Review: Lenovo Moto Z

Text and photos By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

On its own, the Moto Z is an inspired flagship device. It’s made of top tier materials, offers the best of Moto’s bespoke software experiences, yet presents users with a pretty pure Android experience with very little in the way of unwanted bloatware (unless you’re getting it from a carrier).

It’s my impression that Motorola, one of the oldest makers of smartphones in the industry, has always seen a future beyond the smartphone. 

Their first Android device, the Droid (sold in Canada as the Motorola Milestone), was the first to have a slide-out keyboard which differentiated it from most candy bar Androids of the time.

The Moto Atrix smartphone, had the ability to be mated to a laptop accessory and even a desktop, it preceded Microsoft’s Continuum feature of extending a smartphone to become a notebook replacement.

With Moto Maker on the Moto X, the company championed customization and personalization, plus they introduced leather, wood, and other materials to the smartphone market. Kicking off a trend that companies like OnePlus, LG, Huawei and others picked up on, but never really pulled off elegantly. Now, with the Moto Z, we're seeing the next phase of evolution.

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Google aims to democratize VR with Daydream View

Google revealed various new products and solutions today. Their Daydream View is an attempt to democratize Virtual Reality (VR) experiences and make them more accessible to everyone who doesn't see any sense in spending thousands of dollars on more expensive PC-powered VR rigs or expensive add-ons like the Playstation VR.

A huge step up from Google Cardboard, the Daydream View is a soft case for compatible smartphones that is lightweight and can easily fit most people's heads even with eyeglasses. The device uses NFC to intantly connect with smartphones and even comes with its own remote that doubles as a pointer, mouse and trackpad and which fits nicely inside the headset when not in use.

I tried a demo of the Daydream and found it did fit quite easily and wasn't uncomfortable, at least for the three minues I had it on. The remote seems a bit off or needed calibration since it was not accurate. The experiences I tested worked well, were immersive and lag free on the Pixel devices I was looking at. The Daydream View has to be the most comfortable VR headset I have tried, I'm just not sure how that fabric will live up to regular wear and tear.

SlideShow: Google Pixel and Pixel XL

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Here's a closer look at the two premium-priced Android smartphones Google released today. The 5-inch Google Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL which are made of Gorilla Glass and aluminum (with a glass panel for the fingerprint sensor and trackpad at the rear). The devices managed to get the highest DXOMark ratings for any smartphone camera quality and are also tightly integrated with the new Google Assistant learning A.I. We hope to get review units soon to test what these devices can offer and see if they really merit the premium price.

Video: Hands on with the Google Pixel

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Here's a quick look at the Google Pixel smartphone released earlier today plus an intro to many of the personal assitant and camera features that this new flagship device will showcase. Google Pixel is available for preorder now and will come to Canada in 2-3 weeks. It will also be available from Rogers, Bell and TELUS as well as other carriers on various plans. 

Specs include a 5 or 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a SnapDragon 821  Quad-Core processor running 2.15 GHz + 1.6 GHz, 4GB of RAM, turbo-charging capability giving 7 hours on a 15 minute charge, 32GB and 128GB storage capacities, a 12 megapixel rear camera, an 8 megapixel front-facing camera and a rear fingerprint sensor which doubles as a trackpad for navigation.