Posts From Eric Hulse

Eric Hulse
33 posts

Mechanical Engineer by degree, salesman by day, and a self professed technology lover on the side. Frequent user of iOS Android, OSX and Windows. Buyer of (way too) many flagships and fan of all things mobile. XDA member since 2010.

How Bixby’s Incompleteness Pushes its Voice Assistant into Functional Redundancy
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How Bixby’s Incompleteness Pushes its Voice Assistant into Functional Redundancy

June 23, 2017
Around 3 months ago, Samsung took the stage at Unpacked 2017 to announce their new Galaxy S8 phones. During their keynote, the company spent around 10 minutes hyping up Bixby, their contribution to the newly-crowded virtual assistant space. Bixby was billed as “a new way to interact with your phone.” Essentially, Bixby aims to be...
Opinion: Huawei CEO’s Wearable Confusion Explains Why They Botched the Huawei Watch 2
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Opinion: Huawei CEO’s Wearable Confusion Explains Why They Botched the Huawei Watch 2

April 14, 2017
Throughout Android Wear’s life thus far, there have arguably been two products that really stood out from the rest as “iconic” devices: the original Moto 360, and the Huawei Watch. The 360 ushered in a great, round design, and was leagues above something like the G watch or Gear Live in terms of aesthetics. However, the Moto 360...
Will Samsung Finally Put an End to their Long-Running Performance Woes?
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Will Samsung Finally Put an End to their Long-Running Performance Woes?

April 6, 2017
Another year, another Galaxy S smartphone. We’re now a couple generations away from Samsung's new metal and glass re-imagination of their flagship smartphone line. The physical changes came with the S6 and along the way, TouchWiz was supposedly “lightened” significantly too. I specifically recall how in Samsung Unpacked 2015, the company made ambitious claims about real-world performance,...
To Fi and Back Again: Google’s Inconsistent Messaging Space Complicates Sticking with One Service
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To Fi and Back Again: Google’s Inconsistent Messaging Space Complicates Sticking with One Service

February 11, 2017
I’ve written on Google’s convoluted messaging strategy before, but this was prior to the launch of Allo, which further added to the confusion of Google’s messaging platform. Allo has since been launched and updated several times, becoming a better product in the process. Google even surprised us all with a completely out-of-nowhere update to Google Voice...
The OnePlus 3 and Axon 7 Show Affordable Phones Don’t Have to Come at the Cost of Software Updates
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The OnePlus 3 and Axon 7 Show Affordable Phones Don’t Have to Come at the Cost of Software Updates

October 1, 2016
In the past, purchasing a "mid-range phone" meant a plethora of compromises: weak after-sales support, few and far between updates, and compromised feature sets (and, more often than not, an ugly user interface). OnePlus devices, too, had questionable software and update support. The OnePlus 2 took ages to get a proper marshmallow update. The OnePlus...
In Response to The Verge: Why We “Fretted” About the Note 7’s Performance
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In Response to The Verge: Why We “Fretted” About the Note 7’s Performance

August 29, 2016
Last week, we published an article documenting some of the experiences we’ve had with the Galaxy Note 7, sourced from four different units from different XDA members. Shortly after our article went live, The Verge had a somewhat dismissive say in the matter. We were surprised by the spread of our article. In retrospect, the fact...
With the Note 7, Samsung Still Delivers Embarrassing Real-World Performance
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With the Note 7, Samsung Still Delivers Embarrassing Real-World Performance

August 22, 2016
Every year we notice the same pattern: new Galaxy device comes out, it gets positive reviews (excluding, perhaps, the Galaxy S5), and among one of the positive points, you usually find performance... somehow. This is something that, of course, varies from publication to publication. But in general, the story is the same year after year: we...
ZTE Axon First Look and Photos: Great Value Stained by Not-So-Great Software
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ZTE Axon First Look and Photos: Great Value Stained by Not-So-Great Software

August 6, 2016
ZTE is back again this year with round two of their ambitious Axon series smartphone. This year's Axon 7 brings an incredible package of specs and a great warranty with a $400 price tag. Check out our earlier look for a detailed read of the specs. Here in the USA we are offered the 4GB...
OnePlus Customer Service in 2016: How My Faulty Unit was Handled
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OnePlus Customer Service in 2016: How My Faulty Unit was Handled

July 27, 2016
Despite telling myself I wouldn’t do so, I bought a OnePlus 3 on launch day. For the first time ever with OnePlus, ordering was incredibly easy with no invites or hoops to jump through. In a little over a week I had my new OnePlus 3. Thus far, I share Mario’s positive thoughts on the...
Project Tango Comes to Mobile With The Lenovo Phab 2 Range
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Project Tango Comes to Mobile With The Lenovo Phab 2 Range

June 9, 2016
Several years ago this video introduced Johnny Lee to the world. Not long after, Google hired Johnny and he would go on to lead Project Tango. For those of you who may not know, Project Tango is a computer vision platform that allows a Phone/Tablet/Device to know its position relative to the world without using...
Through Allo & Duo, Google Continues to Send a Convoluted Message
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Through Allo & Duo, Google Continues to Send a Convoluted Message

May 31, 2016
A decade ago, in August of 2005, Google launched an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) instant messaging service dubbed “Google Talk.” One of Google’s stated goals with the service was “interoperability,” and it showed. Users were free to choose their client from many applications such as Trillian, Pidgin, Psi, Adium, or simply a Gmail browser...
Samsung’s Good Lock Contains a Small and Glorious Island of Vanilla Android
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Samsung’s Good Lock Contains a Small and Glorious Island of Vanilla Android

April 19, 2016
After Samsung announced the Galaxy S7 Edge, I wound up preordering one. When it came in (early, thanks T-Mobile) I was greeted with my first taste of Samsung’s Marshmallow TouchWiz. My Note5 just got 6.0.1 today (No thanks T-Mobile.) Overall things were fairly similar between the Lollipop and Marshmallow builds of TouchWiz. However, one thing...