Sony Xperia 10 Mark 7 Impressions

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Phone Show Chat, the podcast where we talk about phones and more phones and more phones. Actually, today's show um we're gonna be talking a b we' well meander a bit away from phones probably now and again. Um Joe's with me as always. Hello, Joe. How you doing, Ted? I'm all right, are you all right? Yeah, I'm very good. I'm very good. I had a day off yesterday, didn't I? You had a day off. Oh nice. Yeah, 'cause uh Sam is Mother's Day in America yesterday, so no no m no my check project yesterday, so had the day off. Right. Okay. And um with us again uh reappearing is Jim Powell. Hello, Jim. Hello, Ted, hello Joe. I take it you're both well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I was just checking back to see when you were last on and it seems to be January. In fact, January the twelfth. And on that show we were talking about all sorts of things interesting. Oh it's always interesting when you come on because you c you you love love buying stuff that no one else does. And so it makes for a a good show. I've definitely gone more that way. If it's more unusual the better. I I seem to shy away from flagships unless there's one going cheap on PSC classifieds these days. Yeah, definitely. That's really good. Um so um the uh the furniture of the show is um the our website is d I need to say this? I mean for goodness sake I I can't imagine for one minute anyone listening to this doesn't know where our webs uh right, okay, we'll do it anyway. Phone show chat dot UK two S's in the middle. Um Mi Wee Group is where we hang out and we hopefully encourage you to as well and we chat about all sorts of stuff which we feed into the show. Um Ted Salmon.com is where to go if you get lost and um Podhub UK is where you'll find it all as well. So that's about it really. Let's get straight into it. And just quickly this is this is show eight nine four. Oh yeah, well done. It's uh the eleventh the eleventh of May. Um uh uh nobody noticed last week that I put the twenty fourth of May into last week's show in the RSS instead of the fourth of May. Not to soul mentioned it, so obviously no one listens anyway. Um so the eleventh of May it is show eight nine four as you say, Joe, and um let's go for it. Yeah, Gasgala is first. So Jim, since you've been on I think last time we're going with the guest gala and you can take as much time or as little time as you like. Uh Joe and I will chip in. Um and if we've got time to get to our stuff as well we can but if not we can always do something else with that later on or another day. So don't feel like you need to be short or whatever. Just talk about whatever you like. What have you brought to NATO about ? I I I bought a few things and I was just thinking about when you said you put the twenty fourth into the RSS feed because Pocket Cast just captures it for me. I n I'd never look, you know. I do look at the show notes for the links for some of the products and stuff like that, but I don't I didn't re I don't think I really pick up on the date at that No, yeah, I I'm sure that no one it it's still there now. If I w I looked at it just now and it's still there. I have corrected it in the feed, so when this show goes out it will put it right again. We're not time travellers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think since since we l last spoke I've kind of settled more into a bit of uh uh uh kind of what I'm call ing the ideal setup for me for now because uh I know you uh I've mentioned previously I always have an iPhone because of the fa the rest of the family have got one and we've got air tags in various cases and bags and stuff like that and the cars. So it is just easier to keep uh an iPhone on hand all the time. But what what I've done this time is it's kind of swapped around. It was my primary, but now it's really is the secondary phone. So I I I've moved out the iPhone fifteen. I I'm trying to sell that to my son, but he wants a big discount, so uh we'll we'll see. But uh and and I bought myself an iPhone 13 mini 'cause I wanted something a bit smaller. So that that that's all good and that takes care of the iPhone bit. So you know and it was purely to get the smaller size phone for carrying it as a secondary. But that that's kind of what I think has done this time. It's given me a lot more freedom to kind of whiz through different Android phones if you see what it means. So the Android phone's my primary now and and that's kind of open 'cause an iPhone's an iPhone, isn't it? Like you know, it does what iPhones do. Uh whereas with Android I know and uh you know, Andro uh an Android phone and Android Android does what Android does, but it's different, isn't it? Shapes and sizes of phones and and stuff like that. So I think um I've hit upon my ideal setup from now. Just have a small iPhone, the iPhone thirteen, and whatever Android phone I happen to spot in PSC classified at any point in Okay. Um Yeah, so since deciding on that and really running with that, I I've had a few phones come my way and um I I I find that I don't seem to buy phones anywhere else anymore unless it's a Kickstarter. But apart from PSC classifieds, they all come from PSC classifieds these days. And and notifications have started working on Mi We, so I get to jump on some of them quick because that before they disappear. So that's good as well. They never did work the notifications on Mi We, but now they have started working on MIME. Lots of people say that. And you know I've been on my I've been on Mi We since two thousand and eighteen when we came over from Google Plus and I have never ever once had a problem with notifications. Um now granted I own I'm the I'm the inverter commerce owner of the groups and I do have everything turned on but I do think that lots of people that don't um get that and uh that complain about not getting um notifications. Yeah I don't think I changed anything. it like I say it's just started. Well I still don't get any notifications on um chat messages, direct chat messages. But I think y you know, you mentioned that you have to be following people. I don't I d don't seem to get them on people that I am following either, which is a bit surreal, but I it might be because I swap phones every five minutes. Check your settings. Check your settings. I will do I'll go back and check it out. Anyone else listening that has got this problem, check your settings. Click on your little face in the top right hand corner. I'm talking about on the web of course. Um but if you go into there and then you click on the um account settings and then in there you can see all your preferences, notifications and alerts, turn them all off, turn them all on, do what you like. So there you go. I have interest Ted, is it t on the device or is it cloud based? Um 'cause I notice some um every different phone you get you have to go in the settings and redo them again. Ah, that depends on whether you set it up or not. So if you if you do a um a backup restore from um your last phone that has been set up, depending on which phone it is and where you're copying from and to, all of those settings should be saved. I I I do I do accept that um in some combinations of setting up new phones and using backup restore they don't survive. But most they are getting better and very few times now I have to actually go in to Mi We settings and do anything in terms of what's on the phone. Yeah, I'll explain. 'Cause on I give an example, on Instagram, um as standard it's set to upload in lower quality. It's really frustrating 'cause I always forget to change it. Right. Well as I say, I think you I think it depends. If you used if you went from m honour to honour and used their clone tool, I bet you that would survive. But um it certainly would if you went Samsung Sams ung and used their tool. And Google Google. But I uh I y your mileage may vary. Sorry, Jim, we hijacked your slot. Oh, no that's no problem. It's uh it's always good to have a chat about the wonders of Mi We 's kind of my favourite place . I don't really go anywhere for phone stuff. But yeah I mean in in terms of phones, so the the first phone I managed to bag that was a little different for me was the the the CMF Phone two Pro. Mm and and up to that point I hadn't really had any phones by nothing or CMF, which I believe is their sub brand. So when I saw that ad I jumped on it straight away because it I mean it wasn't expensive at all. I think it was about £150 if I remember correctly. Yeah. But um you know the the impression I got of the phone two Pro that it was a low to mid-range device, only 128 gig of storage, which is I I know we discuss that regularly it's a bit low, but it I still doesn't really seem to be a problem for me at the end of the day. Um but to be honest with you, I really liked that phone. I really liked the hardware design of it. It was totally different and out there comparing it to the normal kind of mono slab that everybody else is doing. And the icon set. I really did like the the kind of CMF icon set when you turn that on and you've got that kind of black and white feel. And I know it didn't run throughout the device but you know, I I didn't really mind that. So be because it and it was it's probably one of the the first photos I had that was a bit more fun than anything else. So Did you have did you did did you have the orange one like mine ? No, I think it was the sand it's sandstone and white. I think it was white and sandstone if I I've got it on the shelf. I don't think I should turn around and look at it, shouldn't I really? Yeah, it's kind of like a a sandstone and white effect and I the the industrial look with the little screws and everything showing was yeah, it was you know, pretty good. A as you know I'm not really into the cameras so that didn't really make any difference to me. So, you know, it seemed to take reasonable photos for what I was doing with it. So didn't have a problem with that either and you know it felt good in the hand, it looked good. And I I did like the the the the software on it. I can't remember what the operating systems called on it though. It's just nothing OS. Nothing OS. I did like that as well. And I did try out the AI thing. You know, it was the the AI kind of memory thing, wasn't it where you you record what you're doing, you take a screenshot, record what you're doing or whatever, put something in there to remember. But the problem with that is you've got the essential space. Essential yeah. Essential space. But you know, to to make a joke out of it, essentially you've got to remember to do that, haven't you, is the problem. It's not very it's actually not very good. I I've d tested the essential space on a number of nothing phones and CMF and it really isn't very good. But it it needs lots of work . Yeah, yeah. I I played with it a bit and then just did what I normally did with that kind of stuff and forgot about it after a while. So Yeah. But you know, I did have my sim in that for a while, didn't have any problems using it. It didn't seem to run slow or have any niggles for what I do. I don't really game on them, so you know, i i if it wasn't as powerful as anything else then it I wouldn't really have noticed. But yeah, I was quite surprised that for something that cost a hundred and fifty pounds. I th I thought to myself, if I had to, I could use that as my only phone. And it's really perfectly fine. Yeah. Yeah, very thin, very light. Yeah, yeah. I didn't like the case that come with it and that's the downside with these types of devices. Your range of cases that you can choose not a great deal is there really. They're not really kind of mainstream, so no I didn't didn't s really see anyone making anything for it to be honest. So you know so Corners are GSM arena. Corners G S M arena. The um protection on the um glass is panda glass. Panda glass? Yeah. Yeah, never heard of that before. Yeah,anda Panda Glas P Glass is the is the the the poor man's um Gorilla uh Gorilla Glass. two um pro . Um but it was yeah th it was considered to be poor man's gorilla glass. It's another thing I can't remember. Did it take an S D card? Could you expand it? I can't remember. Yes, as you can . Yeah. So there was that then. If I'd wanted more storage I could always pop in the one of the the S D cards that I tend to have laying about not doing very much these days 'cause most phones don't take 'em anymore do they? So Yeah. But yeah. You know, I I mean it was running Android sixteen yeah so not not long after I got it updated to Android sixteen so no problem with the operating system. But I don't really know how many more updates it'd get. So you know, who who knows? I I don't know. I think it was up to three. Yeah, it's gonna get up. Up to three. It's gonna get three updat es of OS and six years of security . Yeah. Oh that's not too bad then is it really? For a hundred and fifty quid phone, that's not bad at all. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that's what I thought I was totally shocked by the the the price uh and then when it came in how usable it was, you know. Without any problems. I'll put a link in the show I'll put I'll put a link in the show note to my written review because people can then have a have a read if they want to . Stuff. Yeah. And and so m moving on from that, I mean my SIM card pretty much stayed in that device until I spotted on the forum that Ted was selling his motorola edge sixty pro mm and I thought, hang on a minute, I'd like one of them. I've never really had a a mainstream Motorola device, so let me have that one. Let me jump in quick and get that one. So yeah, I mean that to be honest, uh apart from the the Motorola H plus that you sent me ages ago and the Motorola Razar fifty Ultra. I've not really had a kind of what you'd say would would you call this one a flagship, the e Edge sixty pro or is that still mid range. Upper mid range. Maybe up . Yeah, upper mid range. I was thinking that, you know. Because it I mean uh reading the specs it comes with twelve giga RAM and five hundred and twelve giga storage, you know, that that that's big specs from my perspective. Much like you do too, Ted, I copied all my video files onto it and took a monology with me. Yeah. And played it to the T V in the room if we w were staying in the room for any reason. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, I mean that that was my first kind of mainstream motor roller phone and initially I wasn't sure about the curved screen on it 'cause it has got a bit of a curved screen and I haven't seen a phone that's got a curved screen for a long time now. And um but the the display is just so clear on 'em and bright, isn't it? Like that that after a a short while it had won me over and the battery life was just immense. It I've not had a phone that lasted like that one did. I I mean while I was decorating, I was running it all dayy long, plaing podcasts and things like that and checking things, speaking to people on the phone, WhatsApp, all all that kind of old and still at the end of the day and into the evening I'll have like forty five percent left in the battery. It just seemed to be one of the the better battery devices that I've had for a long time. It's got it's got a six it's got a six thousand milliamp hour battery, which is really good. Yep. Yeah. It it and was it just seemed to last and is it silicon carbon? Yeah. Yeah. Oh I didn't realise that. But yeah, that I mean that does seem to be one of the the kind of muscle phones in terms of battery life that you could you know go out all day long and you wouldn't really be worried about whether it had run out of juice or not. Absolutely. Um I added in uh you know after reading some of your posts on it said I threw in the smart connect software and and that's pretty good as well, isn't it? It's much like the Microsoft phone link was with the Samsung with the streaming of apps and things like that and it can't What? I wanna I w I ca I can't accept that. It better then is that Much better. Much better than Microsoft Phone Link is is is so basic compared to um Smart Connect and Dex and all the proper desktop modes. Um but what I meant was it it was the first thing I come across that had the kind the a level of functionality that allowed the the kind of app streaming that 'cause if you use if t if you use um the Microsoft one with Eddie on a phone you don't get the the the the kind of app stre Only with certain phones. You get it with the Surface Duo, the Samsung phones. Um some of the B BK group phones now will will work with apps, um but not certainly not all of them, no. Yeah. Yeah. And and another thing, I I mean like I say, I'm not really a camera file by a long shot and I the the the the camera is the last thing I look at on a phone to be honest whether when I'm thinking of buying one. But I've used the camera a lot lately. We we took a visit into London over the last weekend and I took a load of snapshots from the top of the shard in London. Oh yeah. And the the camera uh on the Edge sixty pro just seems to be a lot different to all my other phones. It d I don't know whether it's just the screen vibrancy. It just any shot I was taking just looked a lot clearer on that screen and I like the way that the the wheel worked when you're zooming in and out. And I I didn't even realise that it went up to fifty times zoom as well. You know, but uh uh not that the the photos are great coming out of it, but it it's kind of on a par with the Samsung again where it goes up to like the fifty I think the Samsung was only thirty, wasn't it? And then the motor roller went past that at fifty. So Joe, yeah you're the you're the man here. It's it's all digital it's all digital, isn't it? Yeah it's all digital of course yeah. I mean the telephoto performs way better than what the hardware suggests because the the sensor's very small on the telephone and it's only a 10 megapixel job. So I was shocked when I used it. It was actually quite nice in good light. It did come give good resul ts even in video um way beyond what the the the specs sheet would tell you um so I think it is the processing that um motor are doing is quite pleasant. It's got pantone validated colours, which I think helps with the colours that you're you're talking about, which I think that's what you're uh alluding to as well, uh Jim. Yeah, yeah. It it it just looked the the whole camera setup just looked a more lot a more vibr ant on that device than any of the others. And I can say I couldn't tell you if it was better than the Samsung Fold Sixes camera or even the the the the original Pixel Folds camera. I couldn't those. But you know, I just got that impression that it was from my kind of no knowledge of cameras perspective, if you see what I mean. It j it just seemed easier to use as well. Which which was quite strange. If you're talk if you're if you're talking about the screen though, don't forget that the mo all of the moto screens are really, really good. They they use this P they use this P OLED um tech, which we think w used to be made by LG. six so I think it might be the same sensor. At the very least it's the same exactly the same sensor size. Um but um moto uh have a different F stop on theirs is F two point zero whereas the fold is F two point four. Um but I think the sensor is the same. Oh mate, okay. Well that's good. But like like I say I think the two things that really sold the edge sixty pro to me have been the screen and the battery life. It's just fantastic. And and s like I've really enjoyed using that a lot, you know, a a real lot. And my main sim had been in it ever since Ted sent it to me after I bought it off him and he sent it over. It it my sim stayed in there. Um a and for the first time ever I even built a home screen with widgets and I've never really done that before. I might have played around with the odd one or two but I you know, the the screen was so good. I actually set up a home screen full of widgets for the various things that I needed to see during the day, you know, like to do lists from my wife and things like that obviously, so I can check off and make sure I've done everything. Um but, you know , there was up at that point there was I couldn't see anything that was gonna tempt me away from the Edge sixty pro until I went and looked at PSC classifieds again unfortunat ely or fortunately for whoever's selling the device but and that's where I spotted uh my phone of the moment which is the the original Google Pixel fold. Um I I bought that from Paul Waggett, yeah. So I saw his advert and I jumped at the chance. I thought I really wanted to get a pixel and be because Ted talks about using the beta software and trying out the beta software and I thought I'd like to have a go at that. And initially I thought to myself I'd like a a pixel ten Pro fold . But they're they're just too expensive. You know I I I like to spread my money about a bit at the moment and buy some more obscure, you know, the phones that are a bit cheaper for for something a bit different. And I found the the the Pixel ten profold was probably more than I'd want to spend at the phone at the moment. So w when I saw Paul's advert I jumped on that and I thought I'll I'll go back to the pixel fold because I did have one originally. That was the the pixel fold that did the rounds Ted wasn't it. I've got a I've got a second one. The original one the original the original one that we were bouncing around between us, Steve Litchfield actually bought um right back in the day. Um and that was bouncing around between us and I somebody else ended up having that. And I bought one from someone else in the group which had got a another background. So there there is two kicking about and you and I have got them I'd probably got the original one back. Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean uh w when that arrived I I cracked on with the the setup, took my main sim out of the edge sixty pro, which which was I d it did pain me to take it out of that one, I will I will admit, and and pop it into the pixel fold. But you know, after after using the original fold for a while, it made me realise how much I did like the the kind of folding passport size screen form factor over the the kind of Samsung thinner screen. The Samsung's all right but you know, the th the the passport book style, definitely a lot better in my opinion as well, you know, I know I agreed with you, Ted, that you you thought it was that a a better kind of layout for it. Um and and reading your retrospective on it, I totally agree that the passport style form factor is a lot easier to type on and it is. It just is because it's wider. And it's much easier to type on the front screen than it is on the Z Fold six. Yeah. You know, and I I really looking forward to see what Samsung are gonna do with this rumoured Galaxy Fold eight wide. I i is it still a rumour, do we think, or is it more or less definite? I think it 's yeah. Go on, Joe. I was gonna say probably gonna say the same thing. I I think it the rumours are uh are pretty solid, so I think it is gonna happen. Um th most of the Samsung rumours tend to be ring true, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. So that that'll be interesting to see just for something that's in that form factor with a bit, you know, more modern specs and maybe a bit longer support in it. But I suppose it'll be priced out of this you know, out of the universe for the first six months to a year and I'll be waiting for PSE classifieds again. And it looks like um everyone else is gonna do it now as well, which is the other interesting bit is, that, you know, if you can pick up a an original um generation pixel fold at this point, um y you've got something for well under five hundred quid which um everyone else is going to be paying this this year and next year for their Apple Samsung whatever it is. Uh they're gonna be paying like two grand and and maybe more for so it's a bit of a bargain. It definitely was, that's for sure. Joe, I mean y you've got the motor roller fold now, haven't you? As well. Yeah I have, yeah. What what's the aspect ratio on that? Is that more Samsung Z fold like or is it kind of a bit wider than that? Um yeah, it's more like the new obviously it's a bit wider than the newer one. Um let me check. 'Cause I don't actually know. I'll get back to you. Yeah, I I wondered if it was a a little bit wider than the Z old six. The inside of the the inside of the razor fold is very squarish like the Samsung. It's not wide like the Pixel Fold original um passport, no. But the front screen, I'm not sure. Have you have you found it yet? Yeah, I'm nearly there. Okay. So I I think the front the front um screen uh from memory I think is not as wide as the pixel fold passport, but I think it's wider than your edge um sixty pro, for example. I think that's the twenty one by nine . Is it twenty one nine? Yeah. Yeah. Which makes it quite quite narrow, doesn't it? Yeah, it's it's I mean it's nice, it's like a normal slab phone it feels seems like the outside. Um which I don't mind but yeah it's much it's not really the passport size basically. No. Yeah, yeah. So it's still more candy bar like yeah in a way. Yeah. Which I don't mind. I don't mind. Yeah. No, I mean they both have their benefits, don't they? But you know like but in terms of with my fat thumbs and typing, the the the OG Pixel fold is definitely a lot easier for me to make less mistakes when I'm writing something out. It it is on the outside gym I think. That that's the difference. That front screen with my pixel fold, I just use that ninety percent of the time. I don't open it up much at all. Whereas Joe with his um on a um uh magic v five he said that he opens he's the opposite. He he'll just open it up as much as he can sort of do. Yeah. I mean I'm I I'll agree with you there, Ted, 'cause like I say, in in my couple of weeks using the OG pixel fold now, I I'm finding that I don't open it as much as I did the fold six. Exactly what you were saying there. So because the the the screen the front screen was thinner on the fold six I tend to open it up more to do things. But with with the the OG pixel fold I find out I'm using the front screen a bit more and then just using the internal screen when I want you know email or something with a bit more real estate. So yeah totally agree on that. Yeah. As it's Android again, it does everything all the other phones do. And and even though it's three years old, I've not noticed any slowdowns, uh you know, in in terms of the older it's got one of the tensor processors in it, hasn't it? The original ones or is it Is that one of their tensor processor ranges? Yeah. So I I mean bearing in mind that it is three years old, I've not noticed any problems with it slowing down or stuttering or anything in use. So that's been quite good. But I mean there are a few things I missed from both the the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the Moto Edge 60 Pro. tablets now. Uh I use a pen a lot more than I used to. So I and I had got into using the Z fold six with the pen as well. So obviously the the OG Pixel fold doesn't have a digitizer so you can't really use a pen on it. So that's one thing I'd missing. Uh and like I said, I put in the show notes that I'd written most of my notes for the show on my tab let with a pen and then I've spent the last couple of days just transcribing those notes and typing them up into Google Docs. So when I'm getting my thoughts down, I do find it a lot more I wouldn't say relax ing, but I find it a lot more interesting to sit there and use a the pen to write than I do anything else. So yeah, so that that's what I did. I wrote ever all my notes out, then transcribed them into Google Docs with uh uh the Galaxy S9 and a keyboard. I was using the um Nextdoc three sixty with the Z fold six and DEX to do it. But then it stopped working. Google Docs stopped allowing me to type into it in DEX mode. I I can't I haven't managed to fathom out what was going on there. So I I did a lot of it on the Next Doc three sixty with the Z Fold six attached, typing away i in the Google Docs app. And and when I sh I shut it down once and then I came back and then I found I could no longer type in it again. So like I say, I've not got to the bottom of that because everything else is working, just not Google Docs for some reason. So I I switched over to I've got a Galaxy S9 tablet as well that I bought off PSC classifieds. And I I typed the rest of it on that. So yeah, uh that I finished that today. Um the other thing I missed was I've not really gotten using the AI stuff a lot at the moment on phones. I've been dabbling a bit but never much. But the Moto Edge sixty Pro offered me something called catch up, was it or update me in the Moto AI bit one of its Moto AI functions. And I I got into using that. So rather than trawling through loads of notification, I was getting that to update me on the notifications, which was quite good. And uh you know, I found it really useful for catching up on th ings and and and I am missing that as well at the moment. So that they're the two things I miss, but I think the the what I'm finding is the pros of the OG Pixel Fold are outweighing the cons at the moment. So my sim cards still in that, you know, and that'll hang on. Um well I guess for now until I spot something else that I might like. And I I've also got with all the talk talk of motorola again I've got a hanker in to put my sim card back in the the Razar fifty Ultra as well and give that another spin. So we'll have to wait and see on that . Yeah, you're becoming you're becoming a bit of a Moto fan. I I yeah, yeah, you've d uh I said you you've kind of it's kind of sucked me in. And and because the screen on the F60 Pro is so good, that that really did swing me a lot. It's the brightness of the screen, the battery life, the software . Uh I yeah, no, it's been a a really good experience. That was the first device from Moto I had that um had the quad curved screen and I was I was blown away by that. It was it was just lovely. It's not waterful edges like the early days of edges. It's just very, very subtle and it just falls over the edge. And the best thing for that is um swipes from the edges and particularly from the bottom. It works really, really well . And in in terms of the pens, I I know the the the Gala the Z Fold six, the Galaxy Z Fold six pens a lot thinner than the others, isn't it? Yeah. You know, it's quite a lot smaller. But e even though it was a bit harder to use I found that it didn't that didn't really cause me a problem either, so that was quite good. But I I I am definitely into using a pen to write at the moment. Maybe that's something to do with retiring and I don't really need to go near a keyboard that much anymore. I don't know. When you say you use you're using a pen with the the Z Fold six. Are you using the little toothpick one that comes in that case that clips in the back? Um because that's really small. I I I put a I put a po I put I put up a post in Miwi today um with a photograph of various pens and you could see the difference between the the Motorola um pen ultra that Joe and I have got now, that is similar size to that to that little pick. It's not quite as small as the pick. Um but they go up in size and some of them are much bigger than others. Joe's um honor um magic um v5 pen that's actually a a half de cent size. It it's it's closer to a an ordinary pen. But you're doing well to use that thing that's in the case on the on the galaxy, I think. I I think that for me it's uh I because I have got the other pen, the other Samsung pen which is a bit bigger, isn't it? Like that that came with the Z Fold Six when I bought it, again from PSC Classifieds. Uh-huh. Um yeah, it came with a a somewhat bigger pen and then when I ordered the case I wasn't I didn't quite expect the pen to be smaller, but it is. But then again because it's in the case I actually have it with me rather than trying to find it and thinking, What have I done with it? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I mean that that was a big difference. If they could produce a a Galaxy Z fold that had a pen silo in it, that'd be pretty good as well, I think. But I don't think anyone's doing that at the moment 'cause they want to keep 'em thin, don't they? Yeah, it'll come though. I I I I reckon it will come um in time. Particularly now that Samsung have said that they're meandering their way back to including um smart bluetooth pens again, so we'll see. Ye Yeahah.. So I mean that that that's been the kind of phone experience lately since I was last on. So that that's kind of what I've done you know, the there's been three phones doing the rounds here. So that that's where I got to with phones but I I uh I don't know, d do you guys wanna jump in or should I go on to the the the things in play stuff? Well it's a nice selection of phones. I was wanted to quickly say I've got f uh fun uh fondness to the edge sixty pro because that was my first motivator device. yeah, that was my first one. Especially with five hundred and twelve gig on it. I mean that's more powerful Tell me about the Razor fifty Ultra though, um uh Jim, because uh both Joe and I kind of play with the Razor um oh t the the razor devices, the the the flip panes and we end up kind of say we we end up kind of saying, Yeah, this is great, really, really good, but n just not for us. When the the w when you fold when you fold it up, the best thing about it is that it's gonna go in your pocket easily. Not that you're gonna use it fr very much on the outside. So what how are you f how do you find that? I I think on the whole I'm in agreement. You're right, it's a bit of a novelty, isn't it? I I love the thought of using it as a little pager size device, you know, with the little front screen not opening it up much a and things like that. And then you know, w when you come down to it I then think to my after a you know my phone my sim's been in it for a few days, I get back to thinking, well the other phones can do this uh and that and last longer and then I end up taking the sim card back out and then the the the the fifty ultra sits forlornly on the side. But I I do like having it 'cause I do like the form factor and I did buy the uh clicks case for it which turns it into a bit of a Blackberry. Yeah. So but I will admit it it's not had much love lately, so I maybe I should give it another spin after I finish playing with the the OG Pixel fold. But it is still here and I've not got the inclination to sell it either. I don't know why I think i I I just like that kind of BlackBerry S kind of pagerish type approach, but yeah, I don't know why I don't use it more to be honest. Okay . But yeah, uh feel free to roll with whatever you like, Jim. Yeah, cool. So I I mean that that's what my phone history's been since the last time I was on and there there's a few other bits and pieces not all strictly phone stuff uh as you know uh I bought myself a microphone for a start and uh as we found out at the start uh it was working earlier and then I couldn't make it work and then I made it work again. So that's definitely something I've got to get used to. So hopefully the the sound quality might be a a bit better than the the the rubbish old So I hope that's a bit better. Sounds good to me, yeah. Good, good, good, good. So that's a win then for that. Um another funny thing happened. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that's not had much love. I do put my sim in it every so often and and have a little tinker or sometimes just sit there and play with it while it's just connected to Wi Fi. But the finally the case turned up for it. I can't remember when I got it originally, but I've been chasing minimal for the case that I ordered with it for months and then they sent me two. Both the same colour, but I've got two of them. Yeah, I got yeah, I got away with two. It's probably because I chased them so much and maybe they thought they hadn't sent it to me. But putting the case on it gives it a totally different aspect, which has kind of made me like it even more. So I think I might have to yeah, I don't know, it just made it feel different and even more or even better than it did without a case on it. Yeah. It is a minimal case as well, yeah. Oh okay. So I might I might give that another whirl at some point. I might stick with my sim back in it and see if I can uh put up with uh the the software on it. Yeah. Um another thing that came in was the the welder portable keyboard or if you look at the box the welder protoble keyboard. I don't know whether you spite that type of thing, yeah. Very funny. Doesn't fill you with confidence, does it? No, when I looked at it I didn't see at first and then I thought that says Protable, not portable. Maybe it was on purpose. They was gonna call it the Pro Portable. Yeah the Pro Table. Yeah. Pro table keyboard. But yeah, that came in. I didn't really get a a big amount of time to play with that, I will admit. I did plug a couple of phones into it and I don't didn't really sit there and and tweak it about. So I I passed it on to you Ted to give it a road test. Yeah I'll I'll let you talk about that. It is I I was surprised to find that if you want to buy one of these, the R R P is six hundred and ninety nine quid. Just for those of the people that don't know, this is a mechanical keyboard, an old style mechanical, you know, clunky clunky clunky keys keyboard. And I think that it's designed for um gamers and for retro people and um I n now I know Jim that you didn't pay hundred and six hundred and ninety nine pounds for it because you backed it on Gickstarter. No. Um I think you said that you paid about two fifty. So that that made it very much different. Um there was the part of the fun was trying to work out how to actually use it 'cause there's very few instructions and the best place to get any was to go to that Kickstarter page and just kind of scour through um user comments and try and get it working you know, find out what's what with that. Um i with windows it's it works fairly straightforwardly it acts like a second extended monitor once set up so you can drag windows down um onto the other screen and the mouse can move between them so just scroll it up and like you can with smart connecting pack per motorola you just move your mouse around between the screens or with any any extended screen per per windows. Um it's very heavy. I couldn't believe how heavy it was. And it cost you about seven hundred and forty two pounds to send it to me, Jim, um, because it was so heavy. It was over two kilos. I said to the lady in the shop, I said I said, You sure me you want me to put it on the scale 's heavy. Yeah, yeah. Um but I'm trying to work out how to get the phones mill the the only phone that doesn't stretch the image um when you plug it into the cable is yeah no surprises Samsung. So s if you if if I plug my S twenty four plus into it. It works beautifully. It kicks off decks, the the software knows what to do, it's intelligent, it just works. But any other phone I put into it, um uh y it it stretches the screen. The st the Sony, the Motorola , the you know, the the whole lot because i they they act like they're dumb monitors, dumb extended monitors and they just don't know what to do with it. Um whereas Samsung Dex does. It works out in its software that it's a twenty one nine screen and it j adjusts it accordingly. Um it worked really well. Um I asked Gemma, why this is it why this is and she tells me that it's because Samsung, unlike anyone else, respect EDID, extended display identification data. And that's why it works, because Motorola doesn't and Sony doesn't and uh Fairphone doesn't and all those other phones I've got that have got HDMI out, they just don't work properly. They just stretch the image and it looks stupid. So I'm still trying to work on that one . Yeah. I I did plug the iPad into it while it was here quickly 'cause that was the only thing on the desk at the time before I kind of boxed it up and sent it to you. And that didn't work with it either properly. Right, yeah, so I think it looks like Apple are not respecting that either. No. I think they've got some ironing out to do and probably welder with uh software support will be able to do that in time. But it's like any start-up really, isn't it? I mentioned Fairphone there. Fairphone are just as bad. You know, that there's all sorts of buggy stuff going on with their stuff. Um anyway, um so uh yeah no problem with n um the next doc um kind of style of plugging it in and just making it work. Um but again just with um just with Samsung, the uh it's worth noting that when I had the next dock touch here, I had the s exactly the same problem with the with smart connector motorola . Um S ony, funnily enough, worked and it did the screen properly. That was fine. Um but but anyway, uh you know your mileage may vary. So but in in in the in the process, you kudos to Sammy really to for getting it right. Um there's no speakers on it, um which I was quite surprised about because I I I guess I was thinking that I was coming f um from a next doc type experience but no there's no speakers on it. It's very bare bones compared to a next dock. Um and uh although uh I mean my next dock touch didn't have Bluetooth either but some of them did so your mileage may vary again with whatever thing you're going to be plugging into it but it certainly hasn't got speakers. The the the next doc speakers, frankly, were a bit ropey anyway, so you could argue that you're better off letting the sound go through your phone that you've got connected, particularly if it's a Samsung with good speakers on it. Um but it's it's all wired . There's no Bluetooth, which is why I mentioned the Bluetooth. There's there's no Bluetooth connectivity at all. Um you so what you what you need to do is you need to to connect your Bluetooth peripherals to your um to your phone essentially. Um use the phone speakers, you plug you you you hook up your mouse to the um to the to the phone and then use the keyboard to um type with and the mouse as a as a Bluetooth connection. Um I just don't quite get who this is for, Jim. I th people lugging it around with them. I mean when you can buy, for example, the Logitech keys to go two , um, which is like featherweight and the batteries last forever. Um I d I don't quite get why you'd want to be lugging a two kilo thing around with you when you're going to stay in a hotel room or something. I I guess it's gotta be for serious gamers or people that really, really love mechanical keyboards and they want that experience they they've got at home. Um or or or or or it's not just about phones of course. I mean you you can plug things like game consoles into it. Anything that you in theory that that as long as it it it as long as it renders the screen properly and doesn't stretch it and make it look stupid, you can plug anything that has got an HDMI out into it. So there is that. Um and I th I I I concluded my conclusion, Jim, was that I think I would get more mileage out of it if, well, all the aforementioned was fixed in software, but also if the keyboard wasn't mechanical. So I've got so used to chicklet style keys on my Logitech MX key MX keys and um I I I I just don't like using mechanical keyboards anymore and I'm sure you're probably different but I've I mean I've got three or four mechanical keyboards including the Logitech M X keys mechanical and they just sit here not being used. Whenever I try to use them I I get fed up with them in no time. Um and the and of course the next stock touch had a chiclet keyboard as well and it just is m much nicer to use I think. Um but I'm probably the wrong target person here. So that was my summary of findings on the Pro Table pro pro table keyboard. I love the rant about um uh brands not respecting E D I D. It's a great rant. Yeah, you I didn't even know what that was until just now. Yeah. Love that. But I I I with you Ted, I I'm guessing that this is more of a permanent fixture on your desk with your Windows PC. That's what I'm guessing. Because like you say, you uh with the weight of it and I g I didn't expect it to be that heavy when I put into the Kickstarter. You you're not I wouldn't certainly wouldn't lug that around. And and like yourself, I've got chicklet keyboards on this desk here and I've got one or two mechanical keyboards that that I don't use. I like using them, don't get me wrong, but the rest of the family tend to moan about the noise. So maybe it was it wasn't a a typo, it's a pro table keyboard monitor. Yeah true. I maybe that is what it says pro table and not portable. Really interesting to um to um to to have a go with it though. And I'll keep while you're not needing it back any minute I'll I'll keep I'll keep checking for software updates and what have you and um check the forum and check the Kickstarter pages. Uh but um yeah. Uh b I think you're right. I if you can use that second monitor in front of your Windows computer for dragging stuff to for example, I'm sitting at the moment looking at my computer and I've got one big window open with our recording notes in it. And I've got um two separate three separate windows with um monitoring what's going on with Microsoft Teams and my two recording applications. Well all three of those other things, they could be sat on that display on my keyboard. Um and I could be using the whole of my screen for the recording notes. So yeah, y you m you can m make it use for certainly for Windows. Yeah, definitely. I I I'd see it much more that view just from like you say from the weight of it, it just sits there with your PC and it's an extra monitor if you're short on space I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Very nice. Yep. So moving on to that another thing in the house that um it was my birthday recently and that's when I hit fifty-eight which was last week, funnily enough. Um so I've just hit fifty-eight myself. But um my wife bought me a books go colour seven tablet as you I I think everybody might know I'm heavily into the e-ink stuff at the moment and I've got uh a number of e ink devices but um I wanted one of these, uh the 7 inch colour e ink because I I tend to read magazines on the e ink tablet, so I I've been a long time subscriber to PC Pro magazine. I I can't even remember when I started doing that. It was back in the mists of time, probably thirty years ago when they started. But y you you get an app to read that on and it and it just seems a lot easier. I mean, even though it's more vibrant to read on or an iPad a Samsung tablet, it's a lot easier to read on one of these e-ink. So I've got um I've got the the 10 inch colour, I've got the books um note air Force , which is a ten inch colour e ink. And then while I was on holiday, I was trying to read the magazine on that and when when you're sitting around on holiday and you've not got a table or anything, it's too heavy. I discovered that was too heavy, so I you know, people didn't know what to get me for a my birthday, so I went for a books colour uh books go colour seven . And yeah, I mean that that works really well. It it's just like a smaller version of the books note air four C really. So uh but that come with a stylus Ted. I've got the stylus edition, so another one that I can write on and that is a full size pen. Yeah. And the little pack I got with it came with the case as well. I thought I get it all in one so I won't damage it and that and again it's turned up with no loop or anything to put the pen in. So it's gonna thoroughly rely on me remembering to pick the pen I can say the case looks nice, but there's nothing yeah, nothing there is there. So I might have to uh invest in a a different case that has a pen loop on it or something so I don't lose the pen. With with the note Air four C, the pen magnetically attached to the side of the tablet, but with this smaller one, it it it doesn't attach. But I am I am heavily into the e-ink stuff. I I I still agree that the Big Me phone's unusable 'cause it's just too slow. I just wanted I I just wanted to chip in that um I actually got the book's ColourGo seven um second generation um a few months back I think I 'm I I think I reported it on tech addicts and I was re and I was really disappointed and sent it back. And the reason I was disappointed was because um I'd never seen a colour e ink display before and I just thought it was washed out and wishy washy and horrible and you couldn't see it and it was it was so muted even on full vol full um brightness and I I sent it back. I I thought I thought it was really, really different to the black and white ones and I I was not impressed at all with the colour. It is totally different to the black and white ones because it has another layer for the colour pixels. Yeah. And that kind of like you say it mutes because it has to have the the two layers, the the black and white and the colour, it kind of mutes the screen. But I I've got used to that now ',cause you you are right. The black and white ones are a lot better i in contrast and so on. But yeah, I I've got used to the colour one now and I I like the muted colours. I m I must but just be weird. How about how about compare you talk about Big Me there? How about compared to Next Paper ? Next Paper? Yeah, I I d I've still got the Next Paper eleven tablet and the the what was it, the fift y pro. Wasn't it the next paper fifty pro. So I've still got both of them and I do like them as well. But there there is something about the the proper eating screens that's different that appeals to me. Um I I think from a next paper perspective they they'd have to do a lot more work on their pens 'cause the the the sixty ultra I couldn't get on with the pen on it. No, that's terrible. No 'cause you know when you you lent me the sixty ultra didn't you for a while and I I couldn't get on with the pen and and I found it infuriating that it kind of because of the magnets, like you said it's got magnets in it for wireless charging and that. And and I I couldn't get used to writing on it with the pen. No, it's not very wireless charging. The magnets are only in there really for the the case stuff. It's really annoying because they don't need it. They they That that sixty ultra would have been literally the perfect device if it didn't have those magnets in it, I think. Yeah, absolutely. I th I mean the other thing with the the books is uh compared to something like the the sixty , I think that the cheaper the tablet is quite cheap, isn't it? It's not four hundred it I think it was only two hundred and seventy quid or something. Yeah. So I don't know what the sixty Ultra goes for, was that new four fifty something like that? Four nine nine. Well I four nine nine. I got it I got it on a special for four nineteen. But yeah, the proper price is four nine nine. With with the pet. And I I but with it being a bit of a bigger tablet, it's it's easier to read on it. I mean I have got Kindle as well, but y I couldn't get the the computer magazine on the Kindle or I'd have probably just done that. So you know. But yeah, no, I I do like the e ink and I I wish they come out with uh better e ink phones uh or if or it maybe the seventy ultra and they take out the magnets and the pen supports better on next paper. Yeah. My um sixty ultra and my fifty pro actually are currently with Steve Nutt who is assessing them for um accessibility stuff. Um and just a bit of quick feedback while on the fly here. I I wasn't prepared for this but I'll tell you anyway. Um he's started to um assess that and he said that um the work the the the the talk back sorry the um they work pretty well to be honest and talkback is responsible on them um so I'd say it's pretty good. Um and the only thing that he said that was a problem was that he found a conflict on the TCL phone um is that if you want to um do the three finger slide up gesture for TCL sighted people, um, it conflicts with the um talkback uses because talkback uses three finger slides for other stuff. So he said that's the only thing that um he he's got a problem with. On the good side though, as soon as I turned on the phones they actually said to turn on voice broadcast, hold down the volume keys and um he said that you know, he he'd not come across that on other phones. It actually as soon as you turn it on it gives you the voice prompt for um people that have got not got not sighted to kinda g get stuck in. So Steve uh Steve will be coming back on the show to do any do all of that stuff in a in a a month or two. Um and we'll get some proper f proper feedback on those um next paper devices, Jim. Yeah, that'd be good. I look forward to that one. Mm-hmm . Okay, what else have you got? I uh h hopefully not much more. But yeah, uh an another thing I I've put in a little section called Things on the Way, hopefully, as you never know when you back something like these things, do you really? I I I was intrigued by something called the sci f side phone. And the the reasoning behind that is I I've always been on the lookout for a kind of dumb phone that you could use as maybe a primary phone with a a bigger folding phone as a secondary it's something in that ilk. Well, I thought like 90% of the people I know in the entire universe use WhatsApp. So it's got to support WhatsApp or I'd just cut out of the loop completely. So I I one of them people that need WhatsApp probably wish I didn't but every one uses it. So th the sidephone is kind of a small candy bar i in the style of the old Nokia's and it comes with i it's kind of modular in a way. So the front plate you you take off and you can have a a a kind of iPod like rotating trackpad, even though you can't slide your fingers around it, it really is only directional. You can have a T nine keypad or a kind of semi QWERTY keypad as well that they used to have on the old Blackberry Pearl type models, the Shaw was it Shaw type? Something like that. Shaw type, wasn't it? And the Sony Ericsson as well. Yeah, yeah. So you can get uh so you know, you get the the different style of keyboard and th you can sideload WhatsApp and other things. It's kind of locked down so it's not fully you don't get the Google Pla y Store, but you can sideload a short range of apps and they have included WhatsApp. So I thought to myself I I can't I I um denard over it for a while and I I've had my hankered outweighed my umming and r'ing so I actually put my money where my mouth is and ordered a sidephone with the extra short seven hundred quid. No, no, it wasn't seven hundred. No. No, I think it was um I thought I 'cause I maybe I got in a bit earlier then. I certainly didn't pay hundred. I can't rem I should have wrote it down. I can't remember off the time. No, I I think that shocked me at the moment these days spending seven hundred on a phone. Um orders ord order orders orders a day it says a hundred and eighty nine quid. I must have been thinking about something else. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm sure it wasn't that much. Yeah. I think I paid thirty, forty quid for the extra keyboard, the the sure type one, 'cause that doesn't come in the box obviously. Twenty five. Uh yeah, twenty five, yeah. I've heard just call it a pub phone and and I notice you can get Uber on there as well, which is when you're drunk from the pub you can order yourself an Uber. I normally walk walk home if I'm doing that. I don't think you can order an Uber. It it looks nice though, Jim. It looks like a really interesting device, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean it does look very interesting and it's got WhatsApp and a few other bits and I I'm just t intrigued to see if I could get back with what we're calling a semi dumb phone I suppose because you could put WhatsApp with a few other apps on it, right? So it doesn't really take you out of the loop. The last phone I had in that style was I bought the Cat S twenty two flip and that that was a bit too slow, a bit too clunky. It only had sixty four gig on board which you know not a lot of memory for doing stuff and I think it only had something like one gig or two gig of RAM so it made it not very useful. So I'm hoping this one does that. And I did I think I did check in to see whether it does hotspot or not and it does. So hopefully I'll be able to use it for that as well. And and uh indeed I I it will do the PSC rounds 'cause I'd I'd like to hear your impressions on it as well. So we get Joe to use it as well. See if he can put the the motorola Razar fold down. Yeah, yeah, no. I'd um I'd have a play with that, definitely. On the website it says a premium dumb phone with high quality essenti als which seemed quite accurate. Is there any is there any um projection on when you'll get it? Yeah, I should get it in June apparently. So next month in fact. Yeah. Should get it next month. Cool . And you you'll be pleased to know that the last thing that I've got in my list of things to talk about is the Clix Communicator. So I mean that came out prior to the Titan II Elite, so I will admit I thought Clicks Communicator I want one of those and I jumped on it straight away. So um you know I I still love the QWERTY keyboards and I'm hoping this will scratch that itch because like I say I've got the minimal phone, I've got the Titan to itself which I do play with occasionally but it's too big. It's just too big. Yeah. Um so I'm hoping that when I get that that may scratch that kind of quirty itch. And I I do hanker back to the days of BlackBerry. Not not particularly for the BlackBerry software, just for the style of device. So I am still one of those mad people that love those Qirty keyboards. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on that one. But apparently that won't be till the end of the year, unfortunately. the show. Um and apparently they are saying now that um the in June they have are working on the prototypes and you should be able to audio um communicator in the third quarter and ship again and shipments are going to reservation holders in quarter four. So it does look as though it it is the end of the year, but it should be you know, in that last quarter. It won't it shouldn't be until the next year. See it'll be the US quarter four, wouldn't it, which is essentially um October to December, I believe. Yeah. They they run the years differently, with our quarter four here was always January to March. Right, okay. But they are they're working on it. Yeah, I I'm looking forward to getting my hands on that one. So I did miss out on the Titan two Elite uh on Kickstarter. Uh part of me does wish I'd got in on that as well, but um you know, we've I've been watching a lot of Shane Craig's coverage for it, which is quite good. And it it still seems quite chunky, doesn't it? So I'm just wondering yeah how how the clicks communicate and measures up to that in terms of chunkiness so we we'll kind of see but um yeah I mean that that's everything I've got uh you know there may be something new for next time if uh I'll keep my eye on PSC classified to see what appears. Well we we'll take your um app wrap at the moment though, um Jim. So let us know what your your app wrap app is. My app wrap app I I've got into um if I can find it. It's called Scrabble Go . Um and I I play you can play against bots or you can play against friends, so I tend to play against friends and it was one of my friends that got me into it actually. So yeah, it it's just a a very good Scrabble game that's online that you can play in that you know like something like online chess where you play a move and you just wait for the other person to play their move back and that kind of suits my s my style of gaming. So I've got very into that. It is a bit annoying with adverts, the app, unfortunately. But you know, if you look past that it it is a very good game uh of Scrabble to play. Yeah I suppose yeah 'cause you played against other people than the bots of the computers. But I've I've even got my wife on it now so I we play against each other as well. I I I hate Scrabble. I used to detest Scrabble in in our house. My my mum was really into Scrabble and I can't think of a more boring game than Scrabble. Oh well well, uh other than chess. Chess probably takes takes the biscuit. But it I never learn how to play chess. I don't know why. I just never learn how to play. But but Scrabble is hugely popular, I know, and and my late mum was really into it, yeah Yeah. So I I enjoy that game, it is good, so enjoy it like I say the ads are annoying. But if you know how to get round 'em it's okay, you just close the app, reopen it, they go away. Yeah. I'm willing to bet that I'm willing to bet that Joe doesn't like Scrabble. Yeah, good bet there, Ted. I'm not a Scrabble fan. I'm starting to not like it ' Icause I'll give him a flag,gy he do esn't listen, so it won't matter. My mate Tony the ex dentist, he's he he just kills me hands down. It's like I've got to beat him. I've only played about fifty games with him, he's beat me every one so far. I I I I used to get I used to get so bored with Scrabble that I purposely um um sabotaged my mum's games by purposely trying to score as little as possible. Yeah. See I wouldn't need to try, I would just score . Yeah, I thought I'd throw something in a little different this time aga uh again. 'Cause I don't game a lot, I thought I'd chuck that in. Yeah, yeah. No, I dare say, Jim, there'll be uh many others interested. Yeah, absolutely. I didn't I didn't mean to put to poo poo on it. Oh no you didn't oh not at all. That that's definitely for sure. Yeah, I don't mind. Right, Jeremy I'm hoping it keeps my brain active. Yeah, yeah. Well that's a not a bad idea. Jeremy Harpham is next on the PSC pub meets a reminder. If you'd be interested in in attending a PSC pub meet somewhere in the UK, please send an email to Jeremy at Jeremy.harpam H A R P H A M at Outlook. com. Let him know where you live, your town and your county, whether you prefer it in a pub or a coffee shop on a Saturday or Sunday or Monday or afternoon, evening. And what about travel time? Um do get in touch with him and let him know. He's he's still plugging away at this since that one uh pub meet we had that um Joe was sick for and he kind of led the way. Um and and he's at the moment he's just trying to pull that together see uh to see if there's enough support anywhere to get one together for a meet outside of London. London seems safe and I think that's probably going to be going ahead, but um outside of London seems to be the other issue. Um Gary Clark is next on his text and photos review of the Motro La Razor sixty Ultra review over Average Dad and he concludes that it's a serious im seriously impressive, but a kit that managed to turn manages to turn a foldable novelty into a genuine daily driver. Between the massive, fully featured external panel, the upgraded dual fifty megapixel camera arrival a run for their money. Even if the IP forty eight rating and hinge tension aren't quite perfect, he did actually say in his review that um he thinks that he had a handed on between reviewers device and the hinge may not be as bad as he he thinks it should be. Um but the the the blend of flagship internals and smart software tweaks ensure that this is easily one of the most refined flip style devices you can pick up right now . Um and he's looking forward to doing the Razor seventy Ultra next. But uh I'll put the link in the show notes to that review. So you do have a read of that. Um all good stuff from our fellow motivator. Um so there we have it. Right, okay. What do we ch what do we do next? Joe, what do you want to cover? Uh well I won't talk too long. Um obviously went to the six hundred series launch, um which was a really good event. I really enjoyed it because I got free drinks um I always enjoy the drinks uh for free. Um so although the images make it look like an iPhone clone, I will say it it is quite different in person. Even the orange one in colour is is quite different. Uh so I'll defend them a little bit there. Um but yeah. Um I think eight nine nine for the pro is is going to be a tough sale despite it being a well spec phone. But they are launching it with uh 200 quid off and it does come with a nice projector, um a 1080p um projector, so that's not too bad as a gift with purchase. Um I'm hoping to get both the projector and the phone and all sorts from PR at some time, but uh they did say that that that uh the brief ing, so let's see what happens if I'll ever get that. Um as we said, my sim is currently in the razor fold, uh the FIFA World Cup position. Nice. Um and I'm enjoying it at the moment. Uh I would say the V five is superior from honour um i in many ways but um that's not to say that this isn't a great effort 'cause uh I think it really is a great effort from Moto, especially for their first book style fold. Um I mean they've got a history of of hinges and folding screens, haven't they? With um so it's not as if it's a surprise, the camera seems system seems to be the same as the motor signature from what I can see on the spec sheet and in practice, which is really good for especially for a foldable device, because I really enjoyed that camera system. Um if anything it feels like a a signature in a different form factor um and a bigger battery um which is good. Um although I mentioned in my signature review that the case is quite slippery, I do prefer the case in with the signature case. Um I think Gary said the same thing that the case that comes with the fold isn't the nicest. Um i if anything it adds a bit of bulk to it, which I'm not a fan of. Um there is a gap in the hinge. Um the hinge and where you close it. Um very much like these old semi folds used to have. Right. Um so again that's why I say the the V five is superior. And I mean it's not a major issue, um but it just it just highlights something that's a little bit behind the newer folds if you like. Um it it's quite a heavy one, um and like I say the case adds even more bulk um but it does see feel quite nicely weighted um and it's not been an issue for me. Um I think I will look for a slimmer case though, um because as I say, um it does have bulk and but I'm gonna go for a clear case of course because you don't want to be hiding the lovely gold um logo on there, the gold motor railer logo. Yeah, you don't buy that phone and then hide it, do you? Um I haven't tested the pen enough yet or at all if in fact. Um so we'll have to bench that one for another pod, Ted, but um it's something certainly on my agenda. Um 'cause I do love uh enjoy playing with pens especially with the inner screen um so we'll be we'll be doing that and uh I'm keen to talk about it on here and on in videos as well. Um both screens are wonderful, really really good . The speakers seem decent, really quite decent. There's a top and bottom firing speaker. Um the only thing is when you open it, um they're then on both speakers are on the left hand side. Um unless of course you rotate the device. But when you naturally open it, the speakers are all on the left. Mm-hmm. Um the crease is good. It's it's barely there like all modern most modern foldables um and you y you hardly notice it in use. So yeah, uh first impressions are very, very solid on on it. I'm really enjoying it so far. Um Um I've hardly touched the edge seventy as a result though because I mean why would you when you've got this lovely fold? Um one observation though is yesterday we went to the zoo uh and I gave Sersha, my edge seventy, um, for her to take some pictures 'cause I really want to get her into photography. So I'm always throwing phones at her to take pictures. And it's a really nice size for her to handle . Um but what that made me think of is the use case for that Finn phone. It is probably for um a little lady, um perhaps. Right. Um but yeah, i yeah, it was really good for her to use. Somewhat small hands, yeah. Although I've got small hands, so um yeah, maybe it is good for me. And on that note I do like the size of the edge seventy. It it is a wonderful, yeah, wonderful size uh to handle um and maybe um we'll go up jumping ahead a little bit but my pick from classified is actually the edge seventy um so and it's at three hundred quid. And it could be a good pub phone as a second phone to slip your sim in 'cause it's so light. That's mad, isn't it? And they're they're still selling it in some places for six nine nine. And th there's a second hand one at three hundred and you can buy a new one for four nine four today. So I I I think they really got the pricing wrong on that moto . I think they tend to do it quite a lot. Uh w we I think we discussed that last week briefly didn't we? their their entry their regular retail prices aren't quite right in my opinion. Um but I think it's a strategy. Um 'cause they know they're gonna discount it o over the course of the year. Um So I think they they do that to maximise profits I guess. Um so the edge seventy is meant to be going back on the fifteenth. I may ask for an extension because um Um yeah, well two reasons really actually uh there's nothing else that really floats my boat. Maybe the Razor 70 Ultra, but they're not gonna send that yet. Uh I don't think. And I I I would like to do some kind of video on it and I need more time really um to use it more 'cause I can't make a video um without using it more 'cause it's just not right. Yeah. Um so you've got to put the fold away . Yeah essentially I think I think for me Joe, I'll look after it for you for a while . Yeah . I think my main sim needs to go in there really, which is gonna be really tough for her to do, really is um I mean uh it was hard to take it out of the V five but um having sent that to you it that that created a need to move it somewhere else. Um so maybe I should send the the razor for old offs to some one . But yeah, it's um just quickly I was gonna ask um if anyone's got anything they'd like me to cover on my channel, um please let me know and I'll do my best to cover it. And also I'm quite open to feedback. Um feedback's a gift and I'm only gonna improve with feedback. So yeah, you definitely drop feedback as well for me. Um and I'll I'll look at it and try and improve 'cause I I want to get better at content creation um definitely and I want to make videos that uh that people wanna watch. So I'm I'm making feedback. You do well with the graphics, Joe. I like the graphics in the signature one. Oh did you? Oh, thank you. It's a bit of so that's the cap cutting I guess, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's all cap cut. It's um got a lot of features in there when you pay for it. I thought the graphic yeah, I thought the graphics were very good. Yeah. Assist . Yeah I don't think I could do a video review though, but yeah, I'm more than happy to produce a a written review of a phone. Send your I thought you was gonna be a model for like port rait mode and stuff like that, Jim. No, no, no no one has seen that. Your YouTube channel would shut down within a week. Send your edge send your ed ge seventy to to Jim and you won't have to do it. Yeah, that' itll I'll do for ya. I'll do it. Mind you we well but although we've already got a a written review, Jim, because I've done a written review. Some someone needs to do the video. Oh not me. Not me . I'd have to be a bit braver I think. I I mean the other thing looking at w what you've just talked about, I've never had an honor device, you know. I think I might have to maybe that's my next port of course I'll have to give an honor device a go. I've never had one, never tried an honor device at all. Well the V five, so I've got one person who wants it after Ted, but after he has had it I could always send it over. Oh yeah, I'd love that. I'd that'd be fantastic. Yeah. Thank you . Okay. I've got a list now for the V five styles. Yeah. Yeah. Um and uh talking of which, it is here and I've got lots of um initial observations about it but um I think we're gonna run really short t of time so we'll probably sneak in an extra show to deal with that. I just wanted to to cover a a couple of bits of news which first one was the Sony Experira one Mark eight release date, which they started off saying was gonna be the twenty sixth of June. But I uh uh subsequently, that there's this um event that's going to happen on the thirteenth of May and Wise Money now is on um well two things actually. Wise money is on is not buying one at one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight quid. But the other bit of wise money is on the fact that it's not going to be as late as the twenty sixth of June for the release. Um and I'm all I'm also now interested in the ten series because um this this last week I I bought in the Sony Experia X Mark 7 from one of our lovely members in the group um and gave it a bit of a run through. I did a review. I won't cover it um in great detail here, but it is a dinky lovely little light device. It's really nice. They put the nineteen point five to nine screen on it for the first time, which is um better that I think it's better than the twenty one nine. Um and it it it just seems to work really well. The connectivity is good. Um the screen is bright and colourful. It's their triluminous screen of course. Um and it's got Gorilla Grass Victors 2 on the front. Another first for the 10 series is 120Hz refresh rate. So that will please some people. It's got um IP sixty five and sixty eight. Um and also the the big one I think is four years of uh sorry, six years of security updates and four um Android OS updates. So this will go from it'll get six teen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen on Android, which is great. That's a a real move forward for Sony, I think. Um and of course we know it's got the clean vanilla flavoured Android skin. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3, yeah, okay, it could be better, but actually for the target audience it I it's absolutely fine. It works well for the clean vanilla Android that's on there. Um eight gigs of RAM again, the same. AI is really limited. There's a couple of mentions of AI in the specs, one of them being in the camera processing of images. And it's got 128 gigabytes of storage. I've got my one terabyte card in the micro SD card slot, so that works fine as well. Um the stereo forward facing speakers um I was really surprised with. I thought they were really good and I was very impressed um with the output. I th I really thought they were gonna be crap, but they're not. They're really actually very good. Not as good as my five mark five, um but you know, not far behind and I think that they've done a good job with the speakers on this phone as well. Um five thousand five thousand milliamp battery and thirty watt charging. Um there's no always on display and there's no qi charging which are the two things that kind of turn me off a bit. I have been playing with the the qi coil which you put in the back of the phone and I have been trying to work with always on display apps to try and add that but there's always compromises and it takes a battery hit if it's not OEM built in I find. Um so yeah that's a tricky one. The fingerprint scanner on the side is great, capacitive of course. There's no face like with all experience, there's no face up on it. Um lift and m ove and nudge to wake is is missing in action as well. Um but I think for the target audience uh the the the audience that are going to want the the the camera shutter button on the side in a position where they're gonna use the phone to take photographs in port rait mode as opposed to the series five and series uh one where very much um it's gonna be about a camera um in ch used in landscape for per serious p photogra phers. Um they put the button on the side of this much further up and it's just obvious and it's there for your for your thumb of your right hand to then hold the phone in the upright position and shoot your mates and post your f pictures on Facebook or whatever and and that's clearly the target audience. It's a lovely, lovely colour, the turquoise. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would would buy a black or a white one. I mean it must be nuts. The turquoise one is just gorgeous. days when phones were interesting colours or even the um the iPhone 5C I think it was um where they did these plastic iPhones and and they have this lovely colour thing going on um anyway so that's my initial impressions of the Sony Xperia 10 Mark 7 and I will put a link in the show notes to my full written review which is now up on my blog. So there you are and I have to say that um I went back to my five mark five afterwards. It's not really for me, but it is lov it's a lovely little phone and for the right person it'll be just lovely . So there you go. Any thoughts? Anyone? Yeah, I I again I've not had a Sony phone for as long as I can remember. I think the last one I had was the experience that James Bond used in one of those films when Sony got the the the the job of supplying the stuff for the Bond film with Daniel Craig in it. What was that one called? I think I've still got it somewhere. Don't know. Can't remember. I tell you what I'll do is when when Ed House has finished with my um Sony phones and my um Honor four hundred pro. I'll get them to send them to you, then you'll got both of those . That'll be great then. I look forward to that. Thank you. Okay. Um any other bits of news anyone wants to cover in there? There's news about the Pixel Eleven series um s w specs are leaking, but nothing really that they've uh uh properly announced. There's also the same with the um Xpera seventeen T and Seventeen T Pro . Um what else have we got? Oh the new snapseed is out for Android um which I uh installed on one of my ph ones and as you know I'm not much of a a phone photographer, but I did look through all the options and it did look kind of a bit interesting, Joe. Yeah, I'm really keen to get hands on and play with this. I don't really like the the new um animations and and that that's quite ugly if you ask me. But the uh the actual functionality of it looks really really great with the things they've added. Um almost wish they'd launched this before I'd paid for my new Lightroom um mobile figure. But um yeah, it does look really good and I'm I'm keen to get hands on with this 'cause I know a lot of the menu community we've got use snapseed. Yeah. Um so yeah, it'll be interesting to deep dive into that. Yeah, we'll do that one of these days. Uh and a couple of um Android bits of news. Um the under display face unlock tech might be um pushed out to other devices coming along soon and lastly the Android 17 stable version not the beta that I'm on might let you might let you finally remove the home screen search bar at the bottom um on pixels at least. So um I I one of the nice things about using the an alternative launcher is that um I I've got Octopi now as well. Yeah. You can remove a lot of things with that like that that's Google Now widget Yeah, yeah. Actually no the Google Now widget you can you can remove the the at a glance you can now pixels will let you remove that now widget. At a glance. Yeah. You can do that without Octopi launcher any other launcher. I I've I've got into using um Octopi now, so I I did pay for it. I bought him breakfast on the thing. It's really, really good. And and he's and he's really responsive as well. If you if you get stuck into the community, he's uh every single day almost as an update and he's fixing something and he listens to you. Um I've had a number of conversations with him directly and said sugg ested something and he's come back to me personally and and fixed something and d it's really good, yeah. So I'm glad you're using it. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. So it's now the default on the Pixel uh OG Pixel fold. Yeah. Okay . Um right, okay. Um Joe, anything more from you before we get to PSC photos? Yeah, just quickly I'll see you when you talk about V five, um it didn't come with a front plate, it only come with a back plate for the case. Um okay, what I was saying was that I felt that the the case is not that good for me um because it goes round the back but the front edges of the V five I think are very vulnerable to knocking on things or if you dropped it it'll be gone. And the case that comes with the phone, um, wraps round the back and round the hinge, but doesn't cover the front. So that's the background to what you're saying. Yeah, so 'cause the the V three did come with a front plate and back pl ate but the v5 didn't but but actually it in use um I hated the V three front plate it was really annoying with uh swipe gestures right um so I I I didn't mind not having a front on it. Um maybe because I didn't buy it though. So yeah, if I'd bought it I'd probably be keen to have more protection perhaps Maybe we'll have a um another in between you show, Joe, to On the V five. Yeah, to cover the V five because we haven't got time today. So perhaps we'll do we'll do that next Monday perhaps. In fact this PSC's gonna just become weekly, isn't it? Back to what it was. Right, PSC photos next. Um PSC Photos is um an interesting little uh collection this time. I'm gonna take for my photograph um uh one by Ed House um which he took with uh my Sony Xpera five Mark four called Trees and Fields um and he he did this with the two two point five times camera, sixty millimeter equivalent and it's a picture of some trees and fields in um Suffolk somewhere. Um so that's really nice. If you have a quick look at that one, um, both of you. Perhaps you can um have any comments. I think what I like about it is the greens. Oh it almost feels like Fuji Velvia greens all over and different shades and of greens. It's just very green. Any thoughts on that? When I quickly look at it on my phone. Oh right, so okay. There we go, I've got it. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's very nice shot. Yeah. Like I say, I'm not much of a a a camera. No. But no, it's a good shot. That's a desktop shot, that one, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Windows desktop. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really lovely photograph and it he what um what Ed was saying is that he was he's just been surprised at the the natural processing, as he calls it, of the the Sony exper ience and also this week Steve Litchfield uh posted a photograph saying pretty much the same thing with his Experiria one Mark five. So you know, there is something a bit special about those Sony 's. Um but there you go. Joe, what did you pick? So I I've been a good little motivator and I found a Moto G sev sixty seven shot by Ian Furlong. He's using night mode to take a picture of a snail. Um I I really it really took my eye um and thought oh that's interesting because there's not many colours in there but there's a lot of texture um with the the snail shell um the body of the snail and then like the concrete floor that the snail's on. But they've got the depth of field there showing as well. Um he hasn't named it so I'm gonna call it long exposure. Uh uh uh uh very funny . A very long exposure. I'm trying to find the um plane of focus. The the the head um seems to be pretty much in focus and the and the gravel just in front of it in the shadow there. I think yeah. Yeah, I think that probably is. Yeah. I mean it's crushed the shadows a lot, 'cause obviously it's a lower end phone. But that adds to the image on this one I think. Mm-hmm. Cool. Okay, thanks for that. Um non photographer as you might be, Jim. Did you find anything? I did. It's the Chattery Memorial in Brighton by Chris Clayton . I I d I I just like that one because it's it's to me like I say I know nothing about photography, but it's very atmospheric, I thought it's all kind of one colour. I don't know whether it was iPhone thirteen mini as well, which is a surprise. But I just like th th the clarity of the memorial and then it looks like the world's whizzing by behind it. Like the the flash behind it. I don't know how that's been achieved, but yeah, I d that I just liked that one stood out to me. I'm guessing that's a long exposure. Um the movement in the sky. But it's but it also it it it it also m looks possibly as though it's sepia toned or something. Knowing Chris he'll have knowing Chris he'll have all sorts of um toning options available to him. So um but yeah. Joe uh Joe? Yeah, it's a lovely shot. That's the one I would have picked, but I'd noticed um uh Jim had got there before me. It's a classic Chris Clayton shot. Um I think he uses an app, doesn't he? Mentioned it on um the PSE um photography podcast that we uh we recorded last week. He mentioned it briefly then didn't he? Um I think it was did he say it was Everlong? Is that what it's called? Oh something like that. Yeah, yeah. Um Ever ever yeah yeah. Well I'll I'll I'll find a link and put it in the show notes. Yeah, so I think I suspect he's used that. Um but yeah, lovely shot and the iPhone thirteen mini's got a good camera system, 'cause remember it had the same camera system as the actual thirteen itself. Um just a smaller body. Uh I've got one here. I've never used a camera on it, it's been quite used so far. Yeah. Yeah, I might give it a go actually. Like I say, it's very much become a like whereas for ages the iPhone was my primary phone, but now it's taken a a real back seat lately . Cool. Yeah very capable. Okay, um classifiers is next. Uh before we go, um if you want to join our classifiers group then you need to email me and ask me and we'll talk about it because it is a closed members only group. Um Joe, what did you pick? So obviously phone wise I picked the Edge seventy from Andy Morris 'cause it it's a lovely lightweight phone for three hundred quid . Uh could be for a family member or or your pub phone. But I did want to mention Scott McAllister's uh Sony A sixty four hundred bundle 'cause that is very good value um for someone wanting to pick up a camera um that's a good choice. Yeah yeah definitely very good indeed. I picked out Ian Furlong's Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. He wants 500 quid for it. It's a 256 gigabyte version. and I don't know anything more about it but um has as Jim's on with his Z Fold Six, I thought I'd mention it and point out that it's there. Jim? Yeah, I indeed, yeah, I did see that one, but I thought I've already got one of those so I won't pick that. What what did you pick? I I d I recently I just bought the the pair of Echo Plus speakers that were on the group and it was David Hewitt. Yeah. So I I nabbed them. But phone wise um and someone else's money, I I thought one of the two S twenty six Ultras, either Mark and NE's or Brendan Arnt's, because mainly because of the pen. I'm interested in the pen , so the S twenty six Ultras were my choice . Brendan's one sold. Oh is it 's gone, is it already? Yeah. There's only one left. I'm not gonna buy it though. No. Well but j we we're here just really to point out that there are some s there's some stuff going on good stuff in our classified groups. from PSC now I wait until something I want pops in and then jump on it. Just quickly on the fold six Ted, it's it's got a quite a special finish. It's the crafted black version which is like a amorid c uh carbon sort of look. Right. Um yeah, it's a l lovely looking looking device. Very nice indeed. So pop along to Classifieds or email me if you're not in Classifiers and we'll talk about you joining. Okay, I think that's about it now. Um a quick plug for Nomad Tech Project, which uh Sam and Joe do most Sundays, unless it's Mother's Day in America. And um th so don't look for one from last night. But that is there as well. Phones howchat dot UK is our website with two S in the middle. Um the everything is listed also at um Pod hub UK but it's also at Ted Salmon. com. All of our audio podcasts and all of our Mi Wee groups are linked out there. And if you want to buy me a copy, you can do that. It's a paypal.me forward slash Ted Salmon. And if you want to buy Joe one, it's a paypal.me forward slash hickey eighty five. Phew. Anything else to say, Joe? No, I think we've we've said enough this week. Thanks very much uh for joining us, Jim, again. And we'll talk about moving around all this stuff when we're off the air later. Um and uh yeah, we'll look forward to your next visit coming down and um repa I shall be feeding back on your keyboard in uh in in due course. So thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back again next week by the looks of it with a in between e to get mopped up with some of the stuff that we need to mop up. But after that in the next schedule show which is um on the twenty fifth of may we've got Mark Mockin joining us um who is the person who does lots of lovely photography in the group so um we'll we'll be looking forward to that with Mark. But that's about it. So as I say, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next Monday with another one. Bye for now