direction or orientation. You know the way that some people are just tone deaf, and those of us with strong musical ears can’t understand what’s wrong with them? I’m the tone deaf guy, but with where I am in three-dimensional space. Okay, even two dimensions are too many. Before GPS, I was pretty much in a constant state of lost.

9. If I could not check my smartphone for a while, I would feel a desire to check it.

Paul’s answer: A million

Is this questionnaire not paying attention? Come on.

Oh look, new section!

If I did not have my smartphone with me…

10. I would feel anxious because I could not instantly communicate with my family and/or friends.

Paul’s answer: 4

This is different. I want to be able to keep up with my wife and kids, but for the species at large, no, I’m fine without yammering with them on a steady click.

11. I would be worried because my family and/or friends could not reach me.

Paul’s answer: 3

I mean, do they need me right now? ’Cause like I just sat down.

12. I would feel nervous because I would not be able to receive text messages and calls.

Paul’s answer: 1

You know what that’s cool.

13. I would be anxious because I could not keep in touch with my family and/or friends.

Paul’s answer: 3

They’re fine.

14. I would be nervous because I could not know if someone had tried to get a hold of me.

Paul’s answer: 2

Please don’t get ahold of me. Hey look, I’m doing pretty well here!

15. I would feel anxious because my constant connection to my family and friends would be broken.

Paul’s answer: 6

Okay, now we’re moving into parent-paranoia territory. My friends are fine, but go and bring my kids into it. Sheesh.

16. I would be nervous because I would be disconnected from my online identity.

Paul’s answer: 7

Look, I’ve been cultivating my ridiculous, cartoon-like online identity since I was 13, and I’m not about to let it flitter away. Bill Boulden once called me his “favorite Twitter curmudgeon,” and do NOT take that lightly. If you think my online identity is a mess, you should see the shitshow that is my meatspace identity.

17. I would be uncomfortable because I could not stay up-to-date with social media and online networks.

Paul’s answer: 4

I like my Twitter pals and all, but you know, a lot of you people can go scratch.

18. I would feel awkward because I could not check my notifications for updates from my connections and online networks.

Paul’s answer: 4

See above.

19. I would feel anxious because I could not check my email messages.

Paul’s answer: 5

Not the end of the world, but what if I miss a good coupon email or something?

20. I would feel weird because I would not know what to do.

Paul’s answer: A million trillion.

* * * End of questionnaire. * * *

Let’s add up the score, shall we?

Paul’s Final Nomophobia Score:

1,000,000,00,001,000,094

Yeah, that’s about what I expected. Maybe a little under.

Actually, Note 5 #Penghazi is Less Stupid Than I Thought

Paul Fidalgo

MacBreak Weekly on TWiT.

Yesterday, I wrote that the controversy over the Galaxy Note 5’s S Pen was overblown. Quickly: if you stick it in backwards, it gets stuck and does at the least significant damage. People cried “recall,” “design flaw,” and invented the (hilarious) hashtag #penghazi. Apple-loving pundits couldn’t contain their glee or smugness. I said that this was silly, that it was akin to trying to shove a floppy disk into a drive upside-down and then blaming the manufacturer when it breaks something.

What I didn’t realize, however, was just how easy it was to do this accidentally. I didn’t understand that until I saw this clip of Leo Laporte, who was just casually discussing the controversy on MacBreak Weekly, fiddled with the S Pen going in butt-first into his Note 5, and lo and behold, not even halfway in, it got stuck.

I had been fiddling the very same way! It didn’t happen to get stuck, so I may have dodged a bullet.

So, I’m obviously reevaluating my hard and fast position of “just don’t do that.” It’s simply too easy for this to happen by accident.

And even if it wasn’t all that easy, before I even came to this new realization I thought about ways that Samsung could address this if it was inclined. Now I feel like these have moved from “could do” to “must do.” (Samsung’s not known for being classy or anything, so who knows what they’ll ever do.)

First, no-questions-asked returns on Note 5 devices. If someone bought this and they’re worried about it, or worse, they’ve gotten it stuck, they can return it for a full refund.

Second, they should cover all repairs related to this issue, free of charge.

Third, presuming they’re not going to redesign the whole phone, they need to make a new S Pen with a wider butt-end, maybe with a rubbery nub, such that it is impossible to stick into the phone backward, and send one to every Note 5 owner, free.

Alternatively, at least issue (free of charge again) a rubbery cap of some sort to put on the end of the S Pen to serve the same function of keeping it from going in the wrong way, some kind of cap that’s more or less impossible to take off again.

And that should be that.

So I largely take back the last post. This is a much bigger problem than I thought.

I’m delighted with my Note 5. It’s a wonderful device, and chances are this S Pen problem would never have even come up for me. Now I confess to being a touch nervous about it, but it’s not enough to make me regret my decision to get this phone. It’s still amazing, and it’s still a keeper.

But I’ll take that redesigned S Pen, now.

Poor Leo.

The Note 5 Backwards-Stylus ‘Design Flaw’ Hubbub is Really Stupid [Updated with Me Being Wrong]

Paul Fidalgo

* * * UPDATE: I have largely reversed my position on this due to new evidence. So consider this post an archive of my being wrong, or at least, insufficiently informed.
From the Note 5 manual.

Apparently, some folks have decided to 1) purchase a Samsung Galaxy Note 5, 2) Stick the S Pen stylus in backward, getting it utterly stuck, and 3) Blame Samsung.

What?

It sucks, no doubt, to have your new phone suddenly broken due to something that seems so innocuous.

But come on. You have to wonder, why in the name of sweet flappy jeebus would you want to stick your S Pen in backwards? For one thing, this particular version of the S Pen features a clicky spring-loaded nub on the end of it, which is specifically constructed to eject the stylus from its compartment. This ejector would not function if inserted backward into the phone, so by doing so, you’ve already negated (nay, violated) the whole concept of the S Pen’s design. And there is literally no reason to stick the stylus in backwards. Even if you did so accidentally, when you go to push it in and your thumb or finger feels a point instead of a flat, springy surface, that ought to be a clue that you’re about to commit an error, and so reverse course.

So, fine, I’ll grant that accidents happen. A kid could get ahold of the device and mess with it, or a person who doesn’t know any better might just find the whole “what would happen if” concept irresistible. Sure, Samsung says in the instruction manual not to ever put the pen in backward, but whatever, nobody reads those. It would absolutely been better if Samsung had made sure this kind of thing couldn’t happen by accident, and would have added value to the product.

But do we hold the manufacturers of USB devices responsible if someone tries to jam a plug into a port upside-down, damaging the connectors? If I shoved a floppy disc into a drive backward, and screwed everything up, would that be the manufacturers’ fault? In either case, would we demand a recall of these products? Of course not.

Look, Samsung is a big, rich company, and they can certainly afford to replace some devices or rejigger their design, I don’t feel bad for them or worry about them. Puh-leez. But I have to give an even bigger “puh-leez” (maybe a few more e’s, like, “puh-leeeeeeeze”) to the idea that this is some unforgivable design flaw on Samsung’s part, that they somehow blew it because a few people couldn’t help but “see what happened” if they did something obviously wrong to their expensive, delicate hardware made of super-precise, miniaturized mechanical parts. It’s an $800 piece of technology, folks. Treat it like one.

And for full disclosure: I got a Note 5, it’s amazing, and I have not been tempted to stick the S Pen in backward. Ever.

Update: Andrew Martonik sees the real design flaw.