Motorola just released a hardware Kraken the likes of which weve never seen. The new Moto X Style! The battery-conscious Moto X Play! And then theres the Moto G. Only a few years ago, no one would care about the lesser budget sibling alongside these two powerhousesbut the Moto G is Motorolas real smartphone champion.
Last years Moto G is still incredible. Its been one of our budget-conscious top picks for many months now, and as smartphones like the Nexus 5 disappear and the OnePlus 2 gets more expensive, the Moto G continues to quietly carve out a niche all its own, a niche that other smartphone makers cant seem to match.
So, here we are. Motorolas just released the third generation Moto G, updating a smartphone that by many standards is still the best at what it doesbeing great for cheap. Whats different? The first big one is LTE. The original Moto G last year was everything you could possibly want in a $200 device, but damnit if it didnt suck being locked out from LTE speeds in the U.S. Thankfully, instead of waiting a few more months for Motorola to release an LTE version of the new Moto G, theyre just going to bake it in from the get-go.
The second is water resistanceIPX7 to be exact, meaning this guy can survive being submerged underwater at 3 feet for 30 minutes and still keep ticking. Thats huge. When it comes to price-cutting on a smartphone, the perceived nonessential features usually get the ax. Fingerprint sensors are the first to go. Followed quickly by wireless charging. And then waterproofing. Even if youre shelling out several hundred for a new phone, it most likely wont have water resistant superpowers. The iPhone doesnt. The Galaxy S6 doesnt. But the Moto G does.
As far as looks are concerned, a lot of things are staying the same. Same curved back, same removable panel (making that waterproofing even more impressive if not slightly precarious), same size, and same feel. But it also isnt a shot-for-shot remake. The Moto G follows the same design language as the Style and Play around its new 13 megapixel camera, which kinda looks like a years-old Lumia, design-wise, and it also comes with Moto Maker customization that was previously reserved only for the Moto X and the Moto 360 smartwatch.
As far as comfort, the size and weight are nearly identical to last years Moto G. But with a textured back instead of smooth plastic, its a bit grippierthough not in any significant way. And though it looks like the new Moto G has twin front-facing speakers, sound only comes out of the bottom speaker. The top one is just for, you know, actual phone calls.
The camera is also getting a small performance nudge. Last years G had an 8-megapixel camera, whereas 2015 goes with a 13 megapixel. While megapixels are definitely not everything when it comes to a smartphone camera, the 2015 edition does have a slight advantage over its predecessor. Here are two photos from both Moto Gs, followed by a zoomed-in side-by-side.
Motorolas new Surround wireless headphones arent a new ideaBluetooth earbuds of very similar design have been around for a whilebut that doesnt mean that theyre not a snazzy little convenience that lots of people are going to like.
Motorola basically invented this category of Bluetooth sport headphones with products like the S9, and everyone from LG to Samsung to Sol Republic have rushed to copy them. Theyre popular, tooearlier this summer, LG announced that it had sold 10 million of its Tone headsets.
The Surrounds main design merit is its relative simplicity: The buds are just like what youre used to if you use in-ear headphones, while the Bluetooth electronics, battery, and controls are in the little plastic arc that you wear like a future collar.
Aesthetically, this idea is preposterously tacky, and I admit that when I first saw products like these cross my desk a few years ago, I never thought it would catch on. I was wrong. I see them all over the Subway now.
Despite the goofiness of this design its amazingly practical, and Motorola has done a nice job maximizing it here. The whole package is light weight and comfortable. When the buds arent in my ears, I almost completely forget Im wearing electronics on my body. Im only reminded when someone is staring at the weird gadget dangling from my neck. It just looks like its from a mediocre version of our future.
The Surround does have one touch thats particularly nice compared to its peers: The recessed play/pause and call buttons at the two points of the collar. On other, similar headsets, like the Sol Republic Shadow, these buttons have been a little hard to track down. These feel just right.
The headphones are waterproof up to one meter for 30 minutes. Theoretically that means you could swim with them, though I havent actually taken a splash with these myself (since we got them this morning).
The call sound quality wasnt amazing in a quick test at the office, but music sounds good for a tiny set of buds. If I was going to nitpick I would say that music sounds a little muddled, but honestly the overall sound is punchy enough that most people who crave this kind of product will be satisfied. And for $70, these headphones are a reasonable deal.
I should quickly mention the $60 Moto Pulse on-ear Bluetooth headset, which was released alongside the Moto Surround but lacks the good design of its partner. The Pulse is annoying to wear and doesnt stay on your ears where you put them. Theyre always swimming around your head. A nice secure fit isnt just important for comfortits critical for sound quality. Within about 10 minutes I threw these across my desk in annoyance.
In sum, here are two relatively cheap wireless headsetsone of which seems very practical and intelligently designed. The other? Not so much.
Despite the fact that youre eating tiny fish eggs, caviar lends any meal a feeling of sophistication. So it only makes sense that youd want to eat everything in the form of those tiny Jello-like spheres, right? Thats where this handheld contraption, currently raising funds on Kickstarter, comes in.
The Imperial Spherificator doesnt exactly roll off the tongue, but the novel food it creates certainly does. If it can be blended into a liquid that can be squeezed out of a syringe, then any food you can imagine can be turned into tiny caviar-like spheres. Fruit, vegetables, spices, its all fair game, although you might have trouble making steak spheres.
The process by which the Spherificator does its thing is actually well known in the molecular gastronomy world. All you need to do is mix your blended food with a tiny bit of sodium alginate, and then eject tiny drops of it into a mixture of water and calcium chloride. When the two meet, a chemical reaction occurs creating a thin membrane that traps the liquid in a soft squishy sphere.
Try it with dairy and a freezer and you could be churning out your own home-made Dippin Dots in no time.
Typically, a small syringe is used to create the tiny caviar-like spheres, but the Imperial Spherificator simplifies the process even further with an adjustable powered mechanism that creates perfect uniform spheres every single time. Its creators are trying to raise $80,000 on Kickstarter before the month is out to help finalize the Spherificators design, and you can pre-order one, with a delivery expected as early as November, with a discounted donation of $100.
That includes all the additional chemicals needed to get you started, but not the imagination needed to figure out what foods might taste better as tiny spheresjust kidding, everything tastes better as tiny spheres.
You can plan ahead all you want, but a vacation is often at the mercy of the weather wherever youre traveling to. And that inspired designer Camilla Hempleman to create a special map, printed with thermochromatic ink, that changes color to reveal the best places to visit based on the local weather.
The BATH °C Thermo Colour Map is printed on a waterproof fabric known as Tyvek, which is most often used in construction to weatherproof buildings but can also be found in clothing and wallets. The inks used to print all of the maps details (in this case Camillas home town of Bath, England) react to both water and temperature and only appear to highlight certain attractions based on the temperature outside, or whether its currently raining.
So if its soaking wet outside, the map will highlight indoor attractions like museums, churches, or galleries to keep tourists out of the downpour. And when its hot outside, parks and gardens will instead be featured so that visitors can enjoy the citys outdoor space. Because its a physical printed map, its not dependent on batteries, or a reliable GPS or data signal, to function. It also wont malfunction if used in the rain, and it can be crumpled up and stuffed in a pocket when not in use.
At this time Camillas BATH °C Thermo Colour Map appears to be only just a concept, but the technology behind it isnt. And perhaps one day, with special ink cartridges, you (or your parents, more likely) might even be able to print your own color-changing maps at home.
E Ink displays are an attractive way of displaying information that doesnt change by the second: they dont use much power, are easy to read in variable lighting, and happen to be relatively affordable. Now, theyre finding use not just in handheld devices, thoughbut on the streets of Sydney, Australia.
The Australian Road and Maritime Services has rolled out the first large-scale deployment of E Ink signage on the citys streets. Each sign is connected to central government authority servers via 3G so that they can be updated over-the-air at any time, and theyre lit to ensure that theyre readable at night. Theyre also solar powered, which provides enough juice to keep them runningthough they do have a power supply in case they run low, especially when they need to be updated.
The clear advantage, of course, is the flexibility they offer: instead of temporary signage or new signs when rules change, the city can simply send a message to the relevant signs to update and show the correct information. That should make for large civic saving and a better experience for citizens on the sidewalks, too.
Visionect, the company that developed the signs electronics and software, reckons that the inclusion of proximity, temperature and other sensors could make the signs even smarter in future. But for now, the street signs in Sydney are at least a little more flexible.
One year ago, the OnePlus One became the best off-contract smartphone you could buy. An unheard of Chinese company managed to deliver a high-quality Android handset for a crazy-low $300 price. Now, it looks like that awesomeness wasnt a fluke. Behold: the OnePlus 2.
Left: old and busted. Right: new hotness
Starting at $330, the new OnePlus 2 is only a hair more expensive than the original, and yet its improved in so many ways I barely know where to begin. Hell, it might be faster to tell you whats missing: it doesnt have a gorgeous 2K screen or wireless charging like the Galaxy S6, and it doesnt have a removable SD card, battery, or fancy manual camera controls like the LG G4.
Oh, and theres no stylus. You werent expecting a stylus, were you?
Got all that? Then its time to talk about just how beastly this phone actually is. 8-core Snapdragon 810 processor? Check. LTE? Check. Two nano-SIMs for hopping carriers? You bet. USB Type-C so youre ready for the future of charging? Definitely. A fingerprint reader? Yep! Plus a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel OmniVision camera with optical image stabilization and laser focusing, and up to 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.
Yet the most impressive parts of the OnePlus One have little to do with specs. Theyre about how this phone feels. (It feels excellent.)
Chassis
The moment you touch this phone, you wont believe it costs just $330. Why? Because in terms of materials and build quality, its only a stones throw away from the best you can buy: Samsung, LG and HTC devices that cost hundreds more.
If you turned up your nose at last years OnePlus One because it was made of plastic, youll do a double-take when a OnePlus 2 shows up. The only plastic youll find on this sucker is the flexible kind youll find when you pry up the removable rear cover. No more crappy plastic buttons, either: its all precise, tactile metal for your power button, volume rocker, and (my personal favorite) three-way mute switch. More on that later.
The metal does make the phone nearly half an ounce heavier (at 6.17 ounces) and its nearly half a millimeter thicker (at 9.85mm) but I didnt find myself minding one bit. Its also a millimeter shorter in both directions, and I actually think it may improve the ergonomics. The One was a bit wide for my tastes; the 2 fits easier into my hand.
I do kind of miss the metal lip that gave the OnePlus One a distinct look even from the front, but the 2 still keeps the same spirit with a chamfered metal edge beneath its Gorilla Glass. Depending on the size of your hand, it might still add a little bit of grip.
Some OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 sandwiches. Mmm, sandwiches.
But glass and metal is only half the story when it comes to tactile delight. The rest comes in the form of the OnePluss optional $27 rear covers, which use actual wood (bamboo, rosewood, black apricot) or Kevlar for a really awesome look and feel. Even stock, the OnePlus 2s sandstone black rear cover feels pretty good (and definitely far grippier and grittier than the one on the original phone) but real Kevlar or bamboo is where its at.
I do hope the final units wont make it as hard to pry off the rear cover, though: I chipped off a bit of fingernail trying to do so today.
Ive gotta say the Kevlars my favorite so far, but I could actually see myself buying more than one and swapping em out after a while. Its a level of personalization weve never really seen in a smartphone before: even with the Moto X, which let you color-coordinate your phone when you bought it direct from the factory, youd be forever stuck with your choices.
Screen
The screen is pretty much always the most important part of a smartphone. I dont need to tell you this, because youre probably reading this article by swiping on a smartphone screen right now. And the original OnePlus Ones screen was, how-do-we-say, not particularly wonderful. I vividly remember taking pictures side by side with the Xiaomi Mi Note and the OnePlus One a few months backtwo phones with the exact same Sony camera sensorand wondering why the pictures seemed so much worse on the OnePlus. It turned out that it was actually just the screen, which looked washed out.
Well, the 1080p LCD screen on the OnePlus 2 is bright and beautiful by comparison. The company claims it reaches 600 nits of brightness, more than the iPhone 6 Plus. Personally, I dont think its anywhere near as gorgeous as the 2K OLED screens youll find on a Samsung Galaxy S6 or as glassy and smooth as some of Apples displaysI can definitely see rows of pixels if I look closebut for a $330 phone its outrageously good.
Camera
And speaking of the camera, its way the heck better as well. While I definitely didnt get to take enough shots to tell how it stacks up against an iPhone 6 Plus, Galaxy S6, LG G4 or Lumia 1020the smartphone camera elitethe OnePlus 2s new 13-megapixel Omnivision sensor is perhaps the clearest evidence yet that megapixels mean nothing. Same number of megapixels as the previous phone, but WAY better images right out of the box.
Here are a couple of 100% crops from the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 in good light. Just look how much less noise and how much more detail you see in the image on the right.
And impressively, the image from the OnePlus 2 was half the filesize. Have to say the OnePlus 2 pic is lacking a bit of contrast, though. The darker regions look super dull and grey.
Sadly, the camera doesnt have any manual controls or RAW image support, though OnePlus says both are coming in a future update.
Whats The Catch?
So if this phone is so great, why dont you go ahead and order it on August 11th, the day the phone comes out? Particularly sincelike the last OnePlus phoneits invite only, the company has limited stock, and theres no guarantee how quickly theyll make more?
Well, there are the usual review caveats. Weve barely tested this device. We havent even tried to make a phone call with it, let alone use apps for longer than a few minutes. (They seemed to run smoothly, but isnt that true of all new phones these days?) We havent tried to take a lot of pictures in challenging environments, and we have no idea if the (slightly larger 3300mAh battery) will still put up a fight given the new processor and bright new screen. The new fingerprint reader felt awesome and quick and accepted my fingerprint from any angle, but who can say whether itll be reliable in a pinch without more testing?
Also: though it sure looks like it, this phone doesnt actually use stock Android 5.1 Lollipop, and isnt guaranteed to get new updates quickly. Instead, it uses OxygenOS, a customized version that allows for pretty cool tweaks like drawing a symbol on the screen to turn on the flashlight even when the screen is off, or connecting to a new wifi network right from the notification tray, and that cool three-position mute switch that can let you mute everything, nothing, or just allow notifications from your primary contacts to come through.
But without more testing, its hard to say whether the OS is stable and whether its really, truly better than the pure Google version.
And the number one: if youre on Verizon or Sprint, you cant use this phone at all. Its got LTE thats compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile, but no CDMA for the other big networks.
Its got an awesome futureproof new USB Type-C port for charging, but that means none of your micro-USB cables will work. Youll need new ones ($5 each for OnePluss cool new reversible cable, which is admittedly a pretty good deal.)
Also, if you want to pay only $330 for this phone, youll have to wait even longer: as of August 11th, only the $390 model with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM will be on sale.
If Im being a good, unbiased journalist, Id say wait for the reviews. But personally, I have to wonder if its time to leave Verizon and give it a go myself. After the OnePlus One, the Nexus 5 and the Sony Z3 Compact, Im tired of missing out on great unlocked Android phones.
Should be proof enough that no matter what your computer's OS is it is hackable if you stick it on the internet.
