The start of September noticed the Android Authority staff 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 a number of 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 lowering in measurement over the previous few occasions however with an attendance of 35,000-45,000 individuals, it’s nonetheless fairly a big present. Over the previous few editions, it’s seen a shift in the direction of a extra business- and distributor-focused present which means the occasion holds comparatively little in the way in which of client merchandise.
That being mentioned, there have been fairly a number of merchandise we acquired our fingers on, and one among 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 staff that features Tom Moss – one of many former heads of the unique Android staff 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 slightly 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 fingers on.
From one cellphone to a different and the BLU Pure XL is certainly a tool that stands out from the gang. I’ve already revealed my first ideas on the gadget 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 improbable), a MediaTek Helio X10 processor, 64GB inner storage, a fingerprint sensor, 3GB RAM and a 24MP rear digicam. 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 have a look at BLU’s new gadget.
Whereas at BLU’s sales space, we additionally acquired 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 appears to be like. For more information, head over to our impressions put up. We’ve acquired 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 longer term bots of the sky. Though there was a complete satellite tv for pc occasion devoted to those winged bots, there have been a number of on show on the principle present ground and the DJI Phantom undoubtedly caught my eye.
It was introduced earlier this yr and has a variety 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 digicam, which provides 4K video recording.
At a price of $700 to $1200, the Phantom is definitely not the most affordable drone available on the market but it surely definitely appears to be like the half, has nice dealing with and appears effectively 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 frolicked 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 variety of sensors that measure the whole lot 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 knowledge on a need-to-know foundation.
For example, sellers and upkeep firms can entry info like wheelchair battery and restore standing (however not affected person knowledge), whereas physicians can entry affected person knowledge 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 person stops transferring (e.g. when the wheelchair has run out of battery) and if it topples over, which makes offering care so much 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 sequence of wheelchair-focused maps, which – utilizing crowd-sourced knowledge and the corporate’s personal knowledge assortment efforts – will imply that customers can plot a wheelchair-safe route every time they wish to go someplace. The long run purpose is that almost all of wheelchair customers will probably be utilizing one among 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 might 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 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?
