What Tech Press Trips Actually Sell
Press trips for phone launches have a particular rhythm. A hotel that’s nicer than anywhere you’d stay on your own, dinner with good drinks, a morning presentation, and somewhere in between, you hold the device and try to form an honest opinion while knowing the whole exercise is designed to prevent exactly that.
The Huawei Mate 10 Pro launch brought a crowd of tech writers and bloggers to Munich—Gilly, Ümit, Thang, Christine, Frank, Fuchs, Micha, Rita, Marco, Rainer—and that part, the people, is what I actually remember. Dinner at the Hoiz Neobrasserie, which I’d go back to on my own time. A night at the Ruby Lilly, which does that thing where the rooms are small but stylishly so, and somehow you don’t mind.
The phone itself: a 6-inch OLED screen, a Leica dual-camera system, waterproofing, the kind of processor described as future-proof and always, eventually, proved wrong. Serious hardware at a serious price. Nothing about it offended me. That might be the most honest thing I can say.
What these events actually sell is the feeling of being briefly inside the loop—invited, briefed, well fed. The feeling is the product. The hardware is just the occasion for the gathering, and the gathering is occasionally its own reward.