Technology - Google News

The Moto G Stylus and G Power make Motorola’s best budget phones even better - The Verge
Move aside, Google Maps, Apple Maps and GPS: Why people still love their paper maps - USA TODAY
Samsung Galaxy S9+ Redux: How good is a 2 year old flagship? - Android Authority

The Moto G Stylus and G Power make Motorola’s best budget phones even better - The Verge

Posted: 07 Feb 2020 06:00 AM PST

Motorola's Moto G line of smartphones has had some of the best budget phones on the market, and this year's models — the Moto G Stylus and the Moto G Power — look to continue that reputation with bigger screens, faster processors, better cameras, and new features while staying under a $299 price point. The G Stylus, in particular, stands out as one of the few Android phones available in 2020 with a built-in stylus.

For this year's Moto G phones, Motorola is dropping the numeric name scheme it's used since the original Moto G launched in 2013. That said, the new phones are effectively the G8 successors to last year's (very good) G7 lineup in all but name. (The $299 G Stylus replaces the G7, while the $249 G Power replaces the G7 Power.)

I had the chance to try both phones out, and they're solid improvements over the previous models. The new screens look better than ever, and the switch to a hole-punch camera over a notch makes them look like more premium devices. Neither of the new Moto G phones will blow anyone away with specs or features (unless you really like styluses), but considering the price point they're competing at, they're impressive devices.

The two phones share a lot in common. On the front of both is a 6.4-inch, 19:9 FHD+ display with a 16-megapixel hole-punch camera (instead of the 6.2-inch, notched displays on last year's models). Their processor has been bumped to a Snapdragon 665 chipset, which provides enough power for the new triple rear-camera systems on both phones. Both devices also feature 4GB of RAM, stereo speakers, and Android 10.

They share a similar design, with shiny plastic exteriors that house a 3.5mm headphone jack and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. The G Power is a bit thicker and heavier, thanks to its larger battery. Unfortunately, there's still no NFC or wireless charging, which is frustrating, even considering the budget price tags here. The phones also feature a "water repellant" design, but are explicitly not waterproof.

The differences between the two phones lie mainly in their eponymous features. The G Stylus, as one might guess, has a stylus. It's not quite as capable as the Galaxy Note 10 — Motorola's stylus is completely analog, with none of the fancy Bluetooth linking or camera shutter buttons featured on the Note's S Pen. But Motorola does have a few software tricks up its sleeve here, like Moto Note, a lightweight note-taking application that pops up when you pull out the stylus when the phone is locked. There's also a customizable quick-launch menu that hovers in the corner of the screen.

Despite the lack of more advanced tech, the G Stylus feels pretty nice to use. It also costs a fraction of Samsung's stylus-equipped flagship (normally priced at $950), which could make it a good option for those who prefer the pen-based approach without wanting to spend premium prices.

The G Power, on the other hand, offers a larger battery — 5,000 mAh, compared to the 4,000 mAh battery on the pricier G Stylus. With that massive battery combined with the mid-range processor, Motorola says that the G Power should last up to three days on a charge.

The other big difference between the phones is in their cameras. Both phones feature a triple camera setup on the back, but the specs are very different between the two. The more expensive G Stylus got more of Motorola's love here. There's a 48-megapixel main camera that shoots quad-pixel 12-megapixel stills and features a night vision mode, along with a 2-megapixel macro lens, which can focus in on objects that are just two centimeters (0.7 inches) away.

The G Stylus' most interesting camera is the dedicated 117-degree ultrawide video camera, which Motorola debuted in last year's Motorola One Action. Like the One Action, the 16-megapixel sensor here is physically rotated so that it shoots horizontally oriented video when the phone is held vertically, and it's paired with software algorithms that promise to reduce shakiness during action shots. It's not quite a substitute for a Go Pro, but it's a fun camera to play around with.

The G Power is less exciting, with a 16-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel 118-degree ultrawide camera, and the same macro camera as the G Stylus. It also offers half the internal storage as the G Stylus, which has 128GB compared to the G Power's 64GB. Both phones offered upgradable microSD card slots, though, should you need more space.

Both phones will be sold unlocked at a variety of retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and B&H Photo, when they come out later this spring.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Move aside, Google Maps, Apple Maps and GPS: Why people still love their paper maps - USA TODAY

Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:08 AM PST

Edward C. Baig USA TODAY

Published 7:49 AM EST Feb 7, 2020

Even if everything navigation is pointing in the direction of GPS, you'll never tear some folks away from their paper maps.

In Northern New Jersey, Stephanie Kivett Ohnegian keeps an atlas in her car because "there are places where the GPS signal doesn't work" or "the routing is ridiculous."

Out in Portland, Oregon, Kimberly Davis has paper maps in her earthquake "go bag" – just in case.

And in Newport Beach, California, Christine McCullough has another practical reason for keeping the once-ubiquitous thick, spiral-bound Thomas Guides in her car. As the kids prepare for their driving tests, her edict is "no phones."

Few folks would dismiss the fact that GPS, for all its imperfections, can be a godsend when we've lost our way – assuming it wasn't GPS that sent us wildly off course in the first place.

Same goes for Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze.

And those apps are constantly evolving, too.

Apple just delivered a redesigned Apple Maps experience with what the company insists is faster and more accurate navigation, and more comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and so on.

Apple unveiled a new Look Around feature that is similar to Google's Street View, leveraging high-resolution photographs to let you see what major cities look like.

As part of its 15th birthday, Google is rolling out a refreshed look of Google Maps on iOS and Android devices and adding such new features as the ability for some transit riders to determine whether their bus or train is likely to be on the warmer or colder side.

Google Maps turns 15: Here are 15 tips to get the most out of the app

As digital navigation tools continue to become regular fixtures in getting us to where we're going, Google Maps is also looking at having an impact on establishing where we are. Google CEO Sundar Pichai blogged that, "one of the next frontiers for Maps will be to help the billions of people who live without a physical address get a digital one," using latitude and longitude coordinates rather than a street address, which he says would let more folks access things like banking and emergency services, receive personal mail and deliveries, and help others find and patronize their businesses.

San Francisco market researcher Grand View Research estimated the global digital map market to be worth $5.6 billion in 2018. The firm expects the market to continue to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 12.1% through 2025.

Where does that leave printed maps?

Paper maps still sell

"Do they still make, even sell, paper maps?" That question from retired New York marketing executive Michael Lissauer is emblematic of our daily reliance on digital navigation. "Other than in a history class, Europe before World War II, who needs a paper map?"

It may surprise Lissauer and others that the answer to the question is yes. They're actually on the rise. U.S. sales of print maps and road atlases had have had a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10%, according to the NPD BookScan. In 2019, year-over-year sales climbed 7%.

Tony Rodono has certainly heard it all before. He owns and runs The Map Shop. "We've had a retail location in Charlotte, North Carolina, for about 30 years, and every day we get somebody walking in saying, 'How in the world can you stay in business?'"

Not only is The Map Shop still in business but it is also moving to a bigger facility, partly to manufacture three-dimensional "raised relief maps" that are vacuum formed over a mold to help people get a better representation of an area's topography.

A few of The Map Shop's older generation customers are skeptical of GPS, he finds. "They have a flip phone that's tucked away with their map in their glove box for emergencies," he says. But he's seeing fewer and fewer customers who fit that description.

Members of AAA can still walk into a local branch and request a TripTik, the spiral-bound notebooks filled with fold-out maps tracking the route to their final destination. An AAA agent would highlight the route with a marker and point out sightseeing spots, restaurants, perhaps places to spend the night. You'd typically walk out with tour books as well.

As a signpost of the digital age, people nowadays can order TripTiks, which first surfaced in 1937, online or through the AAA app and create a digital version.

Dave Arland still frequents aAAA branch before a big car trip. The Indiana public relations executive insists, "Nothing beats the high-resolution printed map! Plus printed maps don't have an attitude like Siri, Google, or others!"

"I am a paper girl all the way," says Cindi Gildard, a bookkeeper at Chase Leavitt in Portland, Maine. "I'm not a navigator. I wouldn't know how to use a GPS if there was one in my vehicle."

Instead, Gildard relies on the "awesome" "Maine Atlas and Gazetteer," which she says shows "old little dirt roads and where bridges were washed out." The Gazetteer uses dotted lines, she adds, to indicate areas in the backcountry where you need four-wheel drive.

No signal? No problem. No battery required

For her part, Kendra Ensor, the vice president of marketing at Rand McNally in Chicago, says about five years ago the company started to see an uptick in Road Atlas sales. "After all, a printed atlas doesn't require batteries or a satellite or cell signal," she says.

Fear of those dead batteries or spotty coverage is a key reason cited by many of the people who responded to USA TODAY on social media about why they still use paper maps.

"When we were in Nebraska last year with all the flooding, a paper map would have been helpful when both Apple and Google Maps told us to go down a flooded road," says Barb Gonzalez, a travel photographer and writer based in Bend, Oregon.

There's a host of other reasons for printed maps, though, from carefully curated collections for historical or scholarly purposes to artistic displays to the accidental stockpile from recent travels.

David Rumsey's collection of over 150,000 maps is housed at Stanford University. Over 30 years, he amassed atlases, wall maps, globes, school geographies, pocket maps, maritime charts dating from about 1550.

For community planners, real estate agents and engineers, for instance, paper maps are just tools of the trade.

"Suddenly we have these driving directions in our pockets, and everybody seems to have forgotten that all these other maps exist, even though they clearly use them on a regular basis," says Daniel Huffman, a cartographer and an honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "I don't think there is much of a separate case to be made for paper maps versus paper newspapers or paper books."

Privacy: Paper maps tell no tales

To the extent that people fret about privacy, paper maps also won't track you.

Now, Apple emphasized privacy as part of its rollout for the latest iteration of Apple Maps: No sign-on is required, for example, and data collected by Maps while using the app, including search terms, navigation routing, and traffic information, is hidden behind random identifiers.

When you navigate somewhere using Google Maps, your every movement is often tracked, where it shows up inside Google's somewhat controversial opt-in Location History feature. Those seeking more privacy can enable Incognito Mode, which will stop Google from saving your Maps search and navigation activities to your Google Account. The downside is you'll lose some personalization features, around such things as restaurant recommendations and traffic updates.

Using paper maps to plan

There's just something about unfolding a map and laying it flat on a table. It's at the same time visceral and visual. You get the size, sweep and perspective that's typically lacking when you stare at a smallish screen or wait for the voice to tell you when to make the next turn.

You may mark up that map as you pore over it for sites you might want to visit. It could be for a trip soon to be taken, or it may represent the only manifestation of the dream of a trip yet to materialize beyond the map in your hand.

"My dividing line: paper maps for planning and GPS in transit," says Marty Levine in Vancouver, Canada.

For some people, a map is memory. It rekindles something else, perhaps a cherished and tangible recollection of places they visited or once lived, or it lives as a representation of ancestral ties, like the birthplace of their parents or grandparents.

"My husband and I used a paper map to drive throughout Portugal during our honeymoon (in 2017)," says Andrea Schneider, who lives in Austin. The couple highlighted their route in orange and yellow, to mark alternate days.

At night, they'd review the "spectacular" high-speed toll roads and many tunnels they'd gone through and plot the next day's route. Schneider says the map gave them a deeper insight into the country's typography and highway system.

"This 'old-school' approach to an international road trip was more interesting, reliable and fun than depending upon Google Maps," she says.

The map is currently tucked away in a box with other mementos from the Portugal trip, and Schneider says she plans to frame it one of these days.

"It's a lovely keepsake and souvenir that can't really be recreated via a GPS."

In this rapidly evolving digital world, paper maps add a sense of permanence. Roads and streets change for sure, and no printed map can typically keep up with that pace of change. But printed maps aren't just about plotting where you may be heading next. They're as much about where you have been.

How do you use paper maps? Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Samsung Galaxy S9+ Redux: How good is a 2 year old flagship? - Android Authority

Posted: 07 Feb 2020 06:21 AM PST