A quartet of topics this week, as the podcast returns after a brief pause necessitated by summer travel. There’s a new Soylent with coffee in it, and it’s maybe better than tea. The newest headphones from Bose sound so good, Michael is convinced that noise-canceling tech is not in fact the work of Satan. Two new phones arrived: the Samsung Note 7 and the Huawei Honor 8, and both are excellent (for different reasons). Finally, David tells us about why Google’s messaging app strategy is a big fail, and he offers ideas on how to fix it.

Some notes: Pu-Erh. Coffiest. The Bose headphone review. Tim Moynihan’s review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Two WIRED stories about Google Duo, one from David Pierce and one from Cade Metz.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce, Joe “I Don’t Work Here Anymore” Brown is @joemfbrown, and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.