Facebook's Portal heads our annual tech turkeys 2018 list
USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham takes a look at three new connected speakers that all have video features.
USA TODAY
Thanksgiving is now behind us, Black Friday seems like yesterday, and leftovers rule for our lunch and dinner plans.
Which
can mean only one thing. It's that time again for our annual list of
the Top Tech Turkeys of the year. We got some assistance this year from
some 1,000 consumers, whose responses were "universal" and totally in
sync with our pick for No. 1.
"Across the board –
regardless of age or gender – Facebook’s Portal was named by a quarter
of consumers as the tech turkey of the year (25 percent)," notes the
research team at Survey Monkey Audience, which did the exclusive poll
for USA TODAY.
The Portal, a video chat device released
in early November, saw its debut in a year with near weekly apologies
from Facebook over the social network's hacking and data breach crises.
The
Portal has an always-on microphone and video camera that can move
around the room to bring more people into view. Tech-wise, the Portal is
the best video chat experience we've ever had, far superior to
FaceTime, Skype or Hangouts, due to the higher-resolution screen and
camera movement, which transforms a static image into something
resembling a professionally shot video.
In our review, we
noted this. But beyond that, and the innate creepiness that comes from
putting what amounts to a Facebook monitor in your home, the product
also pales in comparison to rivals in that, beyond video chat and a
digital photo frame, it can't get you voice-summoned music videos,
recipes or any of the other features of the Amazon Echo Show or Google
Home Hub.
And if you try to chat with someone who
isn't on Facebook Messenger, you're out of luck. Not so with Home Hub or
Echo, which lets you make calls to landlines and cellphones. Gobble
gobble.
Our 2018 Tech Turkey of the year goes to Facebook Portal (Photo: Jefferson Graham)
Our tech turkeys of 2018:
Apple's ever-rising prices
The
company, sitting on more than $200 billion in cash, decided to up the
prices on every one of its marquee products this year to new highs –
with the top-of-the-line iPhone and premium iPad Pro each at or above
the $1,000 mark, the MacBook Air at $1,200, the Mac Mini price increased
by $300 – and eliminating the entry-level, bargain-priced $350 iPhone
SE from its lineup.
Now, the lowest priced iPhone
is the still available iPhone 7, which starts at $449. Apple still makes
the best-selling consumer device in the world, but folks, if the prices
keep going up and up, one of these days, many of us are going to turn
our backs and shop elsewhere. (And on another note, those crazy repair prices.
Buy an Apple Watch for $400, crack the screen, and Apple charges $300
to fix it. Something is wrong with that equation. How about making a
product that doesn't crack?)
Google Clips
The
search giant made several great products this year, including the Pixel
3 smartphone and the Home Hub video speaker, which ranks as my favorite
new device of 2018. Google Clips, however, wouldn't make my top 10 best list.
The $250 camera only shoots six- to seven-second silent video clips and
photos automatically, when Google decides to do so. The camera is the
photographer, not you. And what am I going to do with all those silent
videos? No thanks.
Battery life
This
year's crop of smartphones have higher resolution, more features that
people probably don't care that much about and won't last as long
without a charge. Fellow tech critic Geoffrey Fowler recently
tested 13 top 2018 models and found that none lasted as long as 2017
models. Once again, smartphone makers, this is what we want: Screens
that won't crack and an all-day battery. (Note the above on repairs.)
Nothing else. Well, maybe lower prices, too.
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