This is Tech This Week: Season 2

Season 2 of This is Tech This Week has launched and here is the first episode!

In this episode

Going over the iPhone 11 design leaks
All of the crazy designs coming from Android OEMs
Despite the Samsung Galaxy S10 having amazing specs, it still won't oversell the iPhone. Here's why.

This video was sponsored by StoryBlocks. Their massive library of studio quality video, photo, and audio is available to use for a super affordable price. Instead of paying per clip, you can download unlimited amounts of content for use in personal and professional projects, and it's royalty free! To sign up, go to https://storyblocks.com/ThisIsTechToday

General Transcript

INTRO HOOK (0:33)
Wow, it's been awhile, friend. I've missed your beautiful face and a lot has happened in the past few weeks. Things still aren't looking too hot for Apple. The rumors of what they have planned this year don't look too great, which we'll talk about in a moment, but this may be the year of the Android. There are a ton of really crazy designs coming from team Android and the Samsung Galaxy S10 is right around the corner. So the question is: Can the Samsung Galaxy S10 overthrow the Apple iPhone XS? I'm not so sure. We'll talk about that and more, because this is tech today. Welcome to season 2

WELCOME (0:35)
Hey friend this is Brandon your host of this is tech today, your source for honest tech reviews, the news, and my views, and you're watching This is Tech This Week, a weekly show IN ADDITION to my other content where I go over tech news from this past week that personally interests me. If that's something you're interested in, make sure to share, subscribe and hit the bell to be notified of when I post a new video or cell phone companies will keep adding tons of cameras to their phones and trigger your Trypophobia.

DEFINITION:
Trypophobia is an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, or bumps

Ewwww!

Apple's iPhone XI/11 is Rumored to Look Interesting (2:40)
The end of last year was a bad time for Apple and so far it looks like some of the aftershocks of a bad holiday season remain. Sales dropped 22% in China and looks like it will continue into 2019. Price cuts continue to happen on the iPhone XR in markets outside of the United States, with an option to pay monthly in the US. On the plus side, the iPhone XR is the most popular device beating the iphone XS and XS max. The downside is that investors see that as less profit being made and still see the declining phone sales overall.

So the question ends up being, can Apple recover in 2019? Will the next round of iPhones provide a compelling reason for people to upgrade? Let's look at the rumors and see if it is interesting enough for you. Leave your thoughts in the comments below on whether you think this will be enough for Apple to not only retain its spot as the highest selling smartphone model, but turn things around.

First there's the design leaks that suggest that it'll have this square layout on the back with three cameras. There's a lot of conflicting details and thoughts on what the third camera is. Some say it's a depth sensor, it's for augmented reality, greater zoom, or for better low light.

First, let's just say that this design is not good. It looks really bad. Second, what do you actually want the third lens to be? What is practical for you? I honestly would rather have a wide angle lens over something for augmented reality. All I know is that it'll be really knarly for moment to make a case if this is the design, haha. But good news, maybe, the square design isn't the only potential layout for the camera.

We have this. It's uh, man. I don't know which one I like more. It's not good. The horizontal layout makes me think of some LG phone designs on the back. I hate to say it, but I think I like the square layout more? Oy. I want something better. At least the front notch looks smaller and will likely host a improved FaceID sensor and a rumored higher quality front facing camera.

And that's it. It's not really much of a change is it? Which design do you like more, what do you think the third lens is, and what do you want in a new iPhone? Come discuss it with us on the this is tech today community discord server. We're a helpful and kind group creating the tech community we've been looking for.

To be honest, I really don't think this is enough to convince people to upgrade but at least it looks like airpower is coming out soon! Plus, they hired a former Samsung Executive that oversaw their batteries. What could possibly go wrong?
[Image of Note 9 and News Headlines]

2019: Year of the Androids...Going Crazy (3:00)
So while Apple is putting out phones that essentially look the same as before, but uglier, it looks like Android manufacturers are trying to be as unique as possible. It's super odd to say that Android manufacturers are pushing the DESIGN trends again. The tech is a different story, but these designs are something else.

First, leaks seem to suggest that the upcoming OnePlus 7 will have a slide up front facing camera to eliminate any notches or hole punches. This is similar to the Oppo Find X, so this will definitely please those fidgeters out there. Remember fidget cubes? There's a weird video that I made about that. There's definitely not a link hidden in the description. Nope.

Then we have the upcoming Oppo phone that will have a 10x optical zoom. At first glance, that doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize that it's a physical zoom rather than a digital zoom. This is like having a big lens like this where it requires a lot of space to zoom. When you guys have asked me what I've wanted in a phone, this has been one of the things and I thought it wasn't going to happen for some time because of the amount of engineering it would take to make something like a DSLR zoom lens fit into a smartphone. Wow.

Meizu is one of two companies trying to go for a minimal look. They said that the Meizo Zero will have “no buttons, no speakers holes, no SIM card slot, [and] no charging port.” It'll be constructed out of ceramic, like the Essential phone, so that'll allow wireless charging and I'd imagine that sound would come out of the screen, which is pretty neat! And it's waterproof! I mean, it better be if there's no holes.

The other phone going for ultimate minimalism is the Vivo Apex. It is portless and buttonless as well but packs 5G capabilities, 12 GB of RAM, must have found the extra 4GB that the pixel 3 was missing, and a full screen fingerprint reader. It's so minimal that it almost looks a bit off to me and it definitely looks a bit chunky in this video. It's smooth like a stone. I'd be tempted to skip across water, haha! I know there's a bottom bezel, but can I share an unpopular opinion? I like having a little bit of a bezel at the bottom. It makes it easier for me to navigate and on top of that reduces accidental touches. Let me know if I'm not the only one that thinks that.

And finally, the most crazy design we've seen in this group outside of Samsung, Xiaomi. They showed off this foldable tablet phone teaser video and it's pretty crazy. It folds from two different sides. The one thing that I'm noticing in all of these foldable phone tablets are the indentations in all of the screens. That isn't the best look and makes me worried about the strength of the touch layer. Maybe it'll improve over the next few years.

I also asked the freshman girl at my work what she thought of it because I wanted an everyday person perspective and she said that it would give her anxiety as if she'd break it or snap it off or something. In her opinion, she said there was nothing wrong with classic stiff smartphones, so don't break it.

It really is an interesting design and I just don't know how well people will respond to it. What do you think of all of these unique design trends from the Android side?

SPONSOR (1:00)
So speaking of design, what do you think of the new look for the channel? I was able to create some of the fancy stuff on this channel because of this video's sponsor, Storyblocks. I've been working on it for a couple of months and was having lot of issues with finding a motion graphic designer that I liked, was available, whoa wasn't flakey, and was affordable so I had to take it into my own hands and make my own. Because of StoryBlocks I was able to find the right clips I wanted from their massive library of studio quality HD and 4K video to help put together the outro to this video. By the way you should totally stay to the end to check it out. It's a lot of fun.

If you want to sign up for Storyblocks, you can get unlimited downloads from their constantly growing catalog of royalty free content that also includes photos and audio clips that you can use for YouTube and even commercial or personal projects. If you'd like to sign up AND support the channel, check out the link in the description. Seriously, it saved me a lot of stress AND money when putting together the look of the channel and I hope it can help you as well!

Thank you so much Storyblocks for supporting this community and thank you to all of you who help support me by supporting our sponsors. Go ahead and leave some comments below on what you think of the design.

Alright, let's get back to it!

Can the Samsung Galaxy S10 Claim the Spot as King?
2019. Is this the year that Samsung can finally claim the throne from Apple? You see, iPhone has been the highest selling smartphone for quite some time but as we talked about earlier, sales haven't been looking too great for them lately. So what does Samsung have in store for us? Well, conveniently my good friend, there have been quite a few leaks. So let's check it out and we can see if we think it's going to be enough to take the throne when we see it unveiled at their Unpacked event in February.

First, there's a headphone jack. Thank you so much Samsung for listening to the community and keeping that there. I have to give you points for this one.

There's also three cameras on the back for the standard S10 and S10+ variants, one that will be a wide angle lens, which I like a lot, a normal lens with dual apertures, and a telephoto lens. If you're going to have three lenses on your phone, I definitely think this is the trio of options I'd want. The lite version will only have two lenses.

Speaking of cameras, we have to go to the front where we can see the first phone to come to America with the hole punch design. On the lite and S10 version there's just a single hole punch for a single lens on the front while the S10+ looks like it'll have two lenses. The S10+ 5G variant supposedly has a "Time of flight" sensor which would help with face unlock similar to FaceID on the iPhone. I'm not going to lie, it bothers me that the hole is not even with both the X and Y axis and I prefer it even more if it was centered. If it's not centered, at least make it equal distance from each edge.

Along those edges they'll have that curved screen that we've come to know from Galaxy devices minus the Lite version which will have a simple flat screen. The Lite version will have a fingerprint scanner in the power button off to the side while the normal variants will have an in-display ultrasonic fingerprint reader. Now this is something to take note of because it's not like the OnePlus 6T which uses an optical scanner. An ultrasonic fingerprint reader should provide more accuracy and prove to be faster. I really hope that's true.

And that's really it. It's essentially like the Galaxy S9+ that I've used. I mean, the 5G variant plans to have a ceramic back, but why does this seem kind of underwhelming? Sure there's some phenomenal tech inside of it and it will definitely open up doors for the industry to do some really cool things, but at the end of the day, if your current phone works fine now, would you upgrade to this? Would the dude at your work or your mom upgrade to this? I'm not too sure having an extra camera or a hole punch design is going to be enough to make people upgrade. This is why I don't think the Galaxy s10 will be able to dethrone the iPhone for most sales for a model series.

You see, the reality is that the entire smartphone market is slowing down. Even if Apple's iPhone sales are decreasing, that doesn't mean that Samsungs isn't either. In fact, we know that theirs is decreasing as well. When you combine that with my criticisms of Apple having too many products in their lineup and how that confuses customers, you have Samsung planning to have FOUR versions of the S10 alone, plus a foldable phone tablet. In many ways I think Samsung is making some of the same mistakes as Apple, they're just taking some significant design risks along the way. Unfortunately, I don't see these phones having a lower price to help encourage sales. Let me know what you think.

OUTRO (0:30)
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End Screen (0:25)