 Ladies and gentlemen welcome to a special interview episode of Daily Tech News show I'm Tom Merritt and joining me for this will be Mark Spoonauer editor-in-chief of Tom's guide and laptop mag.com Mark Thanks for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me We wanted to talk to you a little bit because you've been spending a lot of time with the galaxy s8. I understand Before we get too deep into it What do you think of it? What does it bring to the Android marketplace when you got so many different phones out there? And and especially why is it getting lauded so much? I see so many good reviews of it Well, I think a lot of it comes down to the design because the first impression of a phone is really important And so Samsung is talking about this infinity display and what yeah, you could see it right there So that it stretches from edge to edge. So first impression is really important So even though like the guts aren't terribly different than what you get from today's phone The display is truly impressive and it's also just one of the best displays We've ever tested both in terms of how much of the color gamut it covers and also accuracy Brightness and the funny thing is is that the screen is so good that when you take pictures on it If they just look better on this phone Then they do when you put it on Facebook and that sort of thing It and almost doesn't matter how much good or bad the camera is and actually it is great And it actually beat the iPhone 7 and our face off and a camera face off that we did But it really starts with that display Is that where we are now with phones is is the design and the camera seem to be the two things that people are always looking at Yeah, I would say 2016 Heading into this year was really big on camera and also dual cameras So like they existed before Apple did it with the iPhone 7 But they did it in a really clever way and and how you were able to get a true optical zoom We just reviewed another phone this week from Asus, which is not very well known It's called the Zenfone 3 zoom and it gives you 2.3 X So you know, there's a little bit more like gamesmanship going on there Yeah, and it also lasted the longest of any phone we've ever tested at over 17 hours of battery life Yeah, that is quite impressive. You know another Asus that I remember was the old pad phone. Do you remember that? Yeah, that was a nice experiment. It was an experiment and we have continuum out there and one of the key features of the SA It is dex an accessory that allows you to connect a full size as keyboard mouse display to the phone Is this useful? And if so, who who is this useful for? Yeah, you know, it's funny when they first started showing it off to us They were sort of Samsung was sort of positioning it as a like really good for like an office Worker like let's say you're going to a remote office You just want to plug in your phone check your email on a bigger screen and I get that but after actually testing it We see it really better suited for let's say, you know Someone like my mom who doesn't even want to have to use a laptop and you just sort of plug it in You get your email on a bigger screen a bigger browser and at 149 It's actually pretty reasonable in terms of pricing. There are some drawbacks though Yeah So so tell me that because that makes sense one of the use cases would be a casual user who just needs to do the basics And have a dock at home although I wonder if a casual user would bother going to the trouble of getting decks and setting it up Yeah, I would have to set it up for my mom. Yeah. Yeah, but but are there are there other use cases? I mean, can you use this in any workplace scenarios? You know, what's funny is that the the writer of the review it's gonna be live probably by Monday on Tom's guide He he said that he did the whole review on the decks itself Including the research that he did on the web Using Google Docs that sort of thing and he found the performance to be pretty good Even when streaming HD videos on YouTube for example, although he did notice a little bit of lag between that and a regular PC I think what you're getting is Chromebook like performance because it is a hundred forty nine dollars Out of your out of your phone But I think it is interesting in terms of just like how far Phones have come in the sense that you can power a big screen experience But part of the issue is there aren't a lot of apps that take advantage of the larger screen There's about 16 in the Google Play store that are sort of like decks optimized and that's not enough Yeah, and then everything else either just does a 2x version or or just doesn't fit very well It sounds like yeah Yeah, so like and an apps like Mario run for example, which granted, you know It's better if you want to do touch as opposed to a mouse and it doesn't work at all Like so the you know Mario starts running and then when you click the screen with your mouse He doesn't jump so you could tell that there's just not a lot of not a lot of apps that are optimized for it yet Yeah, and then the dream is closer It sounds like of just being able to have that one device and then you plug it into whatever form factor You want but right, but it's not there yet Yeah, not yet And I think part of it is a software issue like so this is Samsung going out on its own to do something But let's say at Google I.O. Or maybe next year's Google I.O. I'd like to see what what Android is going to do about we've been talking for years about how Google is bridging the gap between Android and Chrome OS and they have in a sense because you can't access Android apps from Chrome But they haven't really melded the two together quite yet. I I wonder if We're getting to the point where the hardware is no longer the limitation It sounds like maybe a little bit on the graphic side But but it is mostly just the chicken-and-the-egg problem of getting people to develop the apps that will work Responsively depending on what screen they're on right and Google, you know Deserves some of the flak that they've received remember like when tablets were popular And a lot of people complain that there weren't any apps or many apps and the Google Play Store that actually scaled well for tablets and You know meanwhile Apple has over a million apps that work with the iPad So I feel like if there's anyone who could figure out this problem And it is probably Apple and I think it was only a couple months ago That there was a patent that leaked about being able to plug an iPhone device into a MacBook style Clam shell and I think they could potentially pull it off Yeah, they would pull it off if you want to stay in the universe, right like the rights And and that's the key. I like what Microsoft's doing because continuum Really seems to have promise the and and as they're fine, you know finally bulldogging enough people into making Universal Windows apps. I mean iTunes is going to be in the Windows store now That is promising because you've got the software ecosystem But Microsoft almost has the opposite problem, right because they don't have the phones anymore Exactly. So what we learned it build this week is I don't know if they're quite giving up But it almost seems like that in terms of going head-to-head With Android and iOS which in a way is kind of smart because what they're trying to do is insinuate Windows 10 features Into Android and iOS like a universal clipboard and some other clever things that they're adding to the experience So I think they're doing it in the right way where it's sort of like a side door Yeah, so in this future scenario, we're constructing here You can use your iPhone in an Apple dock or you can use the S8 and a dex dock and Run entirely Microsoft software for your business Yeah, and to your point, you know some of the optimized apps that come with the dex or that you can use with the dex include Office itself. So I give Microsoft again, like they're focusing more on Spreading their experiences and they're recurring revenue across as many devices as possible I want to talk a little bit about Bixby to which is the the voice assistant on the S8 is it Tototo with Siri and Google Assistant and Cortana. How does it fit in? It doesn't really fit in yet because it's not complete and that was one of the most Imprising things about the Galaxy S8 launches that they made such a big deal about Bixby and I like them I like it in sort of concept the idea where it doesn't really try to be your everyday assistant And instead does things that touch would normally do I like some of the shortcuts that they promise like beam this, you know Photo to my wife or share the last photo that I took, you know with my wife And then it'll just send it out via email and it takes you through all those steps that would usually take multiple taps So it's not that Bixby won't be able to answer questions But I like the fact that they're just not trying to do the same thing that Siri and Alexa and others are trying to do But the fact that it's not here yet and they just said spring is very vague Yeah, and they're turning it on piecemeal here and there and I know Samsung owns Viv Which was made by the same guys who made Siri, but do we know Bixby does not have Viv in it? Yeah, so Samsung confirmed to me during our briefing that even though the Viv team has joined Samsung They did not work on Bixby, but they did hint that as Bixby gets smarter They're definitely going to play a role and what I like about that as you know is that Viv is was designed to be much More open than Siri has ever been in terms of Allowing third-party developers to tap into that artificial intelligence, but I think you know the larger point is whether or not Samsung has The gravitas to create its own ecosystem because up until now they have not been able to do that Yeah, and then they need to get other people to incorporate it, right? I mean, that's what Amazon's doing with Amazon voice services. It's what Microsoft's doing with Cortana So so that would that seems like that might be essential for them I agree and it like so when you think about it today, Samsung has so many devices You know beyond phones like TVs and appliances and that sort of thing But what is that connective tissue? They've tried a little bit with smart things and there is a smart connect app within the s8 But it it only works with Samsung's own devices unless you get one of their hubs So you have to buy another piece of hardware to let's say control your Philips you lights with your s8 So you could tell that they're struggling a little bit to try to piece everything together, but they could get there Yeah, they could I hope we get to that point where you don't have to think hard About whether you're buying the thing that that fits You know, can you imagine if you if you had to buy a refrigerator and you're like wait Does this fit with my kitchen platform like that? That's where we're headed with this stuff Exactly, and that's where Alexa comes in we're almost anything that you buy today smart home related works with Alexa And it's sort of it's an outlier if it doesn't One last thing before we go Obviously everyone still thinks Samsung had a horrible year because of the note 7 at least at the end of 2016 Does it look like the s8 is helping Samsung recover? Yeah, and if you look at their stock price It started to rebound well before that and part of that is because how strong they are in the component side, right? So when it comes to memory and especially flash memory, they have a lot of partners There's reports that Apple is going to be gobbling up a huge number of OLED displays from Samsung to power the iPhone 8 So on that strength alone, they had already started to rebound before the s8 came out So even though the galaxy s8 already has its fair share of issues like the red screen tent that some people were talking about Yesterday on Tom's guy we reported about some people talking about the audio cutting out on their s8 But there's nothing that has been close to the magnitude of what happened with the galaxy note 7 fire So if they stay true to their word that the s8 is safe Then I think they're gonna continue to ride this positive wave at least until the iPhone 8 comes out Yeah, the red screen stuff that's all pretty typical whenever there's a launch You always find a couple of weird things a yellow screen. You're holding it wrong all those sorts of stuff All right Do you think that the note should continue to be called the note or should they change the name? You know it's a really good question because I was shocked when I heard that they were gonna be calling it the note 8 and But if you actually look at search trends right now The note 8 is actually outpacing the galaxy s8 in terms of user interest And I think part of the reason is not just because it's not here yet But they might be able to fix some of the things that people didn't like about the s8 Starting with the fact that it didn't have a dual camera and at least for power users They really like to have that pen. So I mean if it was if it was me I would call it something like the galaxy s8 pro But I because I feel like there's a lot of baggage with the note. Yeah name for sure. I guess that's up to them Yeah, I I mean it That would be a coup if they can pull off calling this the note 8 and it's popular in cells Well, and it gets lauded it would be almost like erasing 2016 for them. Yeah, it would be a heck of a comeback story Yeah, no kidding Better than the Cubs. Well, hey Mark, thank you so much for chatting with this man. This is really fun. Yeah Thanks for having me if folks want to find out what you're involved with what you're doing. Where should they go? Go to Tom's guide comm as well as laptop mag comm and you can follow me at M. Spoon hour on Twitter Definitely will do that. Thanks everybody for watching or listening. Of course daily tech news show totally supported by you folks at Patreon comm slash DTNS and you can get our daily discussion Monday through Friday at daily tech news show comm We'll see you later Frogpants.com