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  • Of all the cool gadgets in Star Trek,

  • one of the least appreciated is the Universal Translator,

  • which lets the crew of The Enterprise,

  • or Voyager or Discovery, talk to pretty much anyone

  • through their communicators.

  • (speaks in alien language)

  • So when I heard there was a real world version

  • called Travis, I jumped on it faster than you can say,

  • "Open hailing frequencies."

  • (upbeat pop music)

  • I'm a little late to the game on Travis.

  • First of all, this is the second generation of the product

  • with voice control and wireless charging

  • having been added since version one,

  • which sold over a hundred thousand units by the way.

  • Second of all, it's not the only product

  • of its kind on the market.

  • I saw a competitor called Pocketalk at IFA 2018,

  • which offers some of the same features

  • and is priced about the same too.

  • And I really can't go further without addressing the price.

  • If you don't get in on the early bird pricing,

  • you're gonna be paying about $250 for this thing.

  • On the one hand, that price seems justified.

  • The hardware is very well built

  • with a comfortable soft touch coating and a rounded design

  • that makes holding it up to someone's mouth

  • a little less intimidating.

  • The touch interface is Android based,

  • and once you get used to it,

  • it actually is pretty easy to use.

  • You use one button to translate your words

  • in the outbound direction, and then,

  • you press the other button to translate the words

  • of the person you're talking to.

  • There's Bluetooth on board if you wanna use a headset,

  • and there's a fairly speaker

  • if you don't with noise cancellation on the microphones.

  • I took it to Berlin and Stockholm,

  • and with fairly light to moderate use,

  • I got a couple days between charges,

  • which lives up to the 12 hour use claim.

  • In short, it does what it says it's gonna do.

  • You know what else does the same thing,

  • my smartphone, your smartphone too.

  • I mean, download Microsoft Translator or Google Translate,

  • and you get many of the same features for free.

  • Also, this includes an ability Travis doesn't have.

  • You can take a picture of something and translate text.

  • With Travis, my only option was trying to sound out

  • a Swedish sign by reading it aloud,

  • which went about as well as you might expect.

  • I asked Travis's maker about this.

  • You know, why not just use your phone,

  • and the company actually had a pretty good answer.

  • Travis understands more.

  • Google Translate only lets you talk in 41 languages,

  • and Microsoft Translator tops out at 11.

  • Well, Travis can translate 105 languages,

  • eight of which are stored locally.

  • The others require a data connection

  • for which Travis uses either wifi or a 4G SIM card.

  • Travis uses 16 different translation engines too,

  • so the translation quality should be better

  • than the competition as well.

  • Those are legitimate advantages.

  • Man, if I had more conversations with native speakers

  • in my travels, I'd call this a review

  • instead of just a hands-on video,

  • but most of my travels take me to places

  • where English is spoken.

  • And most of my use cases rely more

  • on translating text than voice.

  • Travis is just built for a different kind of person.

  • Doing more talking, going to more distant destinations,

  • a customer who's willing to carry a separate device

  • and pay for a SIM card to power it

  • if it means having a little more comfort on the go.

  • The device can also function as a 4G hotspot by the way.

  • If you meet all those criteria, or for some reason,

  • you just don't use smartphones

  • but still need a translator like this,

  • you might wanna snag Travis at the early bird pricing

  • while you still can.

  • I'll drop a link in the description for your convenience.

  • For everyone else though,

  • your smartphone is probably enough.

  • (upbeat pop music)

  • And this is yet another video recorded on the road,

  • this time from San Francisco, folks.

  • As usual, I'll ask your forgiveness

  • on the hotel room sound quality, and also as usual,

  • I'll ask you to subscribe to theMrMobile on YouTube

  • so you don't miss the next video coming very soon.

  • Until next time, thanks for watching

  • and stay mobile, my friends.

  • (upbeat pop music)

Of all the cool gadgets in Star Trek,

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