Friday Debate Podcast: A Discussion on Flagships and Mid-Ranges

The hosts of the Friday debate podcast by Android Authority began their discussion, with Josh expressing gratitude to Narave for joining them. The group discussed how they often find themselves hanging out past 6:00 a.m., with Narave being an exception who has mastered waking up at about 10:08 yesterday morning. Josh humorously noted that Narave's wake-up time was impressive and recommended getting rest, as he had been waiting till the episode finished to welcome Narave onto the podcast.

Narave joined in, expressing gratitude for being on the show and acknowledging that his last name is pronounced "nirav" rather than "naravi". He explained that he had met Josh's PR contact who has been calling him by this name for about 2.5 years, and Josh jokingly claimed responsibility for the mistake. Narave clarified that it was a mutual understanding among their team members to call him either name.

The conversation took an amusing turn when Joseph Hindy interrupted, stating that he had been hearing "naravi" his entire life. The group laughed at the telemarketer joke, and Andrew Grush chimed in with how Josh's pronunciation of Narave's name was always a bit off. Feisty (Feast) made a humorous remark about the name being pronounced differently than usual.

The hosts then transitioned to discussing their topic for the day: flagships versus mid-ranges. They debated whether these devices make sense and whether there is room for both types in the market. Narave contributed his thoughts, stating that he would recommend rest to those who are exhausted from trying out multiple devices daily.

As they wrapped up their discussion, Josh reminded listeners that the Friday debate podcast will have a poll next week, asking listeners what topic they'd like the group to discuss. The hosts teased that they might recycle some of the leftover topics from previous weeks and incorporate new ideas based on listener feedback.

The conversation concluded with Josh inviting listeners to stay tuned for the poll and to let them know their preferred topic for the next episode. He announced that the podcast is available as a regular source for Android news and discussions, highlighting its unique blend of insights and opinions from multiple hosts.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everybody and welcome to the Friday debate podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every week I am of course your host Joshua Vergara what's going on everybody and this week I'm joined by one extra person so now we have a five panel podcast this time around which might become a regular thing for the fdp in the future but uh this week in what we thought was going to be Joseph Hindi absence for a while there we brought on nirav gandia to come with us and talk to us about flagships versus is mid-range and if it's even worth it to buy flagships now that the mid-range game is getting better and better every year uh now Joe did eventually get online just in time for him to join in so we have five people on the podcast this time around and you can follow all of the hosts on social media you can find all those Links at the Friday debates podcast post at Android authority.com if you are watching on the YouTube channel that we have up for those of you who aren't on podcast networks you can hit the card over on the top right of the video and you will be able to get to that post as well but one of the best ways of listening to the Friday debay podcast is of course to go to your favorite podcast networks and apps like Stitcher and iTunes and pocketcast and soon to be SoundCloud as well and we will give you information on how to get on Soundcloud for those of you who have been wanting the fdp to be on Soundcloud uh without any further Ado we have this episode number 13 of the Friday debate podcast flagships versus mid-range devices hope you guys enjoy how about we do it what yeah everyone wants to take Joe's throne in the beginning joke lines it's ridiculous cuz I've only told one joke have two of them oh that's right no I did have two didn't I I had two two like two weeks in a row and I I keep forgetting to do it because you know for for those listening we started the podcast super late tonight because of me uh because I got sidetracked watching yeah I got sidetracked it's the NHL playoffs what do you want for me and I bought a new 3DS game so I was just like I had like my headphones in I was like watching the game and playing video games and I saw my phone was blinking like crazy and crushy like where the where the hell are you man it's time to start the podcast did not say that I was like oh it's 11:30 it's just Joe's on the side like D I have no obligations tonight well one of the auxiliary benefits of Joe being massively late let's not let him live that down is that we actually have a guest with us um we we started off this podcast as a four-person thing but we always were open to having more people on and one person who's been super super eager to be on the Friday Deb podcast is right over there NV hey guys so um Ravi came on uh fairly recently and he's a writer with us um and if I'm not mistaken you might be doing some videos pretty soon right yep I'm basically trying to get involved on anything and everything nice because you know why not very good um well he's across the pond and by that I mean he's out in the UK so it's really late for naravi right now so narave if you're mad at anybody be mad at Joe Joe we're going to have words after oh great everybody wants to talk to me now how are things going on uh that side of the Earth right now anyway n uh if I don't have to hear from another politician on how they're going to promise the world deliver nothing when they realize that they haven't got any money to deliver anything I'll be a completely happy man yeah I've been following the news as well there's a lot of that going around uh but then again we have the presidential race coming up here in the US and everyone is all about how Hillary Clinton ate a burrito a few days ago I don't know if you guys saw that news story at all no but my favorite thing that they've done is uh wikileak Wikileaks has like a red arrow pointing right in their logo and I guess Hillary Clinton has a red arrow pointing right in her logo and they're calling it like copyright infringement and I did not realize until Wikileaks started complaining about it that there was a copyright on a red arrow pointing right so you know you learn something new every day you would be surprised just how many ridiculous things out there are copyrighted like well who was it uh Paris Hilton actually coined and trademark the phrase that's hot really yeah well we're we're super happy to have naravi on and you know what with the topic that we have this week and I I'll go ahead and have gushy sort of um explain how we came to the topic for this week which maybe the way we come up with topics most weeks uh coming up um we are going to talk about um Flagship phones and mid-range phones but I'll leave gushy to explain exactly what we're going to be talking about right now okay so uh some of you may have saw that we shared on uh Google+ uh a poll where we had a few different ideas that we thought of as a team and then we let you guys decide which ones you were most interested in hearing and so basically we just want to talk about uh which Flagship I mean nowadays now that mid-rangers are getting better and the Gap is listening between the two are flagships still worth it uh for the average consumer basically all right um so there are a lot of phones that we take a look at here at Android authority and obviously you got folks like me and laan uh generally taking a look at the flagship devices um but then we have plenty of others on the team that take a look at a lot of the mid-rangers uh but that being said any of us who have gone to like say a CES or an mwc will have had time with mid-rangers as well um other than that you know we're probably using mid-range phones or Flagship phones on our own times I know uh I know Joe has the M9 now and naavi wrote a uh he wrote a a piece about the M9 and just before we got on the podcast they were already about to get into a debate about that phone um so how about some uh let's start off with our guest with naravi here um so when it comes to Flagship devices I I remember you just started looking at the Galaxy S6 and now you have the M9 uh what do your thoughts so far about this crop of Flagship devices that we're seeing for 2015 I mean until the S6 they were just more of the same I mean okay so the glex 2 it looks really nice but it's almost identical to last year's just with a few tweaks the thing about the glex 2 is it's Unique take the M9 and it just looks like an M8 at least in my opinion and I know Joe's not going to be happy right now apologies in advance Joe well maybe not the S6 the S6 Edge if there's anything about them that they like the edge especially oh my God it's it's so nice cuz it's so unique there's probably the geek inside me that's going it has to be unique to be different and be worth it but the whole point of a flagship is to show what's possible I don't think the M9 I don't even think unless Sony completely radicalized their zed4 that's coming up whenever they announce it I don't think the Z4 is going to be good enough a flagship kind of to justify the price point you need more than just your average oh here's what we did last year and we're going to do it a little bit better it's the problem that Apple has it's the problem that everyone's had but Samsung is the first to really go okay clearly the Galaxy S5 didn't sell in the you know 50 gazillion that we wanted to it only sold 40 so we need to rethink the whole world and the whole world's going to come to an end unless we do this what do they have you have possibly what's the best looking Android smartphone ever made no possibly so um Joe so uh give us a recap real quick you're using the M9 how long have you had it for now uh just over two weeks okay so how has your experience been with it thus far um my experience has been really positive um it it comes down to semantics really like how you define a word and you know like you know ra you know Flagship is what's possible um in my mind's eye that the flagship is just the thing that they you know their best foot forward is all it really is it's the phone from which all other phones revolve around and in you know under that definition the HTC 1m9 is the flagship phone for HTC and um you know I acknowledg this I think it was last week or the week before I acknowledg that the HC 1m9 does not have a lot of razzled Dazzle not a lot of unique stuff from prior years but um I also said you know last week week ago that it's okay because H you know the HTC1 series is probably still among the best designed smartphones it the the problem is that the design is getting old for people cuz they want something new and something you know different something ridiculous like the S6 Edge and the to lesser extent the glex 2 and you know the the standard candy bar you know premium I mean keep in mind this is still an all metal phone with some really nice heft really great build qualities and ridiculously good you know stereo front-facing speakers it's not like it's not bringing anything to the table it's not like uh you know a Galaxy S5 where it was like you know what is this supposed to be different from you know it's it's you know I mean the S5 was not a great phone this is still a great phone it just doesn't have all you know the the wow factor and we talked about the wild factor a lot of times especially with Sony because son I mean you know NV say something like oh yeah the Z4 is going to be sorry zed4 or I don't know how to say it for real you know unless they do something radical like Sony doing something radical with their smartphones is like toilets suddenly flushing differently like it just doesn't you know it it's not going to happen so you know the S6 Edge is going to be the winner this year in terms of like wow factor and razzled Dazzle but that doesn't mean that the other smartphones or the other flagships are bad it just means that they're not as unique and you know uniqueness is not a a it's certainly you know part of what makes a device good but it's not like the 100% contributing factor of whether or not device is going to be good or not you know yeah perhaps so I love the analogy with toilets that was an interesting way to put it like let's face it son's Mobile division's going down there anyway well talk toilet what what are you all hoing we had a whole freaking podcast where we all agreed to that we really did but then now we the Leakes of the Z4 or the Z coming out you know and you know they're they're not they're not going in the toilet per se but I guess they're they're making it clear that with a with a halfe release cycle they know that they're not going to necessarily keep up with the the latest and greatest that's out there um I would stop short of saying that they are in the toilet um I just thought it was I just thought it was funny that you know you could get a new model toilet and then the the the company is saying stuff that's new about it when there really isn't look it's a bedet now like yeah isn't that like kind of like exactly it's it's like the the S6 Edge is like the toilet with the seat warmer whereas the hc19 is the toilet that flushes and it's like at the end of the day they are both freaking toilets they both freaking flush and at the you know after 5 minutes of sitting on one like you're going to notice the seat warmer anyway so Joe Joe's thought a lot about this apparently I have not actually so so we're we're we're so we're essentially establishing what a um what what a flagship is especially since we have some of the phones that have come out already uh gushy and feisty um have you guys had any time with the with the flagships that are out now I know gushy you had some time with the glex 2 when we were out at CES but with the S6 and the M9 have you guys spent any time with those phones yet I have you have okay uh which ones uh all of them now so okay yep so what what what are your thoughts on how the flagship game is working here because where I want to go from here is we're establishing what a flagship is but then the much more loaded question coming after that is what exactly establishes a mid-range products and that's something we're going to get into in a sec to me um I uh I agree with narave I'm not impressed by the M9 I mean it's not that it's a bad phone it's not a bad phone per se it's just not what I would expect from a flagship to me it feels more like a mid-ranger honestly okay um it just I guess I kind of think that uh you know Flagship is they're throwing everything that they possibly can especially now that which we can we'll talk about later but now that the Gap has lessened and you're seeing you know you're seeing quad cores and even you know you're starting to even see uh 1080p resolutions in the mid-range and now that you're seeing all of this uh the Gap has lessened so much that the flagships need to raise up the bar and I think Samsung did a great job with that but HTC the specs that it brings to the table we're seeing from some mid-range other than maybe the Snapdragon you know 810 you know and so I guess I just feel like the M9 hasn't done enough to raise that bar and I'm not for sure how the Z4 rumors claim that it's going to have an all metal body um we weren't confident enough on that rumor to post about it on our site but that is the the going rumor and supposedly it could have a uh which I don't know if this would make even sense but supposedly it will have a fingerprint scanner in the power button I don't know how that would work but that's what supposedly they're it's going to be a humongous power button I know that's what I was thinking it's like I don't know how the heck they would even pull that off but uh it was a semi credible leaker so I'm not going to get into a whole lot but uh so there's that and then the LG G4 um I'm excited about it but I'm not for sure if I personally like the leather look I mean I think it's to each their own I'm not necessarily impressed by the look but I know there are people who enjoy that um but I don't know I guess the the point is that uh I feel that a flagships definition is something that goes above and beyond and they need to set themselves apart whether that's design whether that's you know Hardware is harder to set yourself apart from anymore is the thing is I just don't think Hardware is where it is it has to pretty much be design um or software at this stage you know all right how about you feisty have you spent time with the the new flagships thus far I've touched the M9 but but that's it so far the guy at the local Fries store he uh you know he had an M9 out was willing to let me play with it however when I asked about the uh the Galaxy S6 and and the edge he's like you can have it for zero down on a 2-year contract with the carrier that you really don't want to use I'm like yeah great thanks yeah I just want to see it come on all right so um so we've we've we pretty with the new releases coming from HTC Samsung LG obviously the G4 is coming up in a couple weeks and um I'll be out there getting all of that stuff ready for uh the masses to see what that supposedly leather backing even though that was a pretty substantial leak uh is going to be like well LG has confirmed it now by the way oh they have now okay yeah they did this morning well I can't wait to see what that means this a very interesting move if there's anything I'm excited about it's more dead cow on the back of my phone can't wait for that I just the the only thing that bothers me about it does anyone else think that the stitching is odd I just don't like the stitching in the middle I doesn't look good it looks like a wallet that's what bothers me about it it's not leather that's not leather that bothers me it's the the placement of the stitching I think is what I don't like about it you going to at least it's not fake stitching like the G or like yeah like the Galaxy Note 3 with the Le back like plastic molding stitching on the side of it to make it look authentic even though there was no actual leather or stitches on the thing at all it's they yeah they officially said it's like what they called it like veggie edged I mean aged leather or something so yeah it's it is officially leather it's not it's not a pleather or anything you know it is actually legit veggie veggie what I don't know it was like veggie AG or it's the way that it was done was with I don't know that's what it said on the thing they beat the cow to death with a stock of corn like I don't know what that means I'm not for sure how that I'm not a leather expert so I'm not for sure what that means let's see yeah they said vegetable tanned there we go vegetable tanned leather cover suchy P I'm not exactly sure what that means but uh I'm looking it up I'm were uh it uh it sounded for a second there I take a wild guess that the acidity from the vegetables just stains the yeah probably so I know well that that is a thing um but it okay yeah I'm not an expert on leather so um it sounded for a second there n you wanted to chime in on the G4 so yeah I mean the G4 I the G3 was probably one of my favorite devices I liked it apart from little bits and Bobs but there's something about that leak design that just I mean the leather's just an accessory it's one option but I think that just the fact that they' put that leather leak out there or is leaked out there and I've got very kind of My Views are that companies leak pretty much everything themselves whether they like to admit it or not the fact that they put that leather out there from what I saw it's already put a lot of people off it even though it's just to back cover yeah exactly it's uh I I really don't know what to expect from it because it's I do applaud them though I mean they haven't confirmed it but if you look at the early leaked images there appears to be at least three models that still have a plastic back so if you don't like the leather at least you have an option you know well then the LG is why why why was that the leak then that's what I was asking but also the is is it almost as if LG is trying to go motomaker in a way or something like that like is there going to be a wooden back or something like that well I found it yeah I found it interesting that the word choices I mean granted yes it is technically a cover but they didn't say in their official confirmation they said it has a leather cover they didn't you know and I you could interpret that as maybe it comes with plastic but you have the options of buying Le you know the way that they they worded it it's hard to say if it actually comes with it or not I can just I can just already imagine having a leatherbound phone in my pocket and there's going to be just that if let's say I'm wearing like a pair of tight jeans that that one section on my thigh is going to be sweaty as hell like I can't I'm not looking forward to that at all but okay we have um so we have established what Flagship basically means to us but we're going to get back to gush's point that the M9 might not necessarily feel Flagship it might feel closer to mid-range but I wanted to go back to our guest here in N um what constitutes a mid-range device to you and if you're able to give some actual device examples that would be great too see this is probably the topic that you could talk for 10 hours on because everyone's going to have different views but my opinion is that a mid-range is determined by price M mhm to kind of give it some context because you get mid-range devices that you may classify mid-range such as I don't know let's take one of the minis as an example um I think S5 Mini or an S4 Mini sorry that that launched and it was like it was only 50 Quid cheaper than the normal one but the specs were stuff you might find on a 150 phone so I kind of classify mid-range devices by price and if I was going to talk about what classifies like the best mid-range is the ones that bring Flagship experiences it doesn't need to be Flagship specs it just needs to be a flagship experience if you take like the xeria Z3 Compact and you took the xeria Z3 the Z3 compact B the exact same experience but to a lower price point and it was the mid-ranger a lot of people preferred it to the actual Z3 itself but it wasn't it's an example the other kind of mid-range I probably think about I like the hon phones or Huawei even like the likes of OnePlus One I would always I'd consider that as a flagship device based on the specs but because of where they're pricing it to kind of who they're targeting the the mid the ideal mid-range is one that kind of brings the flagship specs to a mid-range price point but is targeted the main consumers the ones who can't afford to spend £500 on a phone or in dollar 800 £100 off $800 off contract on a phone the ones who can only spend three 400 or they want maybe $50 down on a phone that kind of that's how you classify what to mid-range and if you kind of look where everyone's going it's we're seeing the flagships that are the be and Endor but then everyone seems to be kind of toying with trying to release this release a flagship or Flagship like device in the mid-range just like Google and did with the Nexus until they made the Nexus 6 and ruined everything well that's that's a good point I was thinking about price also and when you were saying that price would uh make a a mid-range I was thinking like so what is a OnePlus then is that like the mid-range killer but but it really isn't but um so yeah um it's a mixture of the two feisty where where do you where do you land on this uh this this defining of a mid-range well you know I'd like to think of it as more than just a price tag uh but it kind of is just the price tag determines what a mid-range phone is um I think there's more blur in between budget and mid-range than there is between mid-range and and Flagship at this point certainly that's changing as the the flagship sorry as the mid-ranges get more and more powerful the OnePlus One for example I mean pricewise like you guys just said we we consider it a kind of a mid-range but it certainly Flagship material in the spec sheet um so yeah you look at those specifications and and nope it was like feisty's tablet is causing some problems yep there you go there goes there goes feisty feisty feisty will be back momentarily folks after these after these brief messages all right so um yeah uh the Friday debay podcast brought to you by fly grip um the so so gushy how about how about you going and chime in there um so feisty I think is just about coming back on um are you back there feisty oops I'm back yeah sorry oh my goodness man good for it yeah I know it keeps dropping where did I where did you lose me um somewhere in oh where in um the uh the line between mid-range and Flagship was starting to blur yeah oh wow right at the beginning I rambled on for 2 minutes you guys just ignored me no Skype did no you you were talking about like the one how one the mid-range FS were getting more powerful like the OnePlus One and then that's about where you cut out oh so it was just me that was ignoring him okay nice job over there host yeah great hosting so yeah I mean really what I was saying there is uh you really just agreeing with narave and and Josh so far uh it the price is the ultimate definer for a mid-range right now but uh uh you know if you're not running the latest and best processor and maybe down to just the one or two gigabytes of RAM not running the the most amount that's currently available for flagships then you know the simple definition it's not a flagship it's mid-range but uh certainly I mean there's some budget phones that look really great as well if if you want to consider like the Moto G range uh you know performance-wise never mind the spec sheet performance- wise they're that's kind of a mid-range phone in my books but we'll stay out of budget for today we're talking Flagship I guess I would I would personally consider the Moto G more of a mid-ranger because of its experience even if its pricing is even lower yeah I was about to bring that up the the Moto G the Moto E I would consider that an example for sure yeah you know so the m e obviously being the budget phone um but then there always going to be those people out there um this is just me sort of pontificating here the the there always going to be people out there who look at a phone that is about maybe sub 400 and still say that that's too much in terms of price um you know so to to people like that I suppose they would say something like oh the Moto E is the the real mid-ranger it still provides a decent experience and then they realize they use the word decent and then um so it's um yeah price does have a lot to do with it but specifications and experience um so uh gushy you were saying that Moto G would be considered more your mid-range let's say line would it be yeah I mean I I find it interesting in a way that I guess in my mind at this point you have flagships you have mid-range then you have you shouldn't buy you know I guess you know I don't even consider budgeted category I figure at this point you know to me mid-range is isn't really it is price to an extent I guess anything but that price can can be wildly you know anywhere from 180 to like you know 400 bucks maybe you know um um to me a mid-range the only major difference anymore between a mid-range and a flat I think you know I thought it was interesting fece was saying the blur between mid between budget and mid-range I think there's a blur between all of it at this point you know budget mid-range highend you know there's the like I said you're seeing octacore and you're seeing 1080p even in you know lower priced phones at this point you're starting to and uh so uh you know I I guess I I feel like uh I would consider Moto G A mid-range phone I wouldn't yes it has a budget price but I wouldn't consider it a I guess to me when I think budget I kind of think derogatory you know it's garbage you know it can barely run you know it it has you know you can have like one app open at a time or else it will crash well yeah well which which begs the the the uh I was about to say secondary but really the third question here which is you know who exactly uh who exactly is the who actually is the person defining what is a flagship or a mid-range because we're talking people in the west right now it's all of us right now true and you know and we look at Flagship oh that's the phone that we want everyone's going to want that then mid-range oh you know that's a good choice to have and then know the budget but to people to people let's say in like developing countries it's it's a whole different scale which is what really intrigued me about this topic is you know who who so who exactly is asking cuz we have a very diverse audience in um Android authority uh and and there are plenty of people who only dream of having flagships and oh yeah and I I think if you asked a lot of these people what they consider budget I think they'd probably say sub 100 at this point you know exactly they're like oh Android one yeah exactly I think that would be budget I guess I just feel like Moto G Moto E may be budget you know it's high end you know it's a higher end of the budget Spectrum to me you know I guess I feel like once you get above you know about you know $175 let's say once you get close to 200 bucks I'd say you're mid-range you know yeah exactly and even the the the the blur and pricing oh I'm sorry Fe no no that was N I think oh was it n yeah that was me um so where does this then kind of put the likes the Chinese manufacturers who are basic where would you put shiai because I would say I've used a few of theirs and I've said but some of their I think I can't remember which one I used it was ridiculously cheap but it would offered a Moto G Style experience just not as smooth but it was well under it was like under1 Sterling well uh so it was about $120 there you go maybe less thank you for that that's a good point yeah it's definitely you know there is there like I said there's just such a blurring of the lines anymore you know it's that's why I guess I felt like you know flagships need to stand out because it's just you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a good phone anymore you know bottom line you know I mean my wife has a Moto G and it's would I use it as my daily driver probably not it's close there's just a few things that keep me from considering it you know worthwhile for me but what I recommend it to someone who isn't necessarily doesn't need a massive screen doesn't need you know isn't going to be watching videos on it much sure it's a great phone I mean she's had no issue with it whatsoever and it does everything that my NE you know I use a Nexus 5 primarily now um getting ready to replace it but uh anyway um it does everything that my phone can do and it just doesn't do it quite as well so like I said it's yeah there's definitely it's a you know it's just it makes you appreciate how far we've come though cuz there definitely was a major difference between budget mid-range and Flagship like three years ago yeah you know who remembers the Galaxy Ace yeah the Galaxy Ace that was a God that phone that phone was awesome first of all that phone had one of the most dedicated aftermarket developing communities that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime I um I used to work a lot pretty much everybody knows at this point before I worked in Android author to work at XDA as a writer and I was writing about weird ridiculous crap that they were doing with the Galaxy Ace right up until I left XDA and that was 2013 and but the the problem is you could do all sorts for the Galaxy Ace as soon as you went to turn it on it would go sorry got enough no memory yeah I'm not saying I'm not saying have problems I'm just I was just remarking on on their their aftermarket development it is really really truly impressive I think like maybe the Galaxy S3 the HTC HD2 and maybe the HTC uh Evo 4G on Sprint were the only other phones that had like just such a a huge community of people that were trying to make the phone not suck and it always it always just really impressed me all right well um to to nar's point actually um talking about the Chinese uh manufacturers you know that's that's that goes back to what I was saying earlier about how different markets have different ways of scoping these things cuz um obviously we're not we we think in terms of Moto G because we don't even have our hands on xiaomi around here you know you have to buy that via other channels like you know go on eBay or something like that and even uh even then out out in the UK you guys have Hua alwayss and we don't hear in the US which I wouldn't um apart from the PA we have Huawei and we don't because it's kind of let's put it this way the mate 7 was 6 months ago and it's still not available here oh M oh yeah that's true the p8 is going to be available here before the mate 7 is and when they when Huawei announced the mate 7 vone UK were listed as one of their partner networks it's been seven months we're still waiting well huawei's uh huawei's new uh budget phone's coming to the us though which one the snap 2 it's $180 Snapdragon 4 it's basically a Moto G you know it is it's basically a Moto G with LTE everything's a Moto G you called it but you called it budget Yeah well yeah okay okay budget mid-range I guess to me there I don't know there's a lot of blurring okay I'm sorry they're mid-range you know but uh uh it uh like sh ex I know it's uh it is identical to the Moto G uh spec-wise except for uh I believe LTE is about the only major difference uh I think its display is not as good it's the same resolution but it's it's like a TFT um you know so it's not quite as good of a display so really what I'm getting from this is uh there's really no industry standard and each manufacturer is kind of setting their own idea of budget mid and Flagship yeah and that was actually something U I wanted to talk about for a second yeah um I've been leten you guys talk about you know like a lot of what you guys are saying is like really existential like you know like oh is the exper you know the experience of the 1 M9 makes it feel like a you know a a mid-range phone but then you know the experience you know uh when I look at something like that the question I always ask is what are the corners that they're cutting and the thing is is that you know you can add that up in almost every instance and see like literally where the price goes like doesn't the Moto G have like a Snapdragon S4 or Snapdragon 400 or a 410 or something like that it was S4 Pro what is it S4 Pro was that what it was back in the day it was S4 Pro in the first one yeah yeah an S4 Pro and then 400 guys we're in the 800s it was a no it was a Snapdragon 400 in both Moto GS yeah so I mean you know you have a when was the last time Snapdragon 400 was the flagship CPU right what was it like two years ago maybe longer years was never a flagship Yeah well yeah you're right but you know you look back you know like the S600 or the the Snapdragon 600 was in the 1 M uh yeah the 1 M7 and the Galaxy S4 and then you know the Moto G has the 400 so you can see you know where they cut that corner and then you know how much run have one gig you know in today's flagships they have 3 gigs of RAM so like and you know the camera is probably you know 8 megapixel from 2013 also and it's it's you know when you look at these kinds of things like you can see where they cut the corners to lower the price and I think what the real difference is from a couple of years ago is they found better Corners to cut to you know to where they don't have to you know drop down into that you know cuz you know mid-range back in the day was like you know a year and something else I guess I'm kind of going in circles I'm sorry about this guys but you know you got to think about the the differences in processing power from one year to the next for a good long time I mean we went from single core to dual core to quadcore in like what three years yeah so you know so you look back you're like all right so we're going to release a a a mid-range Flagship with last year's Flagship specs that was that's going from a dual core to a single core and then going from a quad core to a dual core and like obviously it's going to be a whole lot worse but now you know it's it's all quad cores now and we're getting into Octor now but quad cores is still great device I mean my Note 3 still runs lollipop pretty much flawlessly and it's a Snapdragon 800 you know quad core processor and that's a mid-range phone today you know based on how much you can buy it for so I think that you know that you guys have all touched on it like just like little tiny bits here and there but at the end of the day it's really is where do they cut the corners and and you know like with what and it may not even be specs in the phone it could also be something like you know um this is going to sound really terrible and I'm not going to list any examples but like you know quality assurance you know maybe quality assurance gets a little bit of a you know takes a little bit of a backseat to keep those costs down a little bit or they hire a smaller staff or they can't ramp up production as like a the OnePlus One well I say I was going to say OnePlus One for you you know yeah me they had some quality assurance issues and they've had production issues because their team is very very small and that's how they keep their costs down and I you know so I the when I think of a flagship I think of something that does doesn't cut any corners and you you look at the Galaxy S6 the S6 Edge the 1 M9 the LG G4 uh maybe hopefully the Sony Experia Z4 and you look at you know 3 gigs of RAM the most recent processing package the best screens available today um well the HTC1 was a calculated risk but they got the bigger batteries you know they're not cutting slack on the batteries they're not cutting slack on the the camera sensors now in HTC's you know against HTC here they really screwed up their software but the you know the hardware is still good like like what I'm holding in my phone or in my hand right now is a $650 phone there's no ifs ANS or buts about it it is Aluminum it's got a huge battery in it the 3 gigs the the octacore 64-bit CPU from Snapdragon you know it's got everything that a flagship should have it has the best that's available today and that's the way that I look at flagships versus mid-range you know you look at the you know the OnePlus One it had a what was in it a Snapdragon 800 or an 80 one which one again the OnePlus One eight oh eight 800 the 800 yeah right so that was you know the 801s and the 805s were already out then they were using the last year's processor so they probably cut a little bit of cost there and you know that's I think there is still a very good very solid line that you can draw between Flagship and mid-range and I think it's just once you ask the question where do they cut the corners okay you know so actually the one one the OnePlus One was a 801 now that I think about it wasn't it was 801 it was still I'm almost positive it's 8801 okay were they releasing the 805s at the time it was announced it was announced uh when it was first announced it they said 800 and then they changed their mind right before release yeah I'm almost positive of that now oh okay yeah yeah I do wasn't that like eight and a half nine months between announcement and relas hyperbole hyperbole for comedy guys I'm not actually thinking it was nine months I was expecting to hear a mic drop after Joe said all that stuff well that's the thing it's like I sat here and listen to you guys talk for like 10 minutes about it and I'm like you know you guys are all saying the exact same thing just in different words and you're not flushing it out as much cuz you like I think feisty said it at some point and then like rushy said at some point like all you guys have said it at some point I'm just kind of summing up what everybody's saying because I agree with it you know it's you know you're not going to get you know the the Galaxy S6 Edge camera on a mid-range device so obviously there is a big huge line there and you know on or on the one M9 either what's up so okay Joe I can completely get you there but hold up didn't HTC cut Corners with the 1 M9 display you said it was a calculated risk it was a calculator risk because of the battery not because of the price it's still you I mean it's only $50 or $100 less expensive than it's right it is $100 less expensive than the Galaxy S6 I just looked on Amazon it's 750 bucks for factory unlock Galaxy S6 650 bucks for factory unlocked hc19 so it's $100 cheaper but I mean it it it's AAL ated decision based on the battery because 1440p sucks up a lot of battery it wasn't like something that like oh we're trying to cut cost and cut Corners to get it out at a lower price because it you know I mean at least over here in the states everything is zero dollars down everywhere right now so okay on all right on obviously talking about where you cut Corners let's take something like an the Huawei on a six plus the specs list on that is Flagship it's got a very very good display it's completely solid it's got break it's got great I think it's uh quadcore Kieran 925 or an octacore Kieran 925 one of the two it's got 2 or 3 gig ram where have they cut corners for that because what's the which phone is it the honor 6 plus the honor honor 6 plus all right I'm going to go look this up really quick keep talking I'm I promise I promise I'm listening I just haven't seen this phone yet so I have to go look at it out of all of us only I have uh only actually nvi and I have messed with the honor 6 Plus um I I agree with you Z NV there there are it has managed to be a phone that is pretty affordable for a lot of people and yet it has the same specifications as a lot of the flagships out there and if you're comparing it to the M9 yeah on paper it does definitely sound like it's kind of keeping up with the M9 which is considered a flagship high-end uh let's say expensive device well here's the thing I'm looking at here what the hell is high silicon Karen okay so high silicon curan is Josh you okay High silicon curan processor is basically to Huawei what exos is to um Samsung it's their in-house made processing system processing um package I should say and to that point it works wonderfully it's so good and yeah it's I've been impressed by it with the mate 7 the mate 7 fls I mean if you I've been playing with the p8 and wow the kir 930 935 depending on the version is outstanding to the point where although Huawei kind of IM UI is probably slightly heavier and clunkier than senses the p8's a lot faster than my M9 I can see where Joe I can see where Joe's coming from though because we have so many snapdragons in America that when you see anything different like Media Tech what the hell is Media Tech like well I know no it's the thing no I know what mediatech is and EOS I know what all of them are I've just never heard of high silicon until today yeah it's Hua that's that's probably the one thing they don't have to Outsource their chips you know to to another company so they get to cut prices a little bit that way they you know there's also that thing you guys remember that the nex's devices were sold under cost in order to gain market share right like you guys remember that or they were trying to promote the play store or something like that they were trying to make the Nexus devices super cheap to encourage other people to sell cheap and I I remember there was a big it was a big thing about it the the uh the the Nexus 4 was sold under cost so that people would buy it well you could say the same thing about the OnePlus One also they they they sold it both like way below what you would expect that phone to be just so they can get you know recognition and yeah like you said that's probably it they're probably they're either taking a hit to it or you know they were taking advantage of the fact that all the stuff was done inhouse I mean you don't have to Outsource the stuff you know distribution is a little bit easier you know getting all the parts together um you know I and another thing you know first of all I don't think anyone should be having any software discussions of any kind until Android fixes the memory bug absolutely none I will not hear it no offense no offense I'm not saying anybody stupid or anyone's an idiot or anything I just simply refuse to talk about any software optimi optimizations any how software Acts or anything like that until my system stops taking up 1.1 GB of RAM for no freaking reason and that is Android and Google's fault not the 1 M9 not any other device not any manufacturer that is Android's problem so until Android fixes Android's problem I don't really want to hear about well you know the software runs better because you know it's it's a matter of if the if Android is taking up so much RAM that the stuff that's already installed on the device can't run then it's not really that stuff's fault you know that's why the that's why Samsung started putting uh 3 gigs of ram in their Galaxy Note devices because Spen took up extra Ram it wasn't for performance it was because they had extra software extra bloat that needed to run and in this case I mean Android these days is heavier than TouchWiz so I mean you know if if the if the Huawei you know thing is using up less Ram than senses then yeah it's going to be a little bit more stuttery on the 1 M9 it's just going to happen I've noticed it too so this is what so this is what Joe's like after midnight after watch after getting riled up by a hockey game I know he's been really uh you've been on it brother that's he has been well see that's the thing so much so much so much of our conversations are so philosophical like how does the device feel and you know how well does it work in your day-to-day activi ities you know depending on whether you watch videos or play video game you know the fact of the matter is if software were absolutely perfect you know You' probably not see too much of a difference and the software isn't perfect and for once it's not the fault of the O and that's something that really gets on my nerves because like for years you know for years and years and years OEM skins were given the worst rap and you know they've all been you know streamlining their stuff you know this year's touch wids is like what the best touch WID touch whiz of all time right yes the best touch wedgie ever you know since you know since de bloated a few years ago and all that jazz like OEM Skins are getting smaller and smaller and smaller and better and better and better but now Android screwed up Royal and it's just like the idea like hearing something like you know well HTC Sense is you know bloaty and bad no it's not no it is not HTC Sense is not bloaty and bad at all it's Android screwing up the works this time well I agree with you about sense not being bloaty I've got gree as well cuz as much as it sounds like I hate the M9 and would like to throw it off a bridge I love sense yeah I think it's still by far probably one of the best Android interfaces hell I've been using S since the HTC HD2 Windows mobile that's how back I that's how much I like HTC's interface and it gets better and better every single year yeah I want to so I completely agree that sense is kind of like up there with the best interfaces on any device whatsoever yeah I I'm not saying anyone doesn't like anything or anything like that it's just it's frustrating to hear you know like you know oh you know this device lags this device stutters like you know I got to think of a different way to phrase this but um it's it would just be it's impossible it is impossible to comment on the experience of any device running Android 5.0 or 5.1 right now it is impossible because Android is broken currently it is broken toen and there is no denying that the memory bug is right there you can Google search it right now and find evidence of its existence in both versions until 5.2 or 5.1.1 comes out and that memory bug is fixed and these flagships are updated to that so that the memory management is actually functional I think it's really unfair to compare experiences because right now KitKat has the superior experience right now guys that's the long I mean I can't if I could run KitKat on my one M9 I'd be freaking running KitKat on my 1 M9 cuz I I mean I hate lollipop on this phone right now and and I think that that I I think that's part of the thing that makes because I mean I agree it feels like a mid-range phone sometimes but that's why it's because the software is so unoptimized right now that it's it's causing little blips in like my applications and it's just it's frustrating it really is let me tell you what happened to me here the other day with this Moto G it's got 5 502 installed and uh you know it doesn't stutter very much talking about that experience but I tried to make a phone call yeah I I I couldn't get through it just it kept crashing the phone I these are phones first right not computers first I could not make a phone call all right so it it's sounding to me Joe that okay so oh so back to our question yeah we never did yeah we've talked yeah we've danced around it we haven't even I wanted to make sure we covered all of our bases and Joe definitely made sure of that and which is which is great I'm I'm just I'm just uh I'm just drinking your chain over there brother um so uh Joe on the question of um are flagships still worth it if the mid-range game is getting a lot better it's sounding to me especially since you're an owner of an M9 and despite your gripes about the M9 experience at the moment uh would it be safe to say that you would still prefer the flagship lines because of what the mid-range may or may not be able to offer we have reached the point where the answer to that question is exact the same as it is in the laptop Market do you need a $2,000 Alienware laptop no then don't get one you know it's same thing with Flagship phones these days if you don't need something you know with the eight cores and the three gigs if you need something to just search Facebook and you know calls people well you don't get a Modo G or you'll end up like feisty but um I know can't make a call for goodness sake but you know you know no we're getting to that point where you don't need it anymore I mean you know I can render video and do my job on a $600 $700 laptop these days I don't need the $1,500 $2,000 razor Asus Rog Flagship you know Alienware Laptops and it's the same thing with smartphones I'm not so high up you know on my HTC1 M9 love that that I say that people absolutely need to buy these things they don't you know you can totally get away with getting a mid-range phone and have a totally great experience but just realize that some you know a corner was cut to get to that price point and it's exactly the same thing with laptops you get a $700 laptop you get a you know a GTX 660m with uh probably an ivybridge i7 processor no man integrated Graphics that's what you're going to get that's that's actually a good point not necessarily but that's a discussion for the but you know if you're playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft like you're ever going to freaking notice you just have to turn the graphics down to medium you'll never know you can still render videos on a 660m I used to do it all the time time but you know the people who benefit from something as powerful as a flagship phone or a flagship you know laptop are power users are the people who are going to be pushing this phone all day and night doing all kinds of different stuff and I mean let's face facts you know the way things are I mean people just don't need that that much anymore well how about where you were going earlier about build quality the aluminum slab sitting in your hand right now it would would it be uh would it be safe would it be would it iice to say that people who really want that particular aspect but they don't need the rest would that justify someone going for a flagship over a mid-range cuz are there any mid-range devices that are offering that kind of design feel I'm thinking about that right now and I'm sure that there are like I'm sure that there are some um the uh xeria Z3 compact right I've gotten my hands on thatone I mean that that the build quality on that is fantastic MH um I mean the glass back I don't like glass backs you know because I'm I Dro things on carpeted floors and my my uh Nexus 4 shattered being dropped on carpet the back did so I don't like glass backs anymore but uh you know I mean there are mid-range flagships that have decent build quality I just don't think you're going to get I'm going to sound like such a shill right now but HTC is not the only one that does this you know a a phone that's been essentially shaved out of a single block of aluminum you know you don't you don't get to say phrases like that she seem paying you by the way well the iPhone's the same way isn't it isn't the iPhone machine out of a single block of aluminum it's just all buzzwords honestly like I mean still I mean it's not like um you know I mean the Galaxy S six you know it's the same thing isn't like it's the whole the frame is entirely aluminum with like a piece of glass shoved in the back of it um you know mean these are you know this required some effort to build whereas you know you look at like a Nexus 5 Nexus 5 was a slab of plastic you know I'm holding one in my hand it's a slab of plastic with a spray rubber coating on the back of it essentially you know this phone was did not take a lot of effort to make and you can feel it when you pick it up like it feels like a hollow little phone you know and you can see hold on I remember you did didn't you do a drop test on an Nexus 5 and it broke so bad you could see the circuit board we don't talk about that cuz I did it in I did it in front of the Android statues in San Francisco yeah Reon why I remember it cuz like you dropped the phone there and it's like I remember everyone was like sacr this is sacrilege yeah you could see you could see the yellow circuit board on the back and like it's like that's obviously where they cut the corner that and the camera and the battery yeah you know we're really lucky that we're using Skype for this call because with the many things we've said about Google and lollipop and the fact that I dropped the Nexus 5 the days after it came out at the Google headquarters if we were using Hangouts we we would have been cut off like right then and there but yeah you you were saying Joe but no you can have a great experience you just you know I'm not saying you can't have a great experience I'm just saying that there were Corners cut to get it down that low sure and as long as you understand that and you you know because you you can cut you can get different Corners cut depending on who you go with you know you get the xeria Z3 compact you're not compromising build quality you're probably compromising something else you know but display go ahead n it was sorry I was just saying on the Z3 compat it will be just the display 70 instead of 10 so they played literally like one penny for that because they're just trying to get them out of the warehouses at this point but you know you so you know you sacrifice a little bit of screen you get a better b or you get a better um well battery and better build quality or you can have the up-to-date specs and maybe have a lesser battery lesser screen or lesser camera you know like you just have to know what you're getting yourself into and you can have you know I don't use a camera on a smartphone hard ever so this the camera issues on every phone I've ever owned doesn't apply to me I don't care see I'm glad you brought that up because I I'll go ahead and answer the question right now is I don't think that like especially with the new crop of flagships that are coming out now I do think that there's a distance again between the flagships and the mid-ranges primarily because I am that kind of user I need a great camera I went to Seattle for a few days this past weekend and as I'm sure people people have seen in the camera shootout for the S6 that I put out and I brought both of my production cameras with me my GH4 my gx7 I brought both of them with me expecting to take pictures everywhere and on that first night my uh my buddy who we were staying with brought us out to Pike Place Market and I didn't have any time to grab my cameras they were still in my luggage I just had my S6 Edge on me and I just started using that it was on that day that I realized I don't need to bring my cameras with me everywhere all the time anymore and that is just simply an experience that even in the in the flagship game I can only get on an S6 because uh Lord knows what what's going on with the M9 um software upgrades whatever it camera just doesn't do it for me uh same thing with the glex 2 the G3 and the G3 they they're kind of there they're they're not too far away it's laser guided autofocus is is actually really great but in terms of quality I I need my S6 Edge now and you just won't be able to get anything like that in the mid-range Market I do think that especially if you look at it in a particular lens no pun intended it's going to have that that discrepancy and that that that Gap is is widening I don't I I love the mid-range game don't get me wrong I but but I I understand the mid-range game in terms of other people I'm very empathetic to the people who need to spend less on the phone uh but for for the flagship game oh man like we're we're we're we're kind of at a Crossroads now there's this there's this Evolution that I feel like is happening this year and I can't wait to see what the G4 does despite its weird looking um leather back that looks like a crotch I'm just going to say yeah but uh yeah and then the Z 4 but I was going to move over to naravi anyway so the uh uh what were you going to say uh how would you answer this question or oh yeah I was actually just trying to come in and answer this because I was I was going to talk about firstly on your point of cameras it's kind of off topic but I did warn you in advance that I ramble for England pretty much um probably the note for is when smartphone cameras finally became good enough to use anywhere and then the S6 has kind of taken it cuz I've i' probably only ever taken 100 pictures across in four years on a DSLR like out and about I'm one of these people who shoots on his phone and only on his phone because you know why the hell not it's the best camera is the one you have on you mm and that's obviously what smartphones all for answering this question going back to kind of the 1m9 obviously we they haven't done a mini version this year but in previous years you could have got the HTC 1 mini which bought the same design but completely tanked on the specs I think was it the first one mini that had a q like QHD not Quad HD but quarter HD display yeah I think it was it something 60 good cheaper than the original yeah I remember that it was the 1 M7 mini if I'm not mistaken in in in their defense that was back before oems understood how to do that you know you know CU there was a point with the from the MX 2013 on forward oem's finally figured out how to do a mini mid-range kind of phone without screwing everything up so everything before that I kind of give it a wash you know just like all right that was a learning experience you guys did it wrong you no but no you're totally right that phone sucked balls like I'm not saying it didn't that phone was freaking garbage but just you know I selling phones back in that day and um I remember selling about five and four of them didn't work before they even left the shop oh no oh my goodness so that means you technically sold nine basically basically yeah and then a couple more came back as well okay so did you have more in R oh oh no sorry I was just that was me all right so um let's move over to feisty then um how would you answer this question on uh on flagships and mid-ranges uh cuz you're well you just gave us a story about the Moto G not really doing it for you so uh where where would you stand then on the mid-range SL Flagship battle Yeah know there's two kind of ways of looking at this I absolutely believe in budget SL midrange devices um but you guys already know I've got six basically budget phones sitting here on the desk um but the reason that I have them the reason that I want them I almost said need them is for specific reasons I mean one of them is purely being used as an MP3 player which I mean I bought it for $20 an MP3 player is $20 you know the doesn't make much of a difference so uh if you have those sorts of needs or you you can split up your devices for single purposes or or you know just a few purposes per you know maybe you have one that's dedicated to the duck in your car you know it's a a dash cam kind of thing or music player MP3 is obviously you know or just one phone specifically that uh maybe is waterprof and you take it swimming you know it in these particular cases the mid-range even the budget ranges I think are are Priceless but exactly what you said uh all I've got is these mid and budget range phones I tried to do something with it something legitimate with it and it completely failed me so I really I mean I'm shopping for a flagship level phone right now um the M9 I'm not sold on it uh the the G6 is as well I just uh uh so I'm really hoping I don't know about the LG but uh I think I'm waiting to see what the Sony's got the Z4 or Z4 I think that you know right now I'm I'm holding out to see what they bring to the table did you say G G6 earlier just trying yeah that's what I thought I was going to Galaxy S6 I'm sorry G6 it's not as late here but I'm I'm tired feisty's been holding out on us man he's got the G6 already the G6 yeah yeah I'm mumbling through I apologize one day we're going to do a podcast like early in the morning and you know what it might actually help uh narave in particular if you'll be able to do a podcast in the afternoon rather than what is it now almost 6 o' for you it's quter to 6 but yeah sure guys listen if you want to do one early in the morning for you guys I am super happy with that for sure hey you know what meet me meet too guys it's approaching last call here so well it's interesting because uh whenever we did the schedu I mean we're up to what episode 12 13 now like we always we always just default to going at night here in the US I'm totally okay with it but I'm just okay um all right what happens I ramble on for 17 minutes at a time sorry about that guy about lol about lollipop about how much lollipop sucks and I'm fed up with it now I imagine fed up with lollipop just imagine Joe going doing something very random during his day and you sees like a lollipop on a table he just smashes it it's like damn you lollipop all right so now we have gushy um gushy where do you stand on uh Flagship in mid-range so actually you know I I agree with you that the I think 2015 is just an exciting year period for all of the sides of it I mean I've seen some really exciting you know mid-range devices too and I'm really interested to see we're seeing a lot of growth of devices that don't quite fit the mid-range definition but don't quite fit the flagship definition either um you know the OnePlus you know OnePlus 2 I'm sure will be along that line um LV you know uh they're having their new super phones as they call them and those look really impressive Snapdragon 810 yeah they call them the super 10 Snapdragon 810 um you know uh you know all the high-end specs you would expect from a flagship but and they're going to be coming to the US supposedly and uh they're aiming for like a what $400 $500 price tag um you know and you're seeing uh the Zen phone 4 I mean four I'm sorry sorry Zen phone 2 Zen phone 2 you know and uh that's an impressive phone right there I'm I'm I haven't had the opportunity to mess with it yet but just watching lawn's review and just doing my research on it um I actually have considered buying one as one of my main phones I you know just because uh I support I I want to support growth in the mid-range because I think it's uh I think it's important that more people be able to afford smartphones and be able to you know I think it's I want to be able to what's that sorry gry go on no it's all right what's up R I was going to say do you think we're at a stage where it's no longer just your budget mid-range and Flagship do we need a level in between budget and mid-range and another level between mid-range and Flagship I think we I think we kind of do it's just it's hard to uh it's hard to define the line I think we already do I mean cuz like I said I consider the Moto G A mid-range but then the Zen phone 2 is a mid-range yet the difference in specs is pretty substantial you know why don't we just move over to like how we do it in taxes in the US we have upper class upper middle class middle class middle lower class lower class someone salty about paying taxes the other day poor poor homeless and then Joe Hy so kidding guys I'm kidding you bring up the you bring up the zenone 2 which I thought was a good uh I I had been thinking about the whole time we were doing this like um Asus is an interesting company any where it seems as if the phones now not really counting the pad phone and the Zen phone Zoom which could be considered Fringe products but they're mid they're actual like real top like they're their their flagship phone let's let's differentiate between Flagship and high-end at this point yeah the it's the Zen phone 2 is considered their Flagship it's just not what we would consider a flagship but it's close I mean performance- wise I mean 4 GB of RAM is kind of hard to beat I know right yeah personally would love to see what that Zen phone Zoom is like and I'm still I I hope one day I'll be able to pick up that Panasonic Lumix phone like I I yeah I know you were it's the hardest phone to get oh you have it there H we have it here and it's £ 799 Sterling I know one person I know two people have bought them they're both the same person and they bought them twice and got rid of them within about an hour have you heard any uh like real world reactions to like how it works in in in daily usage or what um not really I think the common consensus is the camera is incredible the rest isn't oh I was kind of expecting that to be honest um but yeah to that point I mean there there's another whole different Market that we could talk about in a different podcast is you know the the the The Fringe products the uh the the Maxes of the world or the zooms or the Lumix camera phones of the world um but yeah gushy you were did I didn't catch it if you finished your point on uh on our question here um well basically uh summing up actually a lot of what's been said there are a lot of great phones out there um like I said I've actually I'm I'm at the point where I'm ready to buy a new phone and I haven't decided I've actually not for sure if I'm going to stay with a flagship I've like the Zen phone 2 impresses me and I I may end up granted I think that the 4 GB model is still going to be $400 or so so it's not it's like it's not quite mid-range and it's not quite Flagship in the pricing cuz I mean if you look at like LG they're their pricing for their flagships at this point are only around 500 or so so you know I don't know about the G4 who knows that could go more expensive but I doubt it I have a feeling the G4 will be around $500 to $600 somewhere in there um and so uh do people need you know down to the actual question do people need flagships anymore it comes down to you know what Joe said in a way I mean do you mind those cut Corners I mean and it's true they're all having cut Corners I mean the the uh Zen phone too uh it has an Intel processor which I don't mind Intel processors but I know a lot of people consider that right there a deal breaker you know in the mobile world and uh it also the design I mean it's it's an attractive looking mid-ranger but it's I don't know if I would call it unique either it's you know basically they took the uh LG you know G design uh from the G2 G3 and then they put the power button on top which is a weird placement and so basically they kind of just bastardize different elements from other you know you know and which is usually what the uh what the you know what companies do in the mid-range or in China too for that matter which this isn't a Chinese phone but you know my point is basically you're not going to get a you're not going to get a high-end design you're going to be missing out on a few small specs but if you're willing to if you're okay to live with that then yeah there's no point in getting a flagship uh a lot of the reason to get Flagship at this point is um for uh the status of it to be honest I mean you know to you're nerd cred basically you know that's a big reason to do it at this point I I mean yeah there are other reasons I I actually agree with you Josh that uh that if you're into camera experience on your phone yeah you're not going to get it on a mid-ranger that's just a fact to me that that that's what that that's the line really you know see to me though coming from a Nexus 5 anything's an improvement you know I could go to a mid-ranger and I like this camera is awesome you know so cuz I have a Nexus 5 which has a pretty sure you go back to a flip phone and be like this camera is awesome and we'd all be like oh gushy oh gushy you just don't know but you know um so yeah I mean but I do think that uh the answer to this question there is no cut you know there is no you know the answer is very personal depending on who you ask and uh I would say it's very Regional too you know well for us you know for a lot of people in markets where you know Emerging Markets Etc you know where the you know for in the US let's be honest I mean the difference for us to raise you know $300 as opposed to us raising 600 probably isn't a big deal to us but a $3 $400 price difference to someone in a developing country or an Emerging Market you want to call it um that's a huge deal you know yeah that's that's always where I'm going to go when it comes to questions like this is I'm always going to think about like my relatives in the Philippines and I've said this a couple of times on the podcast before but like you know my dad goes back to Philippines and brings back phones that we don't use anymore just for the people that he knows back there so when I think about mid-range devices in that sense I'm like oh yeah mid-range devices are really closing the Gap that's amazing you know and I can't wait to see you know all of my friends and relatives back in the Philippines actually using U these phones you know and having the kinds of experiences that I can have on a flagship maybe just a little bit lesser you know but but still you know they'll be they'll have their foot in the door and that's all that they need really but yeah if you don't have a lot of money you know whether you live in a country where you just don't make as much or you just don't make as much wherever you live uh is it worth it when you you know no it's not in my opinion if you have money to burn sure yeah there's there's benefits I mean there's obvious benefits design you know there's specs there's obvious benefits but if money's tight no save your money you know we're all that's how I look at it anyway you know yeah exactly you know I have I have two kids and I have a lot of so so to me I uh that's the reason I live with meus 5 is I got a flagship like I mean it was a flagship device but I got a flagship like experience but it wasn't expensive and uh you know yes I could afford a flagship device but I would rather spend that money on you know things for my kids or vacation or you know so it just depends on what your priorities are bottom line you know gish's humble bragging right now is no I'm just saying yeah i' like to ask one question when you guys are ready yeah sure it kind of backtracks a little bit here in the topic of you know what is mid-range what is Flagship how much weight do you guys put on benchmarks like n22 benchmarks and stuff myself personally it's an afterthought but what do you guys think I I feel the same way especially in the flagship game there there's really little that like if we were to put into our reviews um listen listen lists of benchmarking uh personally I don't think that the common consumer which is who we mostly cater to um would look at that and say that this number is higher than this number I'm going to go for the higher number when there's so much more to a phone that matters um I think that it has to do with the numbers themselves I don't think it matters because the numbers are always so close anyway I mean it's like oh just I I don't know how n22 scoring works but it's like oh this phone has a 35,000 and this phone has a 35,000 and2 and this phone has a 34,9 clear clearly it's lagging behind the competition guys so um like I think that if it's like a huge gigantic number of like one's you know getting the 35,000 and then another one's getting like you know 15,000 I think that matters I think that's I think that's worth looking at um but if it's you know like you know if it's really close then it no it doesn't matter at all well and the problem with benchmarking is correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not I don't put a lot of weight into benchmarking but I mean I know it's a very it's an inconsistent thing I mean you can run a benchmark multiple times and get different results within a certain variance right oh yeah well you you should be doing multiple tests on the same well yeah I suppose you'll come up with an average but I'm saying it's just I guess to me it's just I just don't think it's worth putting weight in you know that that's why I said there has to be that huge gigantic Gap there like if it's you know a couple even if it's like 30,000 to 35,000 nah don't worry about it but you know again like you know if it's something so gigantic it's like half the score like one/ third the score one quarter of the score then I'd probably look into that other device and see why it scored so low you know maybe they cut corners on the on the GPU and the CPU you know the S so you know is you know there's something going on there that's preventing that phone from doing anything you know well I know we're um pretty much at our time and this is totally um off topic but I kind of got thinking about it just watching a lot of the reviews recently that uh you know that we've been putting out and stuff and maybe it's always been this way but it seems like recently we're seeing a lot of phones that uh and you know Josh you'll be able to comment on this for sure we're seeing a lot of phones that uh we get a reput you know they get they automatically they set a reputation and the thought of a certain way and we've even seen this with SmartWatches uh and then all of a sudden it's a few updates later and they're they're way better it seems like uh we're seeing more devices that aren't optimized out of the box when they first ship of course no definitely not has that always been the case or is it just more recently now it just seems like I've been noticing it more recently it's been no more recently now because Android is messed up Josh like Josh to you I mean you think that's been a an always issue to be honest or I mean uh it's been it's been okay in the past it was more the case with some manufacturers and others but it does it does seem like that that is becoming yeah it seems like every phone that's coming out I'll like you'll see some post about oh this update's now fixed the battery issue or this update's now fixed this well this is well this is the thing that I always think of when I when I see those is just how much can you really fix with a firmware update and you know what the thing that bothers me most about it it doesn't bother me too much that the firmware updates have to happen after the launch but what bothers me is that they just kind of assume that they can fix so many things in a device that's already completely packed together you know in just a software update you know and they they promise a lot but this is the thing that pisses me off most about it is um if I'm doing a review and you know maybe maybe we have some Representatives from the companies in our ear you know um and uh you know they they're they're looking for this or that or you know they're helping test and stuff like that especially when it comes to our first looks and stuff like that when they keep telling us that we shouldn't show this or that or they would like it for us not to because there's going to be software update anyway and this is all in terms of like embargo stuff um usually um the thing that makes me mad about it is if this is the production unit just because you're going to update something later doesn't excuse how it performs now mhm and that's the part that always gets me when it comes to stuff like that uh this is something I've commented on before I don't think it was in the podcast but I think I've written pieces about it before um Android is an extreme has a has an extremely Spartan release cycle um you know you look at like everything else like everything else in technology how often do things get refreshed every single year you know like we're not getting a PS5 in this year we didn't get one last year you know um we're not getting one the year after this one you know it's it's going to be several years before the Xbox 2 and the PS5 come out and you know like you know televisions are the same way I think my I bought my tele my 1080p television like five or six years ago and 1080p televisions have made very little strides since then and you know so the way I look at it you know the I think the reason why you know cell phones and you know the Android the OS and everything it's just everything is so Spartan you know that they have you know the next version of Android is going to be out in freaking 6 months and they haven't even fixed the one that's out yet you know and HCC just finished bashing yeah well I'm I'm I'm it's a part of a larger Point gushy I know Samsung's already working on the S7 HGC is already working on the M10 LG's already LG probably hasn't is probably already working on the what is it they're releasing four this year right yeah so they're probably already working on the five like the the time frame to get these things right is so slim that you know it's inevitable that eventually you know the Shell's going to crack and you're going to have these phones that have issues out of the box and it takes the manufacturers a little while to fix them like everybody's behind schedule and I have I have long touted that Android and O should like take a year off it's like next year no flagships make us deal with it screw us the consumer you guys need to get your stuff together you know you you know fix the fragmentation a little bit fix Android a little bit make you know get these phones working and prepared and then you know next you know year it's it's so fast and it's constant I mean Samsung is not only working on the S7 they're working on the Note 5 and probably on the Note 6 right now and it's like obviously these phones are going to have issues when they come out because I mean they don't have the time anymore to to do anything about about it everybody wants it right now immediately it has to refresh every year and that's also part of the reason why I don't care that the M9 looks like the M8 and the M7 who cares it's it's still a goodlook phone it's just not new and exciting you know like they didn't have time to come up with a new design so be it you know it happens I don't know it sounds like I'm an apologist and I kind of am I guess but you know I'm siding with oems and on Google with this one like you know you have to fix this now it has to be perfect right on release day and then you know it's going to take them three or 4 months to fix all the issues with the phones that are out now and then you look at that they got 8 months to polish and you know finish everything up entirely so yeah you know it's just it's so Spartan and it's so I keep saying that word it's just it's just March forward March forward March forward March forward and you know no one wants to just stick around and fix what's wrong now it's always got to be what's next and I I think that's a lot of the reason why it's the culture of Android as a whole it's just I mean everything now is irrelevant in 8 months anyway so what do they care if the camera software is a little messed up you know well on that note I do I do believe that we have very thoroughly answered the question so those of you who have been on the poll which was our first Poll for the Friday debate podcast um hopefully you guys were able to get a lot out of this and I'm pretty sure you were able to we were able to go in a lot of different places uh not not only in terms of this question but also in terms of Joe's feelings on lollipop yes so for all of you that did not vote for us to talk about lollipop because that was an option yeah we apologize well some people in the comments that actually was uh that that was number three I think in the poll well yeah no some people in the comments were saying like I want this one this one and this one so technically they kind of got what they wanted so I think we did it well it was all over the place but we did it with all that said before I get into the wait wait what were the two things we didn't talk about what were the other two which ones the topics you mean which topics did we not discuss uh gaming and like Play Store stuff yours yours the stuff that's your domain all right great they both suck congratulations we had all five oh we didn't talk about tablets if they're worth owning and they suck too all six feisty's out now I I I disagree tablets are awesome no they are they are awesome I use my tablet like I use my tablet like four hours a day now they're freaking awesome now oh I'm playing Shadow run so much on my uh Shield right now so with all these budget phones I have to have the good tablets for screw oh no a whole new angle to this we didn't think about it's big enough so he can cuddle it in his sleep you know I love you Flagship tablet go screw yourself budget phones enter generic FL here why doesn't feisty love us oh it's too late for me guys I'm going to stop talking well with all that said uh we will continue be doing these polls uh there will be some weeks where we have uh topics that are like really set in stone especially in a couple weeks from now for example we're going to talk about our reactions to the G4 probably uh but even then we will have these ongoing polls so make sure you go to our Google+ Page and the links will be available at our androidauthority.com post for the Friday debate podcast but you can find us everywhere on the internets um I will have narave on our Android authority Friday debate post uh post Friday debate podcast post on Android authority.com so you can follow him on social media just like you can the rest of us I want to extend another thank you to narave man it is past 6:00 a.m. for you now dude you are hang in there man I know you are a you might have noticed I've been a bit quiet the last 20 minutes if it if it provides any insight I woke up at about 10 8 yesterday morning oh dear wow so what you going I would say like if you're able to get like a some some rest dude I would really recommend it I was in the nicest of ways just waiting till we finish off oh all right well narave thank God uh thank God for you coming on man we're going to we're going to uh we're going to have you on uh definitely uh up again uh pretty soon hopefully uh and if anything we'll have we'll make this a five person podcast most weeks I think that'd be pretty fun too but um as norav gets ready for his nap and then when he wakes up a few hours from now and grabs some Costa Coffee I want to go ahead and say uh thank you guys very much for listening to the Friday debay podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every single week as always we have our hosts here I'm Josh you have Andrew grush Jonathan Fe Joe Hindi and narave here as well how do you pronounce your last name by the way I forget um it right my last name is gondia but I figured now at the end of this podcast you know an hour and 20 minutes in it's nirav and not n oh I was following Josh's this is all Josh's fault because I heard him say I just with what he said cuz I thought great job over there host in my defense I've been calling him that ever since the day I met him and he's never told me actually thought it was n but then when you said N I just figured you were right no to be completely Fair I was talking to one of the my PR contacts a couple of days ago she's been calling me neari for about 2 and a half years so we got loads of people not all my fault okay no but honestly sirious no either of them works I'm used to both by now we spent days together with uh out in China and I've been I called you that every freaking day and you've never told me I know but it's more fun if I just announced it on the podcast that's you been planning this the whole time yeah yeah hey yo Josh varara you really need to stop doing and Joseph hindy Joseph hindy I've been hearing that literally my entire life that's how I know it's a telemarketer hello is this Joseph hindy go screw yourself click you can't you can't really mess you can't mess up Jonathan Feist I mean it's pretty it's it's pretty straightforward fast he's feasty Feast I got feasty a lot growing up yes absolutely dude I wish I wish pronounced Feast we call you feasty beasty or something like that Feast Beast all right so all right it's time to at it is time time for us all to go it is late for all of us and I hope you guys have thoroughly enjoyed this edition of the Friday debate podcast talking about flagships and mid-ranges whether or not they make sense with one kind of closing the gap on the other with that all being said um make sure you stay tuned for next week's episode as well and we have the poll if we're going are we going to have the poll up this week grush yeah we'll have a poll okay uh stay tuned for the poll and make sure you let us know what topic you want us to talk about next uh we're probably going to recycle whatever wasn't picked this week and then put them in for next week and just see what comes up next is that is that what we're going to do um we we'll talk about it but yeah we'll definitely have a pull out um okay I have a possible idea we'll we'll but we'll have something fun for you guys all right cool well have your voting buttons ready for the next upcoming week for the Friday debay podcast by Android authority of course your source for all things everybody together and Android Android Android man how long have we known each other and you've been saying your name wrong this whole time dud to be completely honest I did not even realize till about halfway through the call wait is he talking to me like I just can't imagine what that realization was like just sitting there like are they calling me narabi that's wrong oh no it's fine you know what honestly listen I will uh one day share with you some of the names I've been called at which point you will realize why naravi is absolutely fine fair enoughhello everybody and welcome to the Friday debate podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every week I am of course your host Joshua Vergara what's going on everybody and this week I'm joined by one extra person so now we have a five panel podcast this time around which might become a regular thing for the fdp in the future but uh this week in what we thought was going to be Joseph Hindi absence for a while there we brought on nirav gandia to come with us and talk to us about flagships versus is mid-range and if it's even worth it to buy flagships now that the mid-range game is getting better and better every year uh now Joe did eventually get online just in time for him to join in so we have five people on the podcast this time around and you can follow all of the hosts on social media you can find all those Links at the Friday debates podcast post at Android authority.com if you are watching on the YouTube channel that we have up for those of you who aren't on podcast networks you can hit the card over on the top right of the video and you will be able to get to that post as well but one of the best ways of listening to the Friday debay podcast is of course to go to your favorite podcast networks and apps like Stitcher and iTunes and pocketcast and soon to be SoundCloud as well and we will give you information on how to get on Soundcloud for those of you who have been wanting the fdp to be on Soundcloud uh without any further Ado we have this episode number 13 of the Friday debate podcast flagships versus mid-range devices hope you guys enjoy how about we do it what yeah everyone wants to take Joe's throne in the beginning joke lines it's ridiculous cuz I've only told one joke have two of them oh that's right no I did have two didn't I I had two two like two weeks in a row and I I keep forgetting to do it because you know for for those listening we started the podcast super late tonight because of me uh because I got sidetracked watching yeah I got sidetracked it's the NHL playoffs what do you want for me and I bought a new 3DS game so I was just like I had like my headphones in I was like watching the game and playing video games and I saw my phone was blinking like crazy and crushy like where the where the hell are you man it's time to start the podcast did not say that I was like oh it's 11:30 it's just Joe's on the side like D I have no obligations tonight well one of the auxiliary benefits of Joe being massively late let's not let him live that down is that we actually have a guest with us um we we started off this podcast as a four-person thing but we always were open to having more people on and one person who's been super super eager to be on the Friday Deb podcast is right over there NV hey guys so um Ravi came on uh fairly recently and he's a writer with us um and if I'm not mistaken you might be doing some videos pretty soon right yep I'm basically trying to get involved on anything and everything nice because you know why not very good um well he's across the pond and by that I mean he's out in the UK so it's really late for naravi right now so narave if you're mad at anybody be mad at Joe Joe we're going to have words after oh great everybody wants to talk to me now how are things going on uh that side of the Earth right now anyway n uh if I don't have to hear from another politician on how they're going to promise the world deliver nothing when they realize that they haven't got any money to deliver anything I'll be a completely happy man yeah I've been following the news as well there's a lot of that going around uh but then again we have the presidential race coming up here in the US and everyone is all about how Hillary Clinton ate a burrito a few days ago I don't know if you guys saw that news story at all no but my favorite thing that they've done is uh wikileak Wikileaks has like a red arrow pointing right in their logo and I guess Hillary Clinton has a red arrow pointing right in her logo and they're calling it like copyright infringement and I did not realize until Wikileaks started complaining about it that there was a copyright on a red arrow pointing right so you know you learn something new every day you would be surprised just how many ridiculous things out there are copyrighted like well who was it uh Paris Hilton actually coined and trademark the phrase that's hot really yeah well we're we're super happy to have naravi on and you know what with the topic that we have this week and I I'll go ahead and have gushy sort of um explain how we came to the topic for this week which maybe the way we come up with topics most weeks uh coming up um we are going to talk about um Flagship phones and mid-range phones but I'll leave gushy to explain exactly what we're going to be talking about right now okay so uh some of you may have saw that we shared on uh Google+ uh a poll where we had a few different ideas that we thought of as a team and then we let you guys decide which ones you were most interested in hearing and so basically we just want to talk about uh which Flagship I mean nowadays now that mid-rangers are getting better and the Gap is listening between the two are flagships still worth it uh for the average consumer basically all right um so there are a lot of phones that we take a look at here at Android authority and obviously you got folks like me and laan uh generally taking a look at the flagship devices um but then we have plenty of others on the team that take a look at a lot of the mid-rangers uh but that being said any of us who have gone to like say a CES or an mwc will have had time with mid-rangers as well um other than that you know we're probably using mid-range phones or Flagship phones on our own times I know uh I know Joe has the M9 now and naavi wrote a uh he wrote a a piece about the M9 and just before we got on the podcast they were already about to get into a debate about that phone um so how about some uh let's start off with our guest with naravi here um so when it comes to Flagship devices I I remember you just started looking at the Galaxy S6 and now you have the M9 uh what do your thoughts so far about this crop of Flagship devices that we're seeing for 2015 I mean until the S6 they were just more of the same I mean okay so the glex 2 it looks really nice but it's almost identical to last year's just with a few tweaks the thing about the glex 2 is it's Unique take the M9 and it just looks like an M8 at least in my opinion and I know Joe's not going to be happy right now apologies in advance Joe well maybe not the S6 the S6 Edge if there's anything about them that they like the edge especially oh my God it's it's so nice cuz it's so unique there's probably the geek inside me that's going it has to be unique to be different and be worth it but the whole point of a flagship is to show what's possible I don't think the M9 I don't even think unless Sony completely radicalized their zed4 that's coming up whenever they announce it I don't think the Z4 is going to be good enough a flagship kind of to justify the price point you need more than just your average oh here's what we did last year and we're going to do it a little bit better it's the problem that Apple has it's the problem that everyone's had but Samsung is the first to really go okay clearly the Galaxy S5 didn't sell in the you know 50 gazillion that we wanted to it only sold 40 so we need to rethink the whole world and the whole world's going to come to an end unless we do this what do they have you have possibly what's the best looking Android smartphone ever made no possibly so um Joe so uh give us a recap real quick you're using the M9 how long have you had it for now uh just over two weeks okay so how has your experience been with it thus far um my experience has been really positive um it it comes down to semantics really like how you define a word and you know like you know ra you know Flagship is what's possible um in my mind's eye that the flagship is just the thing that they you know their best foot forward is all it really is it's the phone from which all other phones revolve around and in you know under that definition the HTC 1m9 is the flagship phone for HTC and um you know I acknowledg this I think it was last week or the week before I acknowledg that the HC 1m9 does not have a lot of razzled Dazzle not a lot of unique stuff from prior years but um I also said you know last week week ago that it's okay because H you know the HTC1 series is probably still among the best designed smartphones it the the problem is that the design is getting old for people cuz they want something new and something you know different something ridiculous like the S6 Edge and the to lesser extent the glex 2 and you know the the standard candy bar you know premium I mean keep in mind this is still an all metal phone with some really nice heft really great build qualities and ridiculously good you know stereo front-facing speakers it's not like it's not bringing anything to the table it's not like uh you know a Galaxy S5 where it was like you know what is this supposed to be different from you know it's it's you know I mean the S5 was not a great phone this is still a great phone it just doesn't have all you know the the wow factor and we talked about the wild factor a lot of times especially with Sony because son I mean you know NV say something like oh yeah the Z4 is going to be sorry zed4 or I don't know how to say it for real you know unless they do something radical like Sony doing something radical with their smartphones is like toilets suddenly flushing differently like it just doesn't you know it it's not going to happen so you know the S6 Edge is going to be the winner this year in terms of like wow factor and razzled Dazzle but that doesn't mean that the other smartphones or the other flagships are bad it just means that they're not as unique and you know uniqueness is not a a it's certainly you know part of what makes a device good but it's not like the 100% contributing factor of whether or not device is going to be good or not you know yeah perhaps so I love the analogy with toilets that was an interesting way to put it like let's face it son's Mobile division's going down there anyway well talk toilet what what are you all hoing we had a whole freaking podcast where we all agreed to that we really did but then now we the Leakes of the Z4 or the Z coming out you know and you know they're they're not they're not going in the toilet per se but I guess they're they're making it clear that with a with a halfe release cycle they know that they're not going to necessarily keep up with the the latest and greatest that's out there um I would stop short of saying that they are in the toilet um I just thought it was I just thought it was funny that you know you could get a new model toilet and then the the the company is saying stuff that's new about it when there really isn't look it's a bedet now like yeah isn't that like kind of like exactly it's it's like the the S6 Edge is like the toilet with the seat warmer whereas the hc19 is the toilet that flushes and it's like at the end of the day they are both freaking toilets they both freaking flush and at the you know after 5 minutes of sitting on one like you're going to notice the seat warmer anyway so Joe Joe's thought a lot about this apparently I have not actually so so we're we're we're so we're essentially establishing what a um what what a flagship is especially since we have some of the phones that have come out already uh gushy and feisty um have you guys had any time with the with the flagships that are out now I know gushy you had some time with the glex 2 when we were out at CES but with the S6 and the M9 have you guys spent any time with those phones yet I have you have okay uh which ones uh all of them now so okay yep so what what what are your thoughts on how the flagship game is working here because where I want to go from here is we're establishing what a flagship is but then the much more loaded question coming after that is what exactly establishes a mid-range products and that's something we're going to get into in a sec to me um I uh I agree with narave I'm not impressed by the M9 I mean it's not that it's a bad phone it's not a bad phone per se it's just not what I would expect from a flagship to me it feels more like a mid-ranger honestly okay um it just I guess I kind of think that uh you know Flagship is they're throwing everything that they possibly can especially now that which we can we'll talk about later but now that the Gap has lessened and you're seeing you know you're seeing quad cores and even you know you're starting to even see uh 1080p resolutions in the mid-range and now that you're seeing all of this uh the Gap has lessened so much that the flagships need to raise up the bar and I think Samsung did a great job with that but HTC the specs that it brings to the table we're seeing from some mid-range other than maybe the Snapdragon you know 810 you know and so I guess I just feel like the M9 hasn't done enough to raise that bar and I'm not for sure how the Z4 rumors claim that it's going to have an all metal body um we weren't confident enough on that rumor to post about it on our site but that is the the going rumor and supposedly it could have a uh which I don't know if this would make even sense but supposedly it will have a fingerprint scanner in the power button I don't know how that would work but that's what supposedly they're it's going to be a humongous power button I know that's what I was thinking it's like I don't know how the heck they would even pull that off but uh it was a semi credible leaker so I'm not going to get into a whole lot but uh so there's that and then the LG G4 um I'm excited about it but I'm not for sure if I personally like the leather look I mean I think it's to each their own I'm not necessarily impressed by the look but I know there are people who enjoy that um but I don't know I guess the the point is that uh I feel that a flagships definition is something that goes above and beyond and they need to set themselves apart whether that's design whether that's you know Hardware is harder to set yourself apart from anymore is the thing is I just don't think Hardware is where it is it has to pretty much be design um or software at this stage you know all right how about you feisty have you spent time with the the new flagships thus far I've touched the M9 but but that's it so far the guy at the local Fries store he uh you know he had an M9 out was willing to let me play with it however when I asked about the uh the Galaxy S6 and and the edge he's like you can have it for zero down on a 2-year contract with the carrier that you really don't want to use I'm like yeah great thanks yeah I just want to see it come on all right so um so we've we've we pretty with the new releases coming from HTC Samsung LG obviously the G4 is coming up in a couple weeks and um I'll be out there getting all of that stuff ready for uh the masses to see what that supposedly leather backing even though that was a pretty substantial leak uh is going to be like well LG has confirmed it now by the way oh they have now okay yeah they did this morning well I can't wait to see what that means this a very interesting move if there's anything I'm excited about it's more dead cow on the back of my phone can't wait for that I just the the only thing that bothers me about it does anyone else think that the stitching is odd I just don't like the stitching in the middle I doesn't look good it looks like a wallet that's what bothers me about it it's not leather that's not leather that bothers me it's the the placement of the stitching I think is what I don't like about it you going to at least it's not fake stitching like the G or like yeah like the Galaxy Note 3 with the Le back like plastic molding stitching on the side of it to make it look authentic even though there was no actual leather or stitches on the thing at all it's they yeah they officially said it's like what they called it like veggie edged I mean aged leather or something so yeah it's it is officially leather it's not it's not a pleather or anything you know it is actually legit veggie veggie what I don't know it was like veggie AG or it's the way that it was done was with I don't know that's what it said on the thing they beat the cow to death with a stock of corn like I don't know what that means I'm not for sure how that I'm not a leather expert so I'm not for sure what that means let's see yeah they said vegetable tanned there we go vegetable tanned leather cover suchy P I'm not exactly sure what that means but uh I'm looking it up I'm were uh it uh it sounded for a second there I take a wild guess that the acidity from the vegetables just stains the yeah probably so I know well that that is a thing um but it okay yeah I'm not an expert on leather so um it sounded for a second there n you wanted to chime in on the G4 so yeah I mean the G4 I the G3 was probably one of my favorite devices I liked it apart from little bits and Bobs but there's something about that leak design that just I mean the leather's just an accessory it's one option but I think that just the fact that they' put that leather leak out there or is leaked out there and I've got very kind of My Views are that companies leak pretty much everything themselves whether they like to admit it or not the fact that they put that leather out there from what I saw it's already put a lot of people off it even though it's just to back cover yeah exactly it's uh I I really don't know what to expect from it because it's I do applaud them though I mean they haven't confirmed it but if you look at the early leaked images there appears to be at least three models that still have a plastic back so if you don't like the leather at least you have an option you know well then the LG is why why why was that the leak then that's what I was asking but also the is is it almost as if LG is trying to go motomaker in a way or something like that like is there going to be a wooden back or something like that well I found it yeah I found it interesting that the word choices I mean granted yes it is technically a cover but they didn't say in their official confirmation they said it has a leather cover they didn't you know and I you could interpret that as maybe it comes with plastic but you have the options of buying Le you know the way that they they worded it it's hard to say if it actually comes with it or not I can just I can just already imagine having a leatherbound phone in my pocket and there's going to be just that if let's say I'm wearing like a pair of tight jeans that that one section on my thigh is going to be sweaty as hell like I can't I'm not looking forward to that at all but okay we have um so we have established what Flagship basically means to us but we're going to get back to gush's point that the M9 might not necessarily feel Flagship it might feel closer to mid-range but I wanted to go back to our guest here in N um what constitutes a mid-range device to you and if you're able to give some actual device examples that would be great too see this is probably the topic that you could talk for 10 hours on because everyone's going to have different views but my opinion is that a mid-range is determined by price M mhm to kind of give it some context because you get mid-range devices that you may classify mid-range such as I don't know let's take one of the minis as an example um I think S5 Mini or an S4 Mini sorry that that launched and it was like it was only 50 Quid cheaper than the normal one but the specs were stuff you might find on a 150 phone so I kind of classify mid-range devices by price and if I was going to talk about what classifies like the best mid-range is the ones that bring Flagship experiences it doesn't need to be Flagship specs it just needs to be a flagship experience if you take like the xeria Z3 Compact and you took the xeria Z3 the Z3 compact B the exact same experience but to a lower price point and it was the mid-ranger a lot of people preferred it to the actual Z3 itself but it wasn't it's an example the other kind of mid-range I probably think about I like the hon phones or Huawei even like the likes of OnePlus One I would always I'd consider that as a flagship device based on the specs but because of where they're pricing it to kind of who they're targeting the the mid the ideal mid-range is one that kind of brings the flagship specs to a mid-range price point but is targeted the main consumers the ones who can't afford to spend £500 on a phone or in dollar 800 £100 off $800 off contract on a phone the ones who can only spend three 400 or they want maybe $50 down on a phone that kind of that's how you classify what to mid-range and if you kind of look where everyone's going it's we're seeing the flagships that are the be and Endor but then everyone seems to be kind of toying with trying to release this release a flagship or Flagship like device in the mid-range just like Google and did with the Nexus until they made the Nexus 6 and ruined everything well that's that's a good point I was thinking about price also and when you were saying that price would uh make a a mid-range I was thinking like so what is a OnePlus then is that like the mid-range killer but but it really isn't but um so yeah um it's a mixture of the two feisty where where do you where do you land on this uh this this defining of a mid-range well you know I'd like to think of it as more than just a price tag uh but it kind of is just the price tag determines what a mid-range phone is um I think there's more blur in between budget and mid-range than there is between mid-range and and Flagship at this point certainly that's changing as the the flagship sorry as the mid-ranges get more and more powerful the OnePlus One for example I mean pricewise like you guys just said we we consider it a kind of a mid-range but it certainly Flagship material in the spec sheet um so yeah you look at those specifications and and nope it was like feisty's tablet is causing some problems yep there you go there goes there goes feisty feisty feisty will be back momentarily folks after these after these brief messages all right so um yeah uh the Friday debay podcast brought to you by fly grip um the so so gushy how about how about you going and chime in there um so feisty I think is just about coming back on um are you back there feisty oops I'm back yeah sorry oh my goodness man good for it yeah I know it keeps dropping where did I where did you lose me um somewhere in oh where in um the uh the line between mid-range and Flagship was starting to blur yeah oh wow right at the beginning I rambled on for 2 minutes you guys just ignored me no Skype did no you you were talking about like the one how one the mid-range FS were getting more powerful like the OnePlus One and then that's about where you cut out oh so it was just me that was ignoring him okay nice job over there host yeah great hosting so yeah I mean really what I was saying there is uh you really just agreeing with narave and and Josh so far uh it the price is the ultimate definer for a mid-range right now but uh uh you know if you're not running the latest and best processor and maybe down to just the one or two gigabytes of RAM not running the the most amount that's currently available for flagships then you know the simple definition it's not a flagship it's mid-range but uh certainly I mean there's some budget phones that look really great as well if if you want to consider like the Moto G range uh you know performance-wise never mind the spec sheet performance- wise they're that's kind of a mid-range phone in my books but we'll stay out of budget for today we're talking Flagship I guess I would I would personally consider the Moto G more of a mid-ranger because of its experience even if its pricing is even lower yeah I was about to bring that up the the Moto G the Moto E I would consider that an example for sure yeah you know so the m e obviously being the budget phone um but then there always going to be those people out there um this is just me sort of pontificating here the the there always going to be people out there who look at a phone that is about maybe sub 400 and still say that that's too much in terms of price um you know so to to people like that I suppose they would say something like oh the Moto E is the the real mid-ranger it still provides a decent experience and then they realize they use the word decent and then um so it's um yeah price does have a lot to do with it but specifications and experience um so uh gushy you were saying that Moto G would be considered more your mid-range let's say line would it be yeah I mean I I find it interesting in a way that I guess in my mind at this point you have flagships you have mid-range then you have you shouldn't buy you know I guess you know I don't even consider budgeted category I figure at this point you know to me mid-range is isn't really it is price to an extent I guess anything but that price can can be wildly you know anywhere from 180 to like you know 400 bucks maybe you know um um to me a mid-range the only major difference anymore between a mid-range and a flat I think you know I thought it was interesting fece was saying the blur between mid between budget and mid-range I think there's a blur between all of it at this point you know budget mid-range highend you know there's the like I said you're seeing octacore and you're seeing 1080p even in you know lower priced phones at this point you're starting to and uh so uh you know I I guess I I feel like uh I would consider Moto G A mid-range phone I wouldn't yes it has a budget price but I wouldn't consider it a I guess to me when I think budget I kind of think derogatory you know it's garbage you know it can barely run you know it it has you know you can have like one app open at a time or else it will crash well yeah well which which begs the the the uh I was about to say secondary but really the third question here which is you know who exactly uh who exactly is the who actually is the person defining what is a flagship or a mid-range because we're talking people in the west right now it's all of us right now true and you know and we look at Flagship oh that's the phone that we want everyone's going to want that then mid-range oh you know that's a good choice to have and then know the budget but to people to people let's say in like developing countries it's it's a whole different scale which is what really intrigued me about this topic is you know who who so who exactly is asking cuz we have a very diverse audience in um Android authority uh and and there are plenty of people who only dream of having flagships and oh yeah and I I think if you asked a lot of these people what they consider budget I think they'd probably say sub 100 at this point you know exactly they're like oh Android one yeah exactly I think that would be budget I guess I just feel like Moto G Moto E may be budget you know it's high end you know it's a higher end of the budget Spectrum to me you know I guess I feel like once you get above you know about you know $175 let's say once you get close to 200 bucks I'd say you're mid-range you know yeah exactly and even the the the the blur and pricing oh I'm sorry Fe no no that was N I think oh was it n yeah that was me um so where does this then kind of put the likes the Chinese manufacturers who are basic where would you put shiai because I would say I've used a few of theirs and I've said but some of their I think I can't remember which one I used it was ridiculously cheap but it would offered a Moto G Style experience just not as smooth but it was well under it was like under1 Sterling well uh so it was about $120 there you go maybe less thank you for that that's a good point yeah it's definitely you know there is there like I said there's just such a blurring of the lines anymore you know it's that's why I guess I felt like you know flagships need to stand out because it's just you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a good phone anymore you know bottom line you know I mean my wife has a Moto G and it's would I use it as my daily driver probably not it's close there's just a few things that keep me from considering it you know worthwhile for me but what I recommend it to someone who isn't necessarily doesn't need a massive screen doesn't need you know isn't going to be watching videos on it much sure it's a great phone I mean she's had no issue with it whatsoever and it does everything that my NE you know I use a Nexus 5 primarily now um getting ready to replace it but uh anyway um it does everything that my phone can do and it just doesn't do it quite as well so like I said it's yeah there's definitely it's a you know it's just it makes you appreciate how far we've come though cuz there definitely was a major difference between budget mid-range and Flagship like three years ago yeah you know who remembers the Galaxy Ace yeah the Galaxy Ace that was a God that phone that phone was awesome first of all that phone had one of the most dedicated aftermarket developing communities that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime I um I used to work a lot pretty much everybody knows at this point before I worked in Android author to work at XDA as a writer and I was writing about weird ridiculous crap that they were doing with the Galaxy Ace right up until I left XDA and that was 2013 and but the the problem is you could do all sorts for the Galaxy Ace as soon as you went to turn it on it would go sorry got enough no memory yeah I'm not saying I'm not saying have problems I'm just I was just remarking on on their their aftermarket development it is really really truly impressive I think like maybe the Galaxy S3 the HTC HD2 and maybe the HTC uh Evo 4G on Sprint were the only other phones that had like just such a a huge community of people that were trying to make the phone not suck and it always it always just really impressed me all right well um to to nar's point actually um talking about the Chinese uh manufacturers you know that's that's that goes back to what I was saying earlier about how different markets have different ways of scoping these things cuz um obviously we're not we we think in terms of Moto G because we don't even have our hands on xiaomi around here you know you have to buy that via other channels like you know go on eBay or something like that and even uh even then out out in the UK you guys have Hua alwayss and we don't hear in the US which I wouldn't um apart from the PA we have Huawei and we don't because it's kind of let's put it this way the mate 7 was 6 months ago and it's still not available here oh M oh yeah that's true the p8 is going to be available here before the mate 7 is and when they when Huawei announced the mate 7 vone UK were listed as one of their partner networks it's been seven months we're still waiting well huawei's uh huawei's new uh budget phone's coming to the us though which one the snap 2 it's $180 Snapdragon 4 it's basically a Moto G you know it is it's basically a Moto G with LTE everything's a Moto G you called it but you called it budget Yeah well yeah okay okay budget mid-range I guess to me there I don't know there's a lot of blurring okay I'm sorry they're mid-range you know but uh uh it uh like sh ex I know it's uh it is identical to the Moto G uh spec-wise except for uh I believe LTE is about the only major difference uh I think its display is not as good it's the same resolution but it's it's like a TFT um you know so it's not quite as good of a display so really what I'm getting from this is uh there's really no industry standard and each manufacturer is kind of setting their own idea of budget mid and Flagship yeah and that was actually something U I wanted to talk about for a second yeah um I've been leten you guys talk about you know like a lot of what you guys are saying is like really existential like you know like oh is the exper you know the experience of the 1 M9 makes it feel like a you know a a mid-range phone but then you know the experience you know uh when I look at something like that the question I always ask is what are the corners that they're cutting and the thing is is that you know you can add that up in almost every instance and see like literally where the price goes like doesn't the Moto G have like a Snapdragon S4 or Snapdragon 400 or a 410 or something like that it was S4 Pro what is it S4 Pro was that what it was back in the day it was S4 Pro in the first one yeah yeah an S4 Pro and then 400 guys we're in the 800s it was a no it was a Snapdragon 400 in both Moto GS yeah so I mean you know you have a when was the last time Snapdragon 400 was the flagship CPU right what was it like two years ago maybe longer years was never a flagship Yeah well yeah you're right but you know you look back you know like the S600 or the the Snapdragon 600 was in the 1 M uh yeah the 1 M7 and the Galaxy S4 and then you know the Moto G has the 400 so you can see you know where they cut that corner and then you know how much run have one gig you know in today's flagships they have 3 gigs of RAM so like and you know the camera is probably you know 8 megapixel from 2013 also and it's it's you know when you look at these kinds of things like you can see where they cut the corners to lower the price and I think what the real difference is from a couple of years ago is they found better Corners to cut to you know to where they don't have to you know drop down into that you know cuz you know mid-range back in the day was like you know a year and something else I guess I'm kind of going in circles I'm sorry about this guys but you know you got to think about the the differences in processing power from one year to the next for a good long time I mean we went from single core to dual core to quadcore in like what three years yeah so you know so you look back you're like all right so we're going to release a a a mid-range Flagship with last year's Flagship specs that was that's going from a dual core to a single core and then going from a quad core to a dual core and like obviously it's going to be a whole lot worse but now you know it's it's all quad cores now and we're getting into Octor now but quad cores is still great device I mean my Note 3 still runs lollipop pretty much flawlessly and it's a Snapdragon 800 you know quad core processor and that's a mid-range phone today you know based on how much you can buy it for so I think that you know that you guys have all touched on it like just like little tiny bits here and there but at the end of the day it's really is where do they cut the corners and and you know like with what and it may not even be specs in the phone it could also be something like you know um this is going to sound really terrible and I'm not going to list any examples but like you know quality assurance you know maybe quality assurance gets a little bit of a you know takes a little bit of a backseat to keep those costs down a little bit or they hire a smaller staff or they can't ramp up production as like a the OnePlus One well I say I was going to say OnePlus One for you you know yeah me they had some quality assurance issues and they've had production issues because their team is very very small and that's how they keep their costs down and I you know so I the when I think of a flagship I think of something that does doesn't cut any corners and you you look at the Galaxy S6 the S6 Edge the 1 M9 the LG G4 uh maybe hopefully the Sony Experia Z4 and you look at you know 3 gigs of RAM the most recent processing package the best screens available today um well the HTC1 was a calculated risk but they got the bigger batteries you know they're not cutting slack on the batteries they're not cutting slack on the the camera sensors now in HTC's you know against HTC here they really screwed up their software but the you know the hardware is still good like like what I'm holding in my phone or in my hand right now is a $650 phone there's no ifs ANS or buts about it it is Aluminum it's got a huge battery in it the 3 gigs the the octacore 64-bit CPU from Snapdragon you know it's got everything that a flagship should have it has the best that's available today and that's the way that I look at flagships versus mid-range you know you look at the you know the OnePlus One it had a what was in it a Snapdragon 800 or an 80 one which one again the OnePlus One eight oh eight 800 the 800 yeah right so that was you know the 801s and the 805s were already out then they were using the last year's processor so they probably cut a little bit of cost there and you know that's I think there is still a very good very solid line that you can draw between Flagship and mid-range and I think it's just once you ask the question where do they cut the corners okay you know so actually the one one the OnePlus One was a 801 now that I think about it wasn't it was 801 it was still I'm almost positive it's 8801 okay were they releasing the 805s at the time it was announced it was announced uh when it was first announced it they said 800 and then they changed their mind right before release yeah I'm almost positive of that now oh okay yeah yeah I do wasn't that like eight and a half nine months between announcement and relas hyperbole hyperbole for comedy guys I'm not actually thinking it was nine months I was expecting to hear a mic drop after Joe said all that stuff well that's the thing it's like I sat here and listen to you guys talk for like 10 minutes about it and I'm like you know you guys are all saying the exact same thing just in different words and you're not flushing it out as much cuz you like I think feisty said it at some point and then like rushy said at some point like all you guys have said it at some point I'm just kind of summing up what everybody's saying because I agree with it you know it's you know you're not going to get you know the the Galaxy S6 Edge camera on a mid-range device so obviously there is a big huge line there and you know on or on the one M9 either what's up so okay Joe I can completely get you there but hold up didn't HTC cut Corners with the 1 M9 display you said it was a calculated risk it was a calculator risk because of the battery not because of the price it's still you I mean it's only $50 or $100 less expensive than it's right it is $100 less expensive than the Galaxy S6 I just looked on Amazon it's 750 bucks for factory unlock Galaxy S6 650 bucks for factory unlocked hc19 so it's $100 cheaper but I mean it it it's AAL ated decision based on the battery because 1440p sucks up a lot of battery it wasn't like something that like oh we're trying to cut cost and cut Corners to get it out at a lower price because it you know I mean at least over here in the states everything is zero dollars down everywhere right now so okay on all right on obviously talking about where you cut Corners let's take something like an the Huawei on a six plus the specs list on that is Flagship it's got a very very good display it's completely solid it's got break it's got great I think it's uh quadcore Kieran 925 or an octacore Kieran 925 one of the two it's got 2 or 3 gig ram where have they cut corners for that because what's the which phone is it the honor 6 plus the honor honor 6 plus all right I'm going to go look this up really quick keep talking I'm I promise I promise I'm listening I just haven't seen this phone yet so I have to go look at it out of all of us only I have uh only actually nvi and I have messed with the honor 6 Plus um I I agree with you Z NV there there are it has managed to be a phone that is pretty affordable for a lot of people and yet it has the same specifications as a lot of the flagships out there and if you're comparing it to the M9 yeah on paper it does definitely sound like it's kind of keeping up with the M9 which is considered a flagship high-end uh let's say expensive device well here's the thing I'm looking at here what the hell is high silicon Karen okay so high silicon curan is Josh you okay High silicon curan processor is basically to Huawei what exos is to um Samsung it's their in-house made processing system processing um package I should say and to that point it works wonderfully it's so good and yeah it's I've been impressed by it with the mate 7 the mate 7 fls I mean if you I've been playing with the p8 and wow the kir 930 935 depending on the version is outstanding to the point where although Huawei kind of IM UI is probably slightly heavier and clunkier than senses the p8's a lot faster than my M9 I can see where Joe I can see where Joe's coming from though because we have so many snapdragons in America that when you see anything different like Media Tech what the hell is Media Tech like well I know no it's the thing no I know what mediatech is and EOS I know what all of them are I've just never heard of high silicon until today yeah it's Hua that's that's probably the one thing they don't have to Outsource their chips you know to to another company so they get to cut prices a little bit that way they you know there's also that thing you guys remember that the nex's devices were sold under cost in order to gain market share right like you guys remember that or they were trying to promote the play store or something like that they were trying to make the Nexus devices super cheap to encourage other people to sell cheap and I I remember there was a big it was a big thing about it the the uh the the Nexus 4 was sold under cost so that people would buy it well you could say the same thing about the OnePlus One also they they they sold it both like way below what you would expect that phone to be just so they can get you know recognition and yeah like you said that's probably it they're probably they're either taking a hit to it or you know they were taking advantage of the fact that all the stuff was done inhouse I mean you don't have to Outsource the stuff you know distribution is a little bit easier you know getting all the parts together um you know I and another thing you know first of all I don't think anyone should be having any software discussions of any kind until Android fixes the memory bug absolutely none I will not hear it no offense no offense I'm not saying anybody stupid or anyone's an idiot or anything I just simply refuse to talk about any software optimi optimizations any how software Acts or anything like that until my system stops taking up 1.1 GB of RAM for no freaking reason and that is Android and Google's fault not the 1 M9 not any other device not any manufacturer that is Android's problem so until Android fixes Android's problem I don't really want to hear about well you know the software runs better because you know it's it's a matter of if the if Android is taking up so much RAM that the stuff that's already installed on the device can't run then it's not really that stuff's fault you know that's why the that's why Samsung started putting uh 3 gigs of ram in their Galaxy Note devices because Spen took up extra Ram it wasn't for performance it was because they had extra software extra bloat that needed to run and in this case I mean Android these days is heavier than TouchWiz so I mean you know if if the if the Huawei you know thing is using up less Ram than senses then yeah it's going to be a little bit more stuttery on the 1 M9 it's just going to happen I've noticed it too so this is what so this is what Joe's like after midnight after watch after getting riled up by a hockey game I know he's been really uh you've been on it brother that's he has been well see that's the thing so much so much so much of our conversations are so philosophical like how does the device feel and you know how well does it work in your day-to-day activi ities you know depending on whether you watch videos or play video game you know the fact of the matter is if software were absolutely perfect you know You' probably not see too much of a difference and the software isn't perfect and for once it's not the fault of the O and that's something that really gets on my nerves because like for years you know for years and years and years OEM skins were given the worst rap and you know they've all been you know streamlining their stuff you know this year's touch wids is like what the best touch WID touch whiz of all time right yes the best touch wedgie ever you know since you know since de bloated a few years ago and all that jazz like OEM Skins are getting smaller and smaller and smaller and better and better and better but now Android screwed up Royal and it's just like the idea like hearing something like you know well HTC Sense is you know bloaty and bad no it's not no it is not HTC Sense is not bloaty and bad at all it's Android screwing up the works this time well I agree with you about sense not being bloaty I've got gree as well cuz as much as it sounds like I hate the M9 and would like to throw it off a bridge I love sense yeah I think it's still by far probably one of the best Android interfaces hell I've been using S since the HTC HD2 Windows mobile that's how back I that's how much I like HTC's interface and it gets better and better every single year yeah I want to so I completely agree that sense is kind of like up there with the best interfaces on any device whatsoever yeah I I'm not saying anyone doesn't like anything or anything like that it's just it's frustrating to hear you know like you know oh you know this device lags this device stutters like you know I got to think of a different way to phrase this but um it's it would just be it's impossible it is impossible to comment on the experience of any device running Android 5.0 or 5.1 right now it is impossible because Android is broken currently it is broken toen and there is no denying that the memory bug is right there you can Google search it right now and find evidence of its existence in both versions until 5.2 or 5.1.1 comes out and that memory bug is fixed and these flagships are updated to that so that the memory management is actually functional I think it's really unfair to compare experiences because right now KitKat has the superior experience right now guys that's the long I mean I can't if I could run KitKat on my one M9 I'd be freaking running KitKat on my 1 M9 cuz I I mean I hate lollipop on this phone right now and and I think that that I I think that's part of the thing that makes because I mean I agree it feels like a mid-range phone sometimes but that's why it's because the software is so unoptimized right now that it's it's causing little blips in like my applications and it's just it's frustrating it really is let me tell you what happened to me here the other day with this Moto G it's got 5 502 installed and uh you know it doesn't stutter very much talking about that experience but I tried to make a phone call yeah I I I couldn't get through it just it kept crashing the phone I these are phones first right not computers first I could not make a phone call all right so it it's sounding to me Joe that okay so oh so back to our question yeah we never did yeah we've talked yeah we've danced around it we haven't even I wanted to make sure we covered all of our bases and Joe definitely made sure of that and which is which is great I'm I'm just I'm just uh I'm just drinking your chain over there brother um so uh Joe on the question of um are flagships still worth it if the mid-range game is getting a lot better it's sounding to me especially since you're an owner of an M9 and despite your gripes about the M9 experience at the moment uh would it be safe to say that you would still prefer the flagship lines because of what the mid-range may or may not be able to offer we have reached the point where the answer to that question is exact the same as it is in the laptop Market do you need a $2,000 Alienware laptop no then don't get one you know it's same thing with Flagship phones these days if you don't need something you know with the eight cores and the three gigs if you need something to just search Facebook and you know calls people well you don't get a Modo G or you'll end up like feisty but um I know can't make a call for goodness sake but you know you know no we're getting to that point where you don't need it anymore I mean you know I can render video and do my job on a $600 $700 laptop these days I don't need the $1,500 $2,000 razor Asus Rog Flagship you know Alienware Laptops and it's the same thing with smartphones I'm not so high up you know on my HTC1 M9 love that that I say that people absolutely need to buy these things they don't you know you can totally get away with getting a mid-range phone and have a totally great experience but just realize that some you know a corner was cut to get to that price point and it's exactly the same thing with laptops you get a $700 laptop you get a you know a GTX 660m with uh probably an ivybridge i7 processor no man integrated Graphics that's what you're going to get that's that's actually a good point not necessarily but that's a discussion for the but you know if you're playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft like you're ever going to freaking notice you just have to turn the graphics down to medium you'll never know you can still render videos on a 660m I used to do it all the time time but you know the people who benefit from something as powerful as a flagship phone or a flagship you know laptop are power users are the people who are going to be pushing this phone all day and night doing all kinds of different stuff and I mean let's face facts you know the way things are I mean people just don't need that that much anymore well how about where you were going earlier about build quality the aluminum slab sitting in your hand right now it would would it be uh would it be safe would it be would it iice to say that people who really want that particular aspect but they don't need the rest would that justify someone going for a flagship over a mid-range cuz are there any mid-range devices that are offering that kind of design feel I'm thinking about that right now and I'm sure that there are like I'm sure that there are some um the uh xeria Z3 compact right I've gotten my hands on thatone I mean that that the build quality on that is fantastic MH um I mean the glass back I don't like glass backs you know because I'm I Dro things on carpeted floors and my my uh Nexus 4 shattered being dropped on carpet the back did so I don't like glass backs anymore but uh you know I mean there are mid-range flagships that have decent build quality I just don't think you're going to get I'm going to sound like such a shill right now but HTC is not the only one that does this you know a a phone that's been essentially shaved out of a single block of aluminum you know you don't you don't get to say phrases like that she seem paying you by the way well the iPhone's the same way isn't it isn't the iPhone machine out of a single block of aluminum it's just all buzzwords honestly like I mean still I mean it's not like um you know I mean the Galaxy S six you know it's the same thing isn't like it's the whole the frame is entirely aluminum with like a piece of glass shoved in the back of it um you know mean these are you know this required some effort to build whereas you know you look at like a Nexus 5 Nexus 5 was a slab of plastic you know I'm holding one in my hand it's a slab of plastic with a spray rubber coating on the back of it essentially you know this phone was did not take a lot of effort to make and you can feel it when you pick it up like it feels like a hollow little phone you know and you can see hold on I remember you did didn't you do a drop test on an Nexus 5 and it broke so bad you could see the circuit board we don't talk about that cuz I did it in I did it in front of the Android statues in San Francisco yeah Reon why I remember it cuz like you dropped the phone there and it's like I remember everyone was like sacr this is sacrilege yeah you could see you could see the yellow circuit board on the back and like it's like that's obviously where they cut the corner that and the camera and the battery yeah you know we're really lucky that we're using Skype for this call because with the many things we've said about Google and lollipop and the fact that I dropped the Nexus 5 the days after it came out at the Google headquarters if we were using Hangouts we we would have been cut off like right then and there but yeah you you were saying Joe but no you can have a great experience you just you know I'm not saying you can't have a great experience I'm just saying that there were Corners cut to get it down that low sure and as long as you understand that and you you know because you you can cut you can get different Corners cut depending on who you go with you know you get the xeria Z3 compact you're not compromising build quality you're probably compromising something else you know but display go ahead n it was sorry I was just saying on the Z3 compat it will be just the display 70 instead of 10 so they played literally like one penny for that because they're just trying to get them out of the warehouses at this point but you know you so you know you sacrifice a little bit of screen you get a better b or you get a better um well battery and better build quality or you can have the up-to-date specs and maybe have a lesser battery lesser screen or lesser camera you know like you just have to know what you're getting yourself into and you can have you know I don't use a camera on a smartphone hard ever so this the camera issues on every phone I've ever owned doesn't apply to me I don't care see I'm glad you brought that up because I I'll go ahead and answer the question right now is I don't think that like especially with the new crop of flagships that are coming out now I do think that there's a distance again between the flagships and the mid-ranges primarily because I am that kind of user I need a great camera I went to Seattle for a few days this past weekend and as I'm sure people people have seen in the camera shootout for the S6 that I put out and I brought both of my production cameras with me my GH4 my gx7 I brought both of them with me expecting to take pictures everywhere and on that first night my uh my buddy who we were staying with brought us out to Pike Place Market and I didn't have any time to grab my cameras they were still in my luggage I just had my S6 Edge on me and I just started using that it was on that day that I realized I don't need to bring my cameras with me everywhere all the time anymore and that is just simply an experience that even in the in the flagship game I can only get on an S6 because uh Lord knows what what's going on with the M9 um software upgrades whatever it camera just doesn't do it for me uh same thing with the glex 2 the G3 and the G3 they they're kind of there they're they're not too far away it's laser guided autofocus is is actually really great but in terms of quality I I need my S6 Edge now and you just won't be able to get anything like that in the mid-range Market I do think that especially if you look at it in a particular lens no pun intended it's going to have that that discrepancy and that that that Gap is is widening I don't I I love the mid-range game don't get me wrong I but but I I understand the mid-range game in terms of other people I'm very empathetic to the people who need to spend less on the phone uh but for for the flagship game oh man like we're we're we're we're kind of at a Crossroads now there's this there's this Evolution that I feel like is happening this year and I can't wait to see what the G4 does despite its weird looking um leather back that looks like a crotch I'm just going to say yeah but uh yeah and then the Z 4 but I was going to move over to naravi anyway so the uh uh what were you going to say uh how would you answer this question or oh yeah I was actually just trying to come in and answer this because I was I was going to talk about firstly on your point of cameras it's kind of off topic but I did warn you in advance that I ramble for England pretty much um probably the note for is when smartphone cameras finally became good enough to use anywhere and then the S6 has kind of taken it cuz I've i' probably only ever taken 100 pictures across in four years on a DSLR like out and about I'm one of these people who shoots on his phone and only on his phone because you know why the hell not it's the best camera is the one you have on you mm and that's obviously what smartphones all for answering this question going back to kind of the 1m9 obviously we they haven't done a mini version this year but in previous years you could have got the HTC 1 mini which bought the same design but completely tanked on the specs I think was it the first one mini that had a q like QHD not Quad HD but quarter HD display yeah I think it was it something 60 good cheaper than the original yeah I remember that it was the 1 M7 mini if I'm not mistaken in in in their defense that was back before oems understood how to do that you know you know CU there was a point with the from the MX 2013 on forward oem's finally figured out how to do a mini mid-range kind of phone without screwing everything up so everything before that I kind of give it a wash you know just like all right that was a learning experience you guys did it wrong you no but no you're totally right that phone sucked balls like I'm not saying it didn't that phone was freaking garbage but just you know I selling phones back in that day and um I remember selling about five and four of them didn't work before they even left the shop oh no oh my goodness so that means you technically sold nine basically basically yeah and then a couple more came back as well okay so did you have more in R oh oh no sorry I was just that was me all right so um let's move over to feisty then um how would you answer this question on uh on flagships and mid-ranges uh cuz you're well you just gave us a story about the Moto G not really doing it for you so uh where where would you stand then on the mid-range SL Flagship battle Yeah know there's two kind of ways of looking at this I absolutely believe in budget SL midrange devices um but you guys already know I've got six basically budget phones sitting here on the desk um but the reason that I have them the reason that I want them I almost said need them is for specific reasons I mean one of them is purely being used as an MP3 player which I mean I bought it for $20 an MP3 player is $20 you know the doesn't make much of a difference so uh if you have those sorts of needs or you you can split up your devices for single purposes or or you know just a few purposes per you know maybe you have one that's dedicated to the duck in your car you know it's a a dash cam kind of thing or music player MP3 is obviously you know or just one phone specifically that uh maybe is waterprof and you take it swimming you know it in these particular cases the mid-range even the budget ranges I think are are Priceless but exactly what you said uh all I've got is these mid and budget range phones I tried to do something with it something legitimate with it and it completely failed me so I really I mean I'm shopping for a flagship level phone right now um the M9 I'm not sold on it uh the the G6 is as well I just uh uh so I'm really hoping I don't know about the LG but uh I think I'm waiting to see what the Sony's got the Z4 or Z4 I think that you know right now I'm I'm holding out to see what they bring to the table did you say G G6 earlier just trying yeah that's what I thought I was going to Galaxy S6 I'm sorry G6 it's not as late here but I'm I'm tired feisty's been holding out on us man he's got the G6 already the G6 yeah yeah I'm mumbling through I apologize one day we're going to do a podcast like early in the morning and you know what it might actually help uh narave in particular if you'll be able to do a podcast in the afternoon rather than what is it now almost 6 o' for you it's quter to 6 but yeah sure guys listen if you want to do one early in the morning for you guys I am super happy with that for sure hey you know what meet me meet too guys it's approaching last call here so well it's interesting because uh whenever we did the schedu I mean we're up to what episode 12 13 now like we always we always just default to going at night here in the US I'm totally okay with it but I'm just okay um all right what happens I ramble on for 17 minutes at a time sorry about that guy about lol about lollipop about how much lollipop sucks and I'm fed up with it now I imagine fed up with lollipop just imagine Joe going doing something very random during his day and you sees like a lollipop on a table he just smashes it it's like damn you lollipop all right so now we have gushy um gushy where do you stand on uh Flagship in mid-range so actually you know I I agree with you that the I think 2015 is just an exciting year period for all of the sides of it I mean I've seen some really exciting you know mid-range devices too and I'm really interested to see we're seeing a lot of growth of devices that don't quite fit the mid-range definition but don't quite fit the flagship definition either um you know the OnePlus you know OnePlus 2 I'm sure will be along that line um LV you know uh they're having their new super phones as they call them and those look really impressive Snapdragon 810 yeah they call them the super 10 Snapdragon 810 um you know uh you know all the high-end specs you would expect from a flagship but and they're going to be coming to the US supposedly and uh they're aiming for like a what $400 $500 price tag um you know and you're seeing uh the Zen phone 4 I mean four I'm sorry sorry Zen phone 2 Zen phone 2 you know and uh that's an impressive phone right there I'm I'm I haven't had the opportunity to mess with it yet but just watching lawn's review and just doing my research on it um I actually have considered buying one as one of my main phones I you know just because uh I support I I want to support growth in the mid-range because I think it's uh I think it's important that more people be able to afford smartphones and be able to you know I think it's I want to be able to what's that sorry gry go on no it's all right what's up R I was going to say do you think we're at a stage where it's no longer just your budget mid-range and Flagship do we need a level in between budget and mid-range and another level between mid-range and Flagship I think we I think we kind of do it's just it's hard to uh it's hard to define the line I think we already do I mean cuz like I said I consider the Moto G A mid-range but then the Zen phone 2 is a mid-range yet the difference in specs is pretty substantial you know why don't we just move over to like how we do it in taxes in the US we have upper class upper middle class middle class middle lower class lower class someone salty about paying taxes the other day poor poor homeless and then Joe Hy so kidding guys I'm kidding you bring up the you bring up the zenone 2 which I thought was a good uh I I had been thinking about the whole time we were doing this like um Asus is an interesting company any where it seems as if the phones now not really counting the pad phone and the Zen phone Zoom which could be considered Fringe products but they're mid they're actual like real top like they're their their flagship phone let's let's differentiate between Flagship and high-end at this point yeah the it's the Zen phone 2 is considered their Flagship it's just not what we would consider a flagship but it's close I mean performance- wise I mean 4 GB of RAM is kind of hard to beat I know right yeah personally would love to see what that Zen phone Zoom is like and I'm still I I hope one day I'll be able to pick up that Panasonic Lumix phone like I I yeah I know you were it's the hardest phone to get oh you have it there H we have it here and it's £ 799 Sterling I know one person I know two people have bought them they're both the same person and they bought them twice and got rid of them within about an hour have you heard any uh like real world reactions to like how it works in in in daily usage or what um not really I think the common consensus is the camera is incredible the rest isn't oh I was kind of expecting that to be honest um but yeah to that point I mean there there's another whole different Market that we could talk about in a different podcast is you know the the the The Fringe products the uh the the Maxes of the world or the zooms or the Lumix camera phones of the world um but yeah gushy you were did I didn't catch it if you finished your point on uh on our question here um well basically uh summing up actually a lot of what's been said there are a lot of great phones out there um like I said I've actually I'm I'm at the point where I'm ready to buy a new phone and I haven't decided I've actually not for sure if I'm going to stay with a flagship I've like the Zen phone 2 impresses me and I I may end up granted I think that the 4 GB model is still going to be $400 or so so it's not it's like it's not quite mid-range and it's not quite Flagship in the pricing cuz I mean if you look at like LG they're their pricing for their flagships at this point are only around 500 or so so you know I don't know about the G4 who knows that could go more expensive but I doubt it I have a feeling the G4 will be around $500 to $600 somewhere in there um and so uh do people need you know down to the actual question do people need flagships anymore it comes down to you know what Joe said in a way I mean do you mind those cut Corners I mean and it's true they're all having cut Corners I mean the the uh Zen phone too uh it has an Intel processor which I don't mind Intel processors but I know a lot of people consider that right there a deal breaker you know in the mobile world and uh it also the design I mean it's it's an attractive looking mid-ranger but it's I don't know if I would call it unique either it's you know basically they took the uh LG you know G design uh from the G2 G3 and then they put the power button on top which is a weird placement and so basically they kind of just bastardize different elements from other you know you know and which is usually what the uh what the you know what companies do in the mid-range or in China too for that matter which this isn't a Chinese phone but you know my point is basically you're not going to get a you're not going to get a high-end design you're going to be missing out on a few small specs but if you're willing to if you're okay to live with that then yeah there's no point in getting a flagship uh a lot of the reason to get Flagship at this point is um for uh the status of it to be honest I mean you know to you're nerd cred basically you know that's a big reason to do it at this point I I mean yeah there are other reasons I I actually agree with you Josh that uh that if you're into camera experience on your phone yeah you're not going to get it on a mid-ranger that's just a fact to me that that that's what that that's the line really you know see to me though coming from a Nexus 5 anything's an improvement you know I could go to a mid-ranger and I like this camera is awesome you know so cuz I have a Nexus 5 which has a pretty sure you go back to a flip phone and be like this camera is awesome and we'd all be like oh gushy oh gushy you just don't know but you know um so yeah I mean but I do think that uh the answer to this question there is no cut you know there is no you know the answer is very personal depending on who you ask and uh I would say it's very Regional too you know well for us you know for a lot of people in markets where you know Emerging Markets Etc you know where the you know for in the US let's be honest I mean the difference for us to raise you know $300 as opposed to us raising 600 probably isn't a big deal to us but a $3 $400 price difference to someone in a developing country or an Emerging Market you want to call it um that's a huge deal you know yeah that's that's always where I'm going to go when it comes to questions like this is I'm always going to think about like my relatives in the Philippines and I've said this a couple of times on the podcast before but like you know my dad goes back to Philippines and brings back phones that we don't use anymore just for the people that he knows back there so when I think about mid-range devices in that sense I'm like oh yeah mid-range devices are really closing the Gap that's amazing you know and I can't wait to see you know all of my friends and relatives back in the Philippines actually using U these phones you know and having the kinds of experiences that I can have on a flagship maybe just a little bit lesser you know but but still you know they'll be they'll have their foot in the door and that's all that they need really but yeah if you don't have a lot of money you know whether you live in a country where you just don't make as much or you just don't make as much wherever you live uh is it worth it when you you know no it's not in my opinion if you have money to burn sure yeah there's there's benefits I mean there's obvious benefits design you know there's specs there's obvious benefits but if money's tight no save your money you know we're all that's how I look at it anyway you know yeah exactly you know I have I have two kids and I have a lot of so so to me I uh that's the reason I live with meus 5 is I got a flagship like I mean it was a flagship device but I got a flagship like experience but it wasn't expensive and uh you know yes I could afford a flagship device but I would rather spend that money on you know things for my kids or vacation or you know so it just depends on what your priorities are bottom line you know gish's humble bragging right now is no I'm just saying yeah i' like to ask one question when you guys are ready yeah sure it kind of backtracks a little bit here in the topic of you know what is mid-range what is Flagship how much weight do you guys put on benchmarks like n22 benchmarks and stuff myself personally it's an afterthought but what do you guys think I I feel the same way especially in the flagship game there there's really little that like if we were to put into our reviews um listen listen lists of benchmarking uh personally I don't think that the common consumer which is who we mostly cater to um would look at that and say that this number is higher than this number I'm going to go for the higher number when there's so much more to a phone that matters um I think that it has to do with the numbers themselves I don't think it matters because the numbers are always so close anyway I mean it's like oh just I I don't know how n22 scoring works but it's like oh this phone has a 35,000 and this phone has a 35,000 and2 and this phone has a 34,9 clear clearly it's lagging behind the competition guys so um like I think that if it's like a huge gigantic number of like one's you know getting the 35,000 and then another one's getting like you know 15,000 I think that matters I think that's I think that's worth looking at um but if it's you know like you know if it's really close then it no it doesn't matter at all well and the problem with benchmarking is correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not I don't put a lot of weight into benchmarking but I mean I know it's a very it's an inconsistent thing I mean you can run a benchmark multiple times and get different results within a certain variance right oh yeah well you you should be doing multiple tests on the same well yeah I suppose you'll come up with an average but I'm saying it's just I guess to me it's just I just don't think it's worth putting weight in you know that that's why I said there has to be that huge gigantic Gap there like if it's you know a couple even if it's like 30,000 to 35,000 nah don't worry about it but you know again like you know if it's something so gigantic it's like half the score like one/ third the score one quarter of the score then I'd probably look into that other device and see why it scored so low you know maybe they cut corners on the on the GPU and the CPU you know the S so you know is you know there's something going on there that's preventing that phone from doing anything you know well I know we're um pretty much at our time and this is totally um off topic but I kind of got thinking about it just watching a lot of the reviews recently that uh you know that we've been putting out and stuff and maybe it's always been this way but it seems like recently we're seeing a lot of phones that uh and you know Josh you'll be able to comment on this for sure we're seeing a lot of phones that uh we get a reput you know they get they automatically they set a reputation and the thought of a certain way and we've even seen this with SmartWatches uh and then all of a sudden it's a few updates later and they're they're way better it seems like uh we're seeing more devices that aren't optimized out of the box when they first ship of course no definitely not has that always been the case or is it just more recently now it just seems like I've been noticing it more recently it's been no more recently now because Android is messed up Josh like Josh to you I mean you think that's been a an always issue to be honest or I mean uh it's been it's been okay in the past it was more the case with some manufacturers and others but it does it does seem like that that is becoming yeah it seems like every phone that's coming out I'll like you'll see some post about oh this update's now fixed the battery issue or this update's now fixed this well this is well this is the thing that I always think of when I when I see those is just how much can you really fix with a firmware update and you know what the thing that bothers me most about it it doesn't bother me too much that the firmware updates have to happen after the launch but what bothers me is that they just kind of assume that they can fix so many things in a device that's already completely packed together you know in just a software update you know and they they promise a lot but this is the thing that pisses me off most about it is um if I'm doing a review and you know maybe maybe we have some Representatives from the companies in our ear you know um and uh you know they they're they're looking for this or that or you know they're helping test and stuff like that especially when it comes to our first looks and stuff like that when they keep telling us that we shouldn't show this or that or they would like it for us not to because there's going to be software update anyway and this is all in terms of like embargo stuff um usually um the thing that makes me mad about it is if this is the production unit just because you're going to update something later doesn't excuse how it performs now mhm and that's the part that always gets me when it comes to stuff like that uh this is something I've commented on before I don't think it was in the podcast but I think I've written pieces about it before um Android is an extreme has a has an extremely Spartan release cycle um you know you look at like everything else like everything else in technology how often do things get refreshed every single year you know like we're not getting a PS5 in this year we didn't get one last year you know um we're not getting one the year after this one you know it's it's going to be several years before the Xbox 2 and the PS5 come out and you know like you know televisions are the same way I think my I bought my tele my 1080p television like five or six years ago and 1080p televisions have made very little strides since then and you know so the way I look at it you know the I think the reason why you know cell phones and you know the Android the OS and everything it's just everything is so Spartan you know that they have you know the next version of Android is going to be out in freaking 6 months and they haven't even fixed the one that's out yet you know and HCC just finished bashing yeah well I'm I'm I'm it's a part of a larger Point gushy I know Samsung's already working on the S7 HGC is already working on the M10 LG's already LG probably hasn't is probably already working on the what is it they're releasing four this year right yeah so they're probably already working on the five like the the time frame to get these things right is so slim that you know it's inevitable that eventually you know the Shell's going to crack and you're going to have these phones that have issues out of the box and it takes the manufacturers a little while to fix them like everybody's behind schedule and I have I have long touted that Android and O should like take a year off it's like next year no flagships make us deal with it screw us the consumer you guys need to get your stuff together you know you you know fix the fragmentation a little bit fix Android a little bit make you know get these phones working and prepared and then you know next you know year it's it's so fast and it's constant I mean Samsung is not only working on the S7 they're working on the Note 5 and probably on the Note 6 right now and it's like obviously these phones are going to have issues when they come out because I mean they don't have the time anymore to to do anything about about it everybody wants it right now immediately it has to refresh every year and that's also part of the reason why I don't care that the M9 looks like the M8 and the M7 who cares it's it's still a goodlook phone it's just not new and exciting you know like they didn't have time to come up with a new design so be it you know it happens I don't know it sounds like I'm an apologist and I kind of am I guess but you know I'm siding with oems and on Google with this one like you know you have to fix this now it has to be perfect right on release day and then you know it's going to take them three or 4 months to fix all the issues with the phones that are out now and then you look at that they got 8 months to polish and you know finish everything up entirely so yeah you know it's just it's so Spartan and it's so I keep saying that word it's just it's just March forward March forward March forward March forward and you know no one wants to just stick around and fix what's wrong now it's always got to be what's next and I I think that's a lot of the reason why it's the culture of Android as a whole it's just I mean everything now is irrelevant in 8 months anyway so what do they care if the camera software is a little messed up you know well on that note I do I do believe that we have very thoroughly answered the question so those of you who have been on the poll which was our first Poll for the Friday debate podcast um hopefully you guys were able to get a lot out of this and I'm pretty sure you were able to we were able to go in a lot of different places uh not not only in terms of this question but also in terms of Joe's feelings on lollipop yes so for all of you that did not vote for us to talk about lollipop because that was an option yeah we apologize well some people in the comments that actually was uh that that was number three I think in the poll well yeah no some people in the comments were saying like I want this one this one and this one so technically they kind of got what they wanted so I think we did it well it was all over the place but we did it with all that said before I get into the wait wait what were the two things we didn't talk about what were the other two which ones the topics you mean which topics did we not discuss uh gaming and like Play Store stuff yours yours the stuff that's your domain all right great they both suck congratulations we had all five oh we didn't talk about tablets if they're worth owning and they suck too all six feisty's out now I I I disagree tablets are awesome no they are they are awesome I use my tablet like I use my tablet like four hours a day now they're freaking awesome now oh I'm playing Shadow run so much on my uh Shield right now so with all these budget phones I have to have the good tablets for screw oh no a whole new angle to this we didn't think about it's big enough so he can cuddle it in his sleep you know I love you Flagship tablet go screw yourself budget phones enter generic FL here why doesn't feisty love us oh it's too late for me guys I'm going to stop talking well with all that said uh we will continue be doing these polls uh there will be some weeks where we have uh topics that are like really set in stone especially in a couple weeks from now for example we're going to talk about our reactions to the G4 probably uh but even then we will have these ongoing polls so make sure you go to our Google+ Page and the links will be available at our androidauthority.com post for the Friday debate podcast but you can find us everywhere on the internets um I will have narave on our Android authority Friday debate post uh post Friday debate podcast post on Android authority.com so you can follow him on social media just like you can the rest of us I want to extend another thank you to narave man it is past 6:00 a.m. for you now dude you are hang in there man I know you are a you might have noticed I've been a bit quiet the last 20 minutes if it if it provides any insight I woke up at about 10 8 yesterday morning oh dear wow so what you going I would say like if you're able to get like a some some rest dude I would really recommend it I was in the nicest of ways just waiting till we finish off oh all right well narave thank God uh thank God for you coming on man we're going to we're going to uh we're going to have you on uh definitely uh up again uh pretty soon hopefully uh and if anything we'll have we'll make this a five person podcast most weeks I think that'd be pretty fun too but um as norav gets ready for his nap and then when he wakes up a few hours from now and grabs some Costa Coffee I want to go ahead and say uh thank you guys very much for listening to the Friday debay podcast by Android authority discussing topics in Android every single week as always we have our hosts here I'm Josh you have Andrew grush Jonathan Fe Joe Hindi and narave here as well how do you pronounce your last name by the way I forget um it right my last name is gondia but I figured now at the end of this podcast you know an hour and 20 minutes in it's nirav and not n oh I was following Josh's this is all Josh's fault because I heard him say I just with what he said cuz I thought great job over there host in my defense I've been calling him that ever since the day I met him and he's never told me actually thought it was n but then when you said N I just figured you were right no to be completely Fair I was talking to one of the my PR contacts a couple of days ago she's been calling me neari for about 2 and a half years so we got loads of people not all my fault okay no but honestly sirious no either of them works I'm used to both by now we spent days together with uh out in China and I've been I called you that every freaking day and you've never told me I know but it's more fun if I just announced it on the podcast that's you been planning this the whole time yeah yeah hey yo Josh varara you really need to stop doing and Joseph hindy Joseph hindy I've been hearing that literally my entire life that's how I know it's a telemarketer hello is this Joseph hindy go screw yourself click you can't you can't really mess you can't mess up Jonathan Feist I mean it's pretty it's it's pretty straightforward fast he's feasty Feast I got feasty a lot growing up yes absolutely dude I wish I wish pronounced Feast we call you feasty beasty or something like that Feast Beast all right so all right it's time to at it is time time for us all to go it is late for all of us and I hope you guys have thoroughly enjoyed this edition of the Friday debate podcast talking about flagships and mid-ranges whether or not they make sense with one kind of closing the gap on the other with that all being said um make sure you stay tuned for next week's episode as well and we have the poll if we're going are we going to have the poll up this week grush yeah we'll have a poll okay uh stay tuned for the poll and make sure you let us know what topic you want us to talk about next uh we're probably going to recycle whatever wasn't picked this week and then put them in for next week and just see what comes up next is that is that what we're going to do um we we'll talk about it but yeah we'll definitely have a pull out um okay I have a possible idea we'll we'll but we'll have something fun for you guys all right cool well have your voting buttons ready for the next upcoming week for the Friday debay podcast by Android authority of course your source for all things everybody together and Android Android Android man how long have we known each other and you've been saying your name wrong this whole time dud to be completely honest I did not even realize till about halfway through the call wait is he talking to me like I just can't imagine what that realization was like just sitting there like are they calling me narabi that's wrong oh no it's fine you know what honestly listen I will uh one day share with you some of the names I've been called at which point you will realize why naravi is absolutely fine fair enough\n"