The start of September noticed the Android Authority workforce head to Germany for this 12 months’s IFA present in Berlin and straight after that, I took to the skies to fly out to Las Vegas for CTIA 2015. Together with just a few conferences to take a look at some actually cool merchandise, the journey was my first expertise of Las Vegas, so what have been my highlights of CTIA? Let’s have a look.
CTIA as a present has been lowering in dimension over the previous few occasions however with an attendance of 35,000-45,000 folks, it’s nonetheless fairly a big present. Over the previous few editions, it’s seen a shift in direction of a extra business- and distributor-focused present which means the occasion holds comparatively little in the best way of shopper merchandise.
That being mentioned, there have been fairly just a few merchandise we received our fingers on, and one in all these was the Nextbit. We’ve already lined the cloud-first Nextbit in our full hands-on however to shortly recap, it is a telephone that’s generated over $1 million in backing on Kickstarter.
Led by a workforce that features Tom Moss – one of many former heads of the unique Android workforce at Google – and Scott Croyle – the previous design chief behind the long-lasting HTC One M7 – the Nextbit Robin has the pedigree to make a distinction available in the market. The Robin is the corporate’s first smartphone and definitely has a somewhat distinctive cloud-focused proposition that’s completely different to anything in the marketplace. For a full look, head over to our Nextbit Robin fingers on.
From one telephone to a different and the BLU Pure XL is certainly a tool that stands out from the group. I’ve already printed my first ideas on the system however to shortly recap, it’s BLU’s greatest smartphone-to-date and the American producer has definitely packed a number of punch inside a smartphone that prices simply $350 unlocked.
The specs record is huge and features a 6.0-inch Quad HD Tremendous AMOLED show (which is implausible), a MediaTek Helio X10 processor, 64GB inner storage, a fingerprint sensor, 3GB RAM and a 24MP rear digital camera. It provides distinctive worth for cash and whereas it’s going up in opposition to some unbelievable competitors within the $350 bracket, we wouldn’t write this smartphone off. Head over to our first impressions posts for a better take a look at BLU’s new system.
Whereas at BLU’s sales space, we additionally received to take a look at one other actually fascinating BLU smartphone: the vivo Air LTE, which is the world’s thinnest smartphone. At a price of $199, it has a good specs record and it’s extra sturdy than it seems. For more information, head over to our impressions submit. We’ve received critiques of each of BLU’s gadgets coming within the subsequent few weeks so keep tuned!
From telephones to drones, and a key focus at CTIA was the longer term bots of the sky. Though there was a complete satellite tv for pc occasion devoted to those winged bots, there have been just a few on show on the primary present ground and the DJI Phantom undoubtedly caught my eye.
It was introduced earlier this 12 months and has a spread of options, together with straightforward to make use of controls and a companion app for iOS and Android. The companion app itself is nice because it provides additional controls to the drone and when you’ve docked your smartphone into the controller, the app additionally shows a primary particular person POV feed direct from the 12MP digital camera, which provides 4K video recording.
At a price of $700 to $1200, the Phantom is definitely not the most affordable drone in the marketplace but it surely definitely seems the half, has nice dealing with and appears properly constructed. If I used to be going to purchase a drone, the DJI Phantom would in all probability get my cash (though I’ve not hung out with any of its rivals).
Now to one of many coolest merchandise I got here throughout at CTIA: the related wheelchair. Developed by the AT&T Foundry in partnership with Permobil (the world’s main wheelchair maker), the related wheelchair has a spread of sensors that measure every little thing from seat place and padding to motion and mobility.
The wheelchair comes outfitted with a SIM card and makes use of AT&T Foundry’s IoT know-how to show data in an easy-to-use dashboard. The community says that the dashboard can show data for a single wheelchair or all of the wheelchairs in a fleet and may segregate information on a need-to-know foundation.
For instance, sellers and upkeep corporations can entry data like wheelchair battery and restore standing (however not affected person information), whereas physicians can entry affected person information resembling quantity of motion, seat place (nice for diagnosing again pains or ulcers) and padding quantity. For physicians, the wheelchair may also ship notifications when the consumer stops transferring (e.g. when the wheelchair has run out of battery) and if it topples over, which makes offering care rather a lot simpler.
[related_videos title=”Live at IFA 2015:” align=”left” type=”custom” videos=”641939,640044,639843,639842″]AT&T are additionally planning to develop a collection of wheelchair-focused maps, which – utilizing crowd-sourced information and the corporate’s personal information assortment efforts – will imply that customers can plot a wheelchair-safe route at any time when they wish to go someplace. The long run aim is that almost all of wheelchair customers shall be utilizing one in all these and having seen this in motion, I can say that, if I wanted a wheelchair, that is undoubtedly one I’d wish to have.
So there you could have it, a brief recap of some cool merchandise we got here throughout at CTIA 2015 in Las Vegas. The occasion was definitely fascinating however not like different reveals we usually cowl, it was much less consumer-focused and extra designed for companies and distributors. What did you consider CTIA and the few merchandise we discovered?