A Pirates of the Caribbean-themed version of Samsung's flagship phone is setting sail in China for a wee bounty of $880. If you've been saving up 'yer doubloons, or if you're willing to dig up that chest of gold you buried, why not splurge on Samsung's new Pirates of the Caribbean-themed Galaxy S8 smart phone? Of course, you'll need to set sail for China first, and be sure to bring plenty of booty, because it costs 6,000 yuan (about $880, £680 or AU$1,180). Ahoy! Or something. OK, enough with the pirate jokes (not my forte, in case you can't tell). Spotted on GizmoChina, the phone actually looks pretty underwhelming, at least as far as special editions go. While it comes in a special pirate-themed treasure box to commemorate "Dead Men Tell No Tales," the latest in the movie series, the phone itself isn't terribly distinctive. It comes with a special case and a pirate theme that'll you'll see as soon as you turn the phone on.
Ideally, a modular phone would mean a phone that could evolve over time, and maybe avoid the need for a full-phone upgrade, Last year, Motorola's snap-on accessories seemed wild and potentially exciting, Sure, there were a few battery packs and wireless charging adapters, But, Motorola also had a snap-on LED projector, and a kickstand speaker, Even a crazy zoom-lens iphone 7 twinkle stardust case Hasselblad camera attachment, A year later, Motorola is bringing new mods to the second-gen Moto Z Play and last year's phones: these mods work across devices, after all, One or two ideas sound interesting, But that's not nearly enough..
Motorola's snap-in GamePad brings a full game controller to the Moto Z. A new Moto GamePad accessory is about as exciting as Mods get this year. At $80, it's a controller that a Moto Z phone can snap right into. But this idea isn't new. It has the same dual-stick and button layout that most Bluetooth game controllers already have, and cases like these have existed on the iPhone and a few Android phones for years. The only thing the Mod-attached version gains is an easier snap-on function. But, you don't need a modular phone for an accessory like this.
The newest JBL speaker is similar to last year's, The JBL SoundBoost 2 is the sequel to last year's SoundBoost, and., well, it's another speaker, The new $80 version seems like it'll be the iphone 7 twinkle stardust case better option, since it's now splashproof, But it's the same proposition: louder sound and a kickstand, Again, you don't need a specialized Mod-enabled phone to enjoy something like this, Plenty of Bluetooth speakers are out there to choose from, Last year's Mod lineup, No more batteries, please, The rest of Motorola's lineup of mods was nearly all battery-based, A quick-charge battery pack, A smaller, thinner, less expensive battery pack, Another wireless charging adapter, Batteries already exist from Incipio and Mophie, And, weirdly, the new Moto Z2 Play is a phone blessed with really good battery life..
Motorola has its own program to encourage the development of more exciting mods, and so far, the results are a keyboard case, a light-up case, a solar battery pack and another wireless charging adapter. It's not even guaranteed that these will be made, though some might see release in the future. But it points out the biggest problem with mods: How many add-ons do we really need?. But how many batteries does anyone need? And wasn't the dream of modular accessories supposed to be better than this?.