A Review Out Of “Time” : I Give You The Pebble Time

– You might be wondering why I’ve chosen a smartwatch that has been out for a year and 1/2 already as a centerpiece for this review. And you wouldn’t be alone I myself am wondering the same thing, and when I respond to that question I come up with a very simple answer. The answer is because it is still valid in today’s market. Now before you lay me out to pasture let me say a couple of things real quick. Yes there are more powerful more advanced smartwatches on the market, and Yes they have more features and I recommend a majority of those. There’s just something about the pebble time that keeps me going to it. maybe it’s the 10 day battery life maybe it’s the retro feel maybe it does what we want our smartwatch to do in the simplest easiest most efficient and direct way. not to mention it’s fully compatible with both ios and android. In addition, for the five of you out there with Windows phone, it works with that platform as well.
-Battery life is….well… simply the best out of any smartwatch on the market. But this is partly due to the fact that the screen has an E ink color display that makes it extremely easy to see in broad daylight and the back light only comes on with a simple press of a button so you don’t have to have that continuously on. It has the most endurance driven battery out there, bar none. However you do sacrifice vibrant colors, and touchscreen with the screen on the Pebble Time.

-As mentioned above, it has a retro look and feel to it that draws out a certain crowd. it looks kind of like a miniaturized tube television from the 50s without the antenna as you can see in the picture above. Not to mention there are a plethora of bands to choose from online either on Pebbles own website or third party manufacturers on Amazon eBay etc. personally I love the look. I can say however, that there is one design flaw in my opinion which is the fact that the coating around the screen, on the bezel, scratches extremely easily. I do recommend getting some sort of guard to protect it. Then again this scratched up look adds a certain rugged manly worn feel. You ladies will probably want protection.

-The software is proprietary and pretty skimmed down it reminds me of an old DOSshell UI. that’s not to say it’s not very functional or feature packed because like I said earlier it does what we want our smart watches to do in a very straightforward very easy to use way. You navigate via the physical buttons on the right and one on the left. you have a microphone to reply to text messages with voice however there is a six second time limit for message responding so you need to say what you want to say very fast and very clearly.. however I can say that I haven’t noticed very many inaccuracies if any in the voice recognition software. It’s actually pretty good software. 

-See notifications at a glance, change watch faces, control your music, respond to notifications,  it does it all. I would like to salute Pebble for kickstarting the whole smart watch industry as a kickstarter campaign with the release of the original Pebble smart watch. The Pebble family of smart watches were smart watches before smart watches were even a thing. This gives Pebble bragging rights and they are known in the hood as the OG smart watch. Now I’m going to say “Smart Watches” one last time, smart watches. In fact the Pebble Time set two kickstarter records. First it became the fastest project to raise 1 million$ dollars, in 49 minutes. Secondly, The Pebble Time had the highest dollar amount of pledges out of all kickstarter campaigns totaling $13.3 million.

-Finally the price point is an alluring aspect that might make you want to purchase this watch. You can acquire one of your very own Pebble Time smart watches from third party online retailers for as little as 65$. That’s a steal if you ask me. Compared to 369$ base starting point for the Apple watch, 299$ for the Moto 360 sport, or even 149$ for the Asus Zen watch Pebble comes out on top. It is a good starting point for smart watches, a watch to get your feet wet, to build your chops or get a feel for what they bring to your mobile life. I myself enjoy mine and am anxiously awaiting the January 2017 Pebble Time 2 release.

-Until next time this is PhabletGuru wishing all the guru’s out there happy Bluetooth pairing. 

Novel Little Gadgets

Google = Apple = SkyNet?

Google has done it again, if ever SkyNet were to become a reality, it would be Google behind it. However that being said, they continue to amaze and innovate. Dare I say or pose the question is Google the new Apple? Could this be due to the passing of the great Steve Jobs? In any regards, Google has patented a contact lens, an electronic lens, that could revolutionize human interaction with technology. This lens would be controlled through blinking and have cameras. Which in theory could have ultra zoom capabilities as well as perhaps aiding in various forms of blindness and degenerative eye diseases.
Google’s revolutionary product Google Glass and a little known Google product which are tear-monitoring contacts, are actually aimed at helping diabetics review their blood glucose levels. However they come together to produce something unimaginable twenty years ago.
The micro camera installed Is key. From a technological standpoint. Although,The lenses’ sensors are just as groundbreakingly inspiring and they can “detect light, colors, pattern of colors, objects, faces, motion, or any other suitable information.” Says Google. This is very interestingly announced from a marketing perspective. As Google recently announced it will sell Google Glass to the public for one day.

In the age of the phablet

Like it or not, phablets are here to stay

The term “phablet” (phone/tablet hybrid) is not only a fun word to say, it’s a trend that is here to stay. Although it’s true origins as a word, it’s philology, may never be known. There is one man, however, who claims to have first used it in print. Mr. Dan Warren of the GSMA, said about the Dell Streak phone-tablet device, “Some say phone, some say tablet. To me it’s a phablet”. He has confirmed that he is responsible. That epistemology is debatable, some claim the tech website Endgadget was the first to use the word, regardless of who actually coined the term the fact remains that the phablet, both as a word and a form factor, are here for the long haul.

Technology evolves so quickly, and those of us who consider themselves mobile tech nerds or phone geeks, know this all to well. Just a short while ago 4″ screens seemed monstrous. Ironically by today’s standards (excluding iphone lovers) that would be considered small and antiquated. The average sized high end smart phone these days is 4.7 inches to 5 inches, & technically speaking screen sizes that equate phablet territory would be anything between 5 inches (such as the lg nexus 5) and the biggest of the big boys the Sony Xperia z ultra’s 6.4″ display. However, with increasingly larger screen sizes, the entry level display size might go up.

Whether you have the Samsung galaxy mega, the Sony Xperia Z ultra, the newly released HTC one max or the Windows 8 based Nokia Lumia 1520, my guess is you are the proud owner of a phablet device, as well you should be. You are part of the trend setters club, because the more the industry sees consumers buying these large screen tab-phones, or phablets. The more they will produce them with increasing innovation and cutting edge technology. Competition in a open free market, as we know, drives innovation and brings us sexier looking more practical high end phablet devices. Which is all any self respecting phablet guru really wants.