Before You Buy 141 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte:  Coming up, the vBold Speakers from Velodyne, the Ultimate Ears Bluetooth Speakers, the Thecus network attached storage, and I've got the new iPhones; my reviews of the iPhone 6 and 6+.  It's time to watch Before You Buy.

Netcasts you love.  From people you trust.  This is TWiT.  Bandwidth for Before You Buy brought to you by Cachefly, c-a-c-h-e-f-l-y.com.  

Leo:  Before You Buy is brought to you TheBouqs; beautiful, affordable flowers grown on an active volcano and shipped for free.  For 15% off of your first bouquet visit thebouqs.com and use the code TWIT at checkout.  That's t-h-e-b-io-u-q-s.com/twit; don't forget to use the code TWIT to save 15%.  

(Intro music plays.)

Leo:  Welcome to Before You Buy, the product review show where we get all the latest, greatest stuff, parcel it out to our various TWiT family members, and give you a chance to see what it would be like to actually own these products.  We got these new headsets in.  Bryan Burnett, our Technical Director, he is a big time gamer; he likes to sit there and frag people.  We thought we could get his opinion of the Velodyne vBold headset, Bryan?

Bryan Burnett:  This is Bryan Burnett from Before You Buy and TWiT, and today I'm looking at the vBold overear Bluetooth headphones.  At a glance you can see they have a pretty artistic design with a jigsaw pattern kind of button system on the right side.  Taking a closer look you have your volume buttons along the edge.  On the left side is a regular headset jack so you can plug it into a device that may not have Bluetooth.  Charging the vBold takes about an hour and a half to get back to full battery and gives you 10 hours of talk and music time.  One nice design feature of the vBold is that it collapses.  It doesn't really get very compact, but definitely less unwielding when you fold it on itself.  It comes with a travel pouch if that is something that you are interested in.  As for build quality, it doesn't feel too flimsy, and the hinges on the sides feel relatively solid when you put it in its collapsed mode.  It has an integrated microphone which I will do a little test with.   This is what the microphone sounds like on the vBold.  You can tell that it is a little hollow, but considering that there is no mic extension it is not terrible.  Also, Velodyne claims a 30 foot range with the Bluetooth, and that is pretty accurate.  Now for sound, the 40 mm drivers inside the headphone sound really good.  They have a good range and decent base for this size of headphone.  For the ear cups, they are relatively small sided.  They do fit over my ears comfortably, but if you have larger ears you may want to try this headphone on an make sure that your head doesn't get pinched in them, because then I could see these being a little less comfortable then they are for me.  Now one of my favorite features on this headphone is NFC.  These headphones do come equipped with NFC, which is my preferred way of connecting to any device.  As for pros and cons, the sound on these headphones is really good for their size.  After gaming and listening to music for a few hours they are still really comfortable wearing.  Also, the inclusion of NFC makes it super easy to pair to my phone or other NFC enabled devices.  As for cons, the buttons took a little time to get memorized because there is no indication on the actual headphones of what each button does.  There isn't any noise cancelling, and at the price this headphone comes listed at it would be something that you would expect.  The last con is the mic, which is okay for taking calls, but I've definitely had gaming headsets with better mics on them.  So with the listed price of $349 I would have to say that this is a don't buy, but on Amazon it's listed at $148, so if this headphone fits your head comfortably I would say a try.  This has been Bryan Burnett from Before You Buy reviewing the Velodyne vBold headphones.

Leo:  Thank you Bryan Burnett.  He is, of course, our Technical Director; you will also catch him on Know How.  He is an inventorite, you know projecter, he likes to build stuff and has got some great ideas, and you can watch him on Know How now.  Time is as long as we are talking Bluetooth, not headsets, but speakers; Tonya Hall, who is the host of Marketing Mavericks on this network, got the Ultimate Ears Bluetooth speakers and gave us this review.

Tonya Hall:  Hi, I'm Tonya Hall.  I'm the host of Marketing Mavericks here on TWiT TV and I'm going to review the Ultimate Ear 360 Boom Speakers for you today.  I've got two of them to review.  They actually come in different colors; here you see two of those.  For starters let's talk about the shape and style.  These are pretty lightweight; I would say that they are just over a pound, so very easy to carry.  Some of the aspects of the speaker are that there is the volume which I really like because on some of these speakers it's really small and it's just embossed, it’s not actually as visible as here.  Here is the up, here is the down.  Here is the power, right here if you can see that.  The pairing is right here.  On the bottom you have a very unique little clip here that you could attach to a carabineer to maybe carry it around.  You have an audio input and the charging right here.  The reason that I have 2 is because that one of the unique things about these speakers is that you can actually use 2 at once, which is kind of nice.  They are 15 hour battery life for each one of these.  Here is something really neat; I want to show you how to actually check your battery life. You can press the volume up and down at the same time which is very cool.  I've had Bluetooth speakers that did not tell you they were dying or had some sort of indicator but then suddenly they just died.  This is a really neat way to check it.  Again, 15 hours is a really long time.  That's longer than all of the other portable Bluetooth speakers that I've checked before.  The range is about 50 feet, and especially if you have 2 of these, you've got quite a distance.  You can put these in the middle of the room or on either edge of the room and you are going to fill the room with music.  The other thing I would say about this is they are really loud in a good way.  You can turn it up to the highest volume and they are going to be very, very loud for you.  This is turned down.  Let me turn it up for you.  You can hear the bass.  This is not even all the way full volume and as you can tell it's very loud.  These are both water resistant so you can have them maybe at pool side, maybe you want to take one to the bathroom for a nice, long, hot bath, or maybe you want to have it at the dinner table with you and if you spilled some water on it it should be okay.  I wouldn't immerse it in water because that's not what it is made for, but it is actually durable and cleanable.   So again, if you have this at a party and somebody spills something on it they are very easy to clean.  They both come with a bright yellow charger, and wall adapter, and instructions.  The other thing that allows you to use both of these at the same time is their free app that is offered for the speakers by UE.  It does allow you to pair up both of these 2 speakers at the same time, and there is an alarm in here, there is settings, and it's got some instructions in here.  It's good to have if you decide to purchase 2 of these and it's a free app.  So here are my pros.   The volume; it's really loud when you want it and it's got good bass.  It's not overpowering but surprisingly pretty strong.  The possibility of 15 hours play time; I did say possibility, it does depend on volume.  And the 50 foot reach which is pretty far.  The other thing that I like is that it's actually water resistant so that you can have it next to the pool, or maybe by the bathtub, whatever, I really like that.  Some of the updates from the last time that we reviewed these are the customer equalizer settings, so basically it just memorizes your preferences which is great, you don't have to reset it every time.  It's got a 32 step volume control and if you don't want to adjust the volume there you can actually use the new fader in the app.  There is also an alarm in the app which is new, which I actually found kind of handy.  The double up feature also remembers if you are pairing the 2 speakers.  Here are the cons.  This is a personal thing, and I think if you are spending a couple of hundred dollars then you are going to want a carrying case.  The packaging could actually be used as a carrying case, but the packaging probably wouldn't last that long as a carrying case.  Although it is nicely packaged you wouldn't actually use it long term as a carrying case.  The battery is not replaceable; again for the price that is kind of a downer, and the battery life doesn't last as long when the volume is turned up.  Keep in mind, it does say 15 hours, but if you are listening to it at high volume it isn't going to last more than 3, 4, or 5 hours.  The price is at $199 which isn't bad considering the fact that you actually have a really good quality speaker.  I mean, this is one of the best that I have actually reviewed.  Again, it's easy to use and you can do 2 at a time.  Overall, I would say the Ultimate Ears UE Boom 360 Speakers are a definite buy.  Thanks so much.  I'm Tonya Hall, and you can follow me at Marketing Mavericks on TWiT TV.

Leo:  Thank you Tonya.  Tonya Hall, the host of the great Marketing Mavericks show on this network.  It's a fascinating show if you want to see how marketing is changing in the world of the internet.  Just a little note, those speakers are really Logitech speakers I think.  Ultimate Ears was acquired by Logitech a year or two ago, and they still use the Ultimate Ears brand, but those feel like they are more like a Logitech pair of speakers than the Ultimate Ears.  Coming up, our iPhone 6 review, but first Chad Johnson the old redhead.  Chad produces all of my shows, and he is also the host of his own like 18 other shows.  I'm going to see if I can remember them.  OMGcraft, the Minecraft show, fabulous, you can watch it on YouTube on our network.  What else, redditUP, the show all about reddit.  The Giz Whiz, the show with the guy in the mustache and the things.  Am I missing anything?

Chad Johnson:  Just this show.

Leo:  Just this show.

Chad:  It seems like I'm on it every week.

Leo:  And he's on all the time.  Actually, this is a kind of a more technical thing to talk about; network attached storage.  

Chad:  Right.

Leo:  The idea being that it's really a computer without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor.  You attach it to your network and you use it for all of the computers in your network to backup and to store media files.  I've never heard of this company, is it Thecus?

Chad:  Thecus.  Thecus is actually pretty popular in the NAS space.  This is sort of a NAS that you would use in the house.  It's a 2 bay; a lot of these have multiple drives.  You could also buy less expensive home versions that don't have 2 bays, but this one does, which is kind of nice.

Leo:   Two things you get with multidrive NAS storage are, of course capacity but also redundancy so it is a little more reliable.  With 2 drives you have to choose, don't you between redundancy and capacity?

Chad:  Absolutely, so this has 3 raid options.  You can do either raid 0, which means that they are keeping them copied over; raid 1, which is striped so it is better performance...

Leo:  And it’s twice the size.

Chad:  It' twice the size.  But, no, that would actually be the same.

Leo:  Yeah, no, striped you would get...

Chad:  You would get twice the size, but you get half the reliability because if one drive dies you lose all of that stuff.

Leo:  They call that scare raid.  I think that is raid 0.  Raid 1 is mirrored, which means that each drive has the same contents.  It's more reliable but not as great a capacity.

Chad:  I didn't have matching drives.

Leo:  What's the third one, 0+1?

Chad:  It's actually jbod, just a bunch of disks, which means that you will take all of the disks and it will basically merge it into one big disk that you can have access to.

Leo:  That's the problem with 2 drives.  You don't get the higher quality raid that gives you better redundancy.

Chad:  Right, so just a bunch of disks is where I decided to go into because I didn't have matching drives.  

Leo:  So you put a terabyte drive and a 2 terabyte drive in?

Chad:  I put a 2 and a 3 terabyte drive in, so 5 terabytes in there.  Setup process is all done on the web; you just have a portal that you go into and you have a kind of familiar looking web interface that if you have had to do any setup on a wireless access point or any of those wireless routers it's about the same looking process with menus and that sort of stuff.  Not desktop class I would say with absolutely usable menus, but it's all you need.  On the back of this it has an Ethernet port, which you need for it to be a network attached storage device, it's that.  It also has USB 2 an USB 3 which means that either A, you can copy off of a USB disc onto this, there is even a USB copy button on the front, or you can extend the drive by adding your own USB drive on to the back of this. 

Leo:  That's kind of interesting.  I could take an existing USB drive, hook it up, and press the button, and it will copy it without a computer.

Chad:  Which is pretty neat.  This is running, it's basically a Linux computer just like you said, so inside of here is a PowerPC 800 MH processor.  It only has 512 MB of RAM and then, of course, the 2 large drive bays, that are SATA drive bays.  That's about it on hardware.  Plastic case, there is a small fan on the back here for that.  One thing that I do want to mention is that this is pretty loud.  In fact, it was so loud, I had this in my bedroom, and it’s so loud...

Leo:  How loud is it?  I'm sorry, I missed my queue.  How loud is it?

Chad:  That I could not keep this going while asleep.  The fan was so loud that I had to turn it off every night, which is what you don't want to do with a NAS; you want to keep it on all the time so that you can have your backups always running.

Leo:  So you need a closet for this or a room that is away from where you sleep.

Chad:  Right, or if your router happens to be in the hallway or in the living room that would make a lot of sense.  That router happens to be in the bedroom because that's where I'm going to lounge on my bed and type away on a laptop so that's kind of a disappointment.  In terms of the software, it does do a lot of features, it's got a system log, you've got notifications, and you can change your raid partitioning.  Of course you are going to have to almost always delete the data that you had stored on the drives if you are going to change the raid around.  This is hot swappable so if you have your raid as a redundant and one of the drives dies you can throw a new one in with it still running and it will rebuild.

Leo:  That would only be in raid 1 mode.

Chad:  Right, exactly.

Leo:  I guess in jbod you could do that because if you did it with striped mode, raid 0, then your data is gone.

Chad:  Your data is gone at that point.  You can also sign in with a Thecus id, and what that allows you to do is that is sets up a dynamic link so that wherever you are across the world, even if you have say a dynamic IP address at home, you will be able to use their T-OnTheGo App to access your data on the drive. You can get at photos, and videos, and stuff from your house using the Thecus id so that you don't have to set up any weird dynamic DNS stuff or forwards and stuff like that, which is pretty nice.

Leo:  Really this is commodity category where most mass drives have kind of the same basic functionality.  It's those little extra things are what make one better than the other and I like that, the dynamic IP address.

Chad:  Absolutely, absolutely, so the biggest thing also on this is also the price.  The MSRP is $150, but you could easily find it on the street for $116.

Leo:  That's minus drives, but that's a great price.

Chad:  It's a really good price for a NAS.

Leo:  Very aggressive.

Chad:  And you can tell that they cut a few corners like this tiny fan on the back.  I was talking to Padre and he was like normally there is just a huge fan right here to pull the heat out of this.  For the pros I'm going to give it that it's fairly easy to set up, it has a few different raid options, and the price is very competitive.  On the cons it was pretty loud, I really wish that both on the T-ToGo App and the web portal version that they would update the user interface, but that might be something that they can't do, so bad user interface is also for the cons.  So coming in at $150 MSRP but easily found all over the internet for $116 for the Thecus.  I don't even think I said the model number.  This is the N2310 Thecus 2 drive NAS.  I'm going to give this a buy.  I liked it.  It was loud, but you have got to give up something to get that price.  I think that this is a very competitive price and also in doing my research on NAS's in the category this was by far the least expensive with the most features.

Leo:  Yeah, a great value, the Thecus, if you need an inexpensive 2 disk array NAS, thank you OMGChad.  Do you have anybody special in your life?  Do you ever miss a birthday or anniversary and say I wish I could have remembered so that I could send them flowers?  Do you ever have that happen to you?

Chad:  Sometimes.

Leo:  Yeah, it happens to me pretty much yearly.  Well, I've got a solution for you from The Bouqs.  Bouq as in bouquet, b-o-u-q-s, thebouqs.com, beautiful affordable flowers.   They grow themselves.  This is different.  Most florists are buying flowers, they have got to get the flowers in, they ship them to you, by the time you get them they are days old.  The Bouqs actually grows their own flowers from a sustainable farm on, get this, an active volcano in South America.  They are volcano flowers!  One of the reason that they do it is, of course, at that 10,000 feet above sea level they get more sun.  The volcanic snow melt and mineral rich soil make more beautiful, vibrant colors.  They are gorgeous flowers, and because they grow their own they cut the flowers the day that you order them.  They are shipped straight from the farm so your bouq is fresh.  They have apps for IOS, Android, and Windows Phone so that you can order right from the phone if you want.  They are all backed by the happiness guarantee.  This is what I love, the concierge service.  You can arrange for them to automatically deliver flowers on special days or just because, on your schedule for The Bouqs.  I think this is great.  Pricing is up front.  I like that too.  I hate it when you go to a site and they say $40 for the flowers and then another $50 for shipping and handling.  They don't do that to you.  The checkout is painless and your loved ones get unique flowers grown on a volcano.  You save the money.  They've got lilies, daisies, and more.  You see these beautiful arrangements.  You will find them at the website, thebouqs.com.  Prices start at $40, double the blooms for just $10.  Once they are shipping it to you just say double the blooms for $10.  By the way, you will save 15% off of your first order by entering the code TWIT at checkout.  Maybe today is not the day that you need beautiful volcano flowers delivered to your door.

Chad:  The volcano collection.  That's what it says up there.

Leo:  It is, these are from the volcano.  But, make a note of this, and when the day comes that you need flowers remember thebouqs.com.  Visit thebouqs.com/twit, and don't forget to get the app on your phone.  This is when I always remember, on the way home when it's almost too late; if it's on the phone then boom, bing, The Bouqs.

Chad:  For me this is great news because I like to give my parents flowers all the time.   When Mother's Day comes around and I never know who is responsible...

Leo:  You can set that up.  You can set that up.  You and your family, your brothers and sisters, can set that up automatic floral.  I like it, thebouqs.com/twit; free shipping within the US, 15% off when you use the offer code TWIT, alright, from The Bouqs.  Well Chad and I waited in line, so did Jammer B, who else was in the line?  

Chad:  There was Greg, and Jeff Needles was there, and Glen.

Leo:  We had a big group. Glen was there, too, yeah.  Everybody wanted the new iPhone.  It was interesting; when we canvassed our staff everybody wanted the big new iPhone.

Chad:  Absolutely.

Leo:  So this is it, this is the 6 and the 6+.  These are the new iPhones from Apple, available for sale at Apple stores but also all of the carriers in the US; Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and a few of the smaller carriers as well.  You will also find it internationally now I think in 13 countries, or maybe even more, and more all of the time; soon to be in China and all over the world.  These are easily the hottest, most awaited phones in the US.  You could tell by those long, long lines.  So my review having now admittedly only getting it on Friday; I didn't get an advanced copy like some people.  First of all I think even if you look on TV, this is the iPhone 6, the 4.7 inch screen, it's so thin and so beautiful.  These are easily the more elegant, beautiful phones Apple has ever made, and I think probably the most elegant and beautiful phones on the market today.  They've really done a stellar job.  We've heard that they are going to be fragile.  All smartphones are fragile.  This is not sapphire.  We think it is probably Gorilla Glass 3.  Yes, they do crack.  We've seen people crack them already, but what phone doesn't?  We've even seen reports that, more likely the bigger 6+, will bend in your pocket.  Well are you surprised?  Look at that, it's so thin.  You are going to want to be careful with these and probably get an OtterBox Case if you are a fumble fingers.  But that has always been true of iPhones, and it's no less true now.  iFixit does report that these are a little bit more fixable, that the screen comes off a little bit more easily so there will be an aftermarket third party screen replacement and so forth.  As you would expect, it is the kind of the state of the art in IOS.  The fingerprint reader, the Touch ID as Apple calls it, works spectacularly well.  I've trained it, for instance, so that I can use the iPhone in my right hand and just tap the Touch ID with my thumb and it opens up right away.  You can also use it to make Apple Store purchases and iTunes Store purchases.  As you know, with Apple Pay, their electronic tap to pay, soon you will be able to use the fingerprint to actually make purchases in the store because yes Apple has finally included NFC, Near Field Communication, chips in their phone.  That's a chip that has been in many other phones, but now that Apple is doing it I expect to see it in use more often.  Apple Pay will debut next month; it's not available.   You really can't use the NFC chip right now for anything else.  Best cameras on the market, in fact we are starting to see reviews come in.  I've seen a lot of the reviews, and I've seen a lot of the images, and yep, Apple has done it again.  Still 8 MP but they have improved the quality of the camera.  The software behind it is superb.  The tool tone flash means that flashes look better because they are color balanced for the environment you are in.  You may not even need the flash.  Both phones do a lot of trickery to get excellent low light photography, and especially the iPhone 6+ which has an optic image stabilizer in it.  Apple also made a big deal about the phase focusing built into the sensor chip on this phone, and indeed it focuses very quickly.  The super slow mo video is superb and gorgeous.  So they've really made a phone with a camera that is second to none.  In fact, I would say this is still the best camera on the market today.  That's pretty impressive considering that Apple hasn't upped the number of pixels, but they have made major improvements in so many areas that this is just a fantastic camera despite the immense amount of competition for that title.  IOS 8 has some very nice new features that I think you will like a lot including the new notification system.  Now, of course, if you have an older iPhone you can still get IOS 8 on your 5s, or your 5, or even your 4s, but it really sings on this partly because this phone has the new a8 chip.  Here is Kevin Rose's slow mo of the Tony Hawk event.  This is the 240 FPS slow mo, so that is what, one quarter speed?

Chad:  Yeah.

Leo:  And it just is fantastic.  Play that again Bryan.  It starts at full speed and then slows down.

Chad:  It's mind blowing.

Leo:  It's done in metadata so that you can actually edit it and have any portion of the entire video be slow mo or not.  That's really nice after the fact control.  Apple's IOS 8 means also that it's easier to share videos and pictures with people.  They've added additional sharing features.  I think that they have really done a nice job.  Look at that.  That is spectacular.  That's with a phone!

Chad:  That blows my mind.  I remember trying to get 60 frames high speed off of like actual film cameras, and it's so difficult.  

Leo:  Remember, it is a very competitive market.  Samsung phones have super slow mo.  There are a lot of phones out there with these kinds of capabilities.  In many cases Apple is just playing catch up with the market today, yet it's really well done.  The 6+, which is a 5.5 inch screen, has some additional features specifically for this big screen.  I have to say, if you have been using an iPhone you are going to be a little bit challenged by the size.  This is not just a little jump, this is a massive jump.  Let me open Apple's mail program and show you.  For instance, as you turn the phone on its side you are able to, let's cancel out on this so that you can see, you are able to go from looking at a message full screen to looking at it much more like a desktop or iPad interface where a list of messages is on the left and the message itself is on the right.  This is great and it's not just mail, it's throughout the iPhone.  Of course, Apple has updated many of its programs to take advantage of this.  Others have not, in fact, one negative you will see on both phones immediately on Google and other applications have not been updated for the new screen resolutions.  That means that they are scaled.  Apple does a good job with scaling, nevertheless it looks a little weird; the text is a little bigger than you probably want it to be.  I expect every company though will be quickly working to update their apps to work better with IOS.  Let me run through the pros and cons.  I have them right here, let me just switch over to my sheet.  This, I would say, and this is totally subjective, the most beautiful smartphone ever made.  If you take a look at it you may disagree, but you can't disagree that it is absolutely gorgeous.  It's got the best cameras on a phone; it's not just me, DXO and others have agreed; crisp, brilliant, responsive touchscreens.  These are not unique; in fact we think that the touchscreen on the 6+ is the exact same part as one the OnePlusOne.  It is certainly the exact same size and has many of the same features, but it looks good.  Apple always does a little bit extra to make their stuff look a little bit better.   You have got to admire Apple's commitment to security and privacy, and that is something that Apple is doing with IOS 8 and across the board.  It's something that they are going to have to do because of course if we start using these for electronic payments and for recording health we are going to care a lot about privacy and security on this phone.  There is nobody better when it comes to privacy and security than Apple.  Apple has begun to really tout that as a feature, and I believe that it is something that they should tout.  It's something that they do particularly well.  You get that kind of built in to all of the iPhones; in fact into many of the IOS 8 devices.  The hardware on this allows things to be even more secure.  The fingerprint solution works fabulous; better than Samsung's, better than anybody's.  The Apple ecosystem itself is going to be an advantage as Apple Pay comes to the front.  As we see more HomeKit and HealthKit tools that will make for a better user experience.  I like messages.  I don't know if you have used messages.  If most of your friends and family are in IOS you will love messages.  It's easy to send now not just text messages, but audio and pictures.  It's really a very elegant solution.  It works best when you are going IOS to IOS however, and there are still issues moving back and forth from IOS to Android.  If you are a Macintosh user, a computer user, you will love the continuity and hand off features that will allow you to use your new iPhone to make phone calls on your desktop computer and to send messages from your desktop computer and respond to them.  I have to say, finally we have screen sizes that are comparable to the rest of the world.  I like a big screen and I'm really glad to have a screen with a little bit more real estate although a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Apple store after I started playing with these.  I really feel for most Apple users who are used to the smaller 4 inch screens or less, the iPhone 6, the 4.7, even this is going to feel a little big; this is the phone that you should get.  4.7 inches is exactly the right size.  I really thought I was going to want a bigger phone but I am still drawn inexorably to towards the 4.7 inch phone.  It feels good in the hand.  If you are already using an iPhone this 5.5 inch screen is going to be such a big jump.  I recommend that you at least strongly consider the iPhone 6 and not the iPhone 6+.  

Chad:  I think that you were making a really good point on MacBreak Weekly that the 6+, all it does is stretch your apps even larger.

Leo:  It's great for people with poor eyesight but it's not like you get to use that real estate except for the sideways mode.

Chad:  It's not like Android where the app will refit and you will maybe get an extra row of icons or an extra...

Leo:  That may change.  People can make their apps so that they know which phone they are on and people will start taking advantage of the extra real estate.  For right now it is just bigger, not necessarily better.

Chad:  It's more difficult to use basically.

Leo:  And harder to use with one hand of course.  I don't use one hand, I'm used to using two hands now because of big phones that I've been using.  One handed iPhone users, stick with the iPhone 6; you are not going to want to go to the +.  The A8 processor, by the way, getting great results in benchmarks; it's among the fastest processors on the market today.  The GPU is also very good.  Apple's new Metal software, kind of DirectX for the iPhone, means games really sing this.  This is going to be a great platform.  That might be one reason to get the bigger phone.  If you are a gamer the 6+ would be a fantastic platform as the iPad has been up to now.  However, there are some negatives.  Nobody is perfect in this world.  It is a closed ecosystem; that is a pro and a con.  The closed ecosystem means Apple controls it more tightly.  They can ensure your privacy and security but it means that you can't do as many things as you want.  In many cases Apple is kind of a nanny.  Lots of popups and warnings, "You are being followed", "Location Turned On", stuff like that.  Some people will be reassured by that; I found it a little bit annoying.  It's not quite as flexible as the Android ecosystem.  These are the most expensive phones on the planet except for the Vertu diamond encrusted phones; for a stock smartphone, top of the line 6+ with 128 GB of ram; $948.  That's more than most computers cost these days.  It's a very expensive phone, and that will set some people back on their heels a little bit too.  Finally, fewer customization choices; Apple is very clear that this is the screen that you are going to see when you launch.  There are no third party launches available.  They have only recently added third party keyboards.  Basically, when you go with iPhone, when you go with any Apple product, it is Apple's way or the highway.  You only get 3 different colors, you can get the space grey back, there is a gold back, and there is a silver back.  The front can only be black or white, and the black only goes with space grey, the white with the other two options.  It's kind of like Henry Ford who said that you can get a Model-T in any color you want as long as it is black.  Apple really doesn't like to make too many different kinds of phones.  That will probably be the final negative is that they are hard to get.  Good luck finding them.  That will ease up over time, but the success of Apple's iPhone really means that you do have to end up in many cases waiting in line and waiting to get your phone.  A lot of people who ordered their phone online will be getting their phone around Thanksgiving time.  That's a long delay.  If you are in China you are just going to have to send somebody in the States to get in line for you because they are not available in China yet.  So, pros and cons, there you have it.  Obviously I'm going to give the iPhone 6 and 6+ a strong buy.  These are Apple's catch up products that make them a totally strong competitor in the phone marketplace.  They are not necessarily better in every respect than what is out there from Android and even Microsoft; they are better in some respects, many respects.  My recommendation if you are choosing a smartphone is to try them all and find one that fits your needs best.  But boy, if you are an iPhone user you are going to be very happy when that new iPhone comes in the mail because these things are gorgeous, they are beautiful.  Again, consider the smaller one if you are not absolutely sure you can use that 5.5 inches of real estate.  That's it for Before You Buy for this week.  I hope you have enjoyed the show.  Thanks to our reviewers, Bryan Burnett, and Chad Johnson, and Tonya Hall.  Thanks to you for watching the show.  We appreciate it.  You can watch Before You Buy be produced live every Tuesday afternoon.  We are after Security Now about 3-3:00 Pacific time.  We also make the full show available on our website, twit.tv/byb.  On YouTube, in fact we do something special on YouTube; we not only give you the full show but we chop each review up so that you can share if you have some friends who are interested in the iPhone you can share that particular review with them.  That's youtube.com/beforeyoubuy.  Email is byb@twit.tv if there is some products that you would like to see and we will make sure that we take a look at them for you.  That's it for this edition of Before You Buy.  We thank you for joining us.  Remember, you have got to watch before you buy!  We will see you next time.