Brian is looking to upgrade his cellphone. He's thinking about the Samsung Galaxy SIV, but he likes Siri on the iPhone.
Leo says that Google's voice recognition is now better than Siri. It's more reliable and robust. There's also the HTC One which is a good phone to consider. So getting an iPhone for Siri isn't a good idea.
Samantha recently bought a Samsung Galaxy SIII and she likes the idea of the automatic reminders and "geo fencing." Leo says to tap the Google Search bar with the microphone and speak into it. Just say "Remind me to...when I get to..." and it will add it as a location based reminder. Once she gets used to the idea, it's great, especially if she's using with an app like Grocery IQ.
Google launched their annual developers' conference, Google I/O, with a marathon 3 1/2 hour keynote address. Leo says there was no new hardware announced, not even from Motorola. There was an announcement that there will be a Nexus version of the Samsung Galaxy SIV soon running pure vanilla Android. They barely even talked about Google glass, which they just launched. They did, however, have plenty to say about Google+, which Leo says shows that Google is all in on their social network. Leo also says he thinks that Google+ will be adding SMS to challenge Facebook Messenger.
Leo found a cool feature of the Samsung Galaxy SIV which will adjust the sound of the phone to match the hearing of the user. It's called Adaptive Sound, and it will test your hearing (much like when the school did it when you were a kid) and use your responses to creative a custom sound profile for you.
David is going to Google I/O for the first time and he's excited. He wants to know about the Samsung Galaxy SIV. Leo says it's pretty fast, and he got the international version which is more powerful and fully unlocked. However, because it's more powerful, he loses out on getting LTE. He also likes that the Galaxy SIV can exchange batteries.
Scott is lookin' at buying the Samsung Galaxy Note II for his first smartphone. He wonders if voice recognition is good. Leo says that it is, and even better than Apple's. On top of that, Samsung's voice recognition, which is based on VLingo, is also available. So Scott will have a choice of which one will work best.
Mark wants to know if there will be a 64GB of the Galaxy Note III. Leo says there may not because 64GB phones are expensive and Android has an external card. So the thinking may be that Samsung wants to keep the price down and therefore, only offers the smaller versions. Leo says to get a 64GB external card and keep all of his photos and music there, and let his apps live on the phone itself.
Steve made the switch to a Samsung Galaxy SIII and he thinks it's the best phone he's ever had. He likes it as both a phone and a computer. He also bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Tablet. It blew him away and he's selling his iPad, but he did need to also buy a hotspot because the tablet is WiFi-only.
Leo has gotten his mom two different smartphones to try out -- an iPhone 5 and a Samsung Galaxy Note II -- to see how she does with each and determine which one is best. The experiment was to see if a novice and a senior could adapt and learn, and which OS would be best. So far, she's had a good experience. She's spending one week with each of them. So it should be interesting to see which one she chooses. She has an iPad as well, but Leo worries about the iPhone's small screen, even though she can make the text larger.
Rob's daughter needs a computer and he'd like to get her a Mac. Leo says that the MacBook Air is thin, light and very powerful. Leo recommends setting the internet up with OpenDNS to protect her from going places she shouldn't go. Checking the Apple Refub Store could save him money on the computer too.
