Willow again, full grown now! She's a big lady, I love her so.

#MadebyGoogle 2017 just ended and here are the two most exciting things announced.

Google Pixelbook $999 Pixelbook Pen $99

Yes, Google tries again at the tablet race. Kind of. The Pixelbook is a 4 in 1 convertible that can be used as a tablet or a laptop or anything between and it runs Chrome OS. This give you the whole Play Store at your disposal with any Android application. The hardware itself is powerful enough to never strangle your workflow with up to 16 gb ram and a I7, pair that with 512gb storage and you are good to go. And with it´s size, about 1cm thick and just over 1kg it really is portable. Â Google promises a battery life of 10 hours and equipped with USB-C all you need to charge it or transfer data is one cable. Smart, pretty and modern. And if you decide to get the Pixelbook Pen your work should get even smarter as the Pen has the Google Assistant built in. With the press of a button Google will help you with whatever you mark with the Pen.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL $649 $849

Google also uncovered the already leaked Pixel 2 & Pixel 2 XL. With these smartphones Google proclaimed their mission is to make Smartphones not only smarter but simpler. But Google decided to follow Apple and other manufacturers by removing the 3,5 headphone jack. Is that really making it simpler and easier to use? The one thing Google decided to focus on during the Live Event was the Camera. Claimed to be the best camera in a smartphone to date Google are out to impress. And on paper the Pixel 2 have the best camera, but if that really is the case we have to await the actual release and then compare it to the Iphone X and the flagship models from Samsung, Sony, LG and Huawei.

As other manufacturers has gone over to a dual camera setup Google sticks to one. And instead using AI to create portrait mode, where you blur out the background. Sounds interesting to me. But can it really be better than two separate cameras?

The one special feature about Pixel 2 camera is what Google call the Smart Lens. Hold your camera towards the target and press the Smart Lens button and watch the magic. The camera works as a google search giving you all information directly on your screen.

Summary:

My guess is that anyone that buys the Pixelbook and Pixel 2 smartphones is already heavy invested in the Google universe. Maybe an avid user of Drive and are a strong believer in everything Google and everything artifical, either intelligence or reality. And priced as true flagships one can only wonder, will Google truly conquer the mass? Maybe. Maybe not.

Motorola Is Giving It’s A New Smartphone For Moto G6 Plus Review

Let's review the Moto G6 Plus, which offers a large screen, dual lens and fast charging below £300.

Price At The Time Of Review

£269

Moto G6 Plus Comprehensive Evaluation

The Moto G series only existed for five years, but it has been a long way since that time : not all are economical phones, but they are much cheaper than many mid-range devices like honors, and we Everything provided is impressive.

In this article, we will review the largest of the latest G phones - the 5.9-inch G6 Plus. It costs only £269/€299, but comes with a large 18:9 display, dual rear camera, face and fingerprint unlocking and fast charging.

For more information, you can also read our reviews of Moto G6 and Moto G6 Play and learn about the differences between these models.

Price And Availability

The Moto G6 Plus was launched on May 2 and can now be purchased for £269/299.

This is the most expensive G6 model - there are 219 pounds of regular G6 and 169 pounds of G6 games - but this is still a very affordable price tag, even in the case of a sharp price cut of 299 pounds will be weakened impressive Honor 9 and other competitors.

Plus is exclusively available through the UK's Handset Recycle; you can view contracts in our best Moto G6 Plus deals.

In general, you should also remember to consider the price of a case to keep your phone looking good and new, but our G6 Plus comes with a simple clear cover. Before you spend extra money, check to see if one is included in the bundle.

Design And Construction

The G6 Plus is slightly larger than the G6, but the design is almost identical. Unless you put them there, it's hard to tell which one is which.

It's slim, smooth, shiny, with a fascinating curve on the back; the back glass looks and feels good, although it's a bit slippery and prone to finger marks. We also like the ridged texture on the power button, which helps you to blindly position, although this effect is lost when the button is overwritten.

Despite the size and aspect ratio of the display: 18:9, Motorola has found the space to squeeze the fingerprint scanner on the bottom of the device (unlike the G6 Play, which has it on the back). In fact, this is so low, we found it a bit uncomfortable to bend the thumb to activate it. But many of you will use the opposite finger instead of holding your thumb, and remember that the fingerprint scanner is just one of many unlocking options, including face and voice recognition, smart unlocking and passwords.

Finally, we were shocked by how light the G6 Plus was for such a large screen device. It weighs 167 grams and is the same weight as the G6, much lighter than the iPhone 8 Plus (202 grams), which has a smaller screen.

Waterproof

G6 Plus is described as a "waterproof Nano coating" with P2i. Basically it is waterproof and not completely immersible, so try to stay away from the pool.

Color Options

Plus can be used in deep indigo (very black) and Nimbus (blue), but you may not be able to choose: for example, Handset Recycle is only blue.

Features And Specifications

Normally, the Plus model will provide a larger screen (inadvertently). But in this case, the display is only slightly larger than the normal G6 display, and there are some important differences between the models under the hood.

Screen

Let's discuss this screen first, and then continue to discuss the specifications. This is a 5.9-inch, 18:9 display - only 0.2 inches larger than the G6 - Full HD + resolution of 1080 x 2160 and a pixel density of 409ppi.

Processor, Memory And Storage

The Plus is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor instead of the regular G6 450 processor. Higher-level chips use 2.2GHz eight-core processing to better handle day-to-day work; in fact, in some side-by-side tests using G6 and G6 Plus, the Snapdragon 630 is significantly faster to open applications and load video.

(The G6 Plus comes standard with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, while the G6 comes standard with 3GB and 32GB.)

Connection And Audio

Another small difference from the regular G6 : Plus is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 instead of 4.2. It also has 802.11ac Wi-Fi (G6 is limited to a / b / g / n).

You will get a headphone jack - this is good news for expensive traditional headset owners. It is located at the bottom of the lower right corner of the USB-C port.

In our tests, we found that the call audio quality was a bit broken when talking normally and speaking.

Camera

In short : the G6 Plus has excellent shooting features, but the slowness of the camera app (compared to expensive phones - it's actually brighter than the G6) is a problem at some point.

You can get dual lens (12Mp / 5Mp) and portrait mode at the back. We are generally loyal fans of bokeh effects and have some benefits. With this shot, although subjectively feel less dramatic (in terms of background blur) than some of the others we have tried. Although all portrait modes are designed for still shooting, this seems to be more blurred for still shooting. Guys, keep your subject still.

Battery Life

The 6G Plus is equipped with a reasonably sized 3200mAh battery that lasts 7 hours and 42 minutes in the demanding Geek bench 4 test (and scores 3625); both results are average, but you can expect better than the actual use.

The phone also offers fast charging. In our standard test, charging from 0% for 30 minutes, it has reached 49%, very labor-saving (the battery is smaller than the ordinary G6). There is a faster charger there, please note: Honor 10 managed an amazing 65% during that time.

Software

The software is no different from regular models on regular models, so you can still get Android 8.0 Oreo and a very useful operating system version.

By convention, there is no British media coverage here. However, Motorola does add some handy software experiences. They are neatly included in the Moto app, where you can find gestures (Moto actions), convenient screen functions (Moto Display) and some new features such as Moto Voice (introducing always-on voice commands) and Moto Key ( Manage applications, websites and Windows passwords via a fingerprint scanner).

Unlock

Most of us rely on face unlocking, which can be understood as less reliable than Face ID, but still performs well. It's quite fast and it makes it clear who we are when we are low-light and wearing large sunglasses. But completely covering a facial feature - with one hand, one eye, mouth, etc. - prevents it from working, so the high scarf does not work well.

 I think the phone recycling website Handsetrecycle.com is a great place to sell my mobile for best price. My mobile phone sales process was very simple when I sold my phone, and I received the payment on the same day.

 Therefore, I highly recommend the Handsetrecycle.com website for mobile phone recycling.

Andy Hoyle/CNET

LG makes some damn good phones: The LG V30 was one of CNET’s favorites last year, along with the LG G6. So will the 2018 LG G7 ThinQ hit the same heights?

LG made good headway last year, but the phonemaker faces huge challenges. There’s direct competition with the Galaxy S9, Apple’s iPhones and the upcoming OnePlus 6. Beyond that, phone sales are slowing down and owners are starting to hold onto their devices longer. LG, which isn’t a Top 5 global player, needs to pull out every trick it has to make a dent.

Now Playing:Watch this: LG G7 hands-on: 5 things you need to know

2:17

According to LG, over the next 18 to 24 months, it will make a “change in phone screens,” along the lines of a bending or rollable display. LG has teased these types of innovations before. In the meantime, does this make the G7 a mere pit stop on the road to the future?

Multiple CNET editors spent some time with a preproduction model of the LG G7 in New York and San Francisco. The G7 looks like a really good phone: Its specs and design line up to suggest it can contend in a matchup against the Samsung Galaxy S9. But does it have an X factor? Maybe not. If I were to describe what excited me about the LG G7 to a friend, I’d have a really hard time.

Technically, this is the “LG G7 ThinQ,” adding the branding for LG’s ThinQ AI initiative, which the V30S ThinQ Edition phone had too, and which is planned for LG’s many home devices, from washing machines and fridges to smart TVs. On the G7, the ThinQ AI software doesn’t add up to much. It really only comes into play with the camera, which can identify common camera scenes, like close-ups and food, and optimize settings to help you get the best shot.

LG hasn’t announced a price yet, but odds are you can expect something close to last year’s G6, making it more affordable than the Samsung Galaxy S9. For the right price, it could be great. But, like a high-end laptop that somehow ends up seeming like all the others, the LG G7 could similarly become one more sharp-looking phone in a big crowd.

It’s IP68 water and dust resistant.

Andy Hoyle/CNET

5 things you need to know about the G7

It has a dedicated button for summoning Google Assistant, Google’s answer to Siri and Alexa.

It has a 6.1-inch display, but it’s not OLED: It’s IPS LCD, with RGB plus extra white pixels.

There’s a notch in the display, but you can make it a black bar with notifications instead if you prefer, similar to the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro.

There’s an AI Camera mode like the V30S ThinQ Edition, which aims to pick the best camera setting.

Bright Mode promises brighter photos in low lighting versus the G6, or the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Now Playing:Watch this: LG G7: three ways its cameras are different

1:37

LG’s G7 cameras, in a quick spec list:

It has two rear 16-megapixel lenses: (one has a 71-degree FOV at f/1.6, the other has a 107-degree FOV at f/1.9)

The front camera has 8 megapixels, with 90-degree FOV and f/1.9

The rear lenses are less super-wide-angle than the LG V30, coming with less distortion in photos, but can’t fit as much into the frame

Bright Mode promises four times brighter shots than the G6 in low light

The cameras can record in HDR10

Portrait Mode works on the front and rear cameras, and can be edited before and after shooting on the rear camera to add extra blur

AI Camera recognizes what’s in-shot (sometimes) to set up automatic settings for photos.

Sarah Tew/CNET

AI Camera: ThinQ-driven

LG promises that ThinQ will be used in everything from photos to connecting with LG TVs and appliances. Right now, it’s most notably used in AI Camera, an intelligent automatic camera mode that debuted on the LG V30S. It scans objects in the environment as well as lighting and distance to determine optimal settings. AI Camera uses onboard machine learning: the test phone I used was offline.

The mode recognizes 18 categories of scene information on the G7: person, flower, pet, food, sunset, sunrise, landscape, city, baby, animal, beverage, fruit, sky, beach, snow, people, low-light and “basic.” It switches to what’s needed. Keep in mind other cameras and phones, like the Huawei P20, have some implicit version of this technology as well.

The mode cycles through what the camera sees, flashing words across the screen until a final decision is made and a shooting mode selected. You get a little haptic ping when it’s done (you can turn this off), a light tap in the phone. It recognized a bowl of oranges as “fruit,” but had a hard time with a row of glasses or other abstract objects. Did the automatic mode help photos look better? I’d say that’s impossible to clearly tell in a brief demo with prerelease software.

Notch on, notch off.

Sarah Tew/CNET

A screen with a notch, but you can make it disappear

The G7’s 6.1-inch IPS LCD display is high in resolution (3,120×1,440 pixels) — but also has a notch, joining many other 2018 phones. It’s a bit longer than the 18:9 Samsung GS9 display or most typical 18:9 displays, because of the extra notch. But that notch effect can be made to vanish in some way, similar to the Huawei P20 and upcoming OnePlus 6.

Enter the “New Second Screen” settings, and presto, the extra screen on either side of the camera turns black. The information — time, carrier, Wi-Fi and all of that — still float there, like the common status bar on most phones. Basically, do you prefer the background black or another color? At least it means the phone’s 18:9 display works without the notch intervening.

Why not OLED? LG claims the IPS LCD used on the G7 is extra-bright (up to 1,000 nits), plus it has red, green, blue and an extra white pixel for improved display quality. The screen didn’t look good in the glare of outdoor light, however, in our brief hands-on time.

The Google button is the bottom one.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Hey look, a dedicated Google Assistant button! (And far-field mic)

Even though LG has ThinQ AI, the dedicated assistant-summoning button on the side of the G7 calls up Google, not ThinQ. Pressing it once launches Google Assistant, and pressing and holding skips the need to say “OK, Google.” This is similar to squeezing the sides on the Pixel 2 ($649.99 at Amazon Marketplace) and 2 XL. Assistant also responds to 32 commands that do various things on the phone, some camera-related, and you can double-press the button to launch vision search. You just can’t customize it to launch anything else.

LG also wants you to talk to your phone from far away like a Google Home ($129.00 at Walmart). Improved microphones promise up to a 16-foot (4.9-meter) range and better voice recognition when other audio is nearby. I’m not sure I want my phone to listen to me from that far away, but if you’re planning on docking your phone and using it like an Echo or Home, maybe this is useful.

Headphone jack!

Sarah Tew/CNET

A ‘booming’ speaker

The LG G7 promises a weird new trick with its audio, turning its insides into a giant resonating chamber for its onboard speaker. The G7 doesn’t have stereo speakers, just a single louder one. But when I tried playing music on it during my briefing, and playing back YouTube music videos, it just ended up sounding loud, not good. I’ve heard better-defined sound on phones.

High-end lossless music playback

LG’s recent V30 phone had an included built-in DAC for better-sounding audio and the G7’s got the same one — the ESS Sabre ES9218. What it means is if you’re interested in high-end lossless audio (like Tidal) and listening to it on your phone, it should sound really good on the G7.

LG is also betting on 7.1 surround audio via DTS X support, which would require wired headphones or connected wireless speakers. It promises a “virtual sound bubble.” It doesn’t work with the G7’s one onboard speaker. Probably, you do not need 7.1 surround audio on your phone.

Sarah Tew/CNET

4 colors

The LG G7 will come in new platinum gray, new aurora black, new Moroccan blue and raspberry rose. In other words: gray, black, blue and pinkish-red. No unicorn.

LG G7 ThinQ spec comparison chart

LG G7 ThinQ Samsung Galaxy S9 iPhone 8 Plus Display size, resolution 6.1-inch IPS LCD; 3,120×1,440 pixels 5.8-inch OLED; 2,960×1,440 pixels 5.5-inch LCD; 1,920×1,080 pixels Pixel density 563 ppi 570 ppi 401 ppi Dimensions (Inches) 6×2.8×0.31 in 5.81×2.70×0.33 in 6.24×3.07×0.30 in Dimensions (Millimeters) 153.2×71.9×7.9 mm 147.7×68.7×8.5 mm 158.4×78.1×7.5 mm Weight (Ounces, Grams) 5.7 oz, 162 g 5.75 oz; 163 g 7.13 oz; 202 g Mobile software Android 8.0 Oreo Android 8.0 Oreo iOS 11 Camera Dual 16-megapixel (71 degree, f/1.6 and 107 degree, f/1.9) 12-megapixel Dual 12-megapixel Front-facing camera 8-megapixel (f/1.9) 8-megapixel 7-megapixel Video capture 4K 4K 4K Processor 2.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor (2.8GHz + 1.7GHz), or octa-core Samsung Exynos 9810 (2.7 GHz + 1.7 GHz) Apple A11 Bionic Storage 64GB 64GB, 128GB, 256GB 64GB, 256GB RAM 4GB 4GB 3GB Expandable storage Up to 2TB 400GB None Battery 3,000mAh 3,000mAh 2,675mAh (Apple doesn’t confirm this) Fingerprint sensor Back Back Home button (Touch ID) Connector USB-C USB-C Lightning Headphone jack Yes Yes No Special features Water resistant (IP68), wireless charging, DTS:X 3D Surround, Quad DAC Dual-aperture camera, water-resistant (IP68); super slo-mo video; wireless charging; iris scanning Water resistant (IP67), wireless Qi charge compatible Price off-contract (USD) TBA Varies: $720-$800 (64GB) $799 (64GB), $949 (256GB) Price (GBP) TBA £739 £799 (64GB), £949 (256GB) Price (AUD) TBA AU$1,199 (64GB), AU$1,349 (256GB) AU$1,229 (64GB), AU$1,479 (256GB)

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Source link

The post LG G7 ThinQ: A notch, a Google button and more appeared first on trend views word.