Second Opinion

Second Opinion

By The NexusTechnology
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Second Opinion episodes

  • Second Opinion #13: Project Fi Review
    After using Project Fi in several situations, including working at camp and living in St Paul, Buck and Decker are ready to analyze the service. We talk about the coverage, price, special features, and more!

    UPDATE 2018-12-26

    Google made some major changes to Project Fi in 2018!

    • Way back in January: Bill Protection puts a cap on how much money you can spend on data.
      Bill Protection on Project Fi: data when you need it, and savings when you don’t
    • VPN is now always on, not just on unsecured public wifi
      Project Fi’s enhanced network brings faster, more secure connections
      • Successfully gets around the school block list!
      • Sometimes causes apps to be confused about the nature of the connection; I’ve had Pocket Casts and YouTube refuse to download content because they think I’m not on wifi.
      • Project Fi has been renamed Google Fi; you can think of this as their “coming out of beta” moment, Fi is now ready for prime time
      • Addressing Fi’s biggest drawback: more phone options! You can now activate a Fi account with any unlocked Android or iOS phone (Android 7 and up, iOS 11 and up, and support LTE bands 2 and 4.) If it isn’t one of the few that is “designed for Fi,” you’ll be limited to T-Mobile’s network, and you won’t get the VPN.
        Bringing Google Fi to more people on Android and iOS
        • Overview
            • Project Fi
            • Cellular service through Google.
            • Inherits some of Google Voice’s coolest features:
              • Access calls, SMS, and voicemails from all your devices via Hangouts.
              • Wifi calling.
              • Voicemail transcription.
              • Cheap international calls.
              • Any money you put in your Google Voice wallet goes into paying for Fi.
              • Adds some new features:
                • Uses T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular, or wifi, whichever is the best option at the time.
                • “Multi-network operator.”
                • Wifi assistant has a huge database of open, high-quality hotspots that it will connect to automatically. It also encrypts all your traffic, so it can’t be monitored. Very nice for accessing Facebook at school.
                • Tethering isn’t limited, just counts as data used.
                • Pricing:
                  • $20/Mo for unlimited talk and text.
                  • Family plan lets you add more accounts for $15/Mo.
                  • $10/GB of data.
                    • It’s actually measured on a per-megabyte basis.
                    • When you sign up for your plan, you choose how much data you expect to use, and that much money gets added to your first bill. At the end of the month, any data you went over/under your expected amount gets added/subtracted on the next bill.
                    • Coverage:
                      • Much better than just T-Mobile, especially when you get out into rural areas or leave Minnesota.
                      • Verizon has the leg up on places where coverage sucks for just about everyone. Other than that, I’ve never really noticed me losing service with either of those two providers.
                      • International
                        • In 135 countries.
                        • Data is still $10/GB.
                        • SMS is still unlimited.
                        • Calls are 20¢/minute.
                        • Phones
                          • Nexus 6, 5X, 6P, Pixel Phones.
                          • You can get a data-only SIM card for your secondary devices.
                          • Easily the weakest thing about Fi is that they limit your phone options severely.
                          • At the moment the situation is okay, as they cover every price point from $200 to $900. But since they are not continuing the Nexus line, what phones will they have next year? Just expensive Pixel phones?
                            • Attributions
                                • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)

                                  • This episode of Second Opinion has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #409: SO #13 – Put the Cat in the Closet!

                                  Listen to more at The Nexus and follow us on Twitter and Google+ for our latest episodes and news.

                                  41 min
                                • Second Opinion #13: Project Fi Review
                                  UPDATE 2018-12-26
                                  Google made some major changes to Project Fi in 2018!
                                  • Way back in January: Bill Protection puts a cap on how much money you can spend on data.
                                    Bill Protection on Project Fi: data when you need it, and savings when you don’t
                                  • VPN is now always on, not just on unsecured public wifi
                                    Project Fi’s enhanced network brings faster, more secure connections
                                    • Successfully gets around the school block list!
                                    • Sometimes causes apps to be confused about the nature of the connection; I’ve had Pocket Casts and YouTube refuse to download content because they think I’m not on wifi.
                                    • Project Fi has been renamed Google Fi; you can think of this as their “coming out of beta” moment, Fi is now ready for prime time
                                    • Addressing Fi’s biggest drawback: more phone options! You can now activate a Fi account with any unlocked Android or iOS phone (Android 7 and up, iOS 11 and up, and support LTE bands 2 and 4.) If it isn’t one of the few that is “designed for Fi,” you’ll be limited to T-Mobile’s network, and you won’t get the VPN.
                                      Bringing Google Fi to more people on Android and iOS
                                      • Overview
                                          • Project Fi
                                          • Cellular service through Google.
                                          • Inherits some of Google Voice’s coolest features:
                                            • Access calls, SMS, and voicemails from all your devices via Hangouts.
                                            • Wifi calling.
                                            • Voicemail transcription.
                                            • Cheap international calls.
                                            • Any money you put in your Google Voice wallet goes into paying for Fi.
                                            • Adds some new features:
                                              • Uses T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular, or wifi, whichever is the best option at the time.
                                              • “Multi-network operator.”
                                              • Wifi assistant has a huge database of open, high-quality hotspots that it will connect to automatically. It also encrypts all your traffic, so it can't be monitored. Very nice for accessing Facebook at school.
                                              • Tethering isn't limited, just counts as data used.
                                              • Pricing:
                                                • $20/Mo for unlimited talk and text.
                                                • Family plan lets you add more accounts for $15/Mo.
                                                • $10/GB of data.
                                                  • It's actually measured on a per-megabyte basis.
                                                  • When you sign up for your plan, you choose how much data you expect to use, and that much money gets added to your first bill. At the end of the month, any data you went over/under your expected amount gets added/subtracted on the next bill.
                                                  • Coverage:
                                                    • Much better than just T-Mobile, especially when you get out into rural areas or leave Minnesota.
                                                    • Verizon has the leg up on places where coverage sucks for just about everyone. Other than that, I’ve never really noticed me losing service with either of those two providers.
                                                    • International
                                                      • In 135 countries.
                                                      • Data is still $10/GB.
                                                      • SMS is still unlimited.
                                                      • Calls are 20¢/minute.
                                                      • Phones
                                                        • Nexus 6, 5X, 6P, Pixel Phones.
                                                        • You can get a data-only SIM card for your secondary devices.
                                                        • Easily the weakest thing about Fi is that they limit your phone options severely.
                                                        • At the moment the situation is okay, as they cover every price point from $200 to $900. But since they are not continuing the Nexus line, what phones will they have next year? Just expensive Pixel phones?
                                                          • Attributions
                                                              • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor - Organic (electric edit)
                                                                • 41 min
                                                              • Second Opinion #10: iOS 10 Review
                                                                Overview
                                                                • iOS - iOS 10 - Apple
                                                                • iOS 10: The MacStories Review – MacStories
                                                                • Pillow: The sleep cycle alarm clock for sleep tracking on the App Store
                                                                • iPhone 7 - Brian Mitchell
                                                                • Getting Started with Bolt - Misfit
                                                                • GitHub - flochtililoch/homebridge-misfit-bolt: Misfit Bolt plugin for Homebridge
                                                                • OMG Transit - Real-time transit information and availability
                                                                  • Attributions
                                                                  • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor - Organic (electric edit)
                                                                    • 1 hr 15 min
                                                                  • Second Opinion #9: Allo & Duo Review
                                                                    Ian R Buck and Ryan Rampersad hold nothing back as they criticize almost everything about Allo and Duo. You shouldn't install the apps, but you should find out why from us.

                                                                    Things in Common
                                                                    • Available on Android and iOS.
                                                                    • Uses your phone number, your phone contacts to populate its contacts list.
                                                                      • Can only have one device associated with your number at a time.
                                                                      • Problem: I have far more people’s email addresses than phone numbers.
                                                                      • Not available on tablets.
                                                                        • Allo
                                                                      • Instant messaging app.
                                                                      • Integrates the new Google Assistant.
                                                                        • Finally admitting that most people don’t want to talk to their phone to get stuff done most of the time.
                                                                        • Seems to work alright. I discovered that it can send you the day’s weather forecast every morning. My little sister played games with it for a while.
                                                                        • This is pretty much Allo’s only unique feature, so when the Assistant becomes available in more areas of the phone/in Google Home, Allo will lose a lot of its appeal.
                                                                        • Does not tell you if a contact has Allo yet. If they do not, it sends the message as an SMS with a link to install Allo.
                                                                        • When you switch devices, you lose all your messages from the old device.
                                                                          • Duo
                                                                        • One-to-one video calling.
                                                                        • How is the video and audio quality?
                                                                        • Interface is simple, clean, to the point.
                                                                        • Knock knock.
                                                                          • Attributions
                                                                          • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)

                                                                            • This episode of Second Opinion has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #399: SO #9 — Look With Your Eyes!

                                                                            Listen to more at The Nexus and follow us on Twitter and Google+ for our latest episodes and news.

                                                                            31 min
                                                                          • Second Opinion #9: Allo & Duo Review
                                                                            Things in Common
                                                                            • Available on Android and iOS.
                                                                            • Uses your phone number, your phone contacts to populate its contacts list.
                                                                              • Can only have one device associated with your number at a time.
                                                                              • Problem: I have far more people’s email addresses than phone numbers.
                                                                              • Not available on tablets.
                                                                                • Allo
                                                                              • Instant messaging app.
                                                                              • Integrates the new Google Assistant.
                                                                                • Finally admitting that most people don’t want to talk to their phone to get stuff done most of the time.
                                                                                • Seems to work alright. I discovered that it can send you the day’s weather forecast every morning. My little sister played games with it for a while.
                                                                                • This is pretty much Allo’s only unique feature, so when the Assistant becomes available in more areas of the phone/in Google Home, Allo will lose a lot of its appeal.
                                                                                • Does not tell you if a contact has Allo yet. If they do not, it sends the message as an SMS with a link to install Allo.
                                                                                • When you switch devices, you lose all your messages from the old device.
                                                                                  • Duo
                                                                                • One-to-one video calling.
                                                                                • How is the video and audio quality?
                                                                                • Interface is simple, clean, to the point.
                                                                                • Knock knock.
                                                                                  • Attributions
                                                                                  • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor - Organic (electric edit)
                                                                                    • 31 min
                                                                                  • Second Opinion #8: Android 7.0 Nougat Review
                                                                                    Changes/new stuff
                                                                                    • Notifications
                                                                                      • Biggest change you will notice.
                                                                                      • No longer cards with space between them. Now they are full width of the screen, and have a tiny border between them.
                                                                                      • If you have multiple notifications from one app, they will be grouped together in an expandable notification. Then each of them can be expanded as well to reveal the actions you can perform on them.
                                                                                        • I find it hard to distinguish between notifications, especially when I have a bunch of Gmail notifications waiting for me.
                                                                                        • To indicate that you can expand notifications, they have a little downward-facing chevron. This also means that dragging down is not the only way to expand; you can tap on the chevron as well. I wish there was a setting to get rid of the chevron, because I accidentally tap on it a lot when trying to open a notification.
                                                                                        • For messaging apps, you can now reply to almost any of them directly from the notification.
                                                                                        • If you have System UI Tuner enabled, you can get really granular control over how each app’s notifications behave. All the way from notifications disabled to always peeking.
                                                                                        • Quick settings
                                                                                          • Customizable! Paginated!
                                                                                          • The first five settings become toggles that show up at the top of the notifications for quick access.
                                                                                          • Way easier to know what behavior it will have now - if it is in quick settings, it will open the setting. If it is at the top of the notifications, it will toggle the setting.
                                                                                          • Other apps can provide buttons that are available in Quick Settings.
                                                                                          • Recents list
                                                                                            • Double tap recents button to Alt+Tab!
                                                                                            • When recents list pops up, the second-most-recent app takes up most of the space, which makes sense.
                                                                                            • Recents list automatically gets rid of apps you haven’t opened in a long time. I don’t miss them.
                                                                                            • Google search bar is gone. I didn’t even notice.
                                                                                            • Multi-window
                                                                                              • Great to finally have it!
                                                                                              • Really hope the Shield tablet gets this soon, it would be really useful.
                                                                                              • There’s a ways to go on the app developer side, many apps don’t support it very well.
                                                                                              • Picture-in-picture (Android TV)
                                                                                                • Still haven’t encountered any apps that support it.
                                                                                                • Proper built-in file explorer
                                                                                                  • Works through downloads app.
                                                                                                  • If you want to get outside of downloads folder, you have to go through Settings -> Storage -> Explore.
                                                                                                  • Customize display size
                                                                                                    • Large screens can show more information, or if you have trouble seeing you can make text bigger.
                                                                                                    • Emoji changes
                                                                                                      • Support for skin tones.
                                                                                                      • Less abstract faces.
                                                                                                        • Unfortunate, now they’re not gender neutral.
                                                                                                        • Faces all face the camera.
                                                                                                        • Updates
                                                                                                          • Devices that ship with Nougat: two system partitions, one gets updated while the other is running.
                                                                                                          • All devices: “optimizing app 25 of 116” is gone now.
                                                                                                          • Battery
                                                                                                            • Mobile Doze restricts background stuff when you haven’t had the screen on for a while, regardless of how much the device has been moving.
                                                                                                              • I have noticed delayed notifications. I’ll suddenly get four new favorite tweets a few seconds after I turn on the screen.
                                                                                                              • Pocket Casts got killed a couple of times when it was paused by Zombies, Run! for a couple of minutes.
                                                                                                              • Security
                                                                                                                • File based encryption allows the device to boot to the lock screen before it has to ask for a passcode.
                                                                                                                • If you update to 7, it is off by default. Converting to it requires you to wipe the phone. It is labeled as an alpha.
                                                                                                                • Daydream
                                                                                                                  • Coming soon?
                                                                                                                    • Attributions
                                                                                                                    • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor - Organic (electric edit)
                                                                                                                      • 52 min
                                                                                                                    • Second Opinion #7: Pebble Time + Pebble Time Round Review
                                                                                                                      Ian R Buck and Betsy Dadabo review the Pebble Time and Pebble Time Round, and discuss the next generation of time.

                                                                                                                      UPDATE

                                                                                                                      As of December 7th, 2016 Pebble has been acquired by Fitbit. Fitbit is not continuing the Pebble brand with new products, and will not be bringing new features to existing models. Basically, you should not buy a Pebble. But it is still useful to discuss what Pebble was doing right and what they could have improved on, so the review stands as it was in June. See the following link for more information about the Pebble acquisition:

                                                                                                                      • Pebble – Pebble’s Next Step
                                                                                                                        • Overview
                                                                                                                        • Pebble 2, Time 2 + All-New Pebble Core by Pebble Technology — Kickstarter
                                                                                                                          • Attributions
                                                                                                                          • Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)

                                                                                                                            • This episode of Second Opinion has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #386: Donate Boxes!

                                                                                                                            Listen to more at The Nexus and follow us on Twitter and Google+ for our latest episodes and news.

                                                                                                                            47 min

                                                                                                                          About Second Opinion

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                                                                                                                          Second Opinion is a reviews show about anything and everything under the sun. If we can experience it, we can review it.