Back To School Must Have Tech Gear !

• Back-To-School must-have tech gear

• Review: 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale hybrid

• Stop paying high prices for cell service. Here is THE tip

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hi Texan is Michael Garfield. MichaelGarfield. Michael Garfield's joining the high Tech
Texan. Michael Garfield is here witha high tech textan items to make easier,
some new technology. So Michael Garfieldhas something you might like. Hi
Texan, Michael Garfield is your highTech Texan. Three decades hoping you make

(00:31):
magic with your gadgets. Heard worldwideon the iHeartRadio Act. Now your high
Tech Texan. Michael Garfield. AnotherSaturday. Should this be the last Saturday
before school starts for all you hiddosout there? Sucks for you, but

(00:53):
not your parents or me, becauseschool it's over for me. But this
is what I do. I amhere to give the final BTS addition of
the high tech text and Show.Now not the BTS, the pop group
of which I'm very tight with,Sugar, one of the singers, dancers
and rappers from Back to from BTSsince I was hanging out with them in

(01:17):
Korea a few weeks. Got noBTS. That's back to school. That's
that's old school. When we sayBTS, folks, it is it's coming
Monday. For a lot of you, it is back to school. If
you need help with final laptops,desktops, alarm clocks, whatever you need

(01:38):
to buy, or one for yourself, for your kid, for your grandkids,
for your graduation presence. I amhere for you a proper introduction.
Michael is the name seven one threetwo one two five nine five. Oh.
I don't bite, I really don't. You can ask people, and
it's kind of fun to call mebecause we just laugh and I just,
you know, just just kind ofmake you smile because that's what I do

(01:59):
in life. It's it's it's simplestuff. Callum read hello, Callum,
how are you? He is onthe other side of the glass. He
will pick up your phone call andhe will say, hey, man,
what do you want to talk toGarf about? Really? Do you want
to do? You want to checkout a Samsung phones? It's excuse me?
Is that a phone in your pocket? Are you're just d happy to
see me? Samsung Phones? Bythe way, that the products that I've

(02:19):
been yapping about for several weeks rightnow, the z Flip five, the
z Fold five. They officially wenton sale yesterday. Should you be listening
live Friday, August eleventh, Theyare in the public. I've had him
for about two weeks and I've nowmade the Flip five my regular everyday phone,

(02:44):
and it's fun. It's neat gettingsome ooh and I'll look at that.
How cool is that? Can Ihold it? Can I touch it?
I'm like, how you doing?My name is Michael. But I
love the form factor. It ishalf the size of a regular phone.
It folds down like a clam shelland then you full it up it becomes
just the size as a regular phone. Does not have the greatest cameras in

(03:05):
there with the lenses, I willsay that compared to other Samsung phones that
I have, But for the convenience, I'm pretty pretty impressed. You can
go back to my podcast you canhear me talking about the full reviews of
the Fold five and the Samsung Tabletgreat. I like the tablet is thin.
It is it's a large size byfourteen point three inches, comes with

(03:28):
a little spin so you can drawon some things. And also the Samsung
Watch there's the Watch six and theWatch six Classic. By the way,
shout out to Toby dagonheart triangle printing. He just he texts me was it
today, this morning or yesterday?Garf, I missed some of your show
last week, I have the GalaxyWatch five. Is it worth upgrading to

(03:50):
the Watch six? I know youlike the bezel, the rotating bezel on
the new Watch six Classic, butis that reasoned upgrade? I text at
him my thoughts and honestly, ifyou have a Watch five and you're happy
with your Watch five, I'm notsure there's a big, big reason to
go out and buy another one forthree hundred four hundred dollars or so.

(04:12):
I love the fact that Samsung broughtthe rotating bezel. Bezel is the outside
rim of watches, and other thanthe Watch five, which they took that
away, they brought it back onone of the new watches they hear,
the Watch six Classic, because itas you rotate it right or left,
it flips from screen to screen toscreen instead of you know, finger swiping

(04:33):
finger swiping it is it? Soif you can live with your Watch five,
you really don't care about the rotatingbezel, Toby, go ahead and
you keep your Watch five and maybethe Watch seven. It'll do other things
and so we'll check about out fornext year. Anyway, what else can
I set up for the show today? I do have a list of some
of the better laptops, your bestlast laptops, especially for college kids.

(04:56):
It's not uncommon for high schoolers tohave laptops or tab but college kids,
it's I don't know it is ais a laptop must have for college?
It's it's a question that you,you folks, can answer for me.
I listen, my three kids aredone and gone through college. And I
remember my oldest he wanted a notonly a laptop, but he wanted a

(05:17):
tablet. I thought that was alittle overkill, but you know, we
got it for him, and Iguess he used both of them. I'm
not sure, but it's so funnyhow times change. I went through college,
oh, Sharklin, without a desktop, without a computer. Actually we
had a computer. It was calleda blue book and a number two pencil.

(05:41):
You know, we sit here,you know of people of my age
and ilk how do we get throughcollege? And we didn't have cell phones?
How'd we know? You know?You know, if we wanted to
meet up on sixth Street and Austin, where were we supposed to? How
do we do it? I don'tknow, I honestly do not know how
we did it. I think,you know, our fraternity were just hey,
man, we're gonna meet at uh, you know this this place on

(06:02):
you know Maggie May's on sixth Street. Be there at ten o'clock. And
if you weren't there, you weren'tthere. We remini this more about that.
Then, how do we get throughcollege without a computer? That's what
we did. Very tough to getthrough college without computer. But I guess
I'm going back to my question fromtwo and a half minutes ago. Do
you get through college without a laptopor do you have a desktop? I

(06:26):
could not live on a laptop alonedaily. I have a very large desktop,
nice to meet you, thirty twoinch all in one gorgeous display.
It's an HP. Actually I havetwo of them, so technically I got
about sixty four inches sitting on myhome desktop, just because that's what I
do. I sit at a computermost of the day and I'm typing and

(06:48):
I'm I'm writing, and but alsoI have I record things. I have
not only this much where my videocamera is. I do my zoom calls
from there, and so we cantalk about that sometimes during the show.
I am gonna list you a fewdifferent or best laptops for kids, especially
if you're going off to college.Other things I'll talk about. I have

(07:10):
talked about phones a lot, butI'm getting a lot of questions recently,
maybe not on the phone, butjust anecdotally wherever I go. When I
show off the phone, I'm talkingabout mobile plans. Who's the carrier now?
The new Samsung phones their launched forVerizon Wireless and in the other carriers.
And I remember the day when thevery very very first iPhone came out,

(07:33):
actually in two thousand and seven,they had an exclusive deal with AT
and T five years. The onlyonly where you can the only carrier you
can work an iPhone on it wasAT and T. I don't think you're
going to see deals like that anymorebecause it actually just doesn't open up the
market. But I will give yousomebody. I ask people how much are

(07:55):
you spending on your cell phone service? And they tell me these these numbers
in their absurd I will tell youother much more inexpensive ways to get cell
phone service. There's no reason youneed to be paid seventy eighty plus dollars
a line, no matter way.So anyway, I got that. I
also got some news about another Primeday. Amazon has another Prime Day.

(08:18):
They just announced coming up later tothis year. I thought it was just
a summer thing. So much todo, so many things to give away.
I got gift cards coming up betweennow and one o'clock PM Central.
If you're listening live on KPRC ninefifty, I do think if we're hanging
in here, Michael Garfield and theGang. It is called the High Tech
Text and Show. We're gonna beright back, called the second or two.

(08:48):
It took about a three minute fourminute break. Thank you for listening
to this one different commercial. It'sbrought to you by whoever you just listened
to. Whether it's on error oronline, I don't know. We run
different ads and so that's so that'swhy we're free man costing to a zero.
It actually costs a little of yourtime, but hopefully you are doing
something productive while you're listening to theshow. Just like that big booming and

(09:09):
the voice said, it's called theHigh Tech DEXs and Show. Yeah,
we certainly do the little technology,but we have more fun talking about other
things, like how school starts fora lot of kids this coming week,
so be prepared for Facebook with theparents posting the back to school the first
day of school pictures. I guessI'm guilty of that towards the end of

(09:35):
my kids high school years or maybethey're early college years. I guess Facebook
was around that I did it.But I mean, listen, it's cute
seeing all the first and second gradest. I'm looking at my cousins. I
have, like second cousins. They'rereally I mean they're in first grade,
second, third, fourth, andthey're really cute. You know, there
are in other cities, and Iget to see them and they don't have
any teeth, and they've got theshort haircut with the bowl cuts. It's

(09:56):
it's neat. So I just youjust gotta suck it up and and bear,
you know, grin and beart withwith a nice cocktail. By the
way, bout the mine, hcallum, would you want to give away
the uh? We got a JohnnyTamali's gift cards because we need some of
margharita. You want to do thatin about fifteen twenty minutes. Okay,
you remind me we got we aregift cards to give away Great tex mex

(10:18):
Out on the southwest part of town. Johnny Tamali's standbyer for that school's going
back. Hope everybody had a goodsummer. Anybody see movies? I still
have yet to see the Barbie movieor the Oppenheimer movie. Have I even
seen a movie? I didn't seeMission Impossible? Man, I suck bro
listen, I'm just now starting TedLasso. I'm serious. One more person

(10:43):
over the past three or four years. There you go. If you gotta
watch Ted Lasso. You know you'relike Ted Lasso, sweet innocent guy sports
fan, and I love Jason Sadikis a big fan from his for years
for Saturday O Live. Literally justgot Apple TV Plus thank you Steph Curry
with a free two month code,which I can. I need. I

(11:05):
need to watch everything in the nexttwo months. So I did start watching
Ted Lasso. It's good. It'sthat's a good series. It's cute,
it's a really really I'm only onseason one and so if it's a really
nice I like that. I likeTed Lastso it's it's it's pretty all right.
Going back to Barbie, Barbie justhit the one billion dollar worldwide mark.

(11:26):
One billion dollar is the first billiondollar movie to be directed but by
a female director, Retta Gerwig.So let's just say this. Yeah,
she's the first female director to directa movie that has made over one billion
dollars. Good for her. Itseems it's a feel good movie. I
love the song from Dual Leap.I hear the radio. I heard Will
Ferrell's in there. I mean,it can't be that, but I guess

(11:48):
I'm I guess. I'm waiting tillit's on Apple TV and if it is
a better be on Apple TV withinthe next two months, because I'm not
I'm not continuing Apple TV Oppadiber it'sa log movie. But I did see
this open hiner. This is thestats ever. I love stats Man.
You could take anything and you couldstatusize it and make anything sound sexy.

(12:11):
Oppenheimer has become the highest grossing filmset during World War Two ever in the
history of movies, and it passedSaving Private Ryan and dun Kirk. I've
never even heard of dune Kirk,and I've never seen Saving Private Ryan.
I don't think I'm not gonna bewarm movie guy. You'd see Oppenheimer.

(12:35):
I don't think it's about war perse Saving Private Ryan, and it's it's
physically said in war right. Yeah, five hundred million dollars plus global box
office. It's pretty good. What'sthe best movie ever set during World War
Two? Callum and I'm looking atyou? Are you a warm movie?

(12:56):
Guy? Dendler's list? That wasWorld War Two? Wasn't it great?
Great flick, very important story?And Gloria's Bastards? I was that a
comedy? I've never seen in Gloria'sBastards, I should see. I just
I get invited all these movie premiers. I just don't go to the movie

(13:16):
premiers. Generally the conflict with withtoo much sports on. But there's been
no sports this summer. I don'tknow. It's been traveling too much.
I don't know I'm supposed to do. All right, you want to get
back to this thing? Seven?Anybody want to feel free to call me
now seven one three, two,one two five nine five, Oh with
your you got thirty seconds. Iwant your Barbie or your Oppenheimer reviews,

(13:37):
or Mission Impossible, or your favoritemovie this summer, favorite movie of the
summer. I don't want to hearwhat you want to watch streaming? Okay,
because I have some time, I'llgo for the matinees before it hits
you know, the evening. ShouldI go see Barbie Oppenheimer's seven one,
three, two, one two fivenine five. Oh, Michael Garfield,

(13:58):
promise I'm gonna talk about some BTSstuff. Back to school? Congratulations kids,
if you were back to school,who needs a who needs a laptop?
Is it our laptops? Absolutely musthave things for kids in college?
Right now? Let me ask anotherquestion. Is college the must have or
must do thing for kids or youngpeople nowadays? That's a bigger question.

(14:22):
If you want to spend the nexthour on is college worth it? I'm
here for you. I come froma long line. You've educated people.
My parents, my grandparents went tocollege. My three kids went to college.
Pretty much every single person. Weall graduated write at four years,
because that's what you're supposed to do, right right unique. My middle son

(14:48):
he kind of question college during college. I told him, listen, if
you want to create a multi gazilliondollar deal just to leave college, maybe
like Bill Gates, maybe like MichaelDell. You make you know. I
want you to create a white paperand give me the whole business plan.
I will look at it, andif I agree, I will let you

(15:09):
drop out of college at last.See you did not do that. So
I have three college edum mcated kids, that's good. Well, anyway,
they all point is they all hadlaptops. They all had desktops. So
whether you're heading to an actual physicalcampus or maybe you're taking classes online,
I'm guessing a laptop. It's youreally need something to be the center for
your studies. You could debate laptopsversus desktops, but getting a new new

(15:33):
machine for the back to school season, you may want to need it.
You may need it. These kidsmay need it. A high school laptop
versus a college laptop. They couldbe two different things. You needs word
processor, you need software or apps, be at Microsoft Office or something to
do a word processor processor or aspreadsheet, maybe it's Excel or something like

(15:54):
that. Yes, there are Googlespreadsheets and whatever. But laptop shot there
and there's a ton to choose from. There's Apple mac, there's Apple MacBooks,
there's Windows Oriented. There's there's goodones for gaming, which I really
should we really get into the bestgaming laptops. Number one, they're so
expensive they're probably worth It's gonna costyou more for a gaming laptop than it

(16:18):
is to sending your kid through whatfifteen or eighteen hours of college credit.
I'm not sure there's chromebooks, whichare really inexpensive, and there's budget ones.
But listen, let me give thequick play by play over Apple.
Listen, there's there's Intel powered MacBooks. Do you need these things? Hey?

(16:40):
Maybe if you're a Mac family,you're gonna make you're gonna want some
of these opera line specs these days, they're gonna cost you eighteen hundred to
two thousand dollars From most college students, I think a mid range machine to
use primarily for just writing papers,maybe some web browsing. I think that
may be enough, depends on whatyou study, depends on what college you
go to. I mean you canget by with an Intel Core I three

(17:03):
processor, maybe six gigs of RAM. If you need specialized software, should
you be designing or programming, thenyou upgrade and you pay attention. I
think to the weight and size,because if you're lugging or slipping your laptop
to classes in your backpack, youdon't If you're walking far, you don't
want anything too big. Maybe youwant to look something around the thirteen inch

(17:25):
category, the ultra portable. Youhave a price range, there's I can
give you a six to eight hundreddollar price range. I'll tell you what.
We're about thirty seconds to do.We take a break. When we
come back, I'm gonna break itdown into prices. I'll break it down
into the best budget laptop or laptops. If you want a Chrome book,

(17:47):
I think Chrome books are really goodfor high schoolers. Chrome Books does not
It's a laptop made by HP,Lenovo and everything. But they use the
Chrome operating system. They don't useWindows or they don't use Alphis and obviously
there's there's no Microsoft word running onanything. That's why they're really inexpensive.
I'm gonna give you that. Anyquestions, I'm here for you at seven

(18:07):
one three two one two five ninefive. Oh. When I come back,
everybody, take a guess what myfavorite laptop is. Let's see if
matches yours. Why don't we comeback after this message? Bottom of the
hour here on the High Tech TexansShow. We're about halfway three hour number

(18:30):
one. We'll be here until onepm Central. If you're listening live KPRC
nine fifty am. Been doing thisfor well over in two decades. Thank
you for hanging it. One ofthe reasons I think I've been here so
long. I'm a sweet guy.Don't yell at you do. I rarely
talk politics. You see where we'regoing over here, and I get things
away. That's what we do inradio. What do you what do you

(18:52):
gotta give? Koozies, T shirts, bumper stickers on, not me,
not your boy? Over here?I give away gift cards or I give
away something very ample. Who's thirstyright now? Callum read? You're ready
to give away a little something?You're ready to check the phone lines.
How about a fifty dollars that's fivezero gift card to Johnny Tamali's tex mex

(19:15):
Cantina, just open a few monthsago. The specifically one. It's the
Missouri Cities on the southwest side oftown. Twenty seven twenty FM nineteen f
f M ten ninety two. Soit's Murphy Road, right near Highway six,
just the crossroads of most city.Great people. There's Reggie O'Neil.
They're running it fun bar, freeice cream, free ice I'm not gonna

(19:38):
tell you you don't have to buyanything to get free ice cream with the
machine, but there's free ice creamthere. Margarita's. I am there.
It's not it's not far from mycrib, so I am there once a
week at least I was there.Last Sunday I went to a shooting range.
I was out. I went tothe shooting range with a friend and
then we hopped over to Johnny Tamaliesand we sat at the bar. Very

(20:00):
important too. If you're going togo to a gun range, shoot first,
then drink afterwards. I would absolutelynot recommend doing it the other way
around. So afterwards, when wewent over to JT S Johnny Tavalli's frozen
margarita ranch water phenomenal, Enchilada's stuffedavocados, it just disgreat. So anyway,
Color number nine, let's get throughthis. Color number nine seven one

(20:21):
three two one two five nine fivecallum me. You're not eligible to win.
You cannot be a ployee of iHeartRadio. You cannot. You could be
a friend of mine and I couldtake you there. I may host a
happy hour with tequila partner here soon. Coloring number nine, You're going to
Johnny Tomo. But check it out. It is Johnny with two ends,
Johnny Tamali's MC dot com, MissouriCity. Go over there, belly up

(20:44):
to the bar, mentioned my name, Oh we love garf. He was
just sitting there the other day.Oh you missed him. If he was
here, he'd buy you a margarita, which I really would if you do
see me there, belly up becauseI will absolutely get you a cocktail should
you be of age. So thankyou to Johnny Tamali's big partner here of
the high Tic Texan show. Soyou know the number. We will get
a winner. And I would saystopped calling by right now because we probably

(21:07):
should have gotten color number nine.I see Callum talking to somebody, getting
somebody's name. I want to goback to the laptops, back to school
a little BTS time. What ismy favorite laptop? I have a Samsung
laptop. I used to for yearshave HP laptops. Obviously, I'm a
Windows guy. I used to workfor Microsoft years ago. And when you

(21:30):
work for Microsoft back in the day, Bill Gates put a chip in your
head where you have to use Microsoft. You can't use anything Apple, which
is maybe why I am wired,Like I'm kidding like that. No he
did not, But when you workfor a company, you quote unquote,
you eat your own dog food.So obviously I was. I used to
try out every Windows version upgrade beforeit was released. Every piece of software.

(21:53):
Every game it was an in soI'm just used to the Windows operating
system. The Windows operating system ismore prevalent than the iOS around the world,
which is why I'm more familiar withthat. So I can answer some
more of your questions. But itdoesn't matter right now. Who manufactures the
computer does some extent it does.I would say go with the brand names

(22:14):
or anybody from HP Lenovo. Ifyou want a gaming machine, Razor R
A z R makes a really reallygood one. Dell gotta go with my
ut guide Dell and Apple. MacBookAir you got some money, go with
MacBooks. If you want a powerablemachine for college, it really is hard

(22:36):
to beat a MacBook Air from Apple. There's a few new models. There's
a new fifteen inch MacBook Air.There's last year, I think it was
a thirteen inch model. There it'seither an M one or an M two.
This year that the new fifteen inchM two MacBook Air. How much
is that? It's about that badboys, about twelve hundred bones. It's

(23:00):
it's actually about thirty to see.It's it's fifteen inch liquid reatin to display.
But the thing is, though,if you don't want to spend that
much. I always say this,look at last year's models. Let's just
last year's the M two laptop.It's about a thirteen inch and it's it's

(23:21):
it's a little cheaper. Maybe startsdoting on thousand dollars, So it's listen,
I'm not gonna you're honestly gonna dothis. I remember years ago.
Was it a friend of mine whowent to Harvard and when laptops started to
become a thing, was it?Was it the Ivy League schools Either a
they gave you a laptop because itwas baked into into the tuition, or

(23:45):
they made you specifically get and Ithink it was an Apple. So before
and again, I don't know.If you're still residencing for college even though
college a has already started or beingstarts within the next three weeks or so,
you need to check with your college. Do they have any type of
rules that you need a Windows basedcomputer. You need a computer that it's

(24:07):
not bigger than twelve inches because thedesktops are small. Do you need an
Apple computer? That's be'st the numberone thing you can check if you're looking
for a Windows computer, What pricerange do you have Dell HP to me,
I like HP used to be Compact, which used to be based in
Houston. Kind of favorite those folks. I still have some friends and the

(24:32):
pr companies at HP. They dolet me test some of those. Apple
does not let me test. Theydo not send me jack Apple does not
know exists. So you know howto say about that. But going back
to HP, let me give youa good budget one HP pavilion, the
pavilion line. I think they havea new one called the Arrow thirteen a
er oh, probably around six hundreddollars. This version maybe a year maybe

(24:56):
a little long older than that.But the fact is it's it's still a
good graphics card. It works well, and it's I think for a lot
of people it's about price point.If you're going to college, if certainly
if somebody, if you're buying somebodya graduation gift or a parent listen,
I've been there, done that threetimes. College and now college and now

(25:18):
college in out. There are alot of things that you need for college
that where do we start? Thehousing, the books, the fraternity fees.
Is the kid bringing a car,I mean, it's just a clothing.
It goes on and on and it'swhere can you save some money but
still get something that's worthwhile. Andthat's what I do. My job is

(25:41):
to kind of like give you someideas of where to save money. I
think the HP actually works, worksworks. Well. What about tablets too?
As I told you the story manthe first time, my oldest son,
well over ten years ago, hegoes, oh, yeah, I
go in to college. I needa laptop and a tablet. And you
know, listen, who am Ito Actually I tell exactly who I am
to say, Well, why doyou really need both of these things?

(26:02):
You can also get a combination.You can get convertible models. There's a
there's a number of laptops that willactually convert to a tablet. Whether your
kids like this or not, butstill it they work well. Uh.
Microsoft has has has the surface,Microsoft Surface Pro nine, Microsoft Surface site.
Isn't that the official tablets of theNFL that you see all the players

(26:26):
in the sidelines, you know,diagramming their plays or you know, trying
to break and crack over their kneesor something. They're they're two and one
laptops. Really, they're rotating hinges, their tablets with kickstands, their slim
and their light. Some of them. I've been testing these things for years.
You you can unhook or unhinge thekeyboard and it becomes a tablet.

(26:49):
A lot of them come with thelike Microsoft Surface. These things run.
I think, let me see ifI can do a quick Amazon search for
you guys here the about eight justover eight hundred bucks, eight hundred thirty
bucks, and there maybe some dealsfrom back to school deals, what have
you. But Microsoft has a reallycool cover. It's got a pen,

(27:11):
spens. You could take notes onthese things unless you're sticking, you know,
bent on sticking to Apple's ecosystem,in which case, yes, and
iPad pro probably would be good.I think the Surface nine arguably the best
convertible laptop around. So there yougo. Listen. I want to hear
your thoughts too. I I haveone laptop, well sometimes I only have

(27:33):
two laptops, and I don't useit all that much when I travel,
Like I when I went to Koreatwo weeks ago, I brought my laptop
thinking that well, actually I hadto bring my laptop because that's actually how
I do my radio show remotely,and and that's how I hooked up when
I did my show from Soul.But other than that, I thought I
was going to be using it forfor email and everything. I didn't have

(27:56):
time. You know, when you'retraveling, it's and again this is this
was business slash in vacation and playingaround. I'm just not sitting in my
hotel room all the time, youknow, sitting there surfing. This is
what phones are for. This ishow things have changed. I can go
back forty years or so ago whenwe know we used to travel to the
world, we didn't have a laptop, desktop, phone or anything. But

(28:17):
nowadays we have so so many devices. We're gonna take a break over here.
We got to one more a segmentin this hour when we can come
back. I do have some emailsI'm gonna read. I will tell you
about and I know it's gonna betoo late. Amazon every year has Amazon
Prime Days, and we know wejust went through it about a month ago
in July. We'll guess what.Amazon just announced another Prime Day coming up.

(28:40):
Apparently, Well you're gonna miss itbecause it's after school starts, but
it's before the holiday season. I'mwondering why they do this. I'll tell
you all about that. On theother side of here on the high tech
textan show could continue to talk alittle bit about the back of school and

(29:03):
just gave you some ideas of laptopsand tablets. How about watch I talk
about that because I'm gonna talk afew I don't know about a minute here.
So about US Coins and Jewelry,I was there. They must be
sick of me. People. Whenpeople come regularly to US Coins and Jewelry,
they must think I may work there. I'm they're quite often. I

(29:25):
hang out with Kenny and Matt Duncan. They are. They run it on
a day to day basis. Theirfathers started the Great Premier Gold and Silver
Buyer Company in nineteen eighty five andthey buy and sell coins, loose diamonds,
watches, a state jewelry, preciousmetal, and they really are the
most prestigious coin dealer in Houston.It's really kind of fun just kind of

(29:48):
watching people slept sometimes in suitcases,like they're rolling their suitcases and there's a
little there's a little private you know, cubicles that they have expert coin dealers
and they will go through it meticulouslyand they'll give you an idea of how
much this is worth, and youknow, sometimes, you know, I'd
sit in the background with Kenny andMadden. It's just amazing watching Kenny,
Like he takes his little loop andhe puts us in his eye. He

(30:11):
looks at the watch and he couldtell you when it was made, what
brand, and what year was itgone. He looks at a coin.
I mean, they're just smart guys. Absolutely trustees pisas. So if you
buy in volume, you've inhered acoin collection, you want to see the
value. Might I recommend you asCoins and Jewelry dot Com they're at eighty
four thirty five Katie Freeway right inyour Voss. So I teared Voss just

(30:33):
outside of Loop six tim certified USrolex as other Swiss watches usually have several
hundred watches available. They give youfree written appraisals. There's great security,
there no issues, cameras everywhere,and you could also buy online. For
all those my people who are outsideof Houston right now, feel free to
come up. They tell me storieson people fly in just to meet with
these guys in person. They alsodo a great big business online US Coins

(30:56):
and Jewelry dot Com. This guysare good. I think Kenny's Kenny Kenny's
right now whereth he traveling. Hegoes to all these coin shows and he
buys all these coins, he tradesall these coins. He's just he's like
a master numismatist, and which isactually that's not a bad thing. You
know. He didn't do any harmto anybody. It's just it's a coin
collector. That's what it's called.Oh my goodness. All right, Michael

(31:18):
Garfield here, if you want tocall into the High Tech Text and Show,
got a few minutes before hop ofthe hour hour number one seven one
three two one two five nine fiveout. Anybody buy anything on Amazon Prime
Day last July about a month ago? You callum, did you buy anything?
Now? Amazon? For years andyears and years they've had one Prime

(31:41):
Day per year, and it's Junilyin July, and I call it again.
It's like a massive garage sale wherethey take their warehouses. They just
want to get rid of everything sothey can bring in new crapola so they
can sell it for the holiday season. Well, apparently Amazon's not done with
it with its membership only sales eventfor this year. Amazon just announced it's

(32:02):
going to hold another Prime Day,well of sorts, in October this year,
they got a new name for it'sgonna be called Prime Big Deal Days.
Oh you're a big deal. It'sgonna be an October. I don't
think I could look. I don't. I don't. I can't even tell

(32:23):
you when odds are. It's gonnabe two days long. And I think
if they're going if and it's generallyonly for Prime members, right, but
I think they're gonna offer the thirtyday free trial to trial to new Prime
subscribers, so if you want to, you can start your free trial ahead

(32:44):
of the event to participate. Igotta tell you of all the years,
and I'm an Amazon I have anAmazon account. I have an Amazon account
because I wanted to watch a serieson Amazon Prime Video, The Marvelous Missus
Mazel, which was just five seasonsof hilarity. But that's that's series ended.

(33:04):
So I still and scratching my headas I'm serious why I still have
an Amazon account Because I rarely buythings on Amazon. I just don't.
I just don't. I don't buya lot of things online. That's right.
I'm the guy who tells you touse technology. I don't buy a
lot of things online. I willtell you my neighbor. I think they
could you know, the wife,could you know, should be having an
affair with the Amazon Prime delivery guybecause he's there all the time delivery.

(33:27):
I'm kidding, but that just giveyou an analogy of how often he's he's
actually delivering to their house. Everybodygets to him, so many people get
deliveries. So my guess is you'regonna get to Echo Amazon Echo speakers,
Amazon Kindle E readers, Amazon FireTV devices. I'm guessing that Amazon is
going to use this Prime Day kindof as an early Black Friday deal for

(33:52):
Prime subscribers, and you're gonna headphones, Earbud, laptops. I'll keep you
updated as we get closer. I'llstart looking for things that are on sale.
But again, I do the research, and I think you should do
your research. It's not hard todo your research. There's there's Amazon price

(34:13):
trackers that you can monitor specific itemson Amazon. It's actually it's I've talked
about this for years. It's calledCamel Camel Camel. Seriously, go to
camelcamelcamel dot com and you can monitor. You can put in a specific price
on something for Amazon on and youcan get alerts. And emails to let
you know, hey, is thisthe best price out there? It's just

(34:34):
don't fall for any of that stuff. Hey, speaking of delivery drivers,
I saw this. Where was Wherewas this? A big shout out now
to my UPS delivery guy, myUPS to a He's his name is Xavier
x x Man is what I callhim. I get a lot. I
do get a lot of UPS deliveries. And this is like when companies send
me products to review, they generallysend them ups, some of FedEx,

(34:59):
butmotionally ups. And for years I'vehad I've had one, the guy who
drives my route. His name isI've become so friendly with him. I
had literally have a cell phone number. And he's cool. Like if I
need a signature on something, he'llsay, hey, man, I'm coming,
I need your signature, or thisis what time I'll be here.
If I know I'm not going tobe there for that night for a delivery
or out of town, I willI will call or text him and I

(35:21):
will go find him earlier in theday on his route and he'll meet me
and I can sign for my package. I mean, he's cool. Point
is shout out to X Man andeverybody works for UPS. There was a
potential strike with the delivery drivers.Recently Teamsters will obviously not unionized here in
Texas, but they're apparently everybody wantsto wear brown now, the Teamsters negotiated

(35:43):
a new contract that will pay fulltime UPS drivers about a hundred and seventy
girl a year. What the hellam I doing wasting my time on the
radio? I asked myself this sometimesat work. Sometimes I'm serious, Holy
crapol Up. I mean, whowouldn't want to drive one of those big

(36:05):
Mama trucks? You know you gotto do. You could do roll with
the windows and the doors open.You can make them clothes. You get
to meet people every day, andyou earn one hundred and seventy and bottom
line, man, have you everseen an overweight delivery driver? It's certainly
in Texas. You shitz so muchwater weight out every day. I mean,

(36:27):
dude, my man is a goodshape. It's like a workout every
single day. I'm not making funof any of this day. Man,
this is good for UPS. NegotiatorTeamster one hundred and seventy thousand a year
to dry They'll and this is what'sgoing I mean between Amazon FedEx ups.
Everything's about delivery nowadays. I totallyget it. So I don't know.

(36:51):
Can I can I do that Mondaythrough Friday and still do this on Saturday.
If I can get Saturday's off andstill do this gig, It's not
gonna be a two big big ofa deal out of a deal for me.
All Right, We're gonna take abreak because it is our number one
is coming to an m I amgoing into I will tell you this when
zoom, who hasn't zoom come onin? Zoom Zoom ZOOMA zoom Boston mass

(37:14):
oh two one three four, noZoom. The video conferencing thing it had
its heyday in COVID. I'm gonnatell you why zoom Actually maybe OVA that
may not be good for you.Also, it is car time, you
know, I drive card lots ofstuff. I will give you the play
by play of my test review carthis week, the Alpha Romeo Tonale.

(37:38):
GM just launched a new Cadillac electriccar. I will tell you the range.
GM is going balls to the wall. I'll tell you the range,
how far you can get on theirnew battery powder electric vehicle, and anything
else you need. My name isMichael Garfield. It is the high Tech
text and hang on Jazz a fewminutes and we'll be right back. Yeah.

(38:07):
Hi, tex is Michael Garfiel.Michael Garfiel. Michael Garfield's joining in
the high Tech Texan. Michael Garfieldis here with a high tech texta items
to make life easier, new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might
like. Hi Texan, Michael Garfieldis your high tech Texan. Three decades

(38:35):
hoping you make magic with your gadgets. Heard worldwide on the iHeart Radio Act.
Now your high Tech Texan, MichaelGarfield. We are halfway to half
the hour, halfway thill the highTech Texting Show. Happy Saturday to you.
Hopefully you are listening right now,just after your twelve black news time

(38:59):
on a hot August day, themost here in Texas. The school starts
later this week. Sucks for you, guys, but I am giving you
some BTS information. That's right,sugar, back to school. Last hour,
I covered laptops and tablets and carsand new phones. I am here
to answer your questions if you needany last minute advice. If you get

(39:22):
a busy signal that means calum you'resleeping on the job over there. Feel
free to put them through if youwould like. I'm at seven one three
two one two five nine five zeronine five zero meeting nine to fifty am
terrestrially. That is KPORC Radio herein and around Southeast Texas. Been doing
this twenty two years now here onthe radio. Technologies has changed and the

(39:45):
show has changed too. When Italked about laptops and desktops the last hours,
I don't often talk about that.I think we have as a society
generally, we have already several computers, desktops, laptops, tablets in our
homes right now. And I don'ttalk a lot about the TVs. You

(40:07):
know, I remember the advent offlat screen TVs and digital television high definition
television that took up a lot ofmy time and on the airwaves fifteen years
ago. I think a lot ofour homes are saturated with flat screen TVs
right now. Nowadays it is phones. Phones come out. Everybody wants a
new phone because they could do somany things, so much phones or even

(40:28):
replacing what laptops and tablets can do. For those of you who went out
yesterday and bought or they received yournew Samsung Galaxy Z fold phone or z
flip phone that I've been talking aboutand reviewing for the past two weeks.
Good for you. You gotta tellme if you like it. It does

(40:49):
take some getting used to give mean email already, give you a phone,
email me, tweet me, zeetme, thread me, whatever,
social media. You may like thesethings. So that's those are some of
the things. Ever, I alsodo cars. Next I'll tell you what
next segment, I will tell yougive you my review. Every week I

(41:09):
talk about cars in a segment becauseI am a member of the Texas Auto
Writers Association for about fifteen years,and so I get to test drive cars.
I do not deal with dealerships.Sadly, I don't even endorse a
dealership. I would, but apparentlymy sales team downstairs here at iHeart is
sleeping. But I do get totest it directly from the manufacturers, which

(41:30):
means this is just my opinion.I can rag on them, I can
love them, I can leave them, and I could do whatever I want
yap about them. But this pastweek I was in an Alpha Romeo Tonally
t O n A l E.It's kind of a compact utility vehicle four
door CUV. But every time I, you know, I get to play

(41:52):
in Alpha Romeo's relatively often. Butwhy do it? Because it's an Italian
made brand, Italian Alpha Romeo.I just don't say Tonally. You gotta
say Donale, Donali. I'm gonnago get some Bosta. I need to
drive the Tonally after Olive Garden andthen game would absolutely on. I'll tell
you about that that next one.I will do a little bit more car

(42:14):
talk that that next hour and stuff. I want to tell you about the
Zoom stuff. Anybody still zoom?Zoom took over from Skype. Was it
Skype? Would you say was reallythe first consumer popular it's popular consumer video
conferencing and now so many people doit on their phone, FaceTime and what

(42:37):
have you. But Skype was good, but Microsoft bought Skype and then COVID
comes around and Zoom just zoomed up. Now, Zoom, to be sure,
was created before Covid. There itwas a popular app that you could
use before Covid. But when everythingwas you know, work from home and
nobody left, I mean, Zoomwas like, you know, that was
it, man. Everybody was allover, especially when we did remote work.

(43:00):
Well, if you haven't been fillingthe headlines, companies really don't want
you working remotely anymore. If therewas a tombstone, I would put r
ip fully remote work twenty twenty throughtwenty twenty three. Yes, remote work.
You lived a beautiful life that leftan imprint on couches everywhere. Plausive

(43:20):
death. Well, I think it'sZoom. Zoom as a company just told
its employees within a fifty mile radiusof one of its offices around the world
that they must come into the officeat least two days a week. So
you've got Zoom, the poster childfor remote work during the pandemic, which

(43:46):
emerged from kind of obscurity to bethe go to video platform for meetings and
virtual happy hours and everything you want. Symbolism of a here of telligence employees
to return to the office. Ohmy goodness, there's a lot of hostility
now towards these work from homes,from the executives. It hadn't been good

(44:09):
for the Zoom stock. A Zoomstock sword about six times its price during
the pandemic. Zoom has now lostmore than one hundred billion dollars in market
value just in market value since itspeak and check this one out. You
talk about a company is trying tolure its workers back Google up in Silicon

(44:31):
Valley. They're offering employees it seemslike a sweet sweetheart of a deal to
check out its own hotel. Apparently, Google owns a hotel on its Mountain
View, California campus, and it'soffering its employees ninety nine bucks a night

(44:52):
to stay, hoping that Googlers won'tneed to freak out with our long commute,
because sometimes you have to commute sofar up in the northern California area,
they might as well just stay oncampus. It's a summer special,
and it apparently does not fall underapproved business travel, so you have to

(45:13):
pay it. But ninety nine Iextrapolated this for you. This is what
I do. Ninety nine bucks andnight comes out to about three thousand dollars
a month. Let me help youout. There is nowhere, maybe in
the state of California or the leftcoast, where you can rent three thousand
bucks a month where someone makes yourbed and it's cleaned every day. That's

(45:37):
a heck of a deal, man. But I guess you have to be
a Google employee to take this.I just can't go visit out there at
the end of the day. Nowwe're gonna take a break away. What
are your thoughts on work proposed?Just anecdotal it. Feel free to call
me here at the end. Onthe other side, are you I have
for twenty years almost work from home. Yes, I come into the studio,

(46:00):
do it. But I don't liketo have to sit here Monday through
Friday. Do it. I'm gonnawork from home. It takes a certain
type of person. Listen, I'mnot perfecting it. I'm not patting myself
at the back. Sometimes it's incrediblyfrustrating, especially if you're a people person
like me. I think offices areare wonderful thing. Do you like slepping
and sitting in traffic and all theyou know, the the you know the

(46:21):
water cooler talk no. Seven onethree, two, one, two,
five, nine five. Do youwork from home? Do you work from
the office, or which would yourather do? Are you ready to get
back into the world and actually meetpeople? Talk to me here. It
is Michael Garfield. Ye hope everybody'shaving to be out here. It is

(46:45):
Miguel Garfield, the Michael Bitsak,whatever you want to call me because don't
call me Mike. You can callme seven one three, two one two
five, nine to five. Oh. I do a lot of car testing,
automobile. I've been doing it fora long time. I actually cover
the automobile industry just as much,if not more, than the technology industry
on a weekly basis. I amtest driving some sort of vehicle directly through

(47:09):
the manufacturers. There's people want toknow how this happens. I'll give you
some inside baseball. So I'm amember of the Texas Auto Writers Association for
about fifteen years. And generally thiswas started years ago. Tim Spell,
great dude who did all the autoreviews in the Houston Chronicle. Remember that,

(47:31):
kids, it's a newspaper. Idon't I don't have time to explain.
And every Sunday you would wake upand you get the big Sunday morning
paper and you would go to theautomobile section and on the front page there
there would be a review. Generallyfor years and years. And he's certainly
in the nineties, early two thousandsand or eighties. Tim Spell, he's
since retired. He still lives inthe air. He actually may listen to

(47:51):
my show, and he's actually agood friend of mine at one of the
nicest men in the world. Oh, I swear he is awesome. Taught
me a lot about the industry.I used to travel to him him several
times to car shows or vehicle launches, and it just it's driving in a
car with a car expert. It'slike eating dinner with a food expert or
food critic. You just learn alot. So he got me involved in

(48:13):
the Texas Auto Writers Association, andsince then, obviously that since the almost
non existed newspaper world, it's becomeelectronic and so. On my radio show
for many, many years, wellover a dozen, I've been reviewing and
testing cars and giving my thoughts.And how it works is it takes years
to build up the trust with manufacturersdirectly, and most of them are in

(48:37):
Michigan, as you know, itwill except Nissan's that's coming out of Tennessee.
But the manufacturers, knowing that youhave a good audience in your trusted
resource I'm getting for Climped, theywill let you on a weekly basis.
There's a there's a third party companythey contract with and it's actually out of
Dallas. So every Thursday, thiscompany will have a driver. He comes

(49:02):
down, drives down to my housewith a brand spanking new vehicle gassed up
ready in a roll. He switchesout the vehicle that I was in this
the previous week. And they dothis every Thursday. This is my Thursdays
for the for the past fifteen years. I know, don't cry for me,

(49:22):
Argentina. This isn't a perk.This is actually part of my job.
It's it's it's a gig, butit's neat. And I will tell
you this. Oh Michael, you'rethe lookie's coolest thing in the world.
I gotta drive a lot of turkeysbefore I get to a lot of the
drive a lot of the chariots.Back in the day, I used to
laugh, you know, I gottadrive a lot of the Kios to get
to the Mercedes and the BMWs.Hell there's Keyas and hund in Genesis that

(49:45):
are better than the Mercedes and theBMWs. Right now, I've seen the
evolution of vehicles and I do thankyou all my listeners for trusting me on
this stuff. And so that's kindof how the system works. I take
notes, usually take some videos.I will post it on my social media.
This is when i'm driving, andalso take your request, Michael Man,
I'm looking for a pickup. Haveyou drive in this new pickup.

(50:07):
I will contact that specific manufacturer,whatever it is, and I'll say,
hey, listen, can I drivein this one for a week and then
I'll give you my thoughts. Well, anyway, that's how the system works.
And this past week or two Iwas driving in a new one,
the twenty twenty four Alpha Romeo TonaleTonale. The Tonale it's a plug in

(50:29):
hybrid small suv plug in hybrid.We call that a p have if you
ever see the initials p h ev, it's pronounced key have. But it's
a plug in hybrid electric vehicle.Well, Alpha is getting ready to transition

(50:50):
away from gas powered car so slowlybut surely. This is a little foot
in the door or foot on theon the gas pedal they're having. It's
a domination, so you could itas a gas engine, but also you
could plug it in to get afew miles. I say a few.
We'll get to that. So anyway, I drove this for a week.
It's a plug in hybrid. Ithink it does make sense to some ekesense

(51:13):
ALFA Romeo is very known for itsvery good performance and good handling. It's
got a it's got some nice luxuryfeatures, it's got some good technology in
there. There are a few things. It's not the cheapest compact sub in
the market. It doesn't have aton of cargo space, so I don't
think the backseat is is about asbig as it could be. It as
a four door, holds about fivepeople. So that's my quick quick overall,

(51:36):
let's take a look at it.It is has a one point three
leader turbo charged I four an inline four one point three leader. There's
a lot of one point three leadersout there, and it's generally when I
hear one point three leader. Physically, it's not a big car. It's
just not that you're not going tofind a pickup truck. You're not going
to find a big old suv witha one point three leader because it's relatively

(51:57):
small. But it's a relatively smallbut it's a relatively powerful vehicle. If
the weight of the vehicle is notthat heavy, we call that again.
Tim Spell taught me this your powerto weight ratio. Well, this isn't
a very heavy car, so it'snot bad. As we continue to talk
about the twenty twenty four Alpha RomeoTenali has one hundred and eighty horse power

(52:21):
good not a ton, But italso has a one hundred and twenty one
horsepower electric motor and it's on thatrear axle. Now you combine these things
with the one hundred eighty horsepower gastwenty one horsepower electric motor, and now
you're going to get roughly about twohundred eighty two hundred and eighty five or
horsepower overall. Can Now we're talking. It's an automatic. It does have

(52:42):
paddle shifters, which I don't usea lot of the paddle shifters a lot,
but it's a six feet automatic.The batteries in there, it's a
fifteen and a half ot kiloop battery. And this is where people scratch their
heads. Remember it's gas and electricand you have to plug it. In
the original hybrid cars, it wasregenerative breaking, meaning every time you're driving

(53:05):
around the city and you break,it would charge the battery. I like
that, but nowadays you get theopportunity, the wonderful convenience and I'm using
air quotes in a lot of youknow, sarcasm. Here to go find
a battery charger, plug it in, wait thirty minutes until somebody finishes charging
their vehicle, and then you waitthirty forty five minutes to charge your vehicle.

(53:28):
And in this specific vehicle, it'sgoing to give you a reported thirty
three miles of electric only range.And so people say, man, what's
what's the point that's it. I'monly gonna get thirty three miles of electric
only range. Jeeps have these twoand I will tell you why I just
mentioned the word geep here in thesame sentence. That's what they do.

(53:50):
It's going to give you a combinedEPA rating of about twenty nine miles per
gallon. If you want to fullycharge your battery, it's gonna take about
two hours two and a half hoursusing a Level two charger, which is
the mid range charger. I mentionedthe word Jeep because Alfa Romeo, the
brand is now owned by the holdingcompany who owns Jeep, Dodge Ram and

(54:14):
now Alfa Romeo. The company iscalled Stilantis. It's good company, but
they're bringing Alfa Romeo into the foldhere, and so Alfa Romeos are going
to be Stilantis's stilanticized. Is thata word they haven't been fully stilanticized yet,
in one of which is because alot of the reviews that I do,
it's inside the car. Listen,we here in Texas, we sit

(54:37):
in our cars, we sit intraffic. Is it comfy? Does the
is it a big touch screen?How do you interact with the with the
infotament system? Stillantis generally, Dodge, Jeep and Ram has the best infottament
system in my mind. It's calledyou Connect the letter you Connect. Love
it Big Mama screens great on thesteering wheel, behind the steering wheel.

(55:01):
On the left side, there's yourvolume right side. You change the station.
It works. Alpha Romeo has yetis the only one of the brands
that stillance zones to adopt the UConnect system. They need to do that.
The system here, it's it's anice touch screen. It's good,
but it's still it's just not thereyet. Now it's really interesting and I'm

(55:22):
mompst up against the break here.About three or four weeks ago, I
got to test drize a new model, a new Brandon new badge from Dodge,
the Dodge Hornet, the Dodge aHornet pound for pound. The Alpha
Romeo Tonali is the new Dodge Hornetamericanized. It's the same thing. And

(55:45):
if you want an Alpha romeoish typeof thing, you can go get a
Dodge Hornet. You're gonna save somemoney. Is this a good car for
you? Yes? Is it anexpensive car for what it is pound for
pound? Yes, it rides well. It is a little cramped in the
back seat. I think what you'regetting here is the Alpha Romeo brand.

(56:07):
You're gonna get that nice logo onthe front, which I love it,
with the snake and the Italy andeverything. I think that's Nate but the
latest between the technology and there andthe paddle shifters. It's cool. It's
decent. I'm six foot tall.I fit in the front seat quite well.
I have a little problem getting inthe back. But other than that,

(56:28):
what are you gonna do? Thecons doesn't have a lot of storage
space in the back. It doeshave a little cubbyhole that you if you
have a piece of ply wetter orsome skis, you can put that down
on the back while still sitting twopeople in the back too. The verdict
here it starts at about forty ninethousand dollars. My test model is about
fifty seven thousand dollars after you hadthe premium interior and sound, and all
the packages and the wheels and thepower roof and the paint. Everything kind

(56:52):
of expensive for its class. Ithink the competitors are looking at maybe the
BMW X one, maybe the MercedesGLA, the Volvo x C forty.
They're not plug in hybrid. Thisis gonna save you a little gas mallage.
Should you continue to charge this thingup? I had it a week,
I did run out of electricity power. I didn't bother charging it up

(57:13):
again. I just don't know ifme and my lifestyle right now would be
ready to charge these things on anelectric charger. When we come back,
though, I love your thoughts.I will tell you about full electric cars.
GM just announced a vehicle that hasan amazing range you're gonna be surprised
at. And guess what it isso powerful, it's soon gonna let you

(57:34):
charge your home. Should you're ahome lose power, which sometimes happened here
in Texas. Hope you enjoyed thatThis is what we do here on the
High Tech Texan Show. A lotof the hour means about thirty more minutes
to go with you're listening to methe iHeart laying out at your pool.

(57:59):
Have a cold for me, people, I will be joining you maybe about
thirty minutes. That's right. Ido have to keep a lot as sober
as I can, as hot asit is. Good luck with kids going
back to school. I am herefor you on the High Tech Text and
Show. Just continuing to review somecars. I just told you I was
in an Alpha Romeo Tanali, whichis goods a little overpriced for what it

(58:22):
is. It's a plug in hybrid, A plug in a hybrid, a
p have. I think the biggestquestion that I get nowadays in terms of
any consumer lifestyle review, and itused to be, Michael, what kind
of phone do you have? That'swhat I'm gonna get? Should I get
an LCD high definition TV? Orshould I get a plasma? Remember that

(58:43):
stuff, the LEDs, the LCDs, the plasma was what's what your favorite
laptop? Nowadays, I think alot of the questions I get are about
electric vehicles. Which is the bestEV or should I get an EV?
Long time listeners know where I'm goingwith. I love EV's. I think
they're very powerful, I think theyare fast. I think they are sexy

(59:07):
the way that is their designed personallyfor me at my age group. Where
I am, where I commute,where how often I drive, whether I
go on the road for road tripsand ev is not for me. Houston
is a very big city. Wedrive far. I have ADHD number one,

(59:31):
which is built in a little anxiety. There is something called range anxiety
when you have an electric vehicle,because they don't have there's no gas tank.
Brother, you better be prepared topull off the road, hunt and
pack and find a battery charger.Pray that the battery, the public battery
charging system is working a full operation. Hope there's no other cars or vehicles

(59:57):
being charged. You have to waitto get a spot. Then when you
finally plug it in, you're gonnahave to wait thirty minutes to an hour.
Let me help you out. BigDaddy Garf does not do that.
I do not like waiting. There'sno putton around when it comes to me.
That's why I can't have an electricvehicle. I think the infrastructure of
our battery charging system in the UnitedStates is not nearly adequate of what it

(01:00:21):
should be. On the on thereverse side, let's say you have an
electric vehicle. And what people do. They install their own battery system at
home. It's like a Tesla battery. You don't eat a test. Tesla
makes batteries also, not just cars. So you plug it into your charge
it overnight. Let's say you're commuteto work is ten miles, fifteen miles,

(01:00:42):
maybe twenty miles. Maybe your officewhen you get there also has a
battery charger. Phenomenal, plug itin. Maybe you just drive around the
neighborhood and that's your community. Youtake the kids to school, you go
to the grocery, you go tothe gym, and your back, you
come back home, plug it in, phenomenal, mozel top, go get

(01:01:04):
an ev. But if me,who wants to hop in the car and
go see my son in Austin,that's that's you know, that's two hundred
plus miles. Now I'm thinking,man, if I don't have a full
charge, I better stop stup.I better be looking at Bass Dropp or
somewhere just inside of Austin, manand charge that thing up. And when
I get there, I just can'tscoop him up. Hey man, let's
go to dinner. Doop got tocharge the car. That's gonna slow it
down. Is it a good secondsecond vehicle? Absolutely, there's my thoughts

(01:01:29):
of electric vehicles now. Having saidthat, as range, the range battery
range starts escalating, starts going up. Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
I don't have to worry about itas much. And I talk about this
as a segue because General Motors justannounced a new type of battery that is
going to have a longer range,but also it's going to let you charge

(01:01:53):
your home. It will power yourhome. These things aren't gonna be out
for a few years, but GMjust says it's coming out. Was called
V two H Vehicle to home bidirectional charging on all of its electric vehicles
with this new old tim battery technologyby the model year twenty twenty six,

(01:02:16):
and the first that's going to supportthis tech this year. It's the Chevy
Silverado EV, the GMC Sierra EV, Denali, the Chevy Blazer, and
the just announced Hadillac Escalade IQ.I'll tell you about that in a sec
There are a number of different automakersthat are adopting this vehicle to home.

(01:02:39):
It let's owners power their homes ina pinch using their electric vehicles. Why
is this important. If you livein Htown. Do you remember the horrible
freeze February of twenty twenty two.I guess it was so many people lost
power in their homes. Well,guess what if you had a vehicle,

(01:03:00):
and I think Ford had a pickuptruck the only one at the time that
would let you bi directly charge.You can just charge up your home through
your car. Pretty cool. Hum, It's an option. There's a lot
of black listen between hurricane blackouts,weather blackouts, and it's not just here,
all across the country. I meanthey were rolling blackouts because of the

(01:03:21):
heat across the country. You couldcharge your home. Not bad. Old
tim evs Old Tim is is whatGM is gonna is talking about. I
thought that was I thought that waspretty interesting. Speaking of something new GM
Cadillac, they just denounced the newEscalade IQ. Pretty impressed at least with

(01:03:47):
the specs. So it's gonna debutwith a four hundred and fifty mile range
in the battery. That's big consideringright now the most Tesca can get is
what three hundred and three fifty Excuseme, that's what Tesla says. Maybe

(01:04:09):
not the real world. If you'reFollowing that news, Escalade IQ is gonna
roll off the assembly line next year, only gonna cost one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars if you can find one. I'm looking at it. I'm looking
at the photos. It doesn't aspeer as tall as other Escalade. It's

(01:04:31):
kind of a sloping cabin. It'sgot a little angular d pillar kind of
by the rear hatch, that rearhatch thing, but it's pretty imposing.
I am a Cadillac fan, I'ma GM fan, and I do like
the Escalades too. It's got it. Allegedly, it's gonna have some neat
tech innovations. And again, allI did is watch the press conference.
Full dash length, curved led screenfifty five inches diagonally. If you listen

(01:04:58):
to my show, and you know, one of my biggest pet peeves is
what's I call it's called the realestate right there on the dash, it's
the dash real estate. If you'vegot a dashboard just sitting there and it's
just a plastic or whatever dash andyou've got a small little screen, people,
you need to maximize it. That'swhy I like trucks. Trucks were
the first ones. They came upwith these twelve inch screens. Yes,
Tesla and a lot of these evshave really cool screens. The bigger the

(01:05:20):
screen, the easy ears for me. Nowadays, there are these curved screens
that have the information display where youlook in with your gas range or speedometer
or odomin. This is gonna havea full a full linked dashboard fifty five
inches. It's awesome. It's gonnahave super Crews, which is their self

(01:05:42):
driving tech. It's gonna have atwo hundred kilowat old tim power train which
is gonna be four hundred fifty miles. And you're asking about I just got
an email at Michael. That's good. But with the horsepower, well,
according to the company, seven hundredand fifty horsepower. Nice, seven hundred
and fifty. Now the Catiac,they've already an ounce what they have,
their lyric, the L y Ri Q, the lyric. There's a
lot of ques in here. It'stheir compact suv and it's an electric vehicle

(01:06:08):
that's on sale now. But Cadillacis going to become all electric. Man,
Cadillac is becoming a true electric brand. It's pretty saucy. Again,
this is not coming out for awhile. I certainly hope to have it
to drive it for you. Andevery time I get something crazy like I
like, I need to start offeringlike test drives. Who wants to take

(01:06:29):
me to lunch? And I'll pickyou up in one of these things that
happened. I had the Ford Fone fifty Lightning. I was one of
the first Ford electric trucks, whichactually just lowered its price by ten thousand
dollars. By the way, thosethings are fun, They're cool, They're
need to look at. I facetiouslysaid. I said, Hey, listen,
man, I get this thing fora week. Who want to take
me to lunch? And I just, hey, tell you what, It's
a nice way to meet people.How you know my name is Michael?

(01:06:53):
Is that electric vehic? Or you'rejust happy to pick me up? Yes?
I am. Maybe we'll do somecontest with that. Hey, speaking
of contest right now? Color numbernine seven one three two one two five
nine five. Oh, how abouta gift card to Benny Hannah. Love
Benny Hanna. I've been talking aboutthis for a while, Benny Hannah.
They got four or five locations downtownWest Timer or the West Side sugar Land

(01:07:15):
at brand New winn at Conro.You forget about Benny Hannah. Let's go
chop it up. Great tepin Yaki. It is good stuff. One hundred
dollars gift card just for listening tome. Colum. We'll take care of
you at Color number nine seven onethree two one two five nine five oh.
Coming back the final segment of thisweek's show on the High Tech Texas

(01:07:35):
Show. The congratulations that was NiyaCorneos. Miya is in Baytown. She
won d Denny Hannah gift card.You're gonna have to come in a little
westbound to use that Benny Hannah.But this is what we do. Thank

(01:07:57):
the folks at Benny Hannah several locationsthrough about the Houston area. Man,
it's good. Got the little chewchew volcano onion thing, it's good.
Yeah. I went to the newConro opening about it was about a month
month and a half ago. Imet the president of Benny Hanna. I'm
Benny Hanna by the way, basedin Florida. I think about seventy locations
worldwide. Good food. But itwas nice. One hundred dollars gift card

(01:08:19):
done also Johnny Tamali's first hour.We gave that away. This is what
we do. You know what,I can't feed you personally, so I
reward you longtime listeners with some andneat stuff. Final segments over here Michael
Garfield, actually the final segment.I hope you have a good Saturday.
Following up from my Automobile, Iwas just I did a whole segment on

(01:08:41):
electric vehicles. If you just ifyou missed, it sucks for you.
But it doesn't suck because every showis podcasted, so you can listen to
this beautiful voice to your heart's contentover and over again. Calum Reid Yeoman's
effort here on the other side ofthe glass. He will make sure in
about ten minutes once we're done,he'll put that up on podcast. You
get iHeartRadio and you look for KPRC, you look for Michael Garfield, and

(01:09:05):
you should be able to find andlisten at you Alisia. But following up
the electric vehicles, I'm an electricvehicle fan. I'm just not a fan
of our charging infrastructure that we havein the United States. But I did
see this though, and I'm nottrying to scare you. I'm not ragging
on any specific manufacturer, but electricvehicles relatively new in our lives right paradigm

(01:09:31):
shift. There was an Arizona manhe told us about a week ago.
A week and a half ago,Arizona man told a Phoenix TV station that
he was trapped inside his Tesla duringa one hundred degree day and did not
know how to get out. Holdon, let me read this. Is

(01:09:53):
you sure? This is not fromcollege station? Oh? I didn't go
there? Yes I did. Sorry, I love you, aggies. Quote
seventy three year old dude. Icouldn't open the doors, I couldn't lower
the windows. The computer was dead, so I couldn't open the glove box.
I couldn't open anything. Unquote.Now there was there was plenty of

(01:10:15):
rain still on the vehicle, buta twelve volt battery inside the vehicle that
powers the items was dead. Listen, I will tell you this, and
this happens to you. Tesla doeshave an override to escape the vehicle if

(01:10:35):
the battery dies or if the doorswon't open. Listen, I know we
most of us over sixteen, weknow how to drive. I've been driving
for forty years. My jobs toget into a new vehicle on a weekly
basis, sit there, figure outeverything works. Because if I need to
read a manual. You guys arescrewed. My job is to quickly know

(01:10:59):
it without reading manuals. That's thehigh tech Texan's job. But when I'm
getting into the electric vehicles, I'mfinding the fact that maybe I'm gonna open
I'm I made Google search of howthis thing works. So, for some
reason, you get a new vehicleand you pick it up from the delivery
person or you go to the dealership, you probably should kind of get a

(01:11:19):
little play by a playoff what happensif, because this isn't the first time
I heard something about this. Bythe way, the emergency latch is underneath
the window switches in the front seatof the Tesla model. Why the little
why Here's okay, I guess imaginebeing trapped in your car. It's like,

(01:11:44):
you know, you have this nightmare, like, oh my god,
you're gonna drive off a bridge andyou're gonna go underwater, and you see
news new segments of how to escapeit. Okay, I get that.
When you're sitting in a parking lotalone, it's like, hello, anybody,
can you come smashed my window?Poor man was in one hundred degree
heat. Oh yeah, yeah,And This isn't even a joking matter.

(01:12:06):
Man. This is why you donot slept hats or dogs and cars in
the summer. Certainly kids too.Just gotta be careful people. Anyway,
I just did. That was alittle PSA from from me to you.
Too late to give out the phonenumber because I think we're done with that.

(01:12:26):
What was I gonna talk about?Oh? I didn't pay this off,
did I? I was, man, I was talking about mobile plans.
I've been reviewing all these Samsung phones, but more and often in the
past two weeks, people wanted toknow, Hey, if I get a
new phone, man, my mobileplans running out? Why am I paying
so much? Verizon it just announcedthat it's having another price hike. They
had a price hike in April forsome of their Verizon plans. They're beyond

(01:12:47):
unlimited and beyond the limited fifty fiveand I was at and T recently raised
their rates for some of their planstoo. Apparently Verizon wireless phones plans are
going up also starting in September.If you're on the unlimited post paid wireless
plan, you're going to be chargednext to three bucks a month. We'll

(01:13:12):
say it again, I am afan of m v NOS. M v
NO a mobile virtual netural mobile virtualnetwork operator. These are the smaller companies
that you see on commercials or adsthat say, hey, listen, you
can have unlimited for fifteen, twentytwenty five bucks a month. Why should

(01:13:32):
we be paying the big wireless things. Famously, there's Mint Mobile. Ryan
Reynolds, the actor, that's that'sthe company that he co created and he's
they marketing unlimited calling plan I thinkfor twenty or twenty five bucks a month.
What they do these companies, andthere's tons of they utilize. They
rent space on the big three's towers. Ay take AT and T, they

(01:13:55):
take T Mobile, or they takeVerizon. They'll rent time off for them
and they will market them to you. This is very similar an analogous to
our electric companies here in Texas.Here in Houston, we all get electricity
from Centerpoint Energy, but there arehundreds of companies, hundreds of companies that

(01:14:19):
just market the service, the electricalservice that comes from Centerpoint. All they
are is marketing and building companies.We shop around which kilowatta is going to
be better, which, but it'sthe same thing. And I am fine
because these are non tangible products.This is not a car, this is
not a piece of clothing. Thisis quite simply electricity that is delivered.

(01:14:43):
You can't see electricity, and youreally can't see phone lines. They utilize
the same thing. So I'm actuallyfine with saving money from mvn as everything
from boost seller Exfinity, Exfinity that'san m v And now you think Exfinity
is in the job critic cell towers, No, all they do is they
resell. I think they're on theVerizon network. I actually use mint Mobile.

(01:15:08):
I've used him for two years,never had an issue. And I'll
tell you what the last thing I'mgonna say. If anybody wants Mintmobile,
and if you want to email meor if you want to tweetmail me for
a special discount, do you getlike the first month free email me and
I'll do it. I'm actually afan. This is not a commercial.
I'm just this is what this iswhat I do. I saved you some
of this stuff. I wish mitMobile was a sponsor in mine. I

(01:15:30):
just happen to use Mitmobile. Michaelat high tech Texts, go at high
tech text and dot com find mea high tech text and spelled the whole
thing. Uh h I g hT E c h T e x an.
You could find me on Twitter,you could find me on Instagram,
you can find me on threads.Luckily, you can find me on Facebook
and all other stuff. Hey,it's worth a try. You're sending kids
off to school. You don't needto be paying seventy eight bucks a line

(01:15:51):
fifty. You can get a praiselike I think. It's a little five
to ten dollars a month, man, And plus we're on y five a
lot of the time. What elsecan I do for you? Nothing?
Callum Reid and everybody behind the scenes, from Eddie Martini to Mark Sherman,
Brian Ericson, Paul Lambert. Ithank you for keeping it me here for
twenty two plus years. Who knowshow long it'll go. I just hope

(01:16:11):
I don't melt away. People.Happy back to school season, Happy almost
football season. Enjoy the rest ofyour weekend. I will see you next
week here KPRC nine fifty and IHeeart Radio go podcasting. My name is
Michael, and right now my showis overa