I had a great time in Berlin, Germany while covering IFA for Coolsmartphone.com. When I say covering IFA, there was a lot more going on around the trade show as there always is.

IFA 2016 - #IFA16

IFA is the world's leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances. Held in the beginning of September each year in Berlin, it's a trade show that sets up the scene nicely for the global trading period in the run up to the holiday trading period.

I arrived in Berlin the day before the madness of press week started and covered a series of press conferences over the next few days: Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE and others. As well as press conferences, I visited many stands of brands more or less well known to the general public. There was a decent amount of mockodile to cover too. How could I not cover beautiful mockodile?

In the midst of this busy IFA week, I found time to catch up with friends old and new. We discussed the announcements and wares on show, consumed much beer and cocktails and when in more philosophical states put the consumer electronics product world to right.

For the first couple of days I paired up with Peter Holden of TalkAndroid.com. Peter is a top chap with a sense of humour who also has a great in-depth knowledge of the tech industry. We survived an Uber Taxi ride with a maniac driver who was actively trying to crash the Prius we were in. Having survived that we then went on to cover more press conferences with significantly more adrenaline to burn off.

It was cool to hang out with Bryan Burnett of TWiT. He was over in Berlin from the other side of The Pond with Padre SJ covering IFA before he headed off travelling around northern Europe. I'll be catching up with him in Petluma later this month when Candice and I are on vacation.

To sum up IFA and the surrounding press conferences and announcements: big tech companies have reached the point where they speak to the end users, often not needing the tech press as much as they needed to. Just looking at Huawei and Samsung's events, the highlights were a selfie masterclass and watch bros on stage talking about emotions of watch design. The advent of the fashion blogger or instagram celebrity on the tech scene is here. Maybe that's why they invite me to these events: I'll find a mockodile angle on anything shiny.

iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2

It is difficult to ignore the media frenzy that ensues when the fruity phone company announce their new devices. This time Tim Cook took to the stage to announce the Apple Watch Series 2 and the iPhone 7 (in its two variants).

As we called it at Coolsmartphone, the devices now lack 3.5mm audio jacks. Some of my legwork at IFA confirmed this as many vendors were very active in selling their new wares.

Coming Up

This week at IFA was pretty crazy, and my two main mobile devices I used to cover the trade show deserve honourable mentions.

Xiaomi Mi Max

I purchased this device specifically as a workhorse to cover IFA. The massive battery, big screen which makes two thumb typing easy and reasonable 16MP camera made it a success. If you travel a lot or really need all day battery life I would recommend this device.

Honor 8

The Honor 8 is my cameraphone of choice now. the snaps it takes are to my liking and with Google Photos sync it made managing the content I was creating simple. I love the way the Honor 8 feels in my hand though I live in terror of it slipping out. Battery life got me through the day

I'll be on vacation with Candice in the US of A and Canada from late next week, but before I leave I plan on publishing my full review of the Honor 8 on Coolsmartphone and starting the Huawei Nova Plus review. As usual any feedback is welcome, please do let me know what you would like to see in the upcoming reviews.