In July of 2019, Asus announced its “ROG Phone II”. Making its debut on July 23 in China, it has been seen as one of, if not the most powerful smartphone to hit the Chinese Market. Co-branded with the internet company, the phone will make an international launch sometime between late-August and early September.
Why is it being called the ‘most powerful’ smartphone? Well, it has been seen to be a massive upgrade over the Asus ROG Phone I, which only had a 6″ AMOLED screen (@90hz) and used the Snapdragon 845 SoC (system on a chip) @2.96 Ghz. To put it into perspective, the Asus ROG Phone II has an outstanding 6.6″ OLED screen (@120hz) and uses a Snapdragon 855+ SoC @2.96Ghz. All these numbers may be confusing for the less tech savvy reading this, but make things simpler the 855+ SoC is much faster than the 845, and a 120hz display means that the display refreshes 120 times per second, which results in a much smoother picture.
But it is no surprise that more powerful parts usually need more power to work. A 120hz display is much more draining than the average 60hz display. To solve this Asus did a massive upgrade by including a 6000 mAh Li-Po battery (Li-Po is an abbreviation for lithium polymer). If we were to compare the Asus ROG Phone II and the iPhone XS Max, we would see that the iPhone ‘only’ has a battery capacity of 3,174 mAh.
These are all pretty good specs, but how much does it cost? The official price hasn’t been announced yet, but some say it will be around $899
Some say that the phone looks bad from the back, but the slim look and the front make up for it. It runs on Android 9.0 (Pie) using the ROG’s UI.
Since this phone hasn’t made it’s way into the market yet, there aren’t many benchmarks, so we will provide you with the ROG Phone I’s benchmarks so you can get an idea of how strong it is.
Here is one comparing 3D rendering times for the ROG Phone II and other competitors.
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This phone is great and all, but it gets even better with the things inside the box. Inside you are greeted with the phone a charging cable, and brick. Since this is a gaming phone Asus also provided a phone cooler to keep the parts inside from throttling.
The phone also comes with a docking station and a 2DS-like dual screen frame. If that isn’t enough it also has 2 joycon-like controller to attach to your phone to give it that Nintendo Switch feel.
All of the accessories you can buy separately for less than 1,000$
Special Phone Features:
Can charge 60% battery in less than 33 minutes and it can do a full charge in around 58 minutes.
Supports 30W fast charging.
Can run PUBG mobile for 7.1 hours at 60 fps.
Although it has a 120hz display, the touch sampling rate (the tracking of the movement of your finger on the screen) is 240hz
It has an IP rating of IP68, so it is dust proof and water-resistant and can survive being in 2 meter deep water for up to 30 minutes.
What the phone doesn’t have:
Sadly, this phone does not support wireless charging, but the extremely fast charging makes up for it.
Does not support 5G
Overall thoughts:
Coming in a 1,099$ this phone has many feature and is one of if not the most advanced phone hitting the market. But is it for you? Well if you want a gaming phone with a high battery and high refresh rate then you should go for it, but if you are someone that needs the 5G speed, this may not be the phone for you. It is also very pricey, but is it worth the 1,099$? Considering all the feature yes, but for that price you could get a 5G phone and one that supports wireless charging and power share. Considering all the parts that are in the phone I would say that is worth the money.
The Tesla car company, founded in 2003, currently runs on the skills and hard work of an army of researchers and engineers, managing to collect $418.6 million in the year of 2018. The car company giant, now larger than Ford, has been releasing electric cars since 2006, proving that a reliable car could be electric. For years, engineers and investors have considered the concept of a car running solely on batteries to be impossible. Experiments and technological ventures in the late 1990s to the very early 2000s have turned out to be useless other than them discovering that such a car could not travel more than a few hundred meters. Nevertheless, the idea of reducing gas emissions and saving the world’s climate fascinated scientists and entrepreneurs across the country. Especially today, this is a large-scale problem that even the United states presidential candidates of 2020 have taken into consideration. In 2010, 14% of greenhouse gas emissions came from transportation. This had caused scientists, in recent years, to try and create a way to power newly designed cars. However, around twenty years ago, and there were fewer options invented for powering transportation, and less environmental initiative for doing so, Even though, in the year 2000, almost 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were produced from transportation alone, according to the United States EPA. For those scientists, their main challenge was to more effectively use the batteries available, in order to allow the car to last a more practical distance. Then, in the year of 2003, Tesla stepped onto the arena. Two engineers combined forces, and founded an electric car company called Tesla Motors. Their names were Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
Background
Eberhard, born on may 15, 1960, spent most of his childhood in Kensington California. He studied at the University of Illinois, and got a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering in 1982. He went on to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering two years later. Aside from being the Tesla Motors co-founder he was also an electrical engineer at Wyse Technology, the vice president of Belfort Memory international, and chief engineer at Network computing Devices, this he also co-founded.
Tarpenning was born on June 1, 1964, in Sacremento, California. He, later went to the University of California, and earned himself a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 1985. To begin his career, he was employed by Textron in Saudi Arabia. For the next few years, he designed both software and firmware products for several different companies, he went on to serve as vice president of engineering at a network technology company called Packet Design.
Enentually, in 1997, they crossed paths, and co-founded an e-book site called NuvoMedia. Eberhard served as CEO, and Tarpenning led the development. In 2000, they sold it for a large sum of money, this would be the first step in their next plan, which would be to , finally, start Tesla Motors, in 2003. On top of this sum, they managed to get more funding from Elon Musk who, also agreed to be chairman, and would, much later, be CEO.
Company Growth
Elon Musk introduced another man to the team, his name was J.B. Straubel, a former worker at Stanford University, with experience in making a solar car. He volunteered to make 20,000 lithium ion batteries for the motor. Then, in January 2005, hey had finally produced their first sports car, named the Tesla Roadster. They had then found out that the Roadster could reach an unprecedented mileage of 245 miles (394km). They thought $90,000 would be a fair starting price tag. By 2006, Tesla had reached the one hundred employee mark. But as they went on with the design process, large problems quickly rose. The lithium batteries, packed closely under the hood, turned out to be dangerously flammable. During testing, some fire had made contact with them, making a surprisingly large explosion. Six Tesla engineers went to work figuring out how to arrange the batteries from spreading the flames. On top of that, their sports car hadn’t been built yet, there were parts coming in from abroad, thus some of the parts happened to have delays behind them. Elon Musk, worried, looked back on the costs, and to his shock, finding that the total cast would be more that double the original price. Even when 2008 came and went, they still hadn’t managed to sell a car. Musk was now short on money and public trust. A web site rose up, titled The Truth About Cars started, what it called the “Tesla Death Watch” Then, in late 2008, Musk took charge as the company’s CEO, and used a large amount of his own, personal money as funding. Thus, as 2009 crept in, the long awaited payoff came: Tesla had delivered 147 cars.
The Electric Car Company
Since then, Tesla released the Model S sedan to the public. In 2012, it began to be a public car company, even having its own showrooms, selling cars easily. In the year of 2015, Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization dedicated to testing products gave the Model S an unbelievable 100 out of 100 calling it “the best performing car that Consumer Reports has ever tested.” The model S, in fact, only sold for $57,000, cheap for a cutting edge technology car. Then, Musk announced the construction of the Supercharging stations, that would dot the entire country. These Supercharging stations were basically high-voltage batteries, at gas stations. In 2017, Tesla released 100,000 cars.
The Impact
Tesla’s latest car is the 2019 Tesla Model X, an SUV, costing anywhere from $81,000 -$104,990, with more on the way. To its current CEO, Elon Musk, Tesla has shown the world that a car, that runs on batteries, just as phones, computers and other small devices do, can be a practical family car that can go to grandma’s house, or can get you to the next town over for a job interview just as gasoline powered cars could. Musk’s grand vision is to replace all fossil fuel powered cars with eco-friendly cars, so that electric cars, both his and of other companies, would take over the market. To encourage this from other countries, Musk plans to eventually construct a network of charging stations throughout the globe. The race to save the earth is on, and Tesla had made a running start.
CPU: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8300H Processor @ 2.3Ghz Base Clock (Turbo up to ~4GHz)
Graphics: Intel® UHD Graphics 630
Memory: 8GB 2x4GB DDR4 @ 2666MHz
Storage: 1TB 5400RPM 2.5 SATA Solid State Hybrid Drive
Display: 15.6″ 1080p Full HD InfinityEdge Display
Price, Performance, and Portabilty
The Dell XPS 15 boasts an affordable $999 price tag*, a great price for students. With almost 12 hours of battery life and a sleek, slim form factor, students will be able to carry the laptop around all day on a single charge. The display has rich and vibrant colors and is great for everyday browsing on the internet. The laptop performs surprisingly well for a pretty thin system.
The Ports
Charging Port
2x USB 3.1 Type-A Ports
Thunderbolt 3 Port
SD Card Reader
HDMI 2.0 Port
Headset Jack
Battery Indicator w/ 5 Lights
Noble Lock Slot
The Design
The XPS 15 has a clean looking silver lid accompanied with a soft, black interior that doesn’t stand out too much. The laptop has smooth rounded corners and is almost identical to its predecessors, which isn’t a bad thing. The cover only has the glossy Dell logo, similar to the comparable MacBook Pros.
Features of The Laptop
The Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard has a shallow 0.7mm travel distance and is paired with an above-average 70g actuation force that adds a bounce to the typing experience.
The Speakers
The laptop’s bottom-mounted speakers have a relatively loud, clean audio. Songs on the laptop overall had a nice and clean sound, with the exception of high notes, where the speakers faced significant distortion.
The Webcam
With any laptop comes cons, and for the XPS 15 it’s the placement of the webcam. While I appreciate the InfinityEdge display with extremely slim bezels, Dell has to find a better place to put their webcam, currently placed directly above the hinge, and lives up to its name of the “nose cam.” Aside from that, the integrated camera captured sharp details and bright colors.
The Verdict
So you’re wondering, “Should I buy the XPS 15?” For $999, the Dell XPS 15 is attractive for students. Productivity, multi-media use, everyday browsing, it can do it all. You get an attractive, sleek looking system that gives plenty of power. The display is wonderful, the keyboard is comfortable, and if you’re able to forgive the awkward webcam placement, the Dell XPS 15 should be at the top of your list to buy.
*We reviewed the base model with all the basic specs
Social media today has become a huge impact on everyone’s lives in all age groups from adults to teens. There are many platforms for social media out there, probably more than you can name off the top of your head. The most well known of these are Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Youtube. Most people use social media just for browsing around and see what their friends or relatives are doing, but sometimes other people have other things in mind. Each age group uses it differently since there is many things you could do on social media.
Adults tend to use it in much more responsible ways compared to the younger age groups as they are usually just posting about their lives or whatever like that, but some people use it in ingenious ways like promoting their buisnesses or getting lots of followers and making people pay to put ads on their accounts as a way of making money. There are also very smart adults that are good at content creating and they decide to go the Youtube route and end up making a living out of it. Of course there are some instances where adults act like kids on social media and get very inappropriate. All in all adults are mostly responsible at using social media, but how do teens compare?
Teenagers have been known to be very hooked on to social media. In a study conducted in 2016 it was recorded that about 94% of teens with devices use social media with about 71% of those teens with more than one social media accounts. To look at the statistics click here. Even in 2016 teenagers using social media was a lot, and now with phones becoming more and more easier to afford almost all teenagers have a phone and probably at least one social media account under their name. Many however have more than one account, even I must admit that I have at least 5 accounts on a variety of social media platforms with most of them being on Instagram.
Many teens tend to use them responsibly like sharing photos or videos they have taken, talking to others, or just posting and sending funny images or “memes” around and having a good time on it in general. However there are many instances of teens using it in many bad ways. Just as social media use by teens is skyrocketing, cyberbullying is also becoming a huge problem with many teens getting depressed and some commiting suicide. Social media is just a perfect place to cyberbully as you can just make annonymous accounts and bully without revealing your identity or just straight up bullying and letting that person know who it is from. When you are doing this it just ruins social media for a person who may love using it to post memes or pictures of them. Another way they use it inappropriatly is that they can use it to spread rumors about someone from school really easily as this kid could be really popular and have many friends so it is easier to spread rumors. Some kids are just plain wild and decide to post hate messages without realizing that colleges are starting to look at your past posts and comments on your social media accounts before letting you join their college. Sometimes students have been rejected from big time colleges even if they were good students just because of one thing they posted way back in like 8th grade. Also, most teens aren’t weary of how they are sharing their personal information online as some teens have leaked their school, age, and even address online. As you can see teens aren’t always responsible sometimes endangering themselves or ruining other’s lives.
Social media is also affecting teenager’s grades in a very bad way. Grades are especially important to teenagers when colleges will most likely be looking at your grades and gpa from your teenage school years. Studies show that kids that are active on social media tend to do worse in school, ” Pupils who use Instagram and the likes a lot while studying or doing their homework, tend to perform slightly worse than other students. This form of multi-tasking thus seems to be rather distracting.”- Julius Maximilians. To read the full article click here. I, myself, am very active on social media as I spend most, if not all my free time on the vast social media platforms looking at memes and what not, but even after hours of mindless scrolling I still cannot seem to not look at it when I am doing my studies or homework for school. This has had a huge impact on my grades as I’ve noticed my grades dropping since I am always getting distracted by my social media accounts and what could be “popping” on at the moment. I’ve also asked many other students if they are distracted while doing their studies for school by social media, many agree that it is a huge problem and most say the best way to fix this distraction is by putting your phone far away from you when doing your work. Although, many people get distracted there are some out there with grades that are improving because they use social media very productively as a way to contact other classmates to discuss the work assigned or other school related topics. Of course it all varies from student to student, but in majority social media doesn’t affect students in a good way.
So far you have been reading about my thoughts and some facts about this matter, but what better way to learn about the subject than just asking teenagers who use social media themselves? I looked for teens who were willing to answer a few questions about their thoughts on social media, but one thing that all these teens have in common is that they have more than on social media accounts.
Do you think Social Media has been a good Influence on Students on Teenagers? Why?
I think social media is very dangerous, as it just really takes over the minds of young kids by putting irregular notifications to disrupt ones thought and judging ones self by how many likes or followers you have. But many people can’t and wont get rid of it cause its a way of communication, which I think is great, but for the people who are dragged down physically and mentally by social media need to stop using social media. It hurts our minds to have constant self judgement and it would really help us if we didn’t have social media- Arthur Le (@arthur.le, Instagram)
I wouldn’t necessarily say social media has influenced us teens in a good or bad way. There’s the dark side of it, where people get cyber bullied and harassed. But there’s also a good side. You can communicate with you’re friends and see what they’re up to. You can use this to keep in touch with someone you won’t be seeing for a while or talk to someone when you’re feeling down. There’s also the social media stars or influencers. They too can be good or bad. They can inspire us to chase our dreams and work until we reach them, or they can use their social clout to form a mob mentality against something that they don’t like. Social media is also a great way to see what’s going on in the world. You can check the news, get some sports info, or you can check out the newest memes. So overall social media has its ups and its downs, but how it influences you is mainly up to how you use it.- Ethan Ho
I personally think it depends on the person and how much they take people’s opinions into account.-Hannah Villaluz
As you can see the first two mention the good and the bad of social media, but especially the bad stands out because according to the third answer it all depends on the person and how they take people’s opinions in account which is almost rarely done over social media since you just type a sentence and post without thinking about the consequences unlike talking in real life where you take a moment and think about what you are going to say, being careful of the other person’s feelings and thoughts.
That was just a basic overall question about someone’s thoughts on the whole topic, but here is also an interview with an avid social media user with none other then one of our very own authors, Arthur Le. In this interview we will be going in much deeper with the more specific questions.
Trung: What social media platforms do you use?
Arthur: Instagram, Facebook, Youtube.
Trung: Out of the ones you have named which one do you use the most?
Arthur: Youtube, I spent 5 hours on it yesterday.
Trung: Why do you think this is your most used one?
Arthur: Because there are more options that I can choose to entertain me, and i just think that there’s a lot you can explore on Youtube and that keeps you on the site.
Trung: Do you think social media is affecting your grades? If so why might this be?
Arthur: I think it was, I just got so invested in social media that I was just living to watch Youtube or look on Instagram, I was easily distracted and that brought my grades down a lot, and made me depressed for a little during 7th grade ( I went to the doctors and they said I had mild depression)
Trung: Do you have any ideas or ways that would help a person like me be less addicted to social media?
Arthur: Set up reminders to limit your use, and you should add stakes to it, like if you dont get off you have to pay your brother 5 bucks ( you can ask your brother to keep an eye on you)
End of Interview
As you can see Arthur has been a victim of social media addiction before and is working very hard to limit his social media use. He explained how his grades dropped significantly since he was always getting distracted by social media. He also mentions how he had mild depression due to the fact that during his addiction he felt like the only reason he wakes up and lives is to look at social media.
Social media has been seen as an amazing place to post pictures, find pictures and talk to other, but what people don’t realize that it is also a very dark place that many people can’t see right away. One example of this is that it causes depression either from what Arthur has mentioned above or getting bullied by your friends or strangers online. Which leads to another problem which is cyberbullying. As the rates of social media use is increasing, cyberbullying also increases and this has lead to things like suicide.
All in all, I personally think that social media is a bad, almost toxic thing to teenagers as it leads to decline in grades and mental health, but there are also good things about it such as communicating and making new friends. You can take it anyway you want, it all matters on your ways of using it, but just a warning Be careful on social media.
The iPhone XR was released back in September 12, 2018 as the cheaper alternative to the iPhone XS and XS Max coming in at only a $750 starting price compared to its counterparts which start at $999 for the iPhone XS and $1,099 for the XS Max. As the cheaper phone in the lineup, it had specs that were a little worst than its more expensive counterparts, but does it still live up to its price nearly a year later?
Specs
Capacity: 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB
Screen: 6.1 Inch, Liquid Retina Display, 1792 by 828 pixel resolution at 326 pp, True Tone and 625 cd/m2 brightness
Chip: A12 Bionic Chip
Camera: 12MP Wide Angle Camera, F/1.8, Digital Zoom up to x5, Portrait Mode, Records up to 4k Video at 24fps, 30fps, and 60fps
Battery: 2,942 mAh, Qi-Wireless Charging
Ram: 3GB
Thoughts on the Specs
For an iPhone at this price range, the specs are pretty decent. The battery life on this phone is much higher than the other iPhone due to its lower pixel density screen. The screen has an edge to edge display and a notch like the iPhone XS, XS Max, and the previous generation iPhone XR. It has the A12 Bionic chip which is a very powerful chip. The most powerful one at the time it was released which is overkill for a phone. The phone has only one 12MP back camera which isn’t bad, but isn’t the best either. The Google Pixel has a much better Single Camera for taking photos compared to this. The camera is able to take Portrait Photos which used to be a luxury that only the dual lense iPhones had. The zoom isn’t very good, but it is still something. If you do choose to zoom into something very far away and take a photo it will be very pixelated and kind of unreconizable. The bezels are also noticably bigger on this than the iPhone XS and XS Max which is probably due to its much cheaper price.
Actually Using It
That was all specs and thoughts on the specs, but how does it actually fare in real life? Lets first start on the most contreversial topic when it was first released, the screen. Everyone was very mad about how the screen wasn’t even full HD when it was released, but when actually using it, you get used to it very quick and honestly I never even noticed a difference. Its all just specs on a sheet actually using it in real life is very different. I have got to say I thought the Liquid Retina Display was a going to be pretty niche as just a way to renaming an LED screen but when using it, it is very nice. The screen also get very bright, but when using it in the sunlight it isn’t bright enough to stand out, so it makes whatever you are doing on your phone much harder to do since it is hard to see anything on the screen. Also, when using this phone I noticed there was no 3D touch as to probably keep the price lower which I found pretty disappointing, but it didn’t really affect me in the end that much. Switching from an iPhone 5s to this phone which as a notch and no home button was pretty weird as first, but after a week or so of using it the notch just kind of “disappears”. I find it without the home button the phone is much quicker and easier to maneuver as opposed to having a button that can break down. It is also much easier to swipe up from the bottom and to the side as opposed to Double tapping and then swiping up to clear your recently opened. The battery life is also amazing on this phone and can actually get me through the whole day of almost constant usage pretty easily which a lot of battery left to spare. The A12 Chip is pretty powerful and pretty much crushes anything thrown at it. The phone is very snappy when I first got it. The single lense camera is actually suprisingly good. The photo I take on it are very nice. It doesn’t do too well on low light though. The portrait mode was kind of disappointing as it can only take portrait mode photos of people and not objects and even then you have to be really close to them as it doesn’t have a second lense to zoom it with. Recording on this phone was very nice. I recorded in 4k 30 fps. I think its interesting how you can record at such a high quality but you are not able to even view a video in full HD on the phone’s screen. Charging on this phone is pretty fast as it doesn’t have that big of a battery even though it lasts much longer than the iPhones with OLED screens. Coming from an iPhone 5s which was really small in size, getting used to the weird size of this phone wasn’t really that hard since it wasn’t as big a “Plus” sized phone which seems pretty hard to hold in your hand unless you have big hands and it wasn’t too small that it would look funny in your hands. I think they found a perfect found size for a phone as it isn’t hard to reach to top of your screen with you thumbs if you are were using it with one hand. Face ID on a phone at this price for Apple is very a very good feature to have as it is a very secure way of unlocking you phone as the there are many cameras used to verify it if your face and it is quick and getting much quicker with software updates. It was not be as quick as some android phones, but this is much more secure as you can’t fool it with a print out photo.
10 Months Later
When I first got this phone it was amazing and I felt like I had gotten a steal for the price it came at and all the specs it had. Many months later I have noticed some problems it has had. Some were major and some were minor problems, but there are still many amazing things about this phone. Some good things I’ve noticed about this phone 10 months later is that the A12 Bionic Chip is still snappy and there is little to no lag as far as I can tell. The camera is still good even though the portrait mode is still annoying as it can only take portrait mode photos of people, but I found the Halide camera app which lets you take portrait photos of anything and not just people. The app is amazing and has never let me down once, it is much better than the stock Apple camera app. It may be hard to get used to it first because it has so many control options. One downside of the app is that it costs $5.99 in the App store though. Now for some small changes that have happened over the time that aren’t particularly great. The battery life has decreased just a little bit even though when I check the battery health in settings it still says 100% and at the same time it has taken a longer time to fully charge the phone. I have combated this by using power brick that the iPad comes with instead since it has a higher energy output which charges the phone much faster. Sometimes the phone has crashed when opening certain apps like Instagram and Youtube which I find pretty annoying, but it isn’t a major problem. Now for some big problems that kind of get in the way of usage is that when I put it at max brightness and use for a little while the brightness would drop a noticable amount while in the settings it would still say it is at max brightness. One final problem is that sometimes a red line would go from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen for a quick second when i’m scrolling on instgram or story apps like Hoopla. This only happens on the left side of the screen about an inch in.
Is it Still Worth it?
As of right now 10 Months later the phone is still very good, but if you are thinking of buying this phone I would say wait until this year’s iPhones come out because they will probably be better than last year’s model and this year’s cheaper model will probably be around the same price of the XR when it was first released so it’s better specs but still the same price. If you for some reason perfer this phone still i’d wait because then when the next gen phones come out the price for the XR will drop and be even more affordable. Right now if you trade in an iPhone 7 plus and up you can get it for $479.
Hello! My name is Arthur Le and I am a contributing author here and I’m excited to start writing here! I am enthusiastic about writing about technological advances in this world and I hope to bring it to y’all in an entertaining way! A little bit more about me, I am a high school student who loves making and playing music, while also enjoying casual exercise, but I have never dove deeper into what made doing those things fun and easy. It’s the technology! So I have made it my mission to find out new things in the tech world and share it with you and bring you along on my learning experience. I hope you stick around to read some of our articles!
Apple has been working on one of its newest iPhones, and it has been leaked for many months now. Some leaks are fake and some are real but here is some rumors and things that we should be expecting in the new iPhone.
Picture credits: Mobile Fun
Expected Release Time and Pricing
Image Credits: @evleaks
The release will most likely be in September like all the past years and will probably be invite only. According to a Verizon calendar leak it looks like it will be released a little later this year compared to other years. As for pricing it could be the same pricing as 2018’s phones starting at $999 USD and the cheaper model coming in at around $750 USD
New Camera and Camera System
Picture Credits: Hasan Kaymak
Yes, Apple has created yet another design of their camera that is unique from other phones. This new and unique camera will feature three camera lenses, which will give you the ability to take photos from regular zoom, wide shot, and then an ultra wide shot. It will feature a camera quality of 12MP and have a 5 element lens. The camera is also thinner and does not pop out from the phone as much as the prior iphones, it also has a small piece of glass covering and containing all three camera lenses. This new iphone will also include “Smart Frame”, which is supposed to help you take better pictures by letting you take pictures that come out more clear, and by also even straightening out crooked photos. It will also supposedly take two photos, one from regular zoom, and then a wide shot, giving you more options to choose from. They will also introduce a slow motion camera on the front camera capable of capturing up to 120 fps.
Screen
Picture Credits: ConceptsiPhone
The iPhone 11 will have the same screen size as some of the past iPhones ranging from 5.8 inches 6.1 inches and 6.5 inches. The iPhone 11’s will have an OLED display with probably a smaller chin bezel than last generation’s iphones. The cheaper model will probably have a Liquid Retina screen and a slightly larger chin bezel compared to other iphone 11’s. It is also rumored that we will be getting a brand new Taptic feedback engine that will improve the haptic feedback that we get.
Face I.D.
The phone will still have face I.D using the front camera in the notch. But the fingerprint mode is yet to be confirmed. With the new iOS 13 coming out with the iphone 11 etc. the face id is going to take less time to recognize your face.
Processor and charging
Its processor is expected to be ultra fast as Apple has been working on it since the beginning of this year. It is called an A13 processor. The phone will also stick to its traditional lightning cable and introduce two way charging just like the Samsung Galaxy S10.
As you can probably tell, Apple is bringing a lot of new changes and innovations to their newest phone. Some of the things that are new on the iphone 11 have been done on other phones, like wide shot on Android phones, but Apple has sought to do better than its competitors by adding extra features. Apple has also bought Intell’s Modem Business for about a billion dollars, which will give them the ability to use a new 5G chip, which they will most likely use in future iphones (possibly this one). They will also change the mute button from going up and down from the back to the front, it will switch on and off from bottom to top ( basically it’s now going vertically up and down). Iphone 11 will also include Dual Bluetooth audio which allows you to share music between two devices at the same time.
Some Downfalls that it will Probably have
Image Credits: BGR
There has been rumors that Apple will be removing 3D touch from its next generation iPhones. It has been implemented on iPhones since the 6s making the phone more convient to use when doing certain things. They are most likely removing this to keep the prices low. Well low for Apple’s usual pricing anyways. Another issue is battery life. Apple has not been known for their phone’s having very long battery life compared to android phones. Every single year they come out with a newer more improved processing chip, but what is the point of having such a powerful chip if your phone barely or doesn’t even last you throughout the day? One final downfall it will probably have is that the whole outside of the phone is almost made exclusively of just glass which is shattered pretty easily from a drop even if it isn’t a drop from a high place. What makes this so much worse is that if you shatter the back of the new all glass back phones is that it takes almost half of the phone’s original price to just fix.
What I hope to see on the new iPhone
Image Credits: @mkbhd / instagram
For me, I prefer Android phones, but if I were to switch over to the new iPhone, I would hope that it has a comfortable feel. When I hold a phone, I don’t want to hold a cold, fragile, glass phone, I want a nice and sturdy phone. That’s kind of what got me to use Android phones because they are very sturdy in my opinion. I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks that, but I just hope they do come out with a stronger phone that won’t break when you drop it from a couple inches in the air. Also, I find iPhone cases very weird and funky to use sometimes. They feel like they limit the phone physically and alters the feeling of holding the phone.
I’ve also heard that Apple will also be using an old Apple logo from the 90’s. It’s the Apple in a rainbow color. I think this is a smart marketing move because people these days want to always go back to the 90s and 80s to feel older. Apple would be adding a nostalgia factor to its company which i think would help sell more products. But then again I’m not sure if that’s even a real thing.
In a century where last mile electric vehicles are starting to emerge there have been many companies trying to join the trend like Xiaomi, Swagtron and Meepo with their electric skateboards and scooters. Boosted, originally an electric skateboard company at heart has expanded to electric scooters. This company has been well known for their high quality skateboards and amazing customer service, but how well will their new electric scooter, the Boosted Rev, compare to other company’s scooters who have been released for about the similar specs but much much cheaper price?
Image Credits: Boosted
A Beast of a Scooter
This scooter has amazing specs as it can hit a top speed of 24mph/38kmh and climb hills up to 25% grade with ease. The battery has a suggested range of 22 miles/36 km on a single charge while riding it in eco mode while only taking 3 hours to fully charge it from 0%. It weighs 47 pounds which is a bit heavier compared to other scooters and their very own Boosted Boards, but the stem folds down to the back brakes reducing its size to make it easier(ish) to store and lug around. It has 3 brakes built in which are the back fender brakes which you step on, an electric brake which is controlled by the throttle wheel and a mechanical disk brake. When using the electric brakes it activates the regenerative braking which returns a little of the energy back to the battery. It does not return much energy but if you need to break a lot during your commute it might actually add up and give you an extra mile or so. It has a simple LED screen in between the handle bars with a single button to control the mode and the screen displays the battery life, current speed and to turn on and off the built in headlight for easier night riding. It is controlled by an easy to use throttle wheel that Boosted has custom made for this scooter and is very similar to the design of the spring loaded throttle wheel of the normal Boosted Board remote.
Image Credits: Boosted
A Joy to Ride
This Boosted product is as well built as any of their other products even though it is their first time trying to sell an electric scooter which is outside of their usual market. Unlike other scooters this was meant to be a personal vehicle unlike the bird scooters on the streets that you have to deal with the hassel of finding one and renting it. This scooter comes with big tires for ease of riding on the roads whether you have bumpy roads or not the scooter can handle it unlike skateboards which their wheels get stuck in tiny bumps and holes. This scooter has an LED screen to get an exact battery percentage and speed without having to take out your phone which distracts you from having a good time on this well built beast. It also has a much higher top speed then other scooters making it easier to keep up with traffic and get to your destination faster than on other scooters like a Xiaomi Scooter which only has a top speed of 15 mph/ 24 kmh so don’t expect to have performance like this on other scooters. With the range going as 22 miles/ 36 kilometers on a single 3 hour charge while the Xiaomi Scooter only has a range of 15 miles on a single charge even with a lower top speed. The throttle wheel to accelerate and brake is also very easy to use compared to other scooters as it is as easy as moving it forward to accelerate and moving it in reverse to go in reverse to use the electric brakes. If you are just a rider who prefers riding at night while there is no traffic there is a 400 Lumens LED headlight built in. If you are a safety freak this may be the safest electric scooter out there with 3 built in braking options just in case 1 or 2 fail on you while riding. It also comes with an app to pair with the scooter to check its battery, speed and total miles ridden over its lifetime.
Image Credits: Sam Sheffer
How does it compare to other scooters?
Here is a list of its main features compared to the features of other scooters out there.
This scooter has many amazing things to it, but like any other thing in this world it has some downfalls to it. One of the downfalls is how expensive it is. At the price of $1,599 it is a lot to pay for an electric scooter while most out there are under a grand this is way way over the price of other scooters which is probably a reason why most people aren’t buying it. Another problem this scooter is how heavy it is compared to other scooters as weighing in at 47 pounds is almost twice as much as a Xiaomi scooter. Even though the scooter can fold it doesn’t fold as flat as some others and it is really heavy so it will be hard to lug it around. Also, having huge, soft tires help with the bumps and other obstacles on the road but not having a dedicated suspension system like the Segway Scooter really make its really uncomfortable to ride in some areas like construction areas and many other types of areas in a city. One more final downfall is that since it is so big to carry around so people might just choose to lock it outside, but the problem is that this scooter is so easily reconizable that it is a expensive name brand scooter so if you lock it outside it has a high chance of being targeted by thieves and it doesn’t have a built in gps locator or remote deactivator to locate it when it is stolen.
Is the Price Tag Just Right?
The $1,599 price tag may seem pretty hefty at first but if you live in a city and rely on public transportation it will probably pay itself in about a year and a half. In Boston a monthly T-pass costs $90 per month so for 12 months that would add up to $1,080. Meaning if you switch from the T to just using the Rev you could make all the money back in around a year and half. This is also probably a more convienent way to get to where ever you may need to go too because you don’t have to worry about unexpected delays that public transportation may have. If you want to compare this to riding a Bird scooter to work everyday we have an example of how it could be a better investment too. Say for example your commute to work is 20 Miles to there and back and a Bird scooter works by taking $1 to unlock and .15 for every minute of riding. If riding at it’s max speed it should take you 1 hour and 20 minutes total to work and back which means it would cost you $13 a day and would cost you $4745 a year. As you can see the Rev pays itself off pretty quickly compared to the Bird scooters and gets you to your destination faster with its much higher top speed. If you can’t afford to pay the full price you can still opt to do monthly payment courtesy of Affirm.
Short Summary
This could possibly be the best electric scooter out there if you can afford it, but once you get over the payment this will be a joy to ride as it is both fast and long lasting compared to many other scooters out there. I’d only recommend this to people who can afford it because there just isn’t another scooter out there like it.
Picture Credits: Boosted
Read This Before Buying an Electric Scooter
Before buying an electric scooter remember to check out the laws in your city first if they allow you. After that, you will also need to check the laws to see where you can ride it because some cities don’t let you ride it on sidewalks, bike paths and public parks. When riding please use extra caution as sometimes drivers won’t see you since you aren’t in a car. While riding on the road follow the rules of the road and always wear protective gear. I will link some safety gear down below.
My name is Yassine Souabny. Today is the day I joined the blog, and I will be co-authoring with Trung, who has already posted. I hope to do so at least once a week, or so. I have experience working with mechanical technology, and have dabbled in coding. I will be using this blog to post about engineering advice, the world of engineering and I may note my own experiences right here. I am currently a high-school student interested in the world of mechanics, which has enamoured me since childhood.
If there are any questions or suggestions I will be happy to take them all. Thanks!
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