What is a tech trend going on right now that you just don't understand?

[xeromynd]

-Curvy > Thin. So many devices that look so damn thin they're going to shatter if they even so much as touch the corner on a counter, or railing. I don't get it. All I see when I look at an iPad is the opportunity for $600 to be whisked away from me as soon as I drop it once.

 

-Breakout cables are for assholes. No, just don't do it. Oh you're trying to market your device as simple, sleek elegant, and minimalist? How convenient that you barely mention that it needs an octof**ksplittercable with 20 tentacles coming out of it just to plug in peripherals or get remotely decent i/o. Looking right at you new Macbook, Apogee One, etc...

 

-Smart Watches. Never wore watches before, and them being "smart" isn't a compelling reason to do so now. Half the functionality of my iPhone, yet another device I still have to plug in at night and worry about. Another piece of tech I have to worry about forgetting before I leave the house.

 

-The constant need to charge things. I remember when my old Razr phone lasted about 4 days on a full charge. My iPhone? Probably 10 hours with limited use. Ridiculous. Battery life should be one of the first things cell phone manufacturers push. You can keep your 4K, hell, even 1080p on my phone. Give me 720p on my sensibly sized smartphone, and better battery life please. Don't even get me started on the whole huge phone fad. Seeing girls walk around my college campus with phones bigger than their one hand or half their head.

 

-Colored motherboards. I'd think most all PC builders do care somewhat about asthetics, and wouldn't like their yellow MSI gaming motherboard matched up with their red Asus GPU, making for a McDonaldsy mess of colors. Colors should be swappable on everything. I don't know how, but it would seem like you're limiting your sales when you decide "this motherboard is going to have aquamarine and mauve accents on it, screw you if you actually want this amazing piece of tech to match your build. RGB LED's everywhere? Swappable insert plates? I dunno, I just wish it would happen.

[MoonKnightSpidey]

Calculators. What happened to a good old fashioned Abacus?

[Hero7750]

Phone resolutions past 1080p 

[Techteen14]

Phone resolutions past 1080p 

 

I can see pixels on my OPO if I try hard enough, and I CAN tell the difference between the 326PPI of the iPhone 6 and the 535PPI of the LG G3.

 

Plus, 1440p phones tend to use less power than 1080p phones, take the Note 3 and Note 4. The Note 4's screen and processor are both more efficient than the Note 3's, so the 4 gets better battery life despite the higher-resolution screen.

 

-Curvy > Thin. So many devices that look so damn thin they're going to shatter if they even so much as touch the corner on a counter, or railing. I don't get it. All I see when I look at an iPad is the opportunity for $600 to be whisked away from me as soon as I drop it once.

 

This

 

 

-Breakout cables are for assholes. No, just don't do it. Oh you're trying to market your device as simple, sleek elegant, and minimalist? How convenient that you barely mention that it needs an octof**ksplittercable with 20 tentacles coming out of it just to plug in peripherals or get remotely decent i/o. Looking right at you new Macbook, Apogee One, etc...

 

LOL, this.

 

 

-Smart Watches. Never wore watches before, and them being "smart" isn't a compelling reason to do so now. Half the functionality of my iPhone, yet another device I still have to plug in at night and worry about. Another piece of tech I have to worry about forgetting before I leave the house.

 

People who DO wear watches every day like me will probably LOVE smartwatches. Stop thinking of smartwatches as replacements for your phone (which is what Apple is sort-of marketing the Watch as, which is wrong and pointless) and start thinking of them as... well, smarter watches. If you're not a watch enthusiast, but want a nice ~$350 watch (my exact situation), why not make it smart? That's why the Moto 360 and Huawei Watch are both so alluring to me, and why the Pebble, Apple Watch and every other square smartwatch isn't.

 

Also, the battery life argument is ridiculous, charge it every night like a phone. And since a watch is strapped to your body from right after you wake up until right before you go to bed, you'd have to make a conscious effort to leave home without it.

 

-The constant need to charge things. I remember when my old Razr phone lasted about 4 days on a full charge. My iPhone? Probably 10 hours with limited use. Ridiculous. Battery life should be one of the first things cell phone manufacturers push. You can keep your 4K, hell, even 1080p on my phone. Give me 720p on my sensibly sized smartphone, and better battery life please. 

 

You own an iPhone, which, unless it's a 6+, are notorious for their bad battery life. My OPO gets 6 1/2 hours of screen-on time and 17 hours of overall battery life with moderate use (no gaming, but a lot of other content consumption such as web pages, email, social media etc). Plus, how hard is it to take two seconds to plug your phone in before bed?

 

Also:

1. No phones have 4K yet, or else I'd own one
2. 1080p on any screen below 5.2" isn't enough
3. As I said above, 2.5K screens are MORE power efficient than 1080p screens

 

 

 

Don't even get me started on the whole huge phone fad. Seeing girls walk around my college campus with phones bigger than their one hand or half their head.

 

Do you even content consumption bro? Think about it, 99% of things you do on a phone is better on a 5.5"+ screen than a smaller one. After switching from a 3.5" iPhone 4 to a 5.5" OPO, even 5" phones seem too cramped to me. And, despite what the sensationalist media would like to have you believe, if you're above 5'7", even the Nexus 6 will fit in your pocket unless you wear skinny jeans. (If you wear skinny jeans as a man, please stop immediately, and if you do as a women, well, that's what a purse is for)

 

Its interesting For example, I'm going to college. I need a nnote/Facebook machine basically. So a win based tablet with a keyboard, why make it thick when that's all I need? I'd rather carry around 2lb constantly then 6. Its just irrational to add weigh and size for no reason.

 

EXACTLY. I want a thin, light tablet with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, stock Android, an active stylus, a "meh" (just enough to power the internals) processor and GPU and a 8.4" 2560x1600 display for ~$300. WHY CAN'T I GET THIS???

 

(Though the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 is remarkably close to this...)

 

Wearables and the cloud. Also my SSD did't make my pc faster as much as I hoped.

 

I've explained why I'm pro-wearable in a previous post in this topic.

 

I wouldn't want to keep all my photos or Word/Excel/PowerPoint files on my phone, computer or tablet, so I use the 230GB of OneDrive Storage I got for free to sync them across devices while not using up storage on any of them.

 

My SSD is MILES faster than my HDD.

 

If I wanted to play a game, I'd play a game. It's simple entertainment, not everything has to add up to something bigger or be meaningful. It lets you jump right into it and watch as long as you want. That's not possible with friends, you can't just play a League of Legend match then quit on them after 20 minutes. Not to mention you can't get to play with the friends you want every time, so it certainly doesn't replace personality.

 

P.S. That's not really relevant to Twitch, which is pretty much pure LPs.

 

I personally ain't got time fo dat.

[Blade of Grass]

Gaming laptops/heavy laptops in general.

 

I have a laptop that's around 2 kg and I do not like lugging it to school, I cannot imagine how people lug 2kg+ laptops. If I have a laptop I want something that's portable and easy to carry with me. 

[TheSLSAMG]

Gaming laptops/heavy laptops in general.

 

I have a laptop that's around 2 kg and I do not like lugging it to school, I cannot imagine how people lug 2kg+ laptops. If I have a laptop I want something that's portable and easy to carry with me. 

I'm not really sure that that's a current trend, I think we're moving more towards the "almost unusably thin" sector of the market with stuff like ASUS' UX305 and Apple's new MacBook Air.

 

If there's an industry where thinner devices are needed though, I would say the laptop industry. Phones don't need to be thinner, they need better batteries and expansion, stuff that matters.

 

My trend has to be high-res laptop screens. Windows is pretty crap at scaling already, making a small screen that's high-res doesn't help.

[Blade of Grass]

I'm not really sure that that's a current trend, I think we're moving more towards the "almost unusably thin" sector of the market with stuff like ASUS' UX305 and Apple's new MacBook Air.

 

If there's an industry where thinner devices are needed though, I would say the laptop industry. Phones don't need to be thinner, they need better batteries and expansion, stuff that matters.

True, it's less of a trend as something I have seen and dislike

 

Though TBH, as much as we may complain about IO, most consumers don't care that much for it, it's only us power users that complain. Some ultrabooks do have good IO, like the Dell XPS 13.

[ManWithBeard1990]

My SSD is MILES faster than my HDD.

 

Coming from Seagate SSHD's the difference wasn't as night-and-day-ish for me. Also miles are a unit of distance, not speed.

 

Do you even content consumption, bro?

 

It seems to me that people who buy those things, content consumption is all they ever do.

[flibberdipper]

Wearing headphones around your neck.

[shadowblitz3]

curved phones

[The Gaige]

8 track players & beta-max just don't understand them when DVDs work just as good!  

[Gaben the Great]

Don't understand why people are still buying Beats by Dre? They've become a status of loyalty but to any tech savy it just shows that they have no sense of music.

[Techteen14]

Coming from Seagate SSHD's the difference wasn't as night-and-day-ish for me. Also miles are a unit of distance, not speed.

 

That makes sense. It was to me because I was used my dad's 2008 MacBook which takes 2 1/2 minutes to boot up instead of 12.75 seconds with my new PC (I timed them both, from button press to lock screen).

 

And about the "MILES faster" comment, it's a common figure of speech, at least in the northeastern US. I know, crazy Americans. I'd personally love to adopt the metric system (and have adopted 24-hour time, or "military" time as the simpletons average Americans call it), but I doubt that would be possible.

 

 

 

It seems to me that people who buy those things, content consumption is all they ever do.

 

It's also excellent for content creation. It's so much easier to edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents (it would be even better if MS upgraded Office Mobile), photo editing on my PC isn't something I regularly have to do anymore, the light gaming I do on mobile is much more immersive and taking photos and videos is a lot easier due to the larger viewfinder. Typing is awesome, and I can't even do it anymore on a tiny (>4.7") screen without making typos. Maps are easier to see, you can see more of a conversation in Hangouts and more apps fit on the homescreen. Even the old-fashioned phone calls are better because the microphone is closer to you mouth.

 

I fail to see what use case is hindered when stepping up to a bigger screen.

[dildo_baggins]

For me, the whole smart watch thing just doesn't make any sense. Sure it looks cool, but I think that watches, no matter how technologically advanced they are, are a thing of the past, and are just becoming fashion accessory more than anything. 

[matthewmarchant]

Voice control: Siri, Amazon Echo, Google Now

[ManWithBeard1990]

That makes sense. It was to me because I was used my dad's 2008 MacBook which takes 2 1/2 minutes to boot up instead of 12.75 seconds with my new PC (I timed them both, from button press to lock screen).

 

And about the "MILES faster" comment, it's a common figure of speech, at least in the northeastern US. I know, crazy Americans. I'd personally love to adopt the metric system (and have adopted 24-hour time, or "military" time as the simpletons average Americans call it), but I doubt that would be possible.

 

 

It's also excellent for content creation. It's so much easier to edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents (it would be even better if MS upgraded Office Mobile), photo editing on my PC isn't something I regularly have to do anymore, the light gaming I do on mobile is much more immersive and taking photos and videos is a lot easier due to the larger viewfinder. Typing is awesome, and I can't even do it anymore on a tiny (>4.7") screen without making typos. Maps are easier to see, you can see more of a conversation in Hangouts and more apps fit on the homescreen. Even the old-fashioned phone calls are better because the microphone is closer to you mouth.

 

I fail to see what use case is hindered when stepping up to a bigger screen.

The miles thing was just part of my dry humour.

 

I get big screens. Thing about screen sizes for mobile though is that I use my phone as a phone and a music player, and little else. It needs to be tiny and take up little space when I'm not using it, because in my pockets there are also a wallet, keys and usually some tools and other stuff as well. A bigger screen is likely to get damaged.

More importantly though, I think even a big phone is too small for these other tasks you mention and I prefer using a proper computer for those things. If that means I can't do it on the go that's alright - I can make up for lost time at home. Of course, that's merely my opinion and yours is different. That's alright. You say a bigger screen makes a given task easier on a phone and you are correct. I just think these things shouldn't be done on a phone at all, big or small.

[IMPERIUS]

Wearables. I get why they exist but still. I'm happy the "fitness" and "exercise" part of tech is gone, especially things like that stupid heart beat sensor on the galaxy s5

[HappyChubbs]

Smart-Watches.  

I'll understand it once their battery life improves.  I rarely take off my watch so I know I will forget.

 

Wearing headphones around your neck.

 

Never got that either, especially when you can still hear the music playing.

[Anarchyz11]

Gaming laptops.  Seriously, I fail to understand how $1,500 on a computer that still can't max games out at 1080p is a good investment, even if you're on the move.  I doubt there's a single gamer in the world who wouldn't get more use out of an $800 ITX/HTPC build they can transport easily if need be, a $150 chromebook for when needed, and a spare $500 in the bank.  Because who the hell whips out their laptop when waiting at the DMV for a good game of CS:GO to try and get their Nova 3.

 

 

Laptop screen resolutions as well.  Because there's nothing I want more with my $1,500 laptop that runs as well as a 280x than a 3k screen so I can either deal with downsampling, or run everything at 20fps. 

 

 

I'm thoroughly convinced not a single person buying a gaming laptop actually pays for their own laptop.

[Nic]

Smart watches, VR, majority of new "consumer drones", majority of fitness wearables / software, voice control, smart tvs, phones that all seem to have displays over 5 inches.  

[Warren Pnigel]

Good Idea.

 

For me it would be...

 

Phones getting bigger and bigger.

Curved TV's (sorry just don't understand it)

Virtual Reality (was this not around in the 80's?)

Self Driving Cars.

Digital Download being more expensive than physical media (sometimes).

Smart glasses.

To understand curved TV's you have to see one in person I wouldn't buy one, but they do look pretty!  

[Polyvalent]

chromebooks.  I can do all that shit on my (arguably oversized) smartphone - and I can keep it in my pocket.

[The Web Doctor]

Why people would buy the Xbone or PS4, Wii-U FTW.

 

People buying consoles, period. PC FTW

[soulreaper]

People buying consoles, period. PC FTW

Well consoles do have exclusives and as far as I am concerned the Wii-U is the best option for consoles at the moment. We are all gamers and there is no need for ignorance I wish all games are cross platform but they are not so I have to choose a console that I would like to play as well.  

[ApolloX75]

I don't understand Smart Watches either. I haven't worn one since I started carrying a cell phone, and definitely haven't used one since I switched to a smart phone.

 

Also I don't see the appeal with Apple anymore. They haven't been "true" Apple since they stopped making their own unique hardware in the early 2000's and switched to plain Intel parts. What's the point? You're paying a ridiculous premium for what amounts to a fancy stripped down aluminum chassis with a somewhat useful OS that barely evolve. What's the point? Go out and buy a $400 laptop and a copy of Mac OS.

Bam.

Done.

 

End rant.

 

Also.. AMD. Get your shit together. You used to be cool man what happened to you? We want the Athlon 64 AMD back, the guys who went nuts and created something kickass then ran out of steam.