This Under-Screen Camera Is INCREDIBLE! - ZTE Axon 30 5G
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,169 words · ~10 min read
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- The big deal today with the ZTE Axon 30 5G
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is that this is gonna be our first look at a 2nd generation under-display camera.
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If you guys remember, the 20 5G was actually the first phone
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with an under-display camera that actually made it into production.
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And this one claims that it has taken everything that they learned from that first attempt
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and made it even better. Now, right out of the gate, the specs don't actually sound better.
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In fact, we're going from a 32-megapixel front facing camera
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to just a 16-megapixel front facing camera,
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but ZTE claims that the pixel density of the display in front of the front facing camera,
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as well as a special secondary driver
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for that portion of the display makes it so that it is far less noticeable
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in day-to-day use. Let's do our unboxing experience first,
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and then we're gonna dig right into the front facing camera.
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So inside the box, ZTE has not followed the industry trend
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of not including a power adapter.
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Actually, wow, this thing feels robust. 65-watt power adapter.
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It's a heavy boy.
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Nice thick USB Type-C to Type-C power cable. And of course, oh, look at that, that's adorable.
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They still include a Type-C to headphone jack.
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SIM removal tool and a pretty basic case.
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Basic is the kindest word that I can have for it. Okay, let's put this on and totally
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ruin the fantastic, gorgeous finish of this phone.
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We're not gonna do that. And, yeah, we're gonna appreciate this for what it is.
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Oh, that's weird. Oh, it's a peel.
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Okay. It's like that is a really weird color there.
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(chuckles) Okay. There we go, that's more like it.
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There's one here too.
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Here we go. Look at that.
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microSD and nano-SIM, dual-SIM if you prefer.
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USB Type-C for charging, got a speaker here.
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Now that's interesting, our headphone speaker is extremely slim.
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I'm gonna have to check later to see if it has stereo sound. On the left side, there's nothing, no buttons.
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So you'll never be trying to press the lock button or the volume rocker on the right
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and accidentally mash something over on the left-hand side.
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At the top, we've just got a secondary microphone there
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for noise canceling. I don't see an IR emitter. Sometimes you find those on phones
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that are more intended for the Chinese or Indian market. 64-megapixel main shooter.
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You've actually got a total of four cameras on the back, uses a Samsung sensor.
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And then moving around to the front, okay.
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(laughs) That's pretty impressive. Andy, can you see it?
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- [Andy] I can't. - Oh, wait, well, that doesn't help. (Andy laughs)
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Okay, how about now? Can you see it?
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Where is it? Is it on the side? Is it in the middle? Where is it?
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- [Andy] I can't really see it at all. - [Linus] Okay, I gotta get the old one out here
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because that is hard to spot.
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The old one actually, you can see it defaults to having a black bar at the top,
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so that it can mask it. It's a lot harder to see it. I'm gonna have to just go ahead and fix that.
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Can you make it out? - [Jono] Oh, yeah! - [Linus] Yeah, there it is.
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But what about in my left hand? - [Andy] No, nothing.
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- Now to my eye, I can see it, but instead of looking like kind of a green spot,
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it just looks like there's a series of kinda like banding, right?
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If you've got a low bit rate video clip that you're watching and there's some colors that instead of, you know,
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blending together nicely, they have kinda these bands, it looks like a really subtle
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kind of white banding effect, just in a little rectangle up at the top of the device.
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I'm willing to bet that if I give it to you at an angle and you'll be able to see it a bit better.
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Oh, it's crazy hard to spot. I'm not expecting it to be easy.
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And then here, just for the sake of having a similar comparison shot,
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let's get the Fold out here. It's super noticeable. Thanks to Jackery for sponsoring this video,
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at the link down below. What's interesting about this then is that given
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that while I'm enjoying fullscreen content,
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I didn't find the Fold particularly distracting in day-to-day use.
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I'm expecting this to be the kinda thing you forget about.
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At least, that is until you open up your camera app.
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So let's have a look at what the performance of this front facing camera looks like.
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Oh, image quality enhancement,
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it is advised to turn it on for better results.
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What looks like is mostly a sharpening filter.
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(camera shutters) See? There's a processing delay there.
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It says, "picture quality is improving." Their sharpening filter is clearly doing
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far more than just sharpening.
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That is markedly better than what I was expecting
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looking at the initial preview here. In the preview, it looks like I've got Vaseline smeared over the lens.
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Okay, let's see what happens if I don't turn on the processing here.
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(camera shutters) No delay, but it looks super soft.
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I gotta try more, like an apples to apples comparison. Okay, I'm gonna take the exact same picture
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and stabilize this. (camera shuttering)
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That is like a two steamboats processing delay,
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but that difference is crazy.
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My eye color looks way more natural. My shirt, instead of looking
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like it's reflecting off of something, it's true to life.
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Now, we can definitely find problems. Look at this, this orange smudge
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over on the side of the frame. Oh, that's from this light source on the lamp back there.
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Can they see that in the a cam? - [Andy] Yeah. - [Linus] Interesting.
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I'm willing to bet that we wouldn't have that same problem if we were using the rear camera.
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Let's go ahead and turn it around and I'll take a picture of myself here.
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(camera shutters) Okay. Oh yeah, nothing.
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Oh, that's stupid face I'm looking. What am I even doing? Let's compare it to last gen here.
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This button is the AI button, when you switched to the rear camera, this enhanced one.
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So it's probably using the neural processor in the Snapdragon 870 to accelerate that upscaling.
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Meanwhile, the Axon 20 5G doesn't have a similar function.
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There is simply no way about it.
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You can see that ZTE and Samsung are struggling
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with the same things here. You can see that same kinda high contrast look
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in both of these images, but the difference is that ZTE
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has figured out how to fix it and Samsung is just giving you that result
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out of the front facing camera. See? You can really see that same kinda dark eyes
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kinda haunted look, Andy? Man, that is cool.
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Okay, let's talk about some other key specs. It ships in two varieties
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with 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage or with 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage.
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So it's 2460 by 1080, it's got a 4200-milliamp-hour battery,
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and it supports 65-watt charging. And of course, includes a power adapter
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that is capable of delivering that. I don't believe it has any support for wireless charging,
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but it is an OLED display and has other traditionally high-end phone features
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like support for 128 hertz refresh rate,
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not to mention that it samples the actual touch interface
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at 360 hertz, so it feels extremely responsive.
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And that does pan out in practice.
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Now let's go ahead and consume some HDR content here.
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It's not blindingly bright, but definitely bright enough to have a solid HDR viewing experience.
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Gesture controls, gesture navigation by default,
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so if you're into that, then go for it. And if you're not, then you can always change it.
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Oh yeah, we should try out the in-display fingerprint reader. I mean, this is so crazy.
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This was like holy grail technology, not that long ago, under-screen camera,
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under-screen fingerprint reader. So you've got absolutely no interruption
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to your content whatsoever. Okay, let's try that out.
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Those have gotten really invisible. Let's try and unlock it with my meat mitts now.
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Oh, I missed. Right there, okay, reasonably fast.
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So you can just have an auxiliary Wi-Fi network
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and it'll default to 2.4 full range
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and 5 gigahertz for performance.
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Huh? I don't know if I've seen that before.
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I didn't notice any kind of horrible vivid mode
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out of the box and actually looks like they ship in standard mode,
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which is really nice to see. Screen refresh rate, yeah, let's switch between 60, 120.
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Actually, it looks like it's in 60 right now,
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browsing the menu. So if you want maximum smoothness, it looks like you're gonna wanna turn on 120 hertz manually.
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I kinda want us to try the selfie camera outside. Can I just go do that and come back real quick?
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- [Andy] Sure. - All right, I'm gonna do that. Now on the Fold 3, we noticed a thing
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where if there was strong backlighting on the subject, we could see this kind of a rainbow effect.
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So maybe if we have something like a white car behind me,
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we'll have problems with that.
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Oh, there's kind of like a haze around it.
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Yeah, that's interesting. It's not to nearly the same degree that we saw with the Fold 3 though.
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Let's try taking some pictures here. I'm gonna turn on the processing in our parking lot here.
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So you can see this video is definitely on process. Wow, it is bright today.
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How does someone manage to close their eyes when they are the one taking the picture?
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Okay, but seriously, it was just really bright out. The haze goes away to a very significant degree.
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It's like, it's not amazing, but it's serviceable.
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And when you consider that you can watch fullscreen content
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with absolutely no interruption whatsoever. That is a compelling selling point.
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It's freaking awesome. Like, look at this. Even when there's like a bright light,
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right where you would notice it, it is way better than the one on the Fold.
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Look, I vowed to wait out the notch, all right?
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I won. I lasted. Note 9 daily driver, no notch.
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I now have multiple, multiple devices to choose from
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that I don't have to put up with that ridiculous bullet wound in my screen.
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This is fantastic. It's a good time to be a Linus.
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I would just watch everything in like widescreen like this, for sure, just cause I can.
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I mean, I think it's fair to say, ZTE is a full generation ahead of Samsung on this.
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And Lord only knows where Apple is on this technology. We don't know yet.
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Did this thing ship with AnTuTu on it? AnTuTu Benchmark.
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For those of you wondering, the Snapdragon 870 is basically an 865, but newer.
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Here, we'll do a quick Geekbench benchmark. Okay, check this out.
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982 single core, 3157 multi-core
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that should give you guys some idea of where the Snapdragon 870 falls
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compared to the 865 or the 865+. Now I don't wanna pretend
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that this is all sunshine and rainbows. Something that I noticed on our review unit,
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which tends to be a handpicked one, not to say that it is better,
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but it's typically not defective is that I've already got some separation
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between the back of the housing and the front.
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Maybe that was when I was putting that case on or something. Let me just see if it'll click back into place here.
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Oh, there it goes. - [Film Crew Member] There we go. - I guess that's pretty much it. So Riley, go ahead and shoot TechLinked
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and don't forget to subscribe and subscribe to TechLinked, it's a good show.