Top picks from a ho-hum 2016
Hot items include Google Pixel, eero and PlayStation VR
Samsung’s Galaxy NEW YORK Note 7 might have claimed a spot on the tastiest products to consider this holiday season — but we all know how that turned out.
After receiving high praise during its late-summer debut, the twice-recalled and ultimately discontinued phablet phone had a tendency to catch on fire.
Fortunately, the products on this list might be deemed hot for another reason. GOOGLE PIXEL. Pixels are the first phones in which Google took over all aspects of the hardware and software design, borrowing from Apple’s playbook, resulting in a superb, well-rounded smartphone. The cameras are excellent, certainly on par with the equally fine iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7 shooters.
What particularly stands out is the presence of the Google Assistant, the voice-driven, artificialintelligence-infused digital assistant. While not perfect, Assistant encourages you to have a conversation, helped out at times by contextual buttons on the screen with suggested replies.
The phone runs the latest version of Android called Nougat and also supports Google’s new mobile Daydream virtual-reality headset. A 5-inch version starts at $649; the 5.5-inch Pixel XL model starts at $769.
SONY PLAYSTATION VR. This has been a breakout year of sorts for virtual reality headgear, and choosing a winner has a lot to do with your budget and perspective.
Google brought out the aforementioned $79 Daydream, which competes most directly with Samsung’s $99.99 Gear VR, both decent solutions for folks with compatible mobile phones.
At the high-end of the VR spectrum, we saw the debuts of the ($599, or $798 with soon-to-be available Touch controllers) Oculus Rift and ($799) HTC Vive, the latter of which exploits what is known as room-scale VR.
Enter Sony PlayStation VR. At $399.99, it isn’t exactly cheap either, and that price doesn’t include the required ($59.99) camera, or the pair of motion controllers ($99.99) that you’re probably going to want. And oh yeah, you need a PlayStation 4 console as well, which starts at $299.99 before any Black Friday discounts. But many already have the console, and either way the experience is a lot cheaper than with Rift or Vive.
EERO. Until I installed the $399 eero Wi-Fi system in my house, poky Internet was too-often the norm. Eero solved that. It consists of what are essentially three identical Internet routers, each a small white box with no antennas sticking out. They exploit so- called “mesh” networking technology and work together to extend the Wi-Fi signal throughout your home. New addition: The ability to take advantage of certain “skills” through Amazon’s Alexa voice, provided you have an Amazon, Echo, Echo Dot or Tap.
ECHO DOT. Speaking of which, the $49.99 Echo Dot is the smaller and considerably cheaper version of Amazon’s standalone Echo speaker; it looks like Amazon chopped an inch-and-a-half off the full-sized Echo model. Dot contains its own speaker, and while it is not as good as the speaker inside the regular Echo, you can connect it wirelessly through Bluetooth to your own better speakers. I’ve turned Dot (which has no screen) into a bedside companion. It’s a terrific way to get to know Alexa, which can deliver news, answer questions, play music, set an alarm or order an Uber, among its more than 4,000 voice-driven skills.
IOS 10. The features in iOS 10 that have garnered the most attention since Apple launched the latest version of its mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads are the stickers and fanciful effects inside the Messages apps, along with improvements to Maps, Apple Music, Photos, home screen widgets and Siri. And yes, some of these features find Apple playing catchup to rivals.
GOOGLE PHOTOSCAN. If you’re like me, you have boxes of old photo prints lying around that you’d like to restore or salvage in digital form. You can certainly ship them off to a paid service such as Scanmyphotos.com or iMemories.com, and if you have a ton of pics that might be the easiest, albeit costliest, way to handle the job. If you’ve got a flatbed scanner at your disposal, you can certainly employ that method as well.
But the new Photo Scan app for iOS and Android, an offshoot of Google’s excellent Photos app, is a simple and surprisingly decent way to tackle the task, if a bit slow as you go one by one.
Using the Photoscan app and camera on your smartphone, you snap four pictures of the analog picture you’re trying to capture, by lining up each of the four small circles that appear on top of the image inside the app.
And that’s it. Google’s software works its magic to mostly eliminate the glare that would have appeared had you taken a picture of the picture without the app. If satisfied with the result you can store the image inside Google Photos and at your discretion share it. PhotoScan even works with framed photos or pictures hanging on the wall.
POKÉMON GO. I have to admit I got caught up in the viral frenzy that is Pokémon Go, Niantic Lab’s hit location-based mobile augmented reality app. Research firm Sensor Tower said Pokémon Go was the fastest mobile app to reach 10 million downloads and exceeded $200 million in worldwide net revenue during its first month of availability in July
FACEBOOK LIVE. OK so technically, Facebook Live launched in 2015, as Facebook’s livestreaming alternative to Meerkat and Twitter’s Periscope. But Facebook Live was originally limited to designated VIPs, and it was only this past April that CEO Mark Zuckerberg opened it up to everyone on the gigantic social network and went live himself.
SNAPCHAT SPECTACLES. I thought long and hard before including Spectacles mainly because the chances of any of you landing a pair anytime soon are slim. The glasses are only sold through yellow pop-up vending machines called Snapbots, which turn up around the country with minimal advanced notice to potential buyers. But the social media buzz around Snap’s $129.99 sunglasses is unmistakable, and you’ve got to give Snap credit for brilliant marketing.