Before You Buy 177 (Transcript)
Today on before you buy the best notebook DELL thinks they’ve ever made. Give your iPhone spinners and fool your kids into becoming code monkeys. You gotta watch “Before You Buy”.
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This episode of before you buy is brought to you by SmartThings. SmartThings lets you monitor, control and automate your home from wherever you are using your smartphone. Right now SmartThings is offering Before You Buy listeners 10% off selected kits and you get free shipping in the United States, when you go to SmartThings.com/BeforeYouBuy and use the offer code beforeyoubuy at checkout. And by IFIXIT. You can fix it and IFIXIT makes it easy with free step by step repair guides, high quality replacement guides and all the tools you can ever need. For $10.00 off your purchase of $50.00 or more go to ifixit.com/twit and enter the code beforeyoubuy at checkout.
Father Robert Ballecer: Hey, and welcome to Before You Buy its TWIT’s product review show. It’s where we take the latest gadgets and gismos that we’ve gotten in the TWIT brick house and we give it to our host, our staff members, our friends. And we tell them to give us the best most honest reviews that they can possibly come up with. Now we need to start with this monster. I’ve had this for a few weeks now. This is the DELL XPS. This sexy, sexy beast is the consumer version of the Inspirion 3800 that I reviewed last year and I liked so very much. It’s a monster in all senses of the word its fast, its beautiful, its stylish but the question is; is it a buy? So I took a look, and this is what I thought.
Unknown Reviewer: The XPS 15 is DELL’s flagship consumer oriented portable powerhouse. At .31 to .71 inches thick 14.65 inches wide 10 inches deep and 4.4lbs heavy. The XPS 15 is an uber powerful Windows 8.1 64-bit notebook in a beautiful aluminum and carbon fiber shell. The 2015 XPS 15 series starts at $1600.00 but the unit we reviewed was DELL’s top of the line model priced at $2549.99. The centerpiece of the XPS 15 is at 15.6 inch 3840 x 2160 true 4k lipless IPS screen. Topped by edge to edge Gorilla Glass and outfitted with 10 point multi touch. Under the hood of the XPS 15 beats a 4th Gen Intel i7-4712 HQ CPU. Running at 2.3 GHZ with a turbo mode of 3.3 GHZ, 16 GB of DDR3 memory and an NVidia GeForce 750 GPU with 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory. Supporting all that speed is a 512 GB SSD on an upgradable M-SATA card. 802.11 a/b/g/n/a/c wireless and a Bluetooth 4.0 module. Port wise the XPS 15 is well loaded. The left side of the notebook houses the power connector, full size HDMI, Mini Display Port, 2 USB 3.0 ports, a combo audio port and an LED battery power readout. The right side adds an additional USB 3.0 port plus a USB 2.0, media card reader and a security port. All the USB ports include power share so you can charge your USB devices with the laptops battery, even if the laptop is off. Protecting all the tech is a brushed aluminum lid and a carbon fiber composite base. Performance wise the XPS 15 is top shelf. In PCMARK vantage it scored a low of 2516 and an average of 2630. In 3DMARK cloud gate the XPS 15 notched 9,812. To be clear these aren’t gaming notebook numbers. But then again the XPS 15 isn’t a gaming notebook. Alright, enough with the spec candy. Let’s talk about real world usage. First up, input. Having a 15.6 inch screen the deck of the XPS 15 is spacious. The glass touchpad is large, responsive and well placed. The keyboard is firm with plenty of travel for its non-slip keys. Though I was left wondering why DELL didn’t opt to make it larger given all the extra room. The keyboard backlighting is just right. Not so bright that its annoying in a dark room but bright enough to be seen in regular lighting. DELL outfitted the deck with a matte finished silicon cover to act as a wrist rest and also because it just looks good. Speaking of looking good the screen is simply gorgeous. The colors are rich, the images sharp the contrast amazing and the viewing angle generous at 70 degrees. The GeForce 750 is a little dated but it still pushes those pixels quite well. Handling everything from browsing to editing to gaming. Now with such a big screen running at such high resolution and both a CPU and dedicated GPU. The XPS 15 does have a veracious electrical appetite that takes its toll on the battery. Even with a 91-watt hour lithium ion the best run time we could manage in power saving mode. Dim screen wireless off power saving CPU was 7 ½ hours. With normal usage we averaged about 5 ½ hours. When cranking graphics, well keep it plugged in. As for the rest, the sound is above average, the webcam is so-so and the fan is ultra-quiet. In fact, it might be too quiet. The XPS 15 uses a heat spreader to good effect allowing the fan to run slowly or not at all. But the bottom of the laptop could get uncomfortably warm while number crunching.
Fr. Robert: Now this is a beautiful box it really is. Everything from the screen to the edge glass to the rubberized palm rest. It just feels good; it works well it doesn’t lag at all. Even the touch screen is useful. Now, that being said this is expensive. It’s really, really expensive so on my pro sides yes I am gonna recognize that the screen is one of the beautiful things ever. I am gonna recognize it is fast but, at somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 this is a premium notebook. Now I would shy away from that normally but here’s the issue. There is another version of this it’s called the Inspiron 3800. It’s the one that I liked so much last year. It doesn’t have as big of a battery, it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles that this has on the consumer side but it is a business laptop that runs even faster because it has a better video card. That’s another con and that is that they put a video chipset in here which is nice cause its discreet but they could’ve put something much faster that would’ve turned this from being just a desktop replacement to being a “gaming” desktop replacement. All-in-all it still does offer something very unique. It gives you an all-in-one package with a decent battery that you can get 5-6 hours of life out of even if you’re doing some significant processing. It does give you this 4k monitor that literally seriously look at the viewing angle that is so nice without any face shifting without any significant color bleed off. They’ve done so many things right with this that even at this price point even with the fact that the 3800 might be a slightly better notebook for those people that might be on a budget. I have to say that the DELL XPS 15 is a buy. Now we will compare this to a couple of the other notebooks that we’ve got in house to see if it compares well to say I don’t know an Acer V15 which goes for $1,000 less. We also want to get the Inspiron 3800 to put them side by side and see if the design changes are significant enough to warrant one or the other. Now I think that does it for our laptops. Let’s go ahead and shift gears a little bit. We’ve talked with Megan Morrone and we asked her to explore a product that is supposed to trick your kids into learning.
Megan Morrone: I am Megan Morrone and I host iOS today, i5 for the iPhone and Tech News Tonight. I also have 3 tweens who are officially out of school for the summer, which means it becomes my job to keep them busy. Sure they would be happy watching other people playing Minecraft, or browsing through Instagram for the better part of the day. But I don’t want they’re little brains to shrivel up. Somebody’s gotta take care of me in my old age. One way my kids have been keeping busy for the last few months is through bitsbox a website that helps teach them how to code. Yes, these days there are lots and lots of websites and apps that teach kids how to code. The thing about bitsbox is it’s not just a website or an app. It’s a box that kids physically get in the mail every month. The box ships every month with new coding projects like stickers and mysteries toys. Our first box came with a Slinky. Yes, Slinky’s are undeniably great but is that worth the $40.00 a month this subscription costs? If teaching your kids to really code is important to you, yes it might be worth it because they need a reason to stick with it and a box that comes in the mail every month might just be that reason. Bitsbox was a Kickstarter project created by Boulder, Colorado dads who met when they both worked with a company you might of heard of called google. Your kids can create the JavaScript HTML 5 coding projects on bitsbox.com for free and they can even use the apps QR code to instantly zap the app into their tablet or their phone and play the games that they’ve created. The subscription which includes additional coding projects costs as I said $40.00 a month. If you wanna pay month to month. If you pay for 3 months, it goes down to $35.00 a month. Its $30.00 a month if you wanna sign up for a year. If you just wanna download a PDF of the coding projects that is only $20.00 a month. Here are the pros there are interesting projects that will inspire and amuse kids. If you’ve ever wanted to blowup “Stan” the cat from Minecraft now you can. The games your kids create can run on iOS or Android and tablets and phones. The coding projects work best with computer with a keyboard which is a Pro because it teaches kids how to type. The cons are that $40.00 as I said before is a little bit high especially if you’re giving this as a gift. I wish the price point were a little bit lower. I get that the mystery toys are designed to get kids excited but I could do without another cheap toy that just ends up getting broken pretty quickly. Typing might be hard for the littler kids there are lots of drag and drop learn to code sites and apps that might be a better place to start. I would say if price is not an issue for you go for it. For the budget conscious I say give it a try. I am Megan Morrone and this is my review of the bitsbox subscription service, back to you.
Fr. Robert: It’s a try for the bitsbox from our own Megan Morrone you can find her on tech news tonight every weekday at 4:00 PM Pacific. You can also find her on iOS today and i5 for the iPhone. Now I know there are going to be some people that look at this and say I’m not exactly sure what this is. What it really is, is a subscription service that’s gonna convince your kids to learn something. Now for us geeks who maybe don’t have families don’t have kids that may not mean much. But as you get older and you get wiser and you get kids. You’re gonna long to make them code so pick yourself up some bitsbox try it out maybe it’ll just might be the thing you need to get your kids into coding. Speaking of getting your kids into coding what if you were to turn your house into an experiment? Something that they could play with something that they could use to figure out the logic of how things work. That’s exactly what you could do if you use SmartThings. Now SmartThings was voted by CNet as the best home automation product of CES 2015 and it’s easy to see why. This is their portfolio these are the sensors that you can find everything from door sensors, window sensors, temperature, humidity to moisture. It’s not just another home automation system however. The key to the SmartThings thing is this. That’s the hub now this hub will speak to all of these sensors but it will also speak to your dropcams. It will speak to your nest thermostat it will speak to your Sonos audio system. It’s designed to be the bridge between all the little devices from all the different home automation companies that want to compete for your home. Well you don’t have to compete on their terms. You can buy what you want use it with smartthings and you can control everything from your smartphone. From anywhere in the world. One of the things that I really like is this. This is the present sensor this little keychain sized fob allows my house to know when I’ve come home and then it can set everything the way that I want it. It can turn the lights up or down based on my preferences and it can turn the Sonos system on so I hear the music I like. It can even interoperate with the alarm system the dropcams it can place sounds when someone comes to the door. It can turn your thermostat up or down. Basically you’re only limited by imagination when you’ve got a smart house with smartthings. They’ve made it easier than ever to turn your home into a smart home and you know what you really gotta try them, now. If you wanna play with home automation, if you wanna play with security, if you want to look at energy savings. If you’ve got a house where you need to worry about water in the basement SmartThings is this smart buy. It’s the easiest way to get up and running “smart” in a smart period of time. Now right now until June 30th SmartThings is offering its three most popular kits at a discount just for our TWIT audience. Get 10% off either the home security, energy saver or water detection kit when you go to smartthings.com/beforeyoubuy and use the offer code beforeyoubuy. It’s the perfect way to get you started with a smart home. For 10% off and free domestic shipping go to smartthings.com/beforeyoubuy and to show your love for before you buy make sure to use the offer code beforeyoubuy. SmartThings, smart house, smart now. We thank SmartThings for their support of Before You Buy. Now let’s go head and take a wander over to an event we had in San Francisco. We looked at mobile focus where we had a little sit down with the guys from Kingston and they brought out a device for all you folks with MacBook’s or Probook’s and a new USB-C connector. You’ve probably seen this, but not this. This is actually Kingston’s 5-in-one. It’s a fantastic little device and it does everything from provide you with a battery bank. To a Wi-Fi access point to a way to share your media. Fun little product that they’ve revamped in the last nine months but this is not really what we want to talk about. Now we’ve got these, these 7.1 surround sound headphones which I absolutely love. They’re super comfortable, they sound great but even these are not really what I want to talk about. Because what I want to talk about is over here with David Lee Young. Now David Lee Young is a friend of the TWIT tv network. He’s been in This Week Enterprise Tech, you’ve seen him on KnowHow and yeah you’re gonna see him on Before You Buy. Because Kingston now has USB-C devices. David, tell me about these.
David Lee Young: This is our upcoming product data traveler micro duo 3c. Like you said USB Type-C. So this is the newest standard of USB. Technically its USB 3.1 so people are gonna notice “Hey, that’s a really small connector on one side.” Right, and then you’ve got your standard USB connector on the other side. So what we’ve done is kind of made it a 2-in-one type of thing here. The new USB Type-C connector is for devices like the Chromebook Pixel, the new MacBook and the Nokia N1 Tablet. So you know the other PC makers its comin’ right? It allows you to transfer data, charge your device and I think it might even be able to hook up to an external monitor. I think, this port does all that? Not the Kingston product but. So what we do basically is with this drive. We’re letting people future proof your product. If you have one of the products that has this port. You can transfer data in-between your current USB 2 USB 3 PC and your new USB 3.1 device. 16, 32, 64 gigs coming out in early June.
Fr. Robert: This is such a good idea because you said USB 3-C is nice it’s great, its fast but my current devices won’t work with it without some sort of dongle. If you give me a device that will work with my USB 3 now and USB-C later well, that’s a no brainer.
David Lee Young: You know, yeah exactly. We’re trying to just future proof you know it’s a good way to future proof yourself. You have the device now if you upgrade to a new laptop or you get a new fancy tablet later on. You’re still covered with the additional data; the additional storage is actually pretty cool for your device.
Fr. Robert: Now David if they wanna find out more about your range of products where can they go?
David Lee Young: Its really easy, www.kingston.com
Fr. Robert: There you have it folks, USB-C is the future. I’m Father Robert, and that’s been your first look.
Fr. Robert: Now, I really love the stuff that they got at the Kingston desk. You may remember back in CES 2015, we got a look at their predator and their savage. It was their SSD refresh, which was just phenomenally fast. In fact, Bryan,
Bryan: Yeah?
Fr. Robert: This week on KnowHow, we did a little something, something. We made our own super-fast flash drive, didn’t we?
Bryan: Yeah, you took a little $12.00 enclosure and you put a SSD in it and it was so fast compared to your regular USB flash drive.
Fr. Robert: Yeah, actually what we found was, you could buy a high performance USB flash drive, that might get you 200-300 megabyte per second read maybe 200 megabytes per second write. We took a Kingston M-SATA card, dropped it in an enclosure and I think we got 500 read? And 400 write and it was actually less than the super high performance. So, I’d like to see this more on Before You Buy. Maybe take some of their USB-C stuff and compare it against some of the home brew. What do you think?
Bryan: Yeah, I like that idea and I think you said right after you finish that project. You said you were gonna give it to me right? You’re gonna let me have it? And then I was gonna put like Windows 10 or something on it and run it off of there.
Fr. Robert: Actually, if you keep the camera on yourself, I believe I was gonna give it to Carson. Carson was gonna actually have it cause he’s the producer of Before You Buy. Right?
Bryan: Why would Carson want it? He doesn’t want it.
Fr. Robert: Yeah, I’m just saying that to bug you. Now folks, I know there’s a lot of iPhone people out there and I know there’s a lot of you out there that are really into photography. Let’s face it the iPhone until very recently was the king of the camera phone. No one could touch it. Couple of manufacturers got close but as far as clarity simplicity of use and just the flexibility of options. The iPhone has ruled the roost for mobile pictures. Now, we went over to Mike Elgan, and we gave him a device that he could attach to his iPhone to maybe, increase that flexibility even more. Why don’t we take a look at the Ztylus Metal Camera Kit?
Mike Elgan: Hey, this is Mike Elgan, news director here at TWIT looking at a couple of products for people who wanna take fantastic photos with their iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 plus. The first is a case that has a lens attachment and second, is another attachment that goes on that same case for special lighting effects. We’ll go into all of the details of both those products. The first is called the Ztylus Metal iPhone 6 plus case and the second is the Ztylus LED Ring Light attachment. We’ll get into whether or not that is worth it as well. Now the problem that this company is trying to solve with these lenses is that if you look at a solution like the Olo clip, they’re difficult to get on and the lens quality is not that great. The other problem with something like an Olo clip which clips directly onto the lens of the iPhone, is that it pretty much prevents you from having a case so you have to carry around a naked iPhone. Which can be dangerous because you can drop it and break it, all that kind of stuff. So let’s take a close look at what is exactly in each of these products. But first let’s start with the case part of the iPhone 6 plus case from Ztylus. You notice that you slip it on by essentially by putting most of it, probably 90% of the body of the case is slipped on with a single piece that slides over the top. Then on the bottom, there’s a metal or plastic. You can choose which one you want when you buy the product, which slides on the bottom and screws on with this sort of metal screwy thing here and this holds it very firmly in place. Inside is a nice soft felty feeling that will cradle your phone lovingly with a softness so you won’t scratch up your phone. You also notice another great benefit of this case as just a case. It doesn’t cover the buttons, the controls, the ports or the speaker. Those are all exposed to the elements but they’re also available for you to use for better control. Now again, if you don’t have the lens attachment or the light attachment in this case you can pop out this handy kick stand to prop up your phone and watch movies and do whatever you want to do. So it’s a handy case. Now, it’s kinda heavy but it has a good grippy feel to it. This is the metal version to this, this is real metal. There is a gold version as well and you’ll also notice that it covers the top part of the lens so, for example if you lay it down on its back the iPhone lens which protrudes from the actual body of the iPhone will not be touching the surface that you put it on. Likewise, you can turn it over and lye it down face down. The front of the phone, the glass part is not gonna touch the surface because it’s just raised enough to lift it off the surface and those are all really great features. Now, let’s talk about the lens attachment itself. Now to get off this kickstand thing you have this little controller here. Give it a little twist and that just pops right off. Takes a little bit of practice but once you get it, it’s really easy to do. This is like a camera lens where you line up the red dots and then you just slide it over and then there it is. Looks like that’s the lens right there in the middle, but in fact that is not the lens. We’ll get into exactly how that works in just a second. So if you wanna use the lens how this works is you slide it out the lens and it covers the iPhone 6 lens. Again this is the. There is an iPhone 6 version, I should have mentioned. There is an iPhone 6 version and an iPhone 6 plus version. We’re looking today at the iPhone 6 plus version. They are the same price. So there is one lens, that is the polarizing circular polarizing filter lens. It’s cool in concept unfortunately, probably because of the small size or for some other reason. But it doesn’t have that super strong polarizing effect and here is another which is the fisheye lens and finally we have the wide angle lens which pops out. And inside there is a little black tob which you pop out to give yourself the macro lens, for very close up photography and this is magnetic so to put it back in you just throw it back in there and it places itself directly into the cradle. This is a really high quality macro lens. You can get really close to your subject and still have high resolution, not a lot of blurring around the edges. That’s one of the disappointments I had with the Olo clip which is that around the edges of the macro lens there was way too much blurriness. Okay, now let’s look at the other lens attachment, which is the sold separately LED lighting attachment. We’ll go ahead and plug this in now. So what we’re gonna notice first is I have this removable item here which lets you put the whole camera on a tripod from the attachment. Of course that’s sturdy enough to really hold the phone which is actually a pretty cool feature there. But what, how you use this is you take the lighting part of this the ring and swivel it out, so that it is right directly centered over the actual iPhone lens, and then this red button here you turn that on and you get what is obviously a very bright light. Now one great feature is you can adjust you notice that if you look at the light directly there is white and yellow LEDs in there so you can adjust them separately so with this little slider here you can turn down the yellow to keep the white bright, you can turn them both down, or you can down them both up, or you can have the yellow orangey light. Whatever you want to do you can adjust that and perfect it. As you can see these dramatically improve the lighting of your subject especially if your subject is pretty close. If your subject is gonna be further than four or five feet, it’s not going to do much for you. But if you’re taking food photography, pictures of a pet within a foot or two or three. Its gonna have a significant effect. It’s a nice gentle effect because the lighting is all around the lens so it’s not gonna be a light source over here. Having said that, you may have noticed that because you have one of these attachments on you can’t have the other and vice versa. So if you wanna use both these lenses from this company Ztylus and also the lighting you can still do that with the LED ring light attachment doesn’t use power from the phone. It has its own source which is 3 AAA batteries. Now let’s talk about pros and cons. Pros are that this is really high quality stuff, its high quality engineering, high quality design, high quality material. It feels premium and that’s always a great thing especially at these prices. It’s also great as a case the case protects everything while keeping the buttons, ports and speakers exposed. I like combination of maximizing protection while still giving you direct access to the actual phone where you need it. The inside is soft and fuzzy so it will protect your phone really nicely and most importantly and this is the mother of all pros for this sort of product like this both of these products will result in the highest quality photos that I have ever seen on an iPhone. The iPhone already has a great camera, this will greatly enhance it and will not reduce the quality through inferior lenses cause the lenses are great. And of course the lighting effects will always result in better photos in certain circumstances. The cons are that it’s a little on the pricey side. Again, you can find cheaper prices online but still this is a pretty expensive solution, for just improving the quality of photos on an iPhone. Another con is that the case itself is pretty heavy so the normal way you do this and of course one of the convenient things about this is that you can just leave the case on, swap on the attachments when you want them. So you’re gonna be using this as your full time case and if you do that it’s on the heavy side, especially the metal version. And the case with attachments, once you put these lenses on. They’re bulky, so if you want to put that in your pocket, good luck with that. It’s probably too bulky for most people, to put in their pocket. Having said that, this is a definite buy. Taking pictures with an iPhone is a great alternative. The quality is so good it’s a great alternative to a DSLR for a lot of people in a lot of circumstances and this combination of lenses and lighting, will actually take that to the next level and really give you really great quality photos. Given the quality of the photos I don’t think the price is really too high. So that’s my review of both the Ztylus iPhone 6 plus case and the Ztylus LED ring light attachment. Both of which I recommend and that’s it. Back to you.
Fr. Robert: That’s a buy! From Mike Elgan for the Ztylus metal series camera for iPhone 6 plus. Now, I actually played with a Ztylus module for my old Galaxy S4, it was quite nice really did improve the quality of the photography. I could do macro, I could do long distance photography so, if that’s your thing. I mean I know it may look a little strange it may feel a little strange for people who aren’t taking photos all the time. But if your primary thing is to post to Instagram to give photos to your friends on Facebook. That’s actually probably money well spent. Speaking of money well spent hey, hey Brian. I don’t know if you’re up. We do KnowHow together Right? We take apart a lot of stuff.
Bryan: Uh, yeah we break a lot of things which means then we have to fix them.
Fr. Robert: What do we use to fix them?
Bryan: Uh, we have an all-in-one kit that works really well.
Fr. Robert: Yeah, that’s this thing right here. Now folks IFIXIT has been an advertiser, a fan of the network for a very long time. Not just for Before You Buy but for KnowHow and all of our other TWIT properties. What they get is they understand that geeks want not just the tools but the knowledge that they need in order to fix their devices. Everything from their laptops, to their desktops, to their quadcopters to their eyeglasses and their doorknobs. IFIXIT isn’t just a place just to get this awesome tool roll with all these tools. But it’s also a place to get over 10,000 repair guides. Everything like your smartphones, your tablet, your game console. They’ll give you the instructions you need to make things right. Now this Protech tool kit is my favorite its 70 plus tools to assist you with any mod, malfunction or misfortune that comes your way. The tool kit is the gold standard for electronics work from garage hackers, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. But more importantly it’s the gold standard here at the TWIT brick house. This is the kit we reach for when we need to fix something, or disassemble something or unburk something. Now, this includes IFIXIT 54-bit driver kit with 54 standard specialty and security bits. Everything from Philips bits cantaloupe bits and torque security bits, tri-wing bits. Even the triangle bits that you use for Mc Donald’s toys. Everything you need to hack out yourself of a situation. It also brings this anti-static wrist wrap so you can safely modify without blowing things out with static. It’s got spugers, nylon spugers, plastic spugers, metal spugers. Everything, so you can open up your electronics the right way. Without marring the surface, without destroying its resell ability. Because that’s how real geeks do it. Real geeks, they go in, they come out. You never know they were there fixing your electronics. Its only $64.95 and its backed by a lifetime warranty. Obvious a home DIY fixer and fixers alike will use the Protech tool kit for doorknobs, for your eye glasses, for your cabinet doors, for your sink fixtures and of course, all your geeking out. Best of all, along with these tools are thousands of IFIXIT repair guides so you know exactly what you’re doing the first time you do it. Now you can fix it and with IFIXIT you can help yourself. Visit ifixit.com/twit for more than 10,000 free step by step guides. IFIXIT also all every part and tool that you’ll need. Enter the code beforeyoubuy at checkout and you’ll save $10.00 off any purchase of $50.00 or more. That’s ifixit.com/twit and use the code beforeyoubuy to save $10.00 at checkout. We thank IFIXIT for their support of Before You Buy. Now it’s time for a parting shot and we’re taking a look that you’ve probably seen in the news. Maybe you’ve laughed a little bit at but everyone who’s actually tried it, has said that its phenomenal. It’s a really cool repurposing of technology and it’s this. Mike Elgan went to Google I/O 2015 and he picked up their brand new cardboard. Now, cardboard is exactly what the name might imply. Its cardboard, its foldable cardboard that has some lenses in it. But it’s a bit more than that. It’s also an app that you can load onto your Android phone. Now I’ve got a 1 plus 1 here. This is not a fast phone by any means of the word. But what it has loaded on it, is the cardboard application. Now go to the side shot and you might be able to get this a little bit better. It’s got a split screen and that’s because its giving you a 3D parallax view of things that you’ve got loaded onto your phone. The way that it works is that you put it into the holder, close the cardboard, adjust it until it looks about; there we go. Just about right and this little view finder like button here allows me to select things and the way that I go back and forth and I find what I want. Push the button, now what’s cool about this is it’s like for example. When I’m playing my videos. It allows me to look up and down to select the video that I want to play and it’s in a real location. I know that my videos are always playing here my library are always over here and I can always bring them from one place to another. Now of course, (laughs) thank you Brian, I just noticed what you’re doing with the screen. Of course, this is one of those technologies that you really have to see to believe. But the cool thing is, if you go online right now. You’ll find instructions to make your own cardboard kit. You’ll even find links where you can buy these lenses. So if you weren’t able to make it out to Google I/O. If you weren’t able to get your own official Google cardboard. You can craft out one this weekend and try out some 3D awesomeness. I really suggest that you do it. This is one of those things that’s so low cost, so low impact it doesn’t make sense for you not to try it. And if you want an even easier experience, what you can do is use this. Now this is the Go4D C1-Glass. Its $22.00 and we’re gonna put the link in our show notes so you can find out where you can buy it. If you don’t want to make your own cardboard. If you didn’t go to Google, I/O. You could still get this and get much of the same experience. It uses the same app. So you would just download the official Google app for cardboard, which again is free. And it would allow you to do the same things. You can control your phone, you can get the whole 3D parallax view and try out for very little what it’s like to get the whole 3D. Wow that looks pretty cool to get that 3D experience. This is much better than the ooo, kinda trippin’ out a little bit Brian. Okay that’s not actually what it looks like but that is so cool. Now as my producer has also mentioned, this has one extra advantage. And that is if you’re done with cardboard, if you no longer wanna look at your pictures. Instead of looking at like this. Which is what you’re supposed to do, with the phone held here. You can turn it around and you can be the coolest cat on the block. With these super high tech specs Brian what do you think?
Bryan: Dang, padre. You’re not lookin’, not cool at all
All: Laugh
Fr. Robert: That’s all we have for this episode of Before You Buy. I wanna thank all of our reviewers for giving us their honest opinions. Especially to Mike Elgan, to Megan Morrone and to Brian for being our super td. He’s actually the heart and soul of Before You Buy. Brian can you tell people where they can find you on the TWIT tv network.
Bryan: Uh, yeah well we talked about earlier uh, KnowHow on Thursday’s at 11:00 and also you had mentioned IFIXIT as their sponsor today. I’m doing an Xbox repair, the red ring of death on the old 360. Which you might think the Xbox One’s out so who plays the 360 anymore. But the Xbox One isn’t backwards compatible so there’s a lot of people who would benefit from fixing that old one. So check that out on KnowHow. And uh, I think we’re gonna be doing some pre-records later too.
Fr. Robert: I think so. Probably just a few. I also wanna thank everyone who makes this show possible. Also to Lisa and to Leo and to my super producer Carson who makes everything is in its place, before we actually start filming. Until next time I’m Father Robert Ballecer, the digital jess who played with cardboard and remember, You gotta watch Before You Buy!
