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technological convergence is the tendency for different technological

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systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks sometimes it happens

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smoothly and naturally like the way that Standalone pag your devices became a

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basic feature on every cell phone other times whether it's because the industry

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is trying to do something before the technology is really ready or because a

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loan manufacturer is trying to shoehorn in features that just don't make any

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sense this process feels more like a

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science experiment gone wrong than something that you should spend your

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hard earned money on so what is the ASUS

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pad phone X is it the next natural step

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in the evolution of phones and tablets that sees them ultimately become one

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device or is it a Frankenstein monster that makes no sense and needs to be put

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down let's find out shall

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we the Jazz mini phone and tablet stand from Cooler Master is now available in a

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variety of cool colors from these great retailers click now to to learn more so

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let's start with the phone part of the pad phone X it's a flagship class

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smartphone with all the usual fixings a surprisingly bright high contrast and

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generally beautiful 5-in 1080p IPS plus display dominates the front of the

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device with only an earphone speaker a mundane 2 megapixel selfie camera a

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notification LED and a shiny logo to distract from it onto the edges the

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trapezoid profile shape makes it easier for me to grip than other similarly

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large phones on the top we find a 32 mm Jack and a noise cancelling mic on the

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right the lock and volume buttons are easy to press on purpose while being

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difficult to press by accident with nothing on the opposing side of the device to accidentally mash and on the

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bottom is one of the most snug micro USB connectors I've ever encountered which

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has the stealth benefit of actually being a mydp slim Port that supports up

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to 1080p 60fps video output over display

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port HDMI or VGA with a cheap passive adapter around the back we find a not

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quite as grippy as I'd like removable plastic backing a megapixel still camera

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a standard one-tone flash an unfortunately rearm mounted speaker and

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I'm going to keep harping on this until everyone moves into the front and two

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logos including an AT&T one yes this is an AT&T exclusive device in the US

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taking this off reveals a micro SIM slot

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and micro SD expansion slot and a beefy non- removable 2300 mAh battery that I

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easily got a day plus out of while I was using it then on the underside of the

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cover we see contacts for NX C with Isis Mobile Wallet support and PMA wireless

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charging ASUS shipped me a replacement backing with an integrated screen cover

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but I actually prefer naked phones in general and the build quality of it was

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nothing special and unless you open up the cover first it actually doesn't even

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fit into the included tablet accessory so I didn't use it which gives me a

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great opportunity to talk about just how well this dock mechanism Works between

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the textured low friction surface against the screen the combination of

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soft touch rubber grips and plastic guides on the sides and the long micro

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USB and dual prong system that penetrates the phone from the bottom it

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works surprisingly well it's easy to slip in and easy to take out but it

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won't come out by accident and it achieves this without needing a cluggy

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locking switch or anything like that full marks for how they go together but

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of course the pad part of the pad phone if it sucks then you're unlikely to use

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it anyway so let's take a look around it shall we like the phone the overall

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build quality is nothing groundbreaking it's got a simple plastic backing and an

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unbranded glass front instead of the Corning Glass on the phone itself

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there's a 4990 mAh battery inside that

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can just charge the phone charge the phone while powering up the tablet or

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allow the tablet and phone to share battery life with each other intelligently on the outside there's a

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lock button a volume rocker a 1 megapixel selfie camera I guess you'll

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do your video calling with it out of the dock two adequately loud front face

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speakers and finally the 8 in 1920x 1200

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IPS screen whose job it is to convince potential customers to buy this twoin

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one device instead of a standalone phone

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the good news here is that it gets plenty bright colors look great and

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unlike most phone makers ASUS actually gives us some cool tools for adjusting

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the look of the screen and the phone with their Splendid app and overall

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Works darn well other than having sort of wider bezels than I would have liked

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to see which leads us into the software pre-loaded app wise on top of Splendid

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you get some AT&T stuff a sound tweaking app a power profile adjusting app that

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lets you tweak screen brightness depending on what's running and a file manager that doesn't seem particularly

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exceptional but saved me the trouble of installing ES file manager I guess or

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Explorer rather but that's not what you really wanted to know you want to know

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about the skin that ASUS is running over Android

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4.4.2 it's all right I guess overall

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responsiveness is solid but I found the keyboard laggy and quickly replaced it

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with swift key multitasking is Snappy

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but their text highlighting feels slow and my on screen buttons disappeared

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sometimes the dialer and SMS apps are simple to use but I don't really like

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some visual design elements like the notification pull down that looks out of

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place with a light blue and white color scheme so in summary again it's all

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right I guess they thankfully didn't change much interaction wise so there's

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like no other random crap in the Google Now swipe up like LG's done with the G3

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but the question this all raises then is why bother changing anything then why

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not just go the mostly stock Android route that NVIDIA and Motorola have gone

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and just build in the functionality that you need to differentiate your device

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because they do have that their Dynamic display technology allows your home

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screens and even certain apps to switch between tablet and phone view on the fly

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when you dock the phone it's fast and allows the two device modes to feel

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different from each other like separate home screen layouts for example while

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still being the same device with all your content of available at a moment's

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noticed I was surprised at how well it worked with certain things like the

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browser and SMS app but it's unfortunately not compatible with Google

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apps or really many thirdparty apps like games so often you'll find yourself

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reopening apps as you switch modes thankfully it does that pretty quickly

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though onto the camera ASUS brags a fair bit about it in their review's guide but

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I didn't really find it that special it supports the usual exotic modes like

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720p 120 FPS slow motion with AIO

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thankfully and 4K recording I'll be it at only 12 FPS but while ASUS did a good

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job of staying true to life without oversaturating colors like some other manufacturers and the app offers a

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surprisingly deep amount of configuration the image quality with the

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phone set to Auto how I do most of my phone shooting didn't take my breath

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away I'll put some comparison test shots versus the one I made in the iPhone 5s

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in the pricing and discussion Link in the video description which you'll be able to check out soon we're almost done

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here but first a look at a couple of the optional accessories that ASUS sent over

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for the tablet this tablet cover is just plain not very good uh don't buy it and

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this keyboard needed a bit more work the hinge is all metal and feels really well

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constructed but it's heavy and the tablet slips out of it fairly easily

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when opening and closing it because it doesn't actually lock on in any way and

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on top of that it's actually just a Bluetooth keyboard that needs to be

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charged separately in everything which is disappointing coming from the creator

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of the much more elegant Transformer series of tablets but all of that could

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have been forgiven if the layout wasn't so bad I understand they eliminated a

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column of keys here but who decided that

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Chevrons and braces should be accessed with shift and question mark apostrophe

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and quotations should be accessed with the unnaturally positioned function key

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that is a deal breaker on what is otherwise a pretty useful tool

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considering how much more productive you can be with a trackpad and a full

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keyboard on Android which leads us to conclusion time if you want both a phone

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and a tablet there are better Standalone devices that can be obtained separately

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for the same price off contract with the added bonus of being able to be used

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separately at the same time this is just a dummy on its own but what those other

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devices can't do is be perfectly in sync

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with the pad phone X your apps your data plan and even your battery life with

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their various charging modes can be balanced and shared across your phone

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and tablet experience it's unlike anything else that I've used before but

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not not everyone buys devices off contract and this can be obtained for

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200 bucks with a 2-year plan so if I was going to sign up for a new AT&T deal in

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spite of it being a little bit thick and having build quality that feels kind of

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last gen I would have to recognize that the features and versatility of the pad

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phone X make it a serious Contender and I'm definitely excited to see what comes

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next because I really like the overall concept and I think with a little bit

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more refinement this can be one freaking

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awesome combo type device thanks for watching guys like or dislike the video

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according to how you felt about it leave a comment if you have something to say about the pad phone X I mean do you

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think a tablet phone combo device makes sense for the future I'd love to hear

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what you guys think I do read the comments on my videos you know um also I

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guess the last thing that I usually say is right in the video description you can buy a t-shirt you can give us a

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monthly contribution or you can support us in the easiest possible way by

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changing your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code and that gives

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us a small Kickback whenever you buy cereal or whatever it is that you buy on

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Amazon it all helps every a little bit helps thanks again for watching and as

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always don't forget to subscribe