The WORST Product I've ever LOVED - #Helpful Post

every generation or so someone reinvents

the computer in the late 70s and early

80s they got small enough to fit on a

desk by the 90s we could fit them in our

laps and for the last 11 years the

dominant personal computers have been

the ones that we all carry around in our

pockets which I guess means we're kind

of overdue for a change yeah

introducing the Nubia Alpha the wrist

phone with a giant flexible OLED display

that wraps around your wrist this might

be the worst product that I have ever

fallen in love with and let me tell you

why

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let's begin with the promotional

materials shall we

what does Nubia imagine that the Alpha

is okay we got a clock theme going on

here this guy is talking on the phone

hmm

so many functions thanks the larger

screen and Wow

video chat oh wow so that looks pretty

good and you know what I don't even

think they're that far off flexible

displays have been a long time coming

and now that they're finally reaching

the point of commercialization I really

think that they're one of the best hopes

for wearable technology to really take

off because if you think about it up

until now the vast majority of smart

wearables have been limited to the same

sizes and configurations of the previous

dumb wearables like watches and glasses

because they're made of fundamentally

the same metal and glass materials so

that puts restrictions on their designs

that can affect everything from their

battery life to their screen size and

even the ways that we can interface with

them so it's this last one that I'm

gonna address first on the Alpha so

right now I'm enabling a feature that

they've called alpha gesture what it

essentially does is allow you to

navigate through the functions and menus

without actually touching the screen so

it's similar to some of the hand wavey

controls that are present on some cars

except that it's implemented on a device

that by its very definition is always

close enough that you could easily reach

out and touch it

so I'm gonna go ahead and turn that off

and also it didn't work consistently at

all with it enabled sometimes I'd touch

it and then it would actually activate

twice once for the touch and once for

the alpha gesture for now the thing that

I like about it is that it's a preview

of what's to come with like holographic

displays that you can wear on your wrist

and interact with in 3d space that's

going to be pretty cool now I want to

talk about the size so yeah it still

goes on your wrist like a regular watch

or Smart Watch but there were a handful

if they

that immediately stood out to me

starting with how much information could

be present on the screen at one time now

at four inches and quite narrow the

screen is not exactly panoramic but it's

way bigger than any other SmartWatch

that I've ever used and unlike a desktop

monitor where I have yet to find a super

wide display that I don't like this is

an application where more height

actually kind of makes more sense to me

so if a text or an email were to come in

I don't necessarily need a bunch of

extraneous space on the side I want to

have as much of the content as possible

right in my field of view and a longer

display lets me read the average text or

even a short email without any scrolling

required or I mean at least it would

have if this thing managed to stay

paired to my phone for longer than a

couple of hours at a time but that short

fall actually reminds me of another

thing I like about the interface when I

first put it on I was trying to see

something at the top of the display and

I found myself thinking it oh gee this

is really not very comfortable but you

can actually adjust certain UI elements

up or down depending on what's most

ergonomic for you so I can kind of

imagine a future then where my

wraparound display is like positionally

aware and if I'm you know sitting at a

desk it could it could throw a discrete

little notification up where only I can

see it I mean that would be perfect for

checking your text during a bad date or

something like that

now in its current form it's now in its

current form the Alpha falls well short

of this mark having no awareness of its

position in space other than detecting

usually my check the time gesture and

mostly forgetting where I left things

and

even allowing some key UI elements to be

moved around like entering Wi-Fi

passwords so this is again something

that I can kind of see where they're

going with even if the experience isn't

there now on the top of the experience

the experience of wearing the Alpha is

really something that's going to depend

heavily on the user so it can be easily

resized by removing links from either

both or one side it was a touch big on

me even at its smallest size though so

that's something to be aware of and it's

a little on the bulky side but still

lower profile than other multifunction

smartwatches that I've worn daily in the

past like the casio pro track and i

didn't have any trouble getting sleeves

on and off around it now the always-on

display functionality i'm always harping

on smartwatches that don't have it well

it's not enabled at this time but while

it is still using an older snapdragon

2100 processor not very power efficient

I do actually believe them when they say

they will turn that back on in the

future since after one really buggy day

when it died in like four hours

I've actually regularly gotten more than

a day's worth of battery out of the

Alpha the standout thing for me about

wearing it is definitely its value as a

conversation starter thanks to its large

wraparound screen it's an attention

grabber that looks more like a cool prop

out of a sci-fi movie than something

that you can actually go to a store and

buy today

personally I love it I think it looks

super cool but I've had others even here

on staff where we're all admittedly a

bunch of nerds suggests that giving

these to high school kids would cause

teen pregnancy rates to plummet I'm

pretty sure that if thirty percent of

high schoolers were wearing that you

would have teen pregnancy just plummet

haters gonna hate I guess but I think

the future really is large wearable

screens like this one and the key word

here is future the Alpha does not do a

great job of using its large screen real

estate overall the default watch face

dedicates a shocking amount of space to

function toggles with the bottom

occupied by some Reese

that's that frankly I think are just as

easy to access by simply swiping to the

side and finding the relevant one

especially given how few there are but

the thing is that's hardly even the

biggest problem with the Alpha you'll

find that right in the name I can only

guess they called it the alpha because

it hadn't got to the point where they

were comfortable calling it beta yet the

vibration motor is among the worst I've

encountered this decade making it feel

more like it's trying to escape from

your wrists than apples tight purposeful

haptic feedback multiple notifications

from a single app aside from just piling

on and making that noise you heard

earlier will in some cases actually

remove the first notification so if

someone sends you a joke in hangouts

followed by wall or an emoji or

something you'll actually have to pull

out your phone to find out what was so

darn funny there's no way at this time

to handle media control for third-party

apps so you can copy music files over to

your watch and listen to them directly

from there over like Bluetooth

headphones but that's it the ringtone

cannot be adjusted a feature that's been

a given for a couple of decades now it's

got this whole entire part of the

interface that's dedicated to all these

exercises that can track free workout

and heartrate and outdoor running and

all that stuff but with this glitch that

registered my daily steps that negative

60,000 I don't know how seriously I'm

gonna be taking any of that and finally

while I'm nitpicking the camera kind of

sucks but newbie is justification for it

existing at all is video chat there's

only one small problem how is this more

ergonomic than this

I mean if they're pitching this with

isom support in China currently as a

full-on replacement for a phone I think

the point is there is clearly a lot of

work to do but I do see the vision with

WeChat Aldi Pei and a few other key apps

someone with full support in China could

take calls pay for their groceries and

navigate around town without ever

needing to take a phone oh it's just

that the experience is far too buggy to

be ready for primetime in fact if I had

a dollar for every time I saw this crash

message over the last couple of weeks I

could probably just buy myself a cheap

phone but I guess that's the nature of

the beast with these first concept that

somehow made its way to a store shelf

type products and even if I'm not going

to be daily driving this thing any time

soon I'm really glad that Nubia sent it

over to me because it was certainly

worth having the experience the math

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single button control lets you skip

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