Microsoft just gave away next year's big reveals (The Daily Charge, 10/2/2019)

Today on The Daily Charge, recapping Microsoft's Jam packed event, dual screen duels and NEOs, plus tablets and laptops and arm chips, my. [MUSIC] Good morning and welcome to Cnet's Daily Charge. It's Wednesday, October 2. I'm Johnny Salzman. I'm Josh Goldman. I'm Ben Fox Raven. And here are todays stories. [MUSIC] Microsoft wrapped up it's big hardware event about an hour ago and it was packed. So beyond just updating and surface Surface Laptops and Surface Pro Tablets. Microsoft also unveiled some new products coming this year. Earbuds that take on Apple's Airpods, for example. But then, Microsoft did one better and started announcing its big products for next year too. The biggest reveal was the Surface Duo. It's a dual-screen Android phone from Microsoft. Guys, what do you think? So exciting [LAUGH] I don't know, to a certain extent, it felt dated almost immediately after they announced it [LAUGH] Even though it's not gonna come out until next year. And the reason is as that, it's a hinged device. It's like two Right. Devices stapled together, basically, whereas the Galaxy Fold from Samsung is now just starting to come out in the market. And granted, it's OLED plastic, which means it's a lot more fragile, but there is no hinge, there's more of a crease, so it looks a little bit more futuristic and a little more magical, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I like the flip up keyboard then. Yeah,>> cover thing. That's fun.>> Yeah,>> It's working Android. Yeah,>> that's good.>> Yeah,>> there's apps. apps are nice., it's cool. I'm not really into folding, things like that.>> Yeah.>> So i don't really i'm kind of indifferent. Neo sounded a little bit more interesting. And do is like the tablet version of this thing. Yeah. So yeah, it's those are both going to be really expensive. [LAUGH] Right so we're going to get an impression on what the market will bear as far as these prices are concerned with. Again, the galaxy fold, which is just getting started in the market now. So a year later, Microsoft is always gonna have some sort of impression on. All right, how much can we get away with pricing this but when it's like basically you're buying two devices slap together, it's gonna cost well over $1,000. Absolutely. There's no question Yeah, for sure. So for you the fact that it's not a seamless one screen when it unfolds is a deal breaker. It's uninteresting. I'm probably, I don't know what this could be used for. I thought it was a really interesting innovation to a certain extent. I'm really curious to see what app developers can do with it. It's possible that there might be some really useful, I don't know Microsoft Excel, games, productivity tools, there might be a lot that could potentially be done with this and obviously Microsoft came out with it when they did to give developers that time to do it. Right, I'm curious to see what happens there before I really jump on board or got really interested. I don't know, you just made it sound pretty interesting. [CROSSTALK] Trying to do the opposite, but okay. [LAUGH] So good. No, productivity is great, I mean- They call me CNET's [FOREIGN]. Do they? [LAUGH] Yeah, it's just a nickname they've given me. I didn't ask for it. That man can sell you your own shoes. [LAUGH] That's right, that is true, in a very sensual fashion. Okay, let's move on. [LAUGH] So, right after well right before we saw the duo,Microsoft,Microsoft introduced the Neo,it's the same sort of concept.This is the dual screen folding tablet or laptop.I don't really know exactly the term you're supposed to use for it.It's bigger than the duo.So the duo had two. 5.6-inch displays, and the Neo has two 9-inch displays. And the Duo, obviously, can take calls and has mobile connectivity. The Neo doesn't, at least from what we know now. What are your first impressions? I really like it. I think it's a pretty cool idea, especially the whole keyboard aspect of it, of being able to slap that keyboard on top of that screen Yeah, physical keyboard But, then when you want to use the keyboard seperate and take advantage of both display. Which I guess equals to 13.1 inches. That's what I saw too You get a 13 inch display and then you can use the keyboard separately as a Bluetooth keyboard, attach your mouse Bluetooth and you've got like a regular laptop that you can also just fold up and sticking your- Yeah. Hand bag or whatever. So- Yeah. I think it's a pretty cool idea. I don't know I think just in my life it doesn't fit into it. But for people who are really super need to be productive every where they are- They need to be in the flow. Yeah. [LAUGH] They need to be in flow. They need [UNKNOWN] flow. They need their apps flowing, and other things. So yeah, I guess it's- I think you touched upon a point that I wanted to make, which is, I don't know who the customer is for that device. Again, that's an interesting concept. You know, we've seen versions of something like this before. Yeah. Like Nintendo did it before, with the 3ds. Like, it's not so revolutionary as they were trying to present and I wanna know, Who would actually wanna use this? There are obviously all kinds of like very thin and light laptops these days and ultra books. So is that the market that they're looking for to kind of jump into because that's also, it's gonna be really expensive cuz again, these are two screens. It's not a screen and a keyboard and a trackpad. So Right. Yeah. But they've got another year to figure that out. So we got those two events at the end. He had an entire hour of an event before that. [LAUGH] What were some of the things that stuck out to you from all the other stuff that Microsoft announced? The laptops seem like really good upgrades. Yeah. It's nice to see a 15 inch version, and it sounds like that AMD chip, that they specially made with the AMD, the rising chip sounds like it's gonna be really good. It's using some of the architecture from the Xbox One. Mm-hm. And it sounds pretty powerful right out of the box, but there are nice upgrades, I'm still a little Unsure about the alcantara fabric on the deck of the- They stuck with it. Yeah, so- They were like, hey people like it. We're gonna do it. Yeah, I guess people like it. I don't- [LAUGH] [LAUGH] I don't know. I think it's like they're trying- Make people like it. That's it, they're trying to make people like it. They're like, this is different. It's a uniqueness. It's a uniqueness. Sure. I would say for me, it was the earbuds. The earbuds, the design is a little weird in my opinion. We had a fight about this, we had a fight about this already. Josh and I think it's no weirder than AirPods. It's no weirder- I would agree with that. [LAUGH] That's still kinda weird, we're still trying to figure it out. And I was just at Amazon's event last week, apparently everybody now wants to have Wireless earbuds. Right. We'll see who wins out and looks like Apple did already but maybe somebody will be able to steal some customers away because now we're seeing them from Samsung, Google and Amazon. And now Microsoft. I was writing during that did they mention if there was going to be like digital assistant? Like his Cortana or any of those things? I didn't hear that, I was very- They mentioned voice. Okay. They mentioned that there's voice control. I don't know about whether like Assistant stuff. Assistive sort of where it's just kind of like, play Spotify. I don't know exactly how robust that sort of assistant voice nature is gonna be. I know a lot of the Windows laptops are starting to pick up Alexa on board so that they all have these far field mics that you can summon Alexa from across the room. So, I wouldn't be surprised if they figure out how to get that into those headphones tools. Yeah, yeah, the other element that I thought was interesting about the earbuds was that they're like doing Microsoft Office tools with them. So you're doing like a presentation, you're doing a Powerpoint. Right. And using it to like swipe to the next slide. I'd be curious to see if anybody actually goes ahead and does that. The other thing is is that the price Is a little steep. It's like $250 so- Yeah. Think about that. [LAUGH] Think about that. For the Daily Charge, I'm Joan E. Solsman. I'm Josh Goldman. I'm Ben Fox Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Can't get enough. Check out the Daily Supercharged our extended post show with special features audience q&a and in depth reviews available now. Wherever you get your podcasts.