Picking the perfect portable console
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of nose bridge microphones and your friend David piers. And I am sitting in my new bathroom. It's been almost a month since we've been doing this construction, and i'm sure you've heard me complain about all of the construction noise in chaos on the show over the last month.

You've probably even heard some of the noise in chaos on the show over the last month. So sorry for all of my noise. m.

Kay, us. But it's done. It's not all the way done because as i've learned with a project like this, it's never all the way done.

I can like see the paint touch ups in everything that I have to do. You do one of these things and you're suddenly just very like aware of your surroundings in a way that is honestly not helpful. I don't recommend IT.

It's Better to just sort of live your life and not notice all the imperfections. But now I have a sink that works. We have a shower that works.

We have a toilet that works. I have places to put things. It's all very exciting.

And now onest ly, given the amount of money and time and energy we've spent in this bathroom, IT only feels right for me to just live in this bathroom. So this is my home now on verge casting from the bathroom from now on. Anyway, we've a lot of stuff to do today, so let's dive into IT.

We're going to do two things. First, we're onna talk about a bit of a gaming hardware, kendra, that i'm having, and we're going to see if two of my colleagues can help me figure out how to upgrade my P S. Four and what I actually need to buy.

Then we're going to do a test of some new wearable, able microphones. We love doing my tests on this show, and we haven't done them with the glasses and headsets and all that kind of stuff that is out there in the world in a big way. So we're in test to microphones and see everybody sounds we have a really fun glasses question from the verge, cast hot line lots to do.

So let's get to IT. All that is coming in just one second. But first, I just there's a crowd line that I have to go fix and it's gna drive me crazy if I don't do IT. This is the verge guest. We will be right back.

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Welcome back. All right. So as I mentioned up top, I mean, the middle of kind of a gaming dilemma. I've been really a gamer often on over the course of my life.

It's not something that is kind of a consistent activity, but i'll play a lot for a few months and then kind of put the console away for a few months because whatever things get busy or I get into something else, but then I always come back to games and really for me, its sports games that are the most consistent, like I play main every year. I like the NBA games. Two k is really good.

I've been a fea player for forever. I like fortnight. I like games that I can kind of come and go to and play a whole bunch at once and then leave for a little while and then come back.

I also like games that I can play for, like fifteen minutes at A O and the chAllenge of always had to the game, like elder ing, is I just want to play IT for hours, and I feel IT never rewards you for just a couple of minutes of playing at a time in a way that some of these more finite battle royal, or like football games, size games, really are. So all of this is to say, i'm pretty happy with my gaming set up. I haven't really felt the need to get A P S five or anything like that.

I'm still on A P S four pro. IT works fine. Everything's great. But more recently, I want something new.

We've been talking a lot about handled councils on the show over the last eight month or so, I would say. And there's just a lot of cool stuff happening. I also travel more than I used to, and i'm back to running something.

I can play on the train or on a plane or in a hotel room when i'm not at home. I also just spend too much time in my desk, like right now i'm sitting at my desk, my mother in front of me, my computer is underneath that. I have a mac mini that I used for most things.

And then right off the right is my playstation. And so having this one space be the place that I sit for work all day and then to play games at night. I just don't like IT.

And I want something that I can take, sit on the couch while I hang out with the dog, or play out in the backyard when the weather is nice. So i'm really into the idea of a handle console, but I have no idea which one to get. So I listed two people to help me figure that out.

Shaan, hoster and alex grans. They both know this stuff way Better than ideal. And together we are going to make a decision about which handle console i'm gna buy. Let's get into IT alex grants. Hello in texas.

How do .

you this is, this is what we're going to do here. Sha hoster, hello.

Hi from the land of gaming.

hand hills. I have brought you here to do personal tax support for me, because that is what the first test is about, is helping David figure out which gadgets he should buy. I'm going to lay out for you my current situation, and then you are going to help me solve my current situation.

So my current situation is at a place station for I ve had IT for a million years. It's fine. IT plays video games.

I would like to upgrade. But I don't think what I want is P S. five. I think what I want is something handheld and portable because my p four, like, lives next to my computer in my basement, and i'm spending too much time sitting in this chair looking at this screen.

And I would like to have something that can like go out in the world with me. And I travel at all these things. So I went something that is like primarily, but not entirely, a portable handheld gadget.

I would like to play lots of games. We can talk about which games I do and don't care about, but I have exactly one non negotiable game, which is which is via uh, E A sports fc is the new name of IT. I will call IT fua until the day I die. Uh, I played that game more than I play every other game combined, and I need that game that's IT. That's literally like that is the entirety of where I am and I want to buy something and I want you to tell .

me what to buy. why? Why is that your game? Why is that your game? Because I haven't answer for you, but the answer has just been foiled by the fact that you have picked a game which, and I quote, runs a this program encountered e one one one zero zero b during this lation OK error message. Would you try to run IT out a Steve deck? So I guess i'm not GTA tell you by a Steve deck.

My worry was this is going to be the shortest verdicts in history because I was going to tell you that you were both going to say, steam deck and then we were going to hanging up and move on with our lives. If IT we're not for this one game that I require. Is the world sort of that simple at this particular moment?

Yeah, IT kind of is. And IT maybe IT won't be in like OK two weeks. In two weeks yourself through is the three weeks there will be a windows handheld with a battery that is bigger than any other hand held on the market and maybe that will solve the issue of windows hand tells don't have great battle that will sold .

all the other problems with the windows handled. I'm going to say, David, know you're the verge cast so I feel very comfortable saying you like to tinker, you enjoy a little tinkering .

so I I do what I do. I will say, what am I am willing to tinker uh, if if if it's a matter of I need to like buy this thing and spend a couple of hours like downloading and tweaking and doing what I need to get this set up fine um I am not buying a thing with the intention of screwing with IT forever. I would like listing to play video games, and I want to be able to sit down on my couch and be playing video games as quickly as possible is actually very important to me.

Would you spend those two hours to hear me out, which you spend those two hours setting up your steam deck? Or do be windows off of an sd card occasionally with the one unnegotiable gave, that apparently you must.

you can get fever on the steam deck without doing doll boat. I was, I was looking this up.

Tell me more.

Um you will need to be comfortable diving into the linux side of steam deck, okay, and do some breaking. And also does that have to be fef twenty four?

Yes.

IT can be for which twenty three we will know .

IT actually what's important is that it's going to be twenty five in like six weeks and it's is actually what I need is that do .

you have to play IT online because it's the end cheat. That's that's the problem here. Yeah, insisted on its own the version of Betty cheat instead of the ones that actually work on the steam deck.

Yeah, I need to be online.

shit. I feel like the other fifth a games have appeared in next box cloud, and I feel like this one would also appear in next box cloud.

That was my next thought.

You make a very good point here, which is the thing that I should said, I don't need to be able to play this game on the first day that that is available. I just need to play at at some point yeah and what I have discovered about the video game world is that those things are are very different.

Like when things come to game pass and their stuff that comes to play stations, cloud stuff later on that isn't there like day and date when they released, like the reason I picked this game that matters is because I can just like get lost down this impossible universe with any game that I want. It's all very complicated, but just just a tie after one piece of this. If if all I was saying is I want a hand help thing to play games on and I did not give you any specific games yeah is the answer like the steam deck, it's not even close. Yeah.

there really is really is the steam deck. We're in this moment where all of these other companies are like we want a piece of that steam deck actions, but we're going to build on our windows because game is tell us that windows is where all of the games are and they want to just be able to play the games they already own. Which is true, which is true, but the reality is that the steam deck plays windows games, and IT plays more of them Better than a native windows system plays windows games.

What is the problem with the native windows system?

Because windows is built for computers, for laptops and and desktops and things you use of the mouse and a at least thirteen inch display, and then then you put that on a seven age display. And instead of a mouse.

you have a joystick OK. Now that i'm thinking this through, that sounds like a night .

there that parts kind of that you can, if you want to spend your two hours to set up, you can certainly spend ten minutes of them setting up steam to launch. Every time you launch your windows computer, enter launcher right in the big picture mode, and then you have an interface that similar to the steam deck. But IT doesn't have the ability to like tweak the hand held very easily so that you get great battery life.

The chips won't give you great matter. I, to begin with, because there's all at other overhead for all the other shit you don't need in windows. Sometimes you'll turn off your windows system, you you'll put IT to sleep, and you will turn IT back on again and wake IT up again and all a sun.

Your apple began a weird to O I wonder why IT is in full screen anymore. And this tiny icon on the windows asar that's not great. Sometimes IT won't wake from sleep. It'll have we started itself.

I'm having lag netbook flashbacks to ten years ago as you're describing this.

Sometimes for some reason, I can't get IT to stop asking for the password when I opened one of my windows game councils. And so then I have to, like, figure out how to get the the accessibility keyboard up, which always takes at least five minutes, even very carefully type in the password, which is super long, because I like to be safe. It's my favorite thing to do, David.

You don't want to do that. This is not the most compelling case you've ever made, but we shown you, you eluded to. Maybe there is something coming that solves .

this problem for me OK. Most of. Batter, batter problem issues with the rog out, the R O G, I are going to hop on me. So the R O G, I came out a year ago as like a steam deck, but worse in almost every way, except that I had a Better screen, a variable refresher ate screen. IT has since been surpassed by the steam deck OLED, which has an OLED screen that goes ninety hts.

I'm going to stop getting into the weeds, but they're coming out with a new version of that later this month that will have a doubled battery in IT and all kinds of other creature comforts that will be more comfortable to hold in the year since they shift the original R G. The us. goten.

A little bit Better. It's smooths like tommo and likes his. I think he might prefer that over the steam deck. He is a notorious windows fan boy.

That's why he doesn't count.

I think it's going to be very possibly the first windows handheld that I can recommend because we've gotten so many things right. But IT fundamentally still runs windows and microsoft has not improved windows in any meaningful way in the year and a half. Two years since team that came out.

they could right like like we've been hearing a lot of rumors that are going to introduce some sort of xbox hand held in the next couple years that will very likely run on windows because technically, the x box runs on that. There's like the opportunity, I feel like a lot like remember when A M. D.

Was having its big resurgence in video? Was the game GPU and then AMD was like we're going to start doing this again. And the difference was in video actually did software and made the games to work really, really well. Where is amy didn't for at least year to that's where the windows hand tells are knowing done those really important software tweak. So the steam deck is Better.

But microsoft would have to be like we're going to ship in different OS on IT. We're going to ship conversion of windows that so strip down, you don't recognize that as windows anymore.

Look, if IT opens ea origins, then the like i'm fine.

E A is one of the killers of the steam deck you brought up fea FIFA. Ea games will notoriously particular. If you need online, they will just break on steam deck because ea does not give a shit about valse handheld. They'll just like change their stupid Mandatory like D R M APP all the time. You all origin and I like ea APP and games will just break there on steam deck, but everything else works pretty good.

But they do participate cloud gaming. The most of their self is available in the very cloud gaming platforms in all of those work on the team back and you give them up and running pretty quickly and then not have to like constantly go into the linux back and to tweet them just the one time.

Meaning like I could do like steam deck plus game pass and solve my problem. Yeah, is this a good idea? Yeah.

you can do that. Even you can stream your your SONY P. S. Four from there. So you don't have to, like, sit in front of IT to play the last of us.

Oh yeah, you can stream your x box and your playstation and cloud to the same deck. IT does all these things.

Glad you brought this up, because this this is a thing I have deeply investigated and have come up with, is is just a terrible nightmare that I will not subject myself to. There are there are things about remote streaming your own console that are really great, and they immediately fall apart as soon as you get anywhere outside of your house.

Like IT just doesn't do you? Do you need to play .

outside your house? I do like, for me honestly, like the two biggest things i'm trying to solve in switching from this council on my desk to the handheld is I want to play other places in my house then at this desk, which is a Victory for console streaming. And I want to play when I travel, in part because i'm addicted to this game.

And it's set up in such a way that the mechanics are if you don't play every day, it's actually I like it's a real problem as i'm describing this, but this is where i'm not in life. And the council streaming thing is great for the first thing like I can. I can sit upstairs on my couch and play my P.

S. Four on like an ipad and actually works possibly. Well, total non started trying to stream any stuff over the internet. I just it's just not even worth IT.

This goes for all streaming. Yeah, I just streaming breaks down once. Leave your house because you no longer have control over making sure you have a good internet connection if you're out there, like on five g if you have a great five g signal and nobody else in the door is you using IT right?

Then yeah, you can have a great trip. Spirit s but I would sit, I would sit in, you know, a hospital waiting room out in the cafe, and i'd be using that, that razor device, which could only really do cloud streaming. And I would have a beautiful streaming experience that would drop out five minutes later and be completely unplayable over and over and over again.

I had that experience with cloud gaming, with a good cloud gaming service like shorts now, great service. This connection would not maintained that. Now if you're talking about going over to a friend self, which their friend also has amazing internet at home, and you want to dream from max box club there, great. That I was just .

to me that, David, that like a hot spot time, that is illy internet ninety percent of the time to me.

unless I do a lot, it's called, it's called an ipad pro with cell connection. And it's actually like an unbelievably great hot spot. The problem is i'll give you the worst case scenario for my own gaming usage is on an m track train from dc to new ork.

And at that point, realistically, what I need these games, I can play offline, right, which I think just rules out full reliance on game streaming. Like I actually this is why I am compelled by the combination of a steam deck and game pass. Like I can do mostly online stuff.

And like I I don't need to be able to play a online while on check wifi that's like not possible in the world that we live in. So i'm fine with that, but I need to be able to do something on that thing when I have crappy connection. And the idea of just having like a brick in my hands when the wifi is bad feels bad. I do have .

one other suggestion. And IT is actually even more basic than the steam deck.

and it's a switch. I'm glad you brought this.

It's like the steam .

deck gives you all of the customization and gives you it's like a swiss army nive. The switch is like just a really good k bar, like it's good for one thing and that's playing the games that nintendo is okay with you playing on IT.

And one of those games is, is E A sports fc twenty four, the dance name game in soccer.

But you still like going to play IT online on the attract.

right? no. But so I have almost ended their except cds of glad broths up because I wanted know you.

I think right now feels like a stupid time to buy a switch. IT feels like the end of the switch cycle. They have already talked about. The next one like the switch bio account is still very good, but this feels like a ridiculous time to buy a switch.

IT is absolutely the end of the switch cycle. They're delaying IT a little bit. They're not like they don't want to come out right away and do switch to. They're biting their time probable. They want to get some great software lined up for IT.

And I imagined that, that software, if you want to play a metro prime for whatever the next game is the intended as IT, probably won't work as well on the current switch because the current switch is not only seven years old in terms of its processing power, but also was already weak to begin with. Like when you played Zelda, breathe the wild on day one on the switch, and you go to the the forest where the master sort is like that he was chopped, then he was shopped seven years ago. You know, I was like.

people will look like a bunch of potatoes are on a big Green field, but you will be but you'll know what those potatoes are and you'll be able to control all the little potatoes. So like if the control of the potatoes is important and not how they look, the switch could be not because there's a lot of good deals right now because there's a ton of different ones. Like I just recently picked up the the new Zelda one because somebody left IT on a plane. I bought IT at a third store.

Have you played the new Zelda yet?

I have. So I actually have an og switch and IT worked great, and I loved IT very much. And then I got to the point where literally the battery last like six minutes, but like, it's bit fine.

The thing is, seven years old, I got a lot of love out of that. I used IT for a long time and that is basically doesn't work anymore. And so now is just like a pretty yellow thing that sits over there.

Do not trade that in because if it's an original switch that the matter y six minute IT also means that IT is hackable and you can do fun things with IT and .

IT is work money so I deal okay. Well, that's David's side. Business in selling all is another thing you and I should do on the show. So yeah, so I think one of the outcomes i'm afraid of is that the answer is just wait a year because there's going to be a new switch and they might fix windows and maybe i'll get the x box. And I feel weird we were like a bad middle zone between good things.

No, you need to get the steam deck with OLED and just be done and happy.

I think what you need to do is you need to unlock, you need to unlock a mountain of amazing PC games you've been missing that are incredibly cheap and brilliant and beautiful and run on this handle with an amazing screen. That's what you need to do.

and it's also hackable.

Shan, I gave you one game, one game that I need to play, and you're telling me that I can have everything I won't accept the one game that I need to play if you .

want to play fortnight out there doesn't do that either. So let's you're going to .

straight that I literally, I almost roll down that the two games were four night and VISA and I decided I can live without fortnight. Because there are other good, David has an hour to kill that over our games out there. I I could take or leave fourth night at this .

point of my life as you can just .

see ipad that that is true. So let me flow another idea about you, which is that I instead of buying one thing, I buy several things. And and I just acknowledged that at least for this next phase of my life, the right thing to do get A P S five and A P S portal for my house projects, and then I get a steam deck for travel. I have just quite grup the amount of money that this is causing. Is this the outcome?

Don't do that. Save your money. Just get like never, ever, ever, ever, ever buy a portal unless you just have zero computer skills, if you have none whatsoever, if all you, if you like, struggle to turn your phone on. Get the PSP portal.

People love the portal there. There are people who love the portal. IT is selling really well.

I would never touch one, except like to have the knowledge of having touched love because the steam deck has an APP on IT and the APP is the PS port. Yeah, that's in an APP for your steam deck. Yes, it's called jai.

Jai for deck and and works great. Just make sure you're P, S five. Your P, S. Four has an eight cable plugged into IT or that work OK don't get the P S.

Portal because that is that's for like that's for people who love to game and don't have a lot of computer skills. Okay, I just need to go play right now. And that's great. But like you spend a little bit more money, you get the steam back, you spend a little extra time and you have just a more capability.

Okay, are IT. So let me let me play out this scenario. So what's happening here is I am going to make sure that my playstation streaming set up is as good as possible.

Um i'm going to make sure that I have an ethnic port. I'm i'm to plug my play station into the euro gateway and not the euro in the basement. I'm going i'm going to make sure that my internet connection for my place station is as good as possible TV the on weather that's gonna A P S four or P S five.

We're going to see how poor I feel the end of the episode. But that that essentially becomes my like, dedicated feo machine, which is an absurd place to have landed. But again.

here we are. If you already got to p for, why not?

So that I am really gating this thing to be my feeds of machine. And then i'm going to download the up you just said for the steam deck for when I want to play via and i'm going to play viva on the team back through my place station, which seems ludicrous, you're telling me will kind of sort of work as long as I have very good internet .

IT works inside your house. Remote is therefore ally possible. But you played in your house.

realistic claying. So if i've that's my solution to the harder I play on my couch instead of in the basement problem. Great for everything else. I'm just going to broad my horizons and play this via and play more other games. This a search telling me this is, this is really need to land.

I feel like you can find a really good for a clone, but like, they all have sods or something. Like, I feel like this is someone's made this .

game in alpha. So what is ironically possible is that because E. A sports fc is no longer called for us, somebody else is making a fef a game. And maybe that fef a game will be on the seam deck, which will solve all of my problems all at once. This is, this is what i'm hoping for.

And also, you will write about this experience, hopefully for the verge. And then E, A will start taking care of the ship.

okay? So E, A very large company, makes a lot of very popular games. Is there any hope for ea on the seam deck ever? Like, should I have any optimism for that to be a thing? The same story, popular. What are we doing here?

Yeah I mean, they just they just break things Willy nearly and they don't think about IT.

It's not like they don't want money ah he is like the arias for being one of the worst companies in the united states. Like I think when consumers existed, IT was regularly beating cable companies for being the worst because they just they put money ahead of usability frequently and so they could fix IT. But I don't think they have a whole lot of interest because most of their players, the bulk of their audience is not, you know, it's on the switch, is on the the playstation.

okay. One other steam that question. The one other thing I forgot to mention is I do want to be able to plug this thing into a large screen and play IT.

I don't think that's like the most common use case for me, but I do want to be able to sit in front of a television and play like a console, as I Normally wit. And for me at the switch, I have done that way less than I expected because you have to have such specific hardware to pull that off. And like, Carrying around the dock is annoying.

And I bought the little plugged thing, and that helped, but and I lost that. And so I want, I want something that is a little easier to turn into like a full fledge council when I want to. Is the steam deck good at that?

You're still gonna little G K. To mira things dongle.

doc.

Yeah, you're gonna need a dongola doc. I think the official ones like what a hundred dollar shown.

it's less, I want to say seventy, eighty and like that, but you can buy much cheaper that i'd used to like and off the shelf, like thirty five dollar U S, B, C. Hub that a HDMI that worked. I used dogs from like j saw, j saux, great company with an alpine t super name, surprisingly forty, fifty bucks.

And those dogs are do all the things you'd want from a dark. It's really easy once you get one of those things to get IT up there. The question is, is your TV like fork? You're expecting 4k visuals from the console that Normally plays at eight hundred because it's gonna look as good on a big four K T V.

I will say. And liam or producer can vouch for this the least forge caste thing about me, as I don't care all that much about pixel density. So the idea of playing like that, you know, medium settings and having IT work OK is completely fuck by me.

I just heard me, I screaming.

this is the last time you'll ever hear from me on verge. Ast, but that is, that is where I that and especially with something like this, like battery life is much more important to me than like getting ten extra frames per second. Uh, and so I think again, the customized ability of the steam deck to be able to like dial that up and down as I want IT seems useful. You wanted .

steam deck OLED like to get the steam deck OLED everyones someone you plugged IT into the TV you go, I did IT this looks kind of shitty and then you'll unplugged and go back to the really pretty OLED display and be very happy.

I do suspect my switch experience has been that I set IT up in such a way that I was going to be really easy to IT was going to be great. And most of the time I would set on my couch in front of the TV and just play on my lap. And I I would assume this team that will not being kind of the same way.

It's so good watch watching shows together. My wife and i'll have my hand held out and get to do some, some gaming of the same time.

Great OK. Are there any other like crazy wild card possibilities coming that we know of that might win? Like you you mention the the rog I X seems like a possible improvement, if not sort of equal to the steam deck. Is there anything else on the horizon that in three months I want to be like, this is the one I needed.

I don't think of, but there are two very different directions you could go. And I don't have one of them here at friday, but one of them is a ten point one inch laptop with like keys that actually feel good. Full size sd card reader. You can actually sub the sd hard all the way inside. We've got full as USB a ports.

IT has more ports .

in a macbook USB c ports. There's an ou ling port HDMI IT is your dog built into IT? And then you take these little things off and you got choice sticks and deep head and even even this this menu button in the center acts like an x box button, which for some reason none of the other windows hand health have.

And this thing is way expensive. I think it's twice the Price of your steam deck. IT costs more than the other handles, but IT doubles as a laptop that has the power of one of those other gaming hand tails in a decent size battery.

All this stuff. Shan, what? How is IT to play?

IT is a laptop first and a game handheld second is such .

a perfect gadget, because that is both the stupid, this thing i've ever seen. And I want IT so bad.

I get right. It's a beautiful.

It's like, what if instead of the touch bar, we just put a play station controller in pieces like.

I love I I can't get over the boss about like you ve got this dig you're like, no, I can't show my game pad at work. Let's take this little metal. Let's take this little slip of metal out of the back of the bag and and drop IT on top boss mode.

It's a physical boss mode. Okay, move god for that. okay. So your other possibility, if you could embrace, you could embrace software pyro y, and you could buy one of these figs, which is looks like a game boy, advanced pay. This is the enberg fag, but actually just cubs with thousands of piloted gapes and and you could play all your gay boy with to play station e games on this, and that you'd delete the pirated games first and dump p your own roms or something like that, as I always do, as you do, yes.

I feel like and brick s already going react for you, just say, yeah, comes with all of the pirated games on IT.

Sean talks about one of these. There was, I think you did. You did a tech talk, sean, talking about the new everything thing, and every single comment was like to be cool. Stop telling people about give me my tiktok .

shop is all over this things like it's been switched enough .

just illustrate. That the E A, the E A FIFA game is not a steam deck problem. The top comment on E A sports fc twenty four is E A F C twenty four not launching on PC after anti cheat back to eaa. It's not a steam deck thing so much as that is an E A doesn't care thing.

interesting. okay. So IT truly is E A is like there are ways you could get around the rules that we have. So we're just taking our ball and going home. Yes, that doesn't feel like it's getting Better at anytime soon.

That that does not give me hope for the for improvements ts coming here, which also means, listen, there's there's a lot of sports games. This means I can't play anymore, but now I have to get like cool nerd games. This can be great.

You can play streaming.

That's true. Steam deck plus game pass, I think, is starting to feel like the realist answers I have here.

You will have halo and viva, like you will be the the hit of every frag party you go to.

Okay, last question. And then and then we have to go, my stupid for buying a steam deck right now, in the same way that I might be stupid for buying a switch right now. Where are we in the steam deck cycle?

We're fine, right? Were met. Yeah, we're mid cycle. We're not late yet. The thing, the thing value they told us like told me to my face what they need to see is they need to see a major improvement in performance without sacrificing battery life from a chip before they start building the next true steam deck. And I heard this from other couple to still like cases with with the rg L X. They were like, we don't think we can get IT right now, so we're going to ship the raw G I, X with the same ship.

And I don't think cal com has changed that calculus at all with a step dragon.

And even if IT has were ways away from that actually appearing inside of a product.

yeah, I think I think we're probably a good where at least a year out, I think you'll have one beautiful blissful year before you get formal at least.

okay. And that I mean honestly engaging world that is that what you .

can ask for I was like a year is an internal and I mean, listen.

i've made IT this foreign to the P S. Five cycle without of creating like IT. Turns out I I can manage my foo on.

I am so impressed.

Thank you. That's actually the other question I should ask is like my being ridiculous. Should I just buy A P five and move on with my life? Um I mean.

have you if you have an infinite money? Yes, if I buy a PS five.

I almost certainly will end up buying a portal. And I I hate myself for IT, but I will probably happen .

then I say don't, because I want to save you from the portal.

You could buy a used Steve deck city for the Price of portal and also have a portal built into IT with an APP of that's very compelling. But this is not like if you do love that, i'm sitting on my couch with my four K O TV experience. It's hard to beat the PS five for that. I'm playing spider men to on IT right now and i'm just a gorgeous new olid panel that was deep discounted recently and wow, the pop of that city, the lights at night it's it's really something yeah .

and and I do love that but I think I I am increasingly coming around you like having a thing with me is more important than the sort of very best possible experience. I would love to have both, but I don't think you can really have both right now in the world we live.

And if you if you really want to have the thing with you, I don't think there's anything that betes a stam back that is so much you can now take with you that you can the same way through the windows and holds. You can't really with android.

what we have ended where we began, which I find very frustrating, but also sort of telling, i'm going to buy a steam deck. I probably should about a steam deck really long time ago. I'm going to buy a steam deck.

And I I will start yelling loud ly at E. A. I will report back.

I'm so excited for you. Everybody is excited about the ea, though.

Do you have any immediate set up tips before we talk again? I will have purchased a steam deck. What what should I do immediately out of the box with .

my brand new steam deck? I have so many nerdy suggestions.

I don't want a nerdy suggestions. Sun, I say this with love, and I want to get playing games well as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Like, I am worried about the same like because i'm worried it's so figure infinity that i'm going to spend my whole life goofing with joysticks and not playing games.

So so steam deck has this. Like on the steam deck, they have compatibility for games. And you can also see IT on the steam software. So like you can just go download steam and ahead of time find some games you like, make sure they'll compatible and then they'll be just out of the box ready to go. Anything that's like yellow or red, you'll have to mess with a little bit. That's where you have to search, tweaking things like I tried to play crusader kings on IT don't that's it's not for the steam deck is terrible.

even a tab in the store where you can just like only show me games that work well with the steam deck and for the most part.

they do the yeah and it's it's a lot of stuff, right? Like it's it's a ton of stuff, the ones that donor stuff that's like mass effect, which is N E A game. So you know.

I does I will say the other game in my life that I have loved with my whole heart, the way that I have loved fever with my whole heart, is portal. And the idea of having a steam thing that will let me play the portal games forever is very exciting.

And just straight out of the box, you will be, you will be off to the races having a great time. Yeah, he really is so easy to just get going on the steam deck, provided you are their own games.

Elden ring plays well there. And the wheel of the whisps, if you even played that yet, played that on the decorate, oh my god, IT looks really IT on the decorate. That game is made for HDR personal five, but you played any personal games.

bits and pieces, but never, never super deeply. Okay.

get persona five or personal five royal, which everyone Better for your budget. Play that on steam deck. It's epic. We could spend the rest. You have another hour talking about games to play on.

Yeah, it's about to say, have you played final fantasy remake yet? Like beautiful.

Okay, all right. My list is long and none of them are the only game that I need IT. But you know, we're doing the best week here.

You can get five, twenty three fairly easily on on the steam .

deck OK that might help. Maybe that's like my gateway drug out of being obsessed fever. I'll just play all games enough to say he ate me and then go play Better games.

You get ted lassa in that one.

You'll be all right. Thank you both. This was very helpful. I'm going to go spend a bunch of money.

All right, we got to take a break and then we're onna come back and we're going to talk variables specifically one feature about variables. We are like that. Support for the show comes from the crucible moments, a podcast from scope capital.

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Welcome back. So before begin in the next thing, one last note on that last segment. Listening back to IT, I realize I don't know that I actually solved any of my problems. IT was really interesting discussion, and I think the place we landed is the right one for almost everybody.

But I was realizing, listening back, that actually one of the games i'm most excited about this here is the new college football game, which is also in the a game and is also probably not going to be on the steam deck. So for me now, I go from one game that I play a ton that doesn't work on this team, back to two games that i'm probably going to play a ton that won't be on the steam deck. So I don't know what to do.

I think you'll probably still buy a steam deck, ideally with a good return policy, just really get into IT and play with IT and get you to IT. But I don't know that I ve solved my problem, and I think i'm not alone. These are very popular games.

The E A stuff is huge. Games streaming is gonna solve a lot of problems for a lot of people, but hasn't yet. I'm still stuck.

I haven't bought anything yet. If you have ideas, please let me know. Verge casts the verge that com, the hot line, eight, six, six, version one, one.

What do you think I should buy? Tell me everything. I'm still so torn, I think so on.

Alex, you really good advice, but I don't know if i've actually solved my problem yet. Anyway, let's get in the next thing everyone's know. So we like to test some microphones.

I think this stuff really matters. And IT doesn't get talked about a lot when we talk about headphones and when we talk about wearable devices, we talk to our gadgets a lot. And if you believe that A I is the future of how we talk to gadgets, it's gonna get more vocal over time.

Microphones really matter whether you're just talking to theory to set reminders, which is the thing I do constantly all day, every day, or is gonna how you talk to ChatGPT or your robot, A I best friend for forever, microphones really matter. And we've tested a lot of earbuds. We actually probably overdo for an earbuds test.

But the thing that we haven't really done is maybe one of the very able categories are most excited about, which i'll say broadly speaking, is face gadgets. You have things like the meta quest 2 and the vision pro。 You also have things like the meta smart glasses and amazon's echo frames.

The idea of just, uh, thing you wear on front of your eyes, on your face, that is a super powerful computer. I think we're the very beginning of that jona of gadget, but I already think there's a lot of interesting stuff out there. So as we do what sound of microphone test, I asked v song, who has almost all of these gadgets, somewhat remarkably, just lying around her house to come on and do some test with us. So we're onna, hear how IT all sounds. Let's go this song.

Welcome back. Thanks for having me again.

You and I ve been so much stuff together. Reason, this is very exciting. This is terrible for you and great for me. I'm happy about IT.

So I have brought you here for the thing I have been like very excited to do for a months, because what I have discovered in my own life is that now when I take a phone call and i'm at home, instead of holding my phone to my ear, actually put on the meta smart classes, and that is now my like hands free phone experience. And I love IT very much. And I have phone myself, wondering a lot how I sounds, other people when I do that. So you and I are going to do, I think, maybe the most ambitious microphone test we've ever done on this show because IT involves a deeply weird set of catches. And i'm very excited about IT.

I spent so much time yesterday and this morning .

prepping again just for the .

technical logistics of all of IT. And I looked at ridiculous at every step of the wife so as IT .

should be so yeah okay, running through the list of all the stuff were about to test, which is basically like every weird phase gadget in these house.

You know, it's a very thoughtful selection of the weird face gadgets in my house. So we have the razor on zoo, which are a productivity pair of smart glasses. You know, they marketed as basically like smart classes for hand free calls.

And when you're on your computer that has blue light, what would you call these lenses? So we have those. Then we have the riband meta smart classes, we have the apple vision pro and we have the mea quest three.

amazing. I will say the only one in this category I feel like we don't have in here is probably the echo frames I think anew tally. No one seems to care about the echo frames.

So I don't feel that about leaving IT out. But I do think it's like it's like the one in this category that I am curious about that we're not testing. So we will have to come back to you that the other time.

yeah, well, I do have a pair. I just moved not that long ago and then did spring cleaning. So the charger? Where's the charger? I have been tearing my house apart for the charger because it's A A weird charger.

Okay, this is a good point. It's not just A, U, S, B, C port, which is what all charges should be. It's a stupid like stand that you have to stick them on top of. And if you don't push them down at the right angle in the right way, IT doesn't. It's one of the worst charges i've ever used.

I hate IT. It's also the glasses that stay on my face the least because I have a long nose bridge and IT just slips down.

That's my problem. The medical glasses. I'm sort of hoping that the metal ones don't win so that I can convince myself to buy something else.

But 我 this is so before we have in， I think the one caveat we should provide here is that so far, you are talking into your podcast, mike. So I would say this is this is kind of the gold standard of the audio that you should hear. Anything that we test is going to be compared to this.

There are a couple that we were about to test that are bluetooth devices. So you're going to be paying bluetooth devices to your computers. So if you're going to get whatever blue th weirdness exists, but I would say that's fine because that's pretty indication of Normal blue tooth weirdness.

Like most of most of the time, people are talking through blue eth gadgets. So we're going to do that. But then there's a couple.

I think the headsets are going to be basically treated like microphones on computers because we're actually going to be able to do IT natively inside the device. So will talk about those when we get to the bench dive. Which one do you want to do first?

Ah i've got the enzo on right now. So let's just do that because ice, where I got this going to be a logistical nightmare when we're switching.

I cannot wait. This is this is one of those times where podcast editing becomes very, very, very helpful because you don't have to listen to us blue settings. But all right, let's let's dive and let's go. All .

right, I am talking. I am saying a sentence and your face is that is not good.

This is terrible. This is like, okay, how would I describe that? You sound like you're on a phone call on speaker phone, but you've done the thing where you put your phone down on the kitchen counter while we're talking and then you've like walked .

into the other room. Cool love. I can imagine what that sounds like. And you know I don't I not really sure where the mikes are on this particular thing, but I don't think they're like the meta bounds where of the mike is in the nose bridge. So it's like kind of close to to your mouth that says that they have on the directional mikes probably in the temples. So if they're in the temples that you pretty far away from the actual sounds source and .

actually in a certainly sort of defeat, the purpose of why I am excited about these vices because as you're talking about, one of the things about glasses is just closer to your mouth, right? We have yeah, all these bluetooth headphones and stuff. They they are constrained by the fact that they are on your ears, so they have the stems that point toward your month, and that kind of helps.

And they are getting smaller with a software bit, fundamentally like the way to get a good microphones st. To put IT closer to your mouth where the sounds is coming from and IT feels like razor just sort of beef this one. So two reasons.

Credit, I guess, defense slightly. These aren't necessarily meant for this kind of like communication sorts of calls, right? These are things disposed like at your desk to make IT a little less painful to look at the screen all day.

So you know there is like a while or reserves, just like we're not just gaming, we do productivity that too yeah for the office and I think this is part of that polish like yeah they do have light lens is so that if you're looking at the screen well, it's easier for you. They are your typical pair of glasses that are also headphones so you can just listen to stuff. But you know, like when I took the brief in a couple years ago and was testing this IT was just basically like, yeah IT is meant for like productivity in the office so you can take phone calls and you sound really great. So obviously that was some marketing speel uh because clearly, uh, judging by your reaction, I do not sound that great .

will not sound really great. I can tell you that now with with great confidence, Andrew may know I don't usually get to do this when we're here, but Andrew is is our sound expert and podcast adr. Andrew, I I want you to way in on all of this with me. What do you think of this?

Okay, so these aren't as bad as I thought. IT is obviously clear difference between podcast microphone and this, but I don't hear a lot of background.

No is that is true.

that is good. I would actually like to hear how this sounds compared to like someone wearing airports though too, because would you prefer hearing airports microphones or would you prefer hearing the classes microphones? I was just thinking .

about that actually. And I think the thing that the airports do these aren't doing is at least the airport ads push the voice more to the center of the mix, right? Like it's trying really hard to like raise the volume of your voice as opposed to everything else. This feels flatter in a way that is like probably more pleasant in a certain way, but also just means I can like hear you less well.

I also wonder what I would be like if you know the other proposition for glasses, as I like, you're on a walk, you can go outside and take the phone call as well. And you know, outside there's a lot more ambient ise, there's cars, there's wind.

I wonder what this would sound like if you were on a walk because i've taken colors on the matter raybone ds, while i'm on a walk, and people think they're pretty decent, pretty good, just because of where the Michael phone is situated. So I, you know, they always claim that they're grateful wind and I always like that. Are they? Are they?

Yeah, we should say you you're in your house in what I would call like a relatively quiet space. This is kind of as good as it's gonna be. We will have to come back to do this another time with worse environments.

But I think particularly because we had to make a headsets and these are like things you're most going to be doing inside. We wanted to give IT its best shot. OK done these.

These not create. T, let's move on. Let's do. Let's do the ray and ones next. That feels like a good one to one pair on here. Let's touch to those.

Okay, this is me in the matter, and I just wanted you to know that i'm blind because I have my context on. And these are prescription lenses. So you are just a big blob on my phone.

This sounds way Better, like night day to the last one. This is actually like the sound I was hoping that this was going to give me. It's not like amazing. It's it's definitely i'm hearing a lot of compression on your voice. It's it's like clearly trying very hard to get your voice and cancel even not a lot of background noice. But this sounds great, I should say also your on your phone to do this, not only record these things are computer, but because of the weirdness of these glasses, you had an easier time connected them to your phone than to your computer because blue is dump, bad and complicated. Nobody is good at IT, but you sound .

really good to me. Yes, this is like one of the limitations that back up pointed out when we were both doing the river meta testing and SHE like went all and on the the microphone for these. And it's just not really all that easy to you connect with your computer while having this on. This is just a very phone first kind of pairing situation, which is a little annoying, but great if you want to take these outside, I think and just like block around and take calls while year, I do that all the time like i'll be on a walk and a friend call and all this gab and people will look at me crazy because I don't have the social q of uh, having airports in my year and this is just look like a Normal pair of glasses I just look like as I .

go will end right now you have sunglasses on indorse, which I would say it's .

like an extremely cool move is is IT cool uh, who can say also like, yes so I got be sent with prescription lenses as sunglasses. And I was like, I would have loved IT if these words, the transition lenses by a last.

I have the transitions, and they are awesome. My dad, who does not have smart glasses, just has transition lenses in his regular glasses. And we made fun of him about IT for so long because it's like you go inside and for four minutes you just have some glasses on we may and like, boy, has history proved him right?

Like, congrats. Ad humid transition lens is a thing. They are great, a thin. So the thing that I like about this is this is the one where they put the microphone like right next year notes, right? So it's it's out of perfectly where IT should be to sound good here yeah there's.

I believe, are five microphones in the glasses at various points. But the one that captures your voice is just right in the nose bridge. So it's like right above your mouth.

So like I think that was the kind of lockey genius move that they did with these compared to the other mark classes that i've tested. So I I got to say I really enjoy these as my outdoor walk. Outdoor, I wear these while running to and it's pretty great as like a pair of open your headphones, I can take calls. The sunglasses are great and the song .

qualities is.

yeah the sound Better than the razor ones. I wouldn't be mad at all about this as far as like blue youth cos pret pretty good.

Yeah I I agree this is definitely one that is like notably Better than airports. And it's just you feel much closer, which is really nice, like a lot of the things. And this is the chAllenge.

The razor one is a lot of b two telephones just make you feel sort of far away, because you are far away. This one, you feel much closer to the way which drinks. You feel much closer, like to me as we're talking, which is, which is very cool.

This one i'm calling a Victory. Let's let's move on to some of the other ones. Where do we have next?

We have ever pic of which had the vision pro or be made a quest.

Let's start with the quest because I would assume that the vision pro is going to sound Better. But also I think more people have quest. So let's let's start with quest.

This is going to be logistically fraught.

So we're going to play some whole music. Will will be back in like forty five minutes at once. You get the same. Okay.

it's all right.

Mea quest, is this the quest two or the quest three that we're on here?

Vest, I believe. yeah. Quest.

right? Let's here. IT. How do we want?

I am talking. Supposedly you can hear me, even though this gave me a lot of grief about there being no microphone while logging into the. So it's very confusing.

Okay, this sounds really good. I this is kind of rate in line with smart glasses actually, which i'm realizing now it's two meta products that sit on your face. Maybe there are some shared technology there, but I don't know how that I didn't OCR me to just now.

But yeah, you sound pretty good. This is just another like big microphone on your face. And this is another one that I think they put the make for pretty centrally on the things. So IT might even be closer to your mouth than the smart glasses.

Well, IT certainly is waiting on my head. So IT feels like it's falling down my face more than the smart glasses. Me on top of your .

mouth here in a couple of minutes as you're trying to talk you .

you'll be get yeah it's actually because I don't have a super tight on the the back because I get headaches. Es, when these are two tight there, go, there, go.

okay. So what I what I also want to know is tell me about the experience of getting into this call from the quest because there's like one of the things that matter would really like to convince you of is that eventually A V R had said is going to be a work tool. And you can use, just like open up a browser and use IT for google meet or whatever. I have never done that one time and i'm very how it's going for you.

So um I basically had to log into slack, right, because I need a link to this meeting. And so how am I going gonna get a link to this particular meeting? So, you know, like either you have to have your calendar and hear some and thin capacity, or you have to basically go into the browser, go into your google calendar and what not. But I then I was just like, oh god, okay. So I went into slack, which in our workplace, because things are secure, was real f annoying two factor.

authority in a headset, not a solved problem factor.

Authentic ation and has set, let me tell you, is not fun. And I was a good box media employee. I have a very complicated password for my work thing.

So i'm just going in in the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen character long how long as as long? But i'm just like punching IT in with this is stupid little keyboard is going H, H capital all that's not a capital to reenter all of this. Then we have two factor authentication.

And I have to go thankful I get IT sent to my watch so I get a boom into the watch and like, yeah, cool, awesome. Then i'm in slack. And then I have to go like in the up, in the browser and slag and to go, okay, now I got ta go to the link that I know is in the D M.

And then okay, got a score. D M, click on the link that opens up riverside and the browser. And then i'm like, cool. I'm going to do just log in even though it's saying that there is no microcar a detected. So yeah, Andrew helped me test this before IT is .

that was quite a project. So okay, Andrew, i'm really curious for your thoughts on this because I wanted know how you feel about this versus the smart glasses because what I am hearing is very similar but this sounds like it's compressing harder to me. But what what are you hearing?

There's a bit of compression here. Um i'm also wondering if its riversides echo cancellation here, but IT is not significantly Better than the metal ray bands. This is a great sound for taking up meeting call. But if he was like, hey, can I join the podcast with the quest three? I be like, well, can you use your phone?

I think that's right. Like none of this has gotten even up to like wired year podds quality. But at least so far, this is definitely Better than razor. But I would say not quite as good as the metal ones. My theory, I wonder what the echo cancellation two, but I also wonder if because meta assumes you're going to be playing games all the time on this thing that is going to have audio all the time. And so they've just turned up the echo cancellation on the device itself just so it's trying to noise cancelling against what's coming out of the speakers all the time because it's just IT is compressing this pretty aggressively IT does .

sound like there is some processing happening yeah before he gets into here.

the how are the speakers on this like the actual listening experience is pretty solid, right? I feel like, yeah yeah so this this agree would work in a pinch in a meeting. But uh, Andrew would not allow you on the verge cast in the headset under norm circumstances.

Also like if you're reaching for a headset in a pinch for a meeting, something has gone terribly wrong. Consider something has gone terribly. Wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

Because where is your phone? There's just easier things to do than to slap on a headset. And then, you know, like I had gotten logged out of my account because the spouse logged into this at some point and was playing games.

Then IT was just like, I wears my account. Oh, I forgot. I don't remember what my facebook password is. Oh, you're telling me how to log into this with that that this was an ordeal yesterday, getting this prompt for today.

I well in the name of making everything simpler and Better. Let's make IT more complicated.

Let's switch a new division prop. Let's try that next. Ord, actually, that might be slightly easier than one.

We will go back to the whole music, right?

right? All .

right. Well, I took, I took some digging settings and some appi booting, but we ve got IT working. And now your persona is here.

And I I hate this is already, but i'm going to not look. I'm just going to listen. How do we stand? How we? Dian.

this was a nightmare. This is a nightmare. Everything's is a nightmare air.

I can't stop looking at my horrible persona. Why is my hair so lumpy? My eyebrow ers are also missed. So I just look dubious.

The good news is you sound great. I'm actually like, amazed by how good this sounds. I suppose IT to thirty five hundred dollar had that again, it's a thing on your face.

They're a lot of microphones apples, pretty good in noise cancellation. I sort of figure this would be just in terms of raw audio, the best one. But IT is, I would say, like a full leap, be above anything else we've tested so .

far is surprising just because of how annoying IT was to get into this APP.

There's definitely some compression. I will say that, that i'm hearing more and more as you talk. It's doing a lot of the same like processing and and cancellation stuff, but still sounds very good. And it's it's very central like you you are right in the middle of the mixon IT IT. Sounds like you're talking to me instead of shouting at a phone from several rooms away, which is very nice.

I will say that whenever I ve done my current vision pro face time with west, everything sounds great like because he's obviously in the vision pro and using that might and it's always sound like he's in the room with me, which is on cane and frEddie on top of his mustache that won't move yeah the real .

take away from this is, uh, face time audio. Is your friend on the vision pro, not face time video and that is, that is the way to live your life fun .

of vision pro now half the time our face times are alike oh, why do I have this over my mouth? This cloud, because my hand is there.

Well, IT sounds good. Let let's get you out of your misery. here. I do.

We we weren't planned to do this, but we should test area podd s last, just as kind of a control on the rest of IT. Do you prepare of airports lying around? I do. All right, let's go get those take off this god for sick and headset. And let's let's try those.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me leave virtual jail. The I just .

day I don't .

know what is up, but your voices sped up like .

three hundred yeah I going to have to kick you .

out the and come back IT I can even understand yeah I I think yeah just .

kick her out yeah then you're back with their podds on ipod D S pro.

A U S B C version. So I guess the latest versions of the air pod s pro you can have okay.

So I have to say this is this sounds comparatively worse than I actually expected. I would say I would put this lake pretty close to the very first, the razor ones that we listen to, in the sense that IT is a kind of sounds like a far away on the directional microphone. And like you sound find, I can hear you, I can hear everything you're saying, but like I expected this to come on on me to be like, oh ah this sounds kind of like the the ray and smart glasses this is like demonstrated ly worse than those at least to my years, Andrew, is that in my way off here no.

absolutely actually would like to hear how the resort wce sound again, because those were a lot more full sounding in a frequency range. Then these these comes on pretty tiny actually in comparison.

I mean, I do have an assortment of this gadget in my strong across my room, which is like my office rather, which is disaster now zone. It's like later the week. So I have been put my gadgets away like a naught, naught gadget reviewer. So it's literally right here.

I could put that back on if you are really quick, really quick.

okay, right? And back in these glasses switch, you guys say, look fine on me, but I think I look a little like I A little bit like the grand power from up.

First of all, that's a compliment you should be setting to look like the from but yeah, Andrew, i'm kind of hearing what that sounds like you were saying that like this is a little fur but to me a little sort of further back where like IT IT sounds further away but in a certain sense Better .

yeah so it's probably like the worst microphones but they are closer to the face. So you get a little more detail of what he is saying. I really do there's a trade off there. But like if I want to call like I would almost prefer these not on a podcast but in a meeting.

Yeah, yeah. You do sound clear in this like I feel like I hear your voice more clearly IT just sounds to me like you're further away from IT. That's really interesting.

Big win for headsets today. I expect the airports s to come somewhere in the middle. I think you could make a pretty compelling case that all four of the things you just tried are Better microphones for talking to people than a pair air pods.

Wow, that was a big boom to the mark glasses category.

This is also a big win for you and me wearing glasses, walking around, talking to ourselves like many I X kind of situation.

you know. And my neighbor's have seen me to walk and talk like just filming social videos, and just I did the social video doing a walk and talk and someone was just like, this whole really just be walking out here talking to in air and I was just like, yeah, you know what? This is the future baby everything microphone.

I really hope you will say that to people. You just say, this is the future baby, and then you just have five them and move on. I love IT right? Well, we need to get out of here. Big, giant win for smart glasses today. I'm going to say, in terms of lake, the combination of you don't look like a lunatic and you sound pretty good I think the mea smart glasses here, probably the winner for me in terms of like what would I tell you to go get for a good microphone, Andrew.

what's your yes. I would like to note that the how much are the razor and zoo, how they cost .

on amazon? You can get them for forty dollars.

Jesus 2， that's really cheap for that.

That is really cheap.

If someone was like, should I get the two hundred and fifty dollar meta glasses? Or should I get these forty dollar glasses and I can take calls with I might just say get those that is fair.

That's a big praise difference. The meta ones seventy something Better. But yeah for fifty blocks as a as a thing to just throw on when you have a phone call, the reader one is not a terrible choice.

So that's shocking to me. That's like, obviously, i've tested this a long time ago so I didn't remember, but that's just wow, talking about them for your book.

The thing that I use the the meta smart glasses for a lot is it's like i've had I had that I was in a correction in a couple of weeks. I spent a lot time on hold with the claims department. And rather than wear headphones, I can just like throw them on and sit on hold and then I can like listen to music in the room or whatever.

And actually, for sitting on hold, a pair of smart glasses is like weirdly great. So I in that case, again, like the the fifty dog enzo are, are also a pretty solid choice. But I feel like raw sort of quality and usability meet up.

But Andrew, you make a point. Fifty dollars for this is is not the worst still in the world. And you get to look like the grape from up, which is an incredible.

huge factory juries out on how how these look at me. Like you guys say, IT looks fine.

but so want to think about, right? We got to let you go. Thank you so much, as always, for doing this and putting up with all of our blues nonsense.

Thank you. I'm just gonna lie down and take a break. And we calibrate my vision pro.

We got to take a break and come back to question.

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Welcome back, right? Let's get to the hot line. As always, number is eight, six, six, verge one one.

The email is verge cast of the verge outcome. We love all of your questions. Please keep sending us all of your wildest, weirdest questions about technology.

Also in particular, i'm really eager to start doing more like tiny, tiny tech mysteries. So if you have a weird tech problem that you can't solve and we might be able to help with, let us know. This week we have a question which seemed fitting. Bug glasses.

Hey, David, it's ruby from the U. K. I have that eyesight and I will last us all the time.

And it's getting to the point where I really need new glasses. But I told myself I wouldn't buy new friends unless they were smart glasses. I don't like matter.

So those are out of the question, but I don't know if I was you, but the verge reviewed a para smart goss called focus by a company called north IT got bought by google, and they have a little laser projector that just gave you a hug. And from those reviews, IT looked pretty cool. Do you think that maybe something we might see in the near future and maybe even an A I version of IT that's not stupid? Thanks in take care.

okay. So real quick. If you don't remember the north vocals and you'd be forgiven for not remembering the north vocals, basically the way that they worked was instead of being two screens in front of your eyes, there is a little laser projector off to the right.

I think of the glasses. So IT would project the laser onto the little polymer in the middle of the right lens, which will then reflect that light back into your eyes. So instead of looking at a screen, you are getting what amounted to, I think he was a three hundred pixel by three hundred pixel display, kind of right in the middle of your right eye.

And you could see through IT when IT wasn't projecting, IT looks just like a little smudge on the lens s itself. IT was a very clever system. North had a real problem making these things worked out.

For one, it's expensive. Technology is a startup. They trying to sell these things, I think, for a thousand dollars, which most people are just not going to a spend a thousand dollars on a pair of glasses.

Google ended up buying north. I think most sleep for the technology. But obviously google has a complicated relationship with smart glasses all the way back to google glass, I do think the company is committed to doing some kind of A R X R thing.

The company keeps teasing IT and talking about IT. There was that thing in the project astra video, where you can see the glasses like it's is out there. Google is still thinking about this stuff.

But what north did was really clever, honestly, and i'm sort of a sad. We've seen the company go, but I was tough, right? Not only I was really expensive, but north famously had trouble with people with longer eyelashes.

And evidently, the display struggled when people were wearing mascara. So this up is hard, is my point. It's hard and it's expensive. And there is just not a lot of progress being made towards putting this kind of technology in something that looks and feels and costs like a Normal pair of classes. All that said, I do think something like the focus is probably where we're headed in the immediate future.

Like look sure someday the whole vision pro made a quest thing might be the future, but it's only going to be the future when those things look like a pair of glasses. And I think we're just a bunch of huge technical innovations away from that being the case. So what we're going to see instead, I think, is something that feels more like a heads up display, right? Something that projects little bits of information at a time onto your face.

And as we've talking about this whole episode, if you believe that chat and particular voice in, voice out chat with A I systems is going to be a key part of how we talk to computers, something like that becomes really powerful, right? I can display your text message and you can respond to IT. IT can show you the answer to a question that you ask.

I can show you the information that you ask. IT becomes this really useful thing in a way that even north, five years ago, was trying to, like awkward dly, rewrite apps to make them make sense on this tiny display in a way that was just really hard. Now we have a confluence of things, whether it's voice or we've had a lot of work with.

We gets on, you know, lock screens and home screens of phones. That stuff has also been transferred to smart watches, which have made a lot of progress in the last five years. Put all of that together and you can sort of see how the interface for a pair of glasses that is just listening to you talk, maybe doing some gesture control.

Again, we have these new smart rings, like the galaxy ring that are starting to experiment with. Maybe you can use your fingers to control devices just with your hands. Meta is also working on this kind of stuff.

Mark zuker given said there is a new wearable that the company has been working on that is getting ready to release. That is going to be a new way to control. So again, all of this is just coming together.

The question is going to be, can anyone make a product out of IT? Can you do north's thing where north also had A A little ring joystick thing that was kind of need, but also kind of got the way? Can you do that well with a smart ring? Can you figure out the interface in a way that is useful and will make people want to spend the extra money on IT without being too much extra money to the point where people just don't want IT in addition to their regular pair glasses?

Can you make the battery last long enough that IT doesn't feel like I have to charge my glasses twice a day because that's a terrible experience? And then I think there's the biggest question, which is just that we haven't sold out any of this is supposed to work. The google executive a few years ago said to me that one of the most chAllenging things about A R is figuring out kind of the relative noise level of an A R system.

And I mean, noise in the sense of, like, how in your face IT is and involved IT is in your life, right? Sometimes you want lots of information. You want IT to be telling you what's going on around you.

You want IT to point you to the coffee shop down the street or the cool place that you totally should go, or the fact that your friend is over there. And then other time, you want IT to just shut up and go away. And you want all of that to happen automatically and seamlessly.

And without you having to decide what you want, like your phone, you can just leave somewhere else. You can walk away from your phone in a way that you can walk away from a pair of classes, especially if they're corrective, if you need them. And so all these interfaces are going to have to be automatic and perfect and uncomplicated in ways that just no one has figured out yet, right?

Like if you got as many notifications on your face as you get on your phone every day, you would stop wearing glasses the very first day you just would. We all would. It's a bad interface when IT is literally in front of your eyes whenever you get a notification.

And that stuff, I think, is gonna take longer to solve because it's about who we are as people and how we use technology and what we care about and what we don't care about. And putting all those pieces together, I think, is actually the hardest part of all this. Because, again, you have rings, which I think you're doing interesting gesture and sending stuff.

You have other devices doing that there. Who knows? We might get like brain computer interfaces soon enough.

I think the glasses technology is getting Better pretty quickly. North's projector was not amazing, but I was pretty good. And that was a while ago. And Frankly, it's a bammer that we haven't gotten to see five years of progress there. We also are seeing companies like metal really had to bet on the smart glasses space. I think the idea that we are going to get headsets and we are all gone to learn how to live inside of headsets was just the wrong one.

And I think even the success that meta has said at seeing from the smart glasses is proof that what we're doing is saying, how do we make glasses that look like glasses and look like glasses and feel like glasses? How do we make them more useful over time? And I think that is a really interesting road that is going to lead the interesting things fairly quickly.

So take to your question specifically. I think if you need a pair of glasses today, you should just buy a pair of glasses. There's not anything that is so smart and so good even at doing one thing beyond being a pair of lasses that IT feels worth making a huge bet on.

But it's kind of like the one after this one, right? Like some day in you know a couple of years when you lose these glasses or need to increase your prescription or they break or whatever. I think at that point, we might be somewhere where there is a heads up display in your glasses that is pretty useful.

I want to do everything. I won't be a full on metaverse A R experience where you can like playing games in the around you, but there will be something maybe it'll show you your text messages, but that do something. And I think that would be pretty cool.

There are companies out. They're working on this. I think google has intimated that their stuff going on, there's some indication um reporting that we've seen from mark carin, a bloomberg and others that apple is starting to really work on smart glasses. Meta is very clearly investing in this more and more over time. Uh, there is a company called brilliant labs that is doing some interesting work here on trying to create a whole ecosystem of these smart glasses.

So like I think this is coming and I think you're on to the right idea that just a little display, a little bit of information, a little bit of sort of additive interface over top of the real world is the next thing and feels achievable. But I just can't think of something I would tell you to buy right this minute that feels like it's the answer. So maybe go by, like, you know, the junkiest pair of glasses, you can find that they still look good and work well, and then just try to keep him around until you find the right thing.

Alright, that is that for the verge cast today. Thanks to everybody who came on the show, and thank you. As always, for listings, there's lots more on everything we talked about from the gaming hand hills to all of our views of all of those wearable face puter thing is, at the verse dot com, I puts the links in the show notes, but I always read the verse that com.

There is a lot going on right now. So go check up the site. As always, if you thoughts, questions, feelings or handheld gaming councils that I should buy email as verge casted the verge dot com, or call the hotline eight, six, six, verge one, one we'd love hearing from you is my favorite.

This shows produce by anger, marino, liam James, and will pour the verge cast's verge production in part of the vox media podcast network. Nei alex, I will be back on friday to talk about all the AI new is all the apple public beta stuff and everything else happening this week. We'll see you then rockall.

Support for this episode comes from A W S. A W S, generate A A, I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced club. Hey, it's lee from the koto with new ipad top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

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