The start of September noticed the Android Authority crew head to Germany for this yr’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 had been my highlights of CTIA? Let’s have a look.
CTIA as a present has been decreasing in measurement 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 client merchandise.
That being stated, there have been fairly just a few merchandise we obtained our arms on, and considered one of these was the Nextbit. We’ve already lined the cloud-first Nextbit in our full hands-on however to shortly recap, this can be a cellphone that’s generated over $1 million in backing on Kickstarter.
Led by a crew that features Tom Moss – one of many former heads of the unique Android crew 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 relatively distinctive cloud-focused proposition that’s totally different to the rest available on the market. For a full look, head over to our Nextbit Robin arms on.
From one cellphone to a different and the BLU Pure XL is unquestionably a tool that stands out from the gang. I’ve already printed my first ideas on the machine however to shortly recap, it’s BLU’s finest smartphone-to-date and the American producer has actually packed lots 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 unimaginable 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 machine.
Whereas at BLU’s sales space, we additionally obtained to take a look at one other actually attention-grabbing BLU smartphone: the vivo Air LTE, which is the world’s thinnest smartphone. At a value of $199, it has an honest specs record and it’s extra sturdy than it seems to be. For more information, head over to our impressions publish. We’ve obtained evaluations of each of BLU’s units coming within the subsequent few weeks so keep tuned!
From telephones to drones, and a key focus at CTIA was the long run bots of the sky. Though there was a whole satellite tv for pc occasion devoted to those winged bots, there have been just a few on show on the principle present flooring and the DJI Phantom undoubtedly caught my eye.
It was introduced earlier this yr and has a spread of options, together with simple 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 value of $700 to $1200, the Phantom is actually not the most cost effective drone available on the market however it actually seems to be the half, has nice dealing with and appears properly constructed. If I used to be going to purchase a drone, the DJI Phantom would most likely 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 linked wheelchair. Developed by the AT&T Foundry in partnership with Permobil (the world’s main wheelchair maker), the linked wheelchair has a spread of sensors that measure every part 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 info in an easy-to-use dashboard. The community says that the dashboard can show info for a single wheelchair or all of the wheelchairs in a fleet and might segregate information on a need-to-know foundation.
For example, sellers and upkeep corporations can entry info like wheelchair battery and restore standing (however not affected person information), whereas physicians can entry affected person information similar to quantity of motion, seat place (nice for diagnosing again pains or ulcers) and padding quantity. For physicians, the wheelchair may 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 quite a bit 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 each time they need to go someplace. The long run objective is that almost all of wheelchair customers can be utilizing considered one of 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 may have it, a brief recap of some cool merchandise we got here throughout at CTIA 2015 in Las Vegas. The occasion was actually attention-grabbing however not like different exhibits 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?
