- So the first batch of 2018 flagship phones are
already arriving and mmm, there's a pattern.
A lot of the devices are utilizing
the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
that I spoke about when it was released back in December
and I was actually really excited about.
And even though it's only been a short bit since
the chipset was announced, all of the normal major players
are already releasing flagships with the Snapdragon 845
in it and the features that it enables.
Which means that already we're kind of getting a set of
expectations on what 2018 flagships will be
and all of these cool features that they'll have.
So firstly, they're all going to be more powerful.
Duh.
30 percent more powerful in terms of CPU and GPU,
processing speeds actually
as well as 30 percent less power hungry
thanks again to that Snapdragon 845.
So as usual, with an upgrade in a chipset,
faster performance, better battery life, check.
Next, we have one of my favorite features that I hope
will make it into more and more flagships:
10 bit HDR capture.
The Sony XZ2, for example, is the first device
that'll be able to support this.
Now without getting too technical, basically this means
that there's a lot more data for videos to work with.
Instead of just having eight bits like we're used to,
there's now ten and that means each color
now has a lot more shades that can be shown.
This reduces banding in images
and it makes for a more lifelike image.
In addition to the color depth,
there's just more colors to work with.
So instead of the Rec. 709 space that we're used to
that has sixteen million colors, this new chip will be able
to handle Rec. 2020
which supports over eight billion colors.
This type of color gamut and depth isn't even available on
cameras that cost thousands of dollars
and now it's going to be on phones
that we all carry around, shortly.
Another feature regarding the camera
that you're going to see a lot of is super slow motion.
From the 960 frames per second short burst slow mo
that the Sony XZ2 and the Samsung S9 and S9 Plus have,
to prolonged high frame rates at 240 frames per second
in all of these devices.
Expect your social feeds to have a lot more epic shots
of people throwing crap in the air.
Combined with the cameras on these devices come a bunch of
AI and depth-sensing technology thanks in big part
to that Qualcomm Snapdragon 845's hexagon vector processor,
what other companies would probably call an NPU.
For example, prepare to see a lot of realtime AR.
AR emoji on the S9, for example,
allows you to capture your face using the front camera
and turn you into an emoji
that you can send realtime animated videos and other things
with your facial expressions.
The Sony XZ2 has 3D Creator which you can use
the front or back camera to scan your face
and make a 3D model
or you can actually even scan any object.
And the ASUS Zenphone 5Z
has ZenMoji which is similar to the S9's AR emoji.
And this shows that, like, facial tracking
without having all this crazy hardware on the front
using just software and the cameras is getting pretty good.
Right?
The last thing I'll mention about the cameras
on these things is the putting of AR objects into our world
easier without that added hardware.
Now we've seen this with plenty of 835 devices
and iPhones so far, but this new gen is even more precise.
It just has faster, better performance.
Now I still don't really have a huge use for AR like this
but it's still just really cool in my opinion
to see how far this tech is coming
and how quickly it's happening.
Now on the audio side, hi-res audio
and even hi-res audio over bluetooth
is becoming a standard in all of these phones.
Now if you're not familiar,
hi-res audio is kind of the branding term
or standard that means better than CD quality audio.
Now many 845-based devices including the Sony XZ2
and ASUS 5Z use the Qualcomm Aqstic codec
or DAC that can deliver high fidelity audio
at these high bit rates.
Now for bluetooth, the prevalent tech for hi-res audio
is furnished by Qualcomm's aptX-HD instead of just
the normal apt-X that we saw a lot of last year.
It allows for that 24-bit audio to be streamed
over bluetooth to a compatible headset.
Basically, all of the flagship devices announced
at Mobile World Congress and probably a lot going forward
that utilize that 845 have all of these features enabled
so audio files can probably rejoice.
But, just make sure that you stock up
on 3.5mm to USB-C adapters because the headphone jack
it's becoming an endangered species.
Now another feature along the line of audio is the fact that
thanks to the same codec in these devices,
they can enable Always Listening Hot Word Detection
while utilizing pretty much no power.
The Sony XZ2, for example, can activate Google Assistant
without needing to be plugged in
or even having the screen on.
Same for Bixby on the Samsung S9.
So you can just say "Hey Google" or "Hi Bixby"
and it'll just be ready to go making it a lot more useful,
in my opinion, making it a lot more like the
voice assistants that I'm used to dealing with in my house
like Google Home and the Amazon Echo.
Now along with all of this, it seems that more and more
of the flagships are finally getting onboard with
not only Gigabit LTE,
more info on that in my video below that I'll link,
but with second gen Gigabit LTE, from the 845
giving them peak downloading speeds of up to 1.2 gigabits
per second which, by the way, is already available
in some markets and just future proofs them for the ones
that are all coming shortly.
There you guys.
There's just a couple of the features
that I'm super excited about on flagship 2018 phones
that are all coming out.
I think it's kind of cool
but let me know what you guys think
in the comments below.
We love to hear from you guys about this video,
about all these features,
the new phones that are all being announced.
You can check out my other videos on those as well.
I've linked those down below.
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And, as always, regardless, thanks for watching.
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