Solid State Podcast

Episode 36 - Samsung’s Unpacked 2023 Event

This week on the Solid State Podcast, there’s really no need for a big extended intro because, well, everyone already knows what we’re here to talk about!
Yep, exactly as announced Samsung called the tech world together last week to show off their top-of-2023 wares in the flagship smartphone and laptop space… 
The mere fact that this event was finally in-person again might really be the single biggest bit of news… on the smartphone front at least. Cameras were upgraded, processors got snappier, and edges got “boxier”…
This is hardly just a Samsung problem, but this space is hitting an all-new stage of maturity that almost lends itself to seem even more yawn-worthy when showcased in big, overdone events versus the infomercial style announcement of the high-Pandemic years. 
But even so, Samsung still brought the flair, the leaks, and shockingly three laptops one of which may just have stolen the show if it’s battery can stand the test of real world use. 
Okay, I wouldn’t exactly call that a short intro after all, but lets dive right in anyway and talk our way through Samsung’s Unpacked 2023 event…

Episode 35 - The Cost of Connectivity

Grocery shopping might be one of the last great bastions of a one-to-one exchange of money for goods… I stand in the check-out line, my items are scanned, and I hand over entirely too much money for a dozen eggs before leaving the store with my bag of soon-to-be-dinners. Thankfully, for now at least, there are no monthly recurring costs associated with my four-pack of Orange Celsius…
What I’m trying to get at is, for the most part, I know the cost of that bag of groceries the moment I leave the store. 
Enter in the question, what is the real cost of so many other things in our lives? You’ve got raw dollars, up-front, post-sale, social, personal, mental… the list is exhausting! 
This isn’t one we’re going to entirely crack here today, or frankly any time soon… but for starters we’re going to spend some time interrogating the questions around our connected lives: Social Media, Cellular Data, the “ding” heard round the room every time someone leaves their ringer on…
So today, let’s talk the TRUE Cost of Connectivity…

Episode 34 - Apple’s surprise M2 Mac and HomePod Announcements

When you follow just about any industry long enough, things can get a bit… cyclical…
Tech is no different there, and possibly one of the leading offenders: CES happens every January, Samsung shows ever-larger phones early each year and folding-ones later that year, and the next thing we know it’s time for another Black Friday “sales” spectacular…
But, every so often… any one of these brands are poised to throw out a curve ball, and this week Apple pulled exactly that...
In a relative one-two-punch of announcements, we went from a perfectly normal post-CES kind of week to new entries in the laptop, desktop, and Smart Home space straight to your ears from the Cupertino space ship…
Once we recovered from our shock, watched a couple of infomercials, and poured over entirely too many spec sheets, we decided the only thing left to do was dissect each announcement for your listening “pleasure”… and see if we can whittle down to what really has been announced, is it any good, and most importantly… should you buy any of it? 
Sit back, load up your favorite benchmark tool, and lets talk our way through Apple’s surprise M2 Mac and HomePod announcements…

Episode 33 - The thing about CES 2023

This shows mere existence is evidence to the fact that when you get two or more tech enthusiasts together… craziness ensues… 
What happens, then, when you get over 100,000 tech enthusiasts, journalists, marketers, and visionaries together in the middle of the desert for a week and surround them with a year’s worth of development, innovation, and just-plain-hard-work? Yeah… craziness doesn’t even start to describe it…
This sand and booze-fueled masterpiece is none of than CES… the annual top-of-year kickoff to everything from TVs, to smart homes, dancing robots...
2023 was absolutely no different, with a number of standouts we’re here to talk through today, a few of which might even see a store shelf someday…
So full-blow Solid State style let’s grab an energy drink, charge those batteries, and full-on sprint through just a handful of our favorites from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show…

Episode 32 - What’s next... for Cassette Tapes (and nostalgia)?

It’s funny to me how “famous last words” are very rarely the actual “last words” on any subject… today’s episode is absolutely no different…
In an episode just a few months ago we took a deep-dive on the still growing resurgence of all-things-vinyl, and yours truly uttered the fateful words that, at the very least, we’d never have to circle back on the subject to cover other now-defunct formats like, for example, cassette tapes…
Fast forward to today’s episode and we’re here to do exactly that… peruse the digital merch table on the ongoing resurgence of everyone’s “favorite” once-ultra-portable medium… 
Grab your #2 pencil, rewind those reels, and let’s talk cassettes, why we loved them, and are they really worth our love once once again? 

Episode 31 - What’s next... for Storage?

Storage space is one of those funny things you rarely think about until you run out of it… this is true if you’re talking about the spice shelf of your pantry or the “free” 15GB that comes with your Gmail account… But when it’s full, your options are clean out what you don’t need or expand capacity. 
Across every gadget we own, every account we maintain, and every press of the shudder button on your camera… one universal truth is we’re adding to that digital storage footprint every second of ever day. And as the technology evolves, every image file becomes bigger and seemingly every AAA title fills your Xbox hard drive that much faster…
Today we’re pulling forward a topic we actually recorded a while back (so, as usual, forgive our earlier audio quality sins) but felt here and now as everyone prepares to unbox shiny new phones and install countless DLC packs, was just the right time to talk all things digital storage.
Now excuse me while I go figure out how to add another shelf to our spice rack…

Episode 30 - What’s in the box... Amazon Kindle Scribe

Some brands are just… known. People play Ping Pong, not table tennis and I simply have never heard someone say “have you tried Bing’ing it yet” on purpose… Sometimes the name simply becomes synonymous with the category…
Amazon is amongst the largest names not just in Tech but in business full-stop… and one of the many products that got them there is a simple slab of plastic with a black-and-white display and a name that is indeed synonymous with the category.
Let’s face it, you see someone reading a book on the subway and there’s not folded paper in their hands, they’re probably using a Kindle…
The development of the Kindle product line has been one of slow, steady iteration on a few key themes: Provide an easy-on-the eyes display attached to a seemingly endless battery and get them in people’s hands as cheaply as possible.
This year though, something new arrived… with a sizably larger display, non-symmetrical stance, and a pen floating to one side, today we’re taking a good look at Amazon’s newest entry, the Kindle Scribe…

Episode 29 - Parts Bin: Holiday Deals, Pixel 7 Pro, Apple Watch Ultra, M2 iPad Pro

Last week we talked about what Black Friday has become for tech, gadgets, and everything else we love around here… a marketing stunt
But, as we touched on, that doesn’t necessarily means deals don’t exist you just have to do your homework on what you’re buying and, sometimes even more importantly, who you’re buying it from…
In follow-up to that idea, we're diving back in "Parts Bin style" to sprint through several of the latest and greatest products to hit this gadget season and where they fall in the equation of must-buy game changer versus overpriced re-hash…
So, in the wrap-up to this year’s coverage of the holiday shopping season for all-things-tech, let’s check out the gear that should be in everyone’s virtual shopping cart and the ones best left collecting dust… at least until it goes on sale next year… 

Episode 28 - Black Friday 2022: The Real Deal(s) or Crazy Hype?

There’s no preamble to the fact that it’s Thanksgiving week in the United States, and while for many this conjures images of Turkey, stuffing, and post-dinner naps on the couch, for a huge number of us it also means that just a few short hours after that nap begins standing in endless lines for "Black Friday", one of the most important shopping days of the year… 
Or… is it? The above would have been debatable over the last couple of years, and almost a certainty 5 or more years before then… But here, in 2022, is Black Friday actually a fixed day or has it actually become so much more that it’s lost any tangible meaning? 
As with so many things, especially in tech, the answer likely lies somewhere in between. It’s impossible to argue that Black Friday exists as a “thing”, even as a brand unto itself… just ask the emails that have been steadily filling my Inbox since mid-July. But as a singular event where the mother-of-all-deals is likely to be found, we’re just not so sure…
In true Solid State fashion, lets take a verbal stroll through Black Friday as it was, as we feel it is today, and where it might be headed in the future…

Episode 27 - Parts Bin: The Worst Tech We Ever Bought (with our own money)

The Fall months, for many people, are synonymous with new gadgets to play with… whether it’s the TV you’ve been waiting to go on sale, or the excuse you needed to splurge on that perfect mechanical keyboard… the options are endless and the promise of a new toy being just over the horizon is fun!
But every so often, especially for your three (somewhat) lovable presenters, things just go a bit sideways…
The next revolutionary widget turns out to be a dud, months or even years of pouring over rumors and reviews still leads you down a path to transistor-based disappointment… We’ve all been there…
So as we ramp up for a holiday season full of blowout sales, new device launches, and ever-rising hopes & dreams, we take a look back this week on some of the times those dreams just didn’t pan out…