Ask Paul: September 18 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here is a particularly diverse and interesting set of questions to kick off the weekend.
Note 20 review?
wolters asks:

How's your Note 20 Ultra evaluation going? This may be my favorite Samsung/Note phone in years but the camera still comes up short for me, mainly in low light or night mode.

Interesting. I really like the camera system, and I’ve actually gotten some decent-ish star pictures---and some killer moon pictures---just holding the phone normally (as opposed to using a tripod and needing a few minutes with Pixel 4 XL). I’d say the camera is one of my favorite features.

As for the review, I’m hoping for this weekend but certainly by next week. Not that this matters much to anyone, I guess, but I tend to write these things over time, filling in information as it occurs to me throughout the skeleton document I created for all smartphone reviews. It’s coming together.
Health, fitness, and personal tech
eeisner asks:

Got a few fitness questions for you this week Paul

Cool, I’ve been semi-obsessed with this topic this week.

I know you just ordered the new Apple Watch and have been using Fitbits for a while. Have you tested any "dumb" smart watches? I have been super interested in the Withings Scanwatch since CES and am hoping it gets released sometime soon.

No, but I was also very interested in this watch when it was first announced, and has all the sensors I’d want (including ECG and Blood Oxygen) and is attractive as a watch. I will definitely take a look at this if/when it’s released.

I did just (mini) review the Amazon Halo Mini, which is perhaps a bit too dumb in that it doesn’t have a display at all or any of the newer sensors.

I applaud how seriously you have taken COVID, but I know recently you have started returning to the gym in your area. I recently started to jog (on week six of Couch 2 5k) and returned to playing basketball a bit, and I'm trying to prepare myself for the Seattle winter. What changed in your area that made you feel comfortable enough to return to your gym?

In the sense that we all have our own comfort zones, let me start by stepping back a bit and describing my own reaction over time to COVID and social distancing.

We have three sets of couples that we trust to keep to a similarly small group of friends of their own, and only one of them has a child at home, who is in high school and doing remote learning. So we see each from time to time---usually one couple once a weekend---and there’s no touching, or hugging, or whatever. We wear masks if we go out to a restaurant or whatever, unless we’re eating.

We have a couple of local restaurants we love. But our favorite restaurant of all, which is a weekly trip, is small inside and we’ve not yet eaten inside and won’t for as long as we can avoid. We still go once a week, at the beginning of the pandemic for take out and since late June we eat there outside. We have gotten a lot of takeo...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC