SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
Galaxy S25 Ultra Design Revealed + Google vs Samsung Heats Up
This week we recap all the latest news in the Samsung world, including the first look at the Galaxy S25 Ultra design. We also break down the Google Pixel 9 event and all the drama surrounding Google's new review stipulations for influencers. Torrey's smartphone odyssey continues as he gives us some thoughts on his first experience using a flip style foldable. All of that, plus the app of the week, and your questions!
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Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com
Welcome back everybody. This is episode number nine of the Sammy Guru podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me is my co-host, torrey. Torrey say hi, hey, how's it going? And yeah, it's been an interesting week. It was Pixel launch week, and to say that there was some drama surrounding Google's launch of the Pixel devices would be an understatement. We're going to get into that today, because here in the US, I mean, the Pixel is really the main competition left for Samsung, so I think it's appropriate to spend some time talking a little bit about it. So we'll chat about that, but before we do, tori, how was the week? How was the teaching? Are you exhausted yet?
Speaker 2:You know, we just got to like the main content. We went over rigid transformations and today we talked about parallel and perpendicular lines. So far I'm enjoying it. The kids are soaking it up, I'm having a joy teaching, but in waves I'm a little tired. But overall, like I'm really enjoying the year, I'm in a pretty good state.
Speaker 1:That's good news, I mean at least at the high school you get to ease into the content a little more At the university. It's like the very first day it's like it's time for us to learn mathematics. You know you take the role make sure people are there, tell them about the syllabus. That all takes 15 minutes At the high school. You've got like a few days where you can do that kind of stuff Like here's the syllabus, here's the expectations, get used to it et cetera.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they want us to like wait like three weeks before we like get into content to ease the kids in. I'm like what, no?
Speaker 1:Three weeks is like. I mean, it's not elementary school, I mean. Jonathan's in like pre-kinderg and they still got into content this week. I mean, they only took one week to get into it. So I mean, if they can get into content on the second week in pre-kindergarten, I think the high schoolers can handle it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no for sure.
Speaker 1:Handle some content after one week Seems pretty fair to me. Yeah, overall my week is pretty good. The Pixel stuff which we'll get to. I've been making some improvements around the office, got a new label printer for the mystery boxes. S25 Ultra mystery box program is open now kind of in full swing. A lot of people already signed up. We already got 250 people signed up for those boxes. We're still five months away, so hopefully a record-breaking year for that. We'll talk more about S25 Ultra later. But if you want to go sign up for mystery box free accessories if you pre-order the phone, that'll be in January 2025, so you've got a lot of time. But why not do it now? So you don't forget about it.
Speaker 1:I bought these cool things here. We got the new colored. We just need a little color in the frame. We're going to improve the backdrop a lot too. I've got a lot of things in the works. I'm working on sourcing a sign with the Sammy Guru logo here for the background and we might rotate things a little bit around, because right now we have this black backdrop. We might turn the table or something at some point and see what looks the best. But these add some new color. You know red and blue. It's a little bit better than just the white wall and the black wall that we have behind us right now. I think that's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just lots of improvements to the office here working, getting used to the schedule of Jonathan being in school, because I now wake up about an hour and 20 minutes before I used to, so I can take him to school with my wife because he wants me to go every morning. Eventually he won't care, but right now I used to wake up around like 8 o'clock and then come to the office. Now I wake up at 6.40. I usually don't go to sleep until 2 o'clock because I work on website stuff and YouTube stuff well into the night Because our writer now on the website, our full-time writer he's in India, so he's working. That's like the middle of his workday.
Speaker 1:He has questions and stuff for me, so I'm not getting a lot of sleep, but I think it's worth it. Anything else going on with you.
Speaker 2:Tori no, I mean heck, we're about to go see Aliens tonight. Movie news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, me and Tori, you guys have gotten used to that, we are movie fans Tori has gotten me back into the cinema because I had not been going since I had kids, and now for the last four weeks weeks I've been to the movies. We're going to see the new Alien Romulus movie tonight, so that should be pretty fun. And then in a couple weeks we're going to see a little stand-up comedy, dusty Slay, over the Orpheum Theater, so that should be a lot of fun. Get a little bit of a break after a long work week which is always nice.
Speaker 1:Otherwise it's still super hot here in Phoenix. So we're just, we're just waiting till like october so we can go back outside do outdoor activities. No one's no one's doing a lot of outdoor stuff here, unless you want to like pass out from heat exhaustion yeah, just watch the news.
Speaker 2:That's why you guys here is talking like you're, not like we're.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about like going camping or hiking. You know people just don't do that in phoenix during these months, like the fall is the time to do camping and hiking in Arizona or the like, early spring or really the winter. It's not even that cold here you can go hiking. Outside you can go hiking outside in December, it'd be perfect. So yeah, we'll talk more about like doing that kind of stuff, maybe when it gets closer, because I'm not going outdoors until like October 1st, we'll just go from one air conditioned place to the next We'll stay inside the office in the house and story air-conditioned place.
Speaker 1:To the next We'll stay inside the office in the house and Story will stay inside the school for work until you know. My son's not even going outside for recess right now because it's so hot.
Speaker 1:They don't let the little kids play outside. So let's get into the news for the week. Let me scroll back here. As usual, busy news week for Samsung Tried to go through everything that was covered, but of course I'll probably miss a few things here. Last week, right after the podcast, there was a couple of interesting hardware leaks. The Galaxy S24 FE leak revealed some specs and official renders. If you guys are waiting for that phone, it's basically a watered-down Galaxy S24, but it usually has better battery life because it doesn't have as high resolution of a screen. This one is going to have 120 Hz refresh rate, 6.7-inch display, 1900 nits peak brightness, hdr10 Plus certification and it's upgraded to Gorilla Glass Victus screen protection on the front and the back. Frame is still made of aluminum, which we kind of expect, not titanium like on the full S24 lineup and the chipset is not the regular Exynos 2400.
Speaker 1:It'll be the Exynos 2400E, which is a slightly lower clocked CPU. This chipset here has the Cortex X4 Prime Core and this means that in this particular case you should get nice power efficiency so you might get better battery life out of this, and of course it'll be cheaper. The camera is not going to be quite as good as the S24. Display won't be quite as good, but if you care about battery life and you know, one UI is still going to run like a champ on this and it could be great Some markets, including the US, could get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in the US for the S24 FE. I don't think this will happen, so me putting it in the article, that would be kind of weird because the S25 is going to get that. So why would you put that chip?
Speaker 1:in the lower version last year's lower version before you released the new flagship Even for Samsung and some of the weird things that they've done lately. That would be quite strange. I guess it could happen.
Speaker 1:I mean I wouldn't put it past them. I wouldn't put it past any of these companies to do weird things because we've seen them, but I would find it very strange if that happens. So if you're looking for the S24 FE a lot of cool colors that it looks like it's going to come in there's some pastel-looking colors that it's going to launch in. It's like a light blue, light green, like a yellow, a silver and then a black, which you get a black and silver. But the pastel, the yellow, the green and the blue look like Easter colors. So if that's your jam, the colors so if that's your jam, the blue looks kind of cool.
Speaker 1:I tend to like more vibrant colors. I wish Samsung and other OEMs would come out with a true red phone. Obviously I like red because I got this red cover here. I just ordered the Sony Xperia, their new flagship, and it has red. It's completely red. I'll show that off next week. It just came to my house today so I haven't picked it up. I wish Samsung would make a true red, the one that they released, the burgundy, yeah, yeah, yeah, the burgundy, or the bronze or whatever they called it. True red would be nice. I think there's not very many phones out there like that these days, and also like a true rich emerald green color.
Speaker 2:Samsung had that on the Galaxy.
Speaker 1:S6. The Galaxy S6 and Emerald Green was one of my favorite looking phones of all time, so I'd really like to see them do that. The Galaxy Tab S10 Plus gets greenlit for launch. So there are some leaks suggesting a long time ago maybe like a month ago that the S10 Plus might not actually be a real device, and it appears that that's false. Like they were not going to release it, they were just going to do the S10, the S10 Plus might not actually be a real device and it appears that that's false. Like they were not going to release it, they were just going to do the S10 and the S10 Ultra. So it got certified in Korea. So it seems like the launch cycle will be Galaxy S10, s10 Plus and S10 Ultra, and Samsung's flagship tablet launch is now going to change a little bit for the cycle because the S10 will arrive in October this year. Supposedly they're going to have an event in October where they might release the tablets and we talked about the Galaxy XR, the headset, last week. That might come in October.
Speaker 1:Samsung doesn't usually hold a fall launch anymore. Usually it's January and July, so it would be a change to hold something in the middle of the fall. That's typically like Apple's territory. They do fall stuff, so it'd be interesting. Usually they would launch the tablet with the next phone, to the S25. But maybe if they have something to talk about with the headset, they might just say, okay, let's bring the tablets out as well. Now we don't expect there to be any real big design changes or other amazing feature changes when it comes to the Galaxy S10 lineup. We pretty much can expect that the S10 is going to bring pretty similar specs to what's on the S9 in terms of display features. Of course it's going to get new software features with Galaxy AI, but it's not going to get some revolutionary design change and such. I know you don't really use a tablet too much.
Speaker 1:Dory, but some people like to have a tablet. I'd really like to see Samsung try to change the dynamic within Android and make more tablets optimized with specific apps, because that's what gives the iPads quite a big advantage, where Samsung doesn't have that because Android apps are just not optimized. Maybe, if that happened, maybe it would get you a little more excited about tablets.
Speaker 1:But hey when we do get the tablet units in, maybe we'll let Corey try one of them, one of the sizes. I'll probably review the Ultra and then maybe he can review one of the smaller ones. I don't know if I'll get all three, because it probably won't be worth it, but maybe the smallest one and then the largest one we'll see. Maybe you can find a use for it in your the s pen could be useful for doing some math notes and stuff.
Speaker 1:You could give it a try um, samsung recalls 1.1 million electric stoves over fire hazards. When I saw this, this gave me back like some flashbacks to like the Galaxy Note 7. I'm like, uh-oh, samsung stuff is heating up again. That's not good news. So apparently the stoves were recalled due to a fire safety hazard with some unintentional activation of the front-mounted knobs so they could activate without you actually intending to do it, like just like in a ghost activation, like uh-oh, looks like your oven's on, sorry, yeah, and then your house just burns down.
Speaker 2:you're like I never touched that knob crisp yeah, so that's not.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not funny really, because it that it didn't happen, uh, to anyone where, like I guess, anyone was actually killed from this? There were 40 injuries of people and seven pets have died from this. So far total of 250 250 fires, according to the recall. So if you have a Samsung stove electric stove check that out. I mean, this was not mobile news.
Speaker 1:Obviously, this is not a phone, a tablet, a watch or anything, but it's so important because obviously I don't want people to get hurt if they have a Samsung stove. And since we cover Samsung, I figured I told Samit to go ahead and cover this because people might, they might like to know about this. You know, it's pretty important. I feel like it's worth talking about. So that is something to take note of if you have one of those stoves. The particular model numbers are in the link, so I'll put them in the show notes if you want to check if your phone if your stove, if you're still talking about phones, this is a mobile channel site, but if you have a stove, that is included in the recall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, galaxy ring works flawlessly with any Android phone, so we weren't sure about this. Of course, I have the galaxy ring still here, still been using it, still haven't gotten the bigger size cause they're backwards, so for now it's still on my less than ideal wedding band finger, but still tracking my sleep for the most part pretty well. But we discovered Samsung and a few other online kind of users who've been using it since launch mentioned that you can use this with any other Android phone and still not lose out on most of the useful features. So you can use it with a Pixel, you can use it with a Pixel, you can use it with a Motorola. Someone used it with a Razer Plus versus the Z Fold 6. And you can use pretty much all of these various features.
Speaker 1:Now the one thing that I will say is I've heard from people that you cannot use the gestures, or at least they don't work. I don't think you can use the gestures when it comes to the other phones, like Motorola and Pixel. Sumit didn't touch on this on here, so I will actually investigate that. I meant to do that this week and write it up. If anyone else has used the gestures on the Galaxy Ring with a non-Samsung phone, let me know, but I don't think the pinch gestures to take a selfie work. The AI features for the health and then sleep tracking, of course, all that stuff works great because you can just install the galaxy wearable app.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think those gestures are specifically synced, like with Samsung's hardware. Certainly they won't work as well if they did work, but I should try this out because he didn't mention this inside of his article and that's something that I should have kind of investigated because to me it does not have the Galaxy Ring and I do. So I'll certainly look at that and report back next week If anyone listens to the show. If you've used the Ring with another phone non-Samsung, let us know what you think. A couple of important updates Samsung Messages got a stability boost with the latest update. If you're still using Samsung Messages, as we talked about, google Messages has now replaced it as the default. However Superior, it is now the default. But if you like Samsung Messages, there's updates. Samsung is still developing it.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people keep talking about, as we mentioned in a previous podcast, samsung Messages is dead. That's just not true. Samsung Messages doesn't have all the stuff that Google Messages has in terms of RCS integration and stability with RCS and compatibility with various carriers. But it's not dead. They're still pushing updates to it. So it's not like you're not going to get security updates, stability updates, and that's what this update is. So I'll put that link below if anyone wants to check for the update. The Galaxy Note 20 got the August security batch, so I don't even know how many years old that is now, is that?
Speaker 2:four years old, I believe.
Speaker 1:Four years old Galaxy Note 20. Samsung continues to be probably the best when it comes to Android and keeping security patches up to date on their Android phones. Although I should say, let me actually go back here and look, I'm pretty sure on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, they really need to up their game, because on the Z Fold 6, the patch, the play system update, is April and the security patch is still June.
Speaker 2:So hey Samsung.
Speaker 1:I'm saying nice things about you guys, but this is your brand new, most expensive flagship. It still has the April Play System update and it still has the June security patch, so you guys should get on that. But that's great that you updated the Galaxy Note 20.
Speaker 2:It's four years old.
Speaker 1:How about updating your foldable that just came out last month so I can get the latest security patch? I've actually been wondering when that was going to happen. Maybe they're going to wait until the first One UI 6.1.1 update rolls out.
Speaker 1:Maybe they have some feature fixes, maybe some new features could be added, but they really should just push that now, because that's a long time. It's quite behind for a new phone. Samsung we have a couple of stories here about the S25. The first one that Sumit wrote is that Samsung is thinking about rethinking their focus on Galaxy AI, which I know maybe you'll be happy to hear, tori, because you've talked about how you're getting a little fatigued with the whole AI craze.
Speaker 2:It's in every commercial. Yeah, and as we talk about the Pixel launch later.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you briefly kind of saw some Google mentioned AI.
Speaker 1:They said like a thousand times their whole theme of the event was AI and Gemini, which is their AI, and that's actually going to be our app of the week today because it got a big update even on Samsung phones. So usually Samsung and Google are partners. So when Google pushes a big update for the Pixels, they'll also give it to Samsung, because of course, google knows that if Samsung stops using Android, there is no Android, pixel and Motorola and these other companies in the US that sell phones. They're like less than 2% of total phones sold. So if Samsung were gone, android in the US would pretty much cease to exist. Everyone would just go buy an iPhone for the most part. So we'll talk about that a little bit later in the show. But it seems like Samsung is now deciding that they need to do a little more innovation when it comes to the Galaxy S25 and the foldable lineup next year, because they feel like people are getting a little fatigued with AI and a lot of other companies are also catching up, because when they launched their AI suite you know they were first Google really hadn't done much with on-device AI for the Pixel. The iPhone hadn't had their AI Apple Intelligence, which Apple is rolling out next month with the new iPhones That'll be coming out in three weeks and now they're kind of losing that edge.
Speaker 1:So pre-orders were down, I guess, year over year, 10% from last year in terms of the fold lineup, which I kind of expected that would be the case. This is total pre-orders. When the numbers came out in Korea I believe I think someone from Sam Mobile they told me on Twitter oh look, the sales are up in Korea like some percentage. And I was like, yeah, that's Korea, that's just one market. I know it's and guess what? That's just one market. I know it's, and guess what?
Speaker 1:it's their home market so everybody in korea loves samsung they love samsung even more than we love samsung, and this show is sammy and we're the gurus.
Speaker 1:This is sammy guru and I love samsung, but korea, they love samsung. Samsung is like ingrained in the fabric of korean dna, like they're one of the most powerful companies in the country. They employ tons of people, in fact you. You might even go as so far as to say the korean economy depends on samsung. If samsung weren't there, the korean economy would would not be in great shape. So you know, they are samsung enthusiasts, so of course the sales were up. Right, people are always rushing out. It's just like apple is in the us. In months, you're going to see these people camping out at the Apple store.
Speaker 2:You're going to be like why are they?
Speaker 1:camping out for a different phone. That's the same phone in a different color.
Speaker 2:They already have that phone. It's just a different shade of the same color, just a different color and in fact, Apple released the new color.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about it a little bit at the end of the show, I guess, because it's not a huge story and I don't really care that much but they released the new color or it leaked today what the color is going to be and it's not a good color. But anyway, the overall sales it's been announced now are 10% down year on year from 2023. And so you know, this makes pretty bad overall look for Samsung that those sales are down and so they need to do something to kind of inject some innovation. And so they're going to try to do that with hardware. We hope that they do it with camera hardware, in addition to some minor design changes. That's what people want, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah people want some true innovation and, I'm hoping, maybe also some S Pen features that we could see. And that brings me to the next thing that we got this week, which is actually the biggest story. Ice Universe, our good buddy, finally provided us our first official look at the Galaxy S25 Ultra. And this is it right here. You saw it. If you've been on Twitter, you haven't been living under a rock, you've probably seen it. We posted a story about it. I wrote the story because it was breaking news and Sumit was, you know. I think he was off that day because it was Independence Day in India actually this week. So I gave him the day off, I wrote this up and basically, if you look at the design, it doesn't look drastically different from an S24 Ultra. It's much more rounded, though in the corners.
Speaker 1:It's like a hybrid of the Note and the previous S lineup. So basically it looks like Samsung was like we don't want to make the Note people mad because they like the current design, but we also want to give some roundedness to the people who used to like the old S design. So how can we make them both happy? We'll keep it looking mostly rectangular, but just slightly round off the corners. It's definitely not as round as like an iPhone Pro, Not even close.
Speaker 2:No, and it's still very much a Samsung yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's still not nearly as round as even the Galaxy S20 Ultra. And the other good thing that Ice Universe put in his official-looking render is the S Pen. So we can be sure a lot of people are concerned. They're like, could the S Pen go away on the Ultra? And the answer is no, that's not going to be. We're going to have the S Pen. So we kind of speculated that already, because why would Samsung get rid of the S Pen on the Ultra? It's one of the most distinguishing features they have.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, in terms of no other company has the S Pen, a built-in S Pen, that's like identified. That's brand identity. They really would have no reason. I would be shocked. The only way I would see that is if they broke the Note line off separately again, which I don't see right now, but they're not going to get rid of the S Pen somewhere in their lineup. The other thing you can see from this that I think a lot of people are excited about is we do have super thin bezels that are symmetrical. So I know Tori maybe not you know a lot of mobile fans obsess over weird things.
Speaker 1:If we look at a closer shot of this here on the site, you can see the bezels are a lot thinner than they are in the S24 Ultra and if you kind of look at it, the interesting thing about it is that this phone, now the bezels are not different sizes like the top and the bottom. On past Samsung phones they have been different sizes at the top and the bottom. On past Samsung phones they have been, you know, different sizes at the top and the bottom, and so this phone that's not the case, which is one thing that I think is, you know, going to be very appealing. You can actually see, here I posted the image that compares the two. You can see how much thinner the bezels are and you guys, I'll insert the image. You should be looking at it now when I do the edit.
Speaker 1:So that's the great thing about video. You can see it's much thinner and then they're much more symmetric. So this should also make it a lot more usable in the hand, because that's going to reduce the overall width from the screen to screen.
Speaker 1:So this actually should be a pretty nice usability improvement. The one thing that we don't really see from this render is he didn't show us the back of it, so we don't know what the new camera module looks like. We have no idea on the camera module. It could be slightly redesigned. Most people hinted it's not really going to be a major redesign for the camera module. Yeah, I don't believe it Basically just going to have those kind of same camera rings we've seen since the S22 Ultra. They just might be a little slimmed down or they might have some different contours to them.
Speaker 1:Overall, I'm pretty happy with this as long as the internal upgrades are there, like if the camera is improved supposedly. I made a video this week talking about everything we know about the S25 Ultra. The 3x zoom and the ultra-wide are going to get better, which is good because they need low-light improvements, and also they are going to get better, which is good because they need low-light improvements, and also they're going to make some improvements to the processor. They're going to get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. I would really like to see some new S Pen software features. I know we're going to see new Galaxy Eye features. I'm sure, even if they don't focus on that, that's still going to be part of One UI 7.1. But overall it looks pretty interesting. It's certainly still not the massive redesign maybe that some people want, I know, but it is, you know, somewhat different than last year and it's certainly more different than the iPhone 15 Pro Max versus iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Speaker 1:At least they're trying to make some improvements and if you look at the comparison of the S25 UltraWinder versus the iphone 16 pro max ice universe posted this as well it it is obvious that samsung looks like they're now going to be the thinnest bezels in the flagship game. Iphone has had that title for a while. But the other thing is samsung doesn't have that terrible looking dynamic island, massive cutout. We've got that tiny little camera punch hole, which, which I don't know Do you think that looks better? Do?
Speaker 2:you think it looks better? I think it looks better.
Speaker 1:I think it looks better and we're also still expected to get. We're basically going to get the same functionality that Apple has with the Dynamic Island, because we're going to get new live activities in One UI 7.0. You can kind of flick up a game score if you're tracking a football game, baseball game. You're still going to get that same functionality with a cleaner looking design. I think overall it looks pretty nice. I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 1:I think, that there's a lot of opportunities for this to be a big launch. There's a lot of people who say in the Samsung community you should always buy an odd Galaxy S.
Speaker 2:I saw that, the even one.
Speaker 1:I saw that the other day, yeah the even ones tend to have some issues. Tori has a 22.
Speaker 2:This thing is rocking pretty solid.
Speaker 1:Tori said it's still good.
Speaker 2:It's still good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really know that this is like massively true. It's usually some nitpicking stuff. The S24 Ultra does have this issue with grainy display because of the anti-reflective coating. So I think Samsung will. That was the first year they did the anti-reflective coating was the S24 Ultra. I think Samsung will fix that obviously next year. So it probably is true that the little nitpicking issues get ironed out year over year because they iterate, but you know I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 1:I was thinking this week I actually posted over on X as well that. But I'm pretty excited about it. I was thinking this week I actually posted over on X as well that I'm thinking about doing a meetup here in Phoenix for Samsung fans the weekend before the S25 Ultra event. So if you guys are in Arizona and you would come, let us know A lot of people over on X already chimed in. Seems like a lot of people are interested. I don't know where we would hold it. We're not going to hold it in the Sammy Guru office. It's too small. I'd have to rent like some kind of space somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like some kind of banquet space like a hotel or something. But I think it'd be fun. We'd have some swag, we would have some tutorials, we would have some accessories, some various things that we would talk about and do during the event. So it could be very interesting. I apologize for the door slamming people in the office next to us. Apparently, they must be living for the day. So, unfortunately, you know, I still have other people around us in different offices where we record the podcast.
Speaker 1:I try to edit it out, but with the door slamming it's always hard. People are probably like who's slamming those doors?
Speaker 1:But yeah it's hard to edit out door slamming exactly. I'm trying to get better at it. A couple of other key things besides that. Samit wrote up a tutorial on how to disable the Gemini button on your Galaxy phone. You can now do that inside Google Messages, which is good, because that's the default Before. Google was forcing you to have the Gemini button in your face, and Gemini is good. We'll talk about it later in the show, but you might not want it there Maybe you don't want to be forced to have it Same with Bixby, I feel like I make a wrong turn and boom Bixby.
Speaker 2:They really force it on you.
Speaker 1:He also wrote up another great tutorial on how to enable on-device processing for Galaxy AI. So if you are concerned about privacy, you may want to enable on-device processing which doesn't send your data to Samsung's cloud to do the AI commands, which is something that people who are worried about privacy they would probably want Circle to search, which is Google's feature that they partnered with Samsung on, where you can circle something on your screen and AI will kind of give you info about it. That is now going to get a new feature on Galaxy where you can identify music.
Speaker 1:So if you are basically, if there's a song that's playing in a video, you can just circle the screen around that and it will ask you contextually do you want to find this song in this video? That's a pretty cool feature.
Speaker 2:That's probably my favorite thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty clutch right there Circle to search on music. That should be rolling out to Pixels and Galaxies maybe in the next few months. They talked about this during the Pixel event and of course, like I said, samsung gets a lot of the features that come to the Pixels as well. What else do we have? Oh, so we're going to get to that later. The Pixel drama that was the other thing we covered.
Speaker 1:Gemini Live arrives on Galaxy phones, so more Google news. There's a lot of Google-Samsung partnership news because this was Google's event week. Gemini Live arrives on Galaxy phones, which is basically a way you can have conversational kind of interaction with Gemini. Instead of just having to ask a question, it replies. You have to press the button again or you have to say something again. You can just do a conversation, just like me and Tori are talking. Now I can be like Gemini what do you think about writing me a job posting for a marketing intern? It can say here's this I can be like I don't like the third line, can you rewrite that? And then it'll say this and say okay, do you have any ideas where I could post this online to get applicants? And it'll do that. You can go back and forth kind of conversationally. Now the unfortunate thing is two things you need the gemini advanced plan to use this, which is google's paid plan for gemini. I have it, so I've, I have access to it, but also it's not rolling out equally to all samsung phones right now. It's rolling out, but as usual it's a stage rollout, so you might not have it. I don't have it on the fold six. I have it on the s24 ultra now I just got it this morning on there. So, even though we wrote up the post because Google says it's rolling out, whenever you see that on a blog or a website even our website we're just telling you that Google says it's rolling out, it's not necessarily rolling out everywhere, and so me put this in the article it's not rolling out on every single device, and I don't have it on my Fold 6 yet. So you may have to wait a little while, even if you have the paid plan, because you do need Gemini Advanced to get the paid plan. Now I didn't pay for that plan really myself fully. I got a Chromebook Plus that came with 18 months of free Gemini Advanced, and if you order the Pixel device, you're getting Gemini Advanced for a certain amount of time for free as well.
Speaker 1:The last piece is Sumit put together an amazing guide. We just talked about S25 Ultra. If you want to know more about that and you missed my video, you should go watch my video first. But then go check out his article of everything we know about the S25 Ultra. This thing is amazing to cover. It's about 3,000 words and he did an amazing job. I mean, just put the specs together the camera specs, the battery, every leak that we know frequently asked questions. He's got everything in this guide. He will be updating it as we get more information.
Speaker 1:This is going to be kind of your go-to source. Bookmark it on the site, bookmark my post about it over on X and come back anytime you want an update on kind of like what's going on with the S25 Ultra X and come back anytime you want an update on kind of like what's going on with the S25 Ultra. You want to check in and see if you know. Maybe this is a phone that you want to buy. We have the full guide there and you can kind of check it out. So that's pretty much most of the news we covered this week.
Speaker 2:Of course, there's always a few stories here and there that we don't get to go through on the podcast, so check out the website SammyGurucom for all the stories we covered. Any favorites this week? Tori from the news segment here? No, I really liked well two things.
Speaker 2:Because, in reflection, the Samsung stove just because I was, like you know, a buddy of ours, he has, like Samsung appliances, everything like the stove, the microwave, the fridge and everything. So I was very interested to see that pop up. But no, last night, when I was looking through some of the videos, I was really actually kind of excited to look at the S25 stuff that was coming out, because I feel like it's kind of like a perfect blend between like, at least to me, the happy medium between Samsung and iPhone, at least to me, the happy medium between Samsung and iPhone, and I am hearing a lot more of my friends or people talk about transferring over to Samsung. So I feel like next year will be a very good year for Samsung to pull some people over and, just looking at the initial renderings, I myself may have to trade this bad boy in.
Speaker 1:We're definitely going to have to get Tori S25. Ultra, we'll help Tori get one, they'll give you good trade-in value for the S22 Ultra, and so you know we'll just business expense.
Speaker 1:Whatever the rest of it is, it won't be a lot. It'll be like $300 or $400 to probably get it, because they will give good credit for the S22 Ultra. Yeah, I think you're right. I think a lot more people after three weeks from now will also be more looking to jump to Samsung because Apple's about to hold an event where they release the same phone for like the fourth year. It looks exactly the same and not only that, the upgrades really aren't that massive. I mean they're upgrading the camera sensor again, which you know. That's an important thing to upgrade. But where's the other value? I mean the software. They're going to have Apple intelligence, but all the other OEMs already have that. Galaxy Eye, in my opinion, is already ahead of Apple intelligence. So if you're an AI fan, it's not like you gain anything by staying with Apple there, except maybe chat GPT. I wish Samsung could get chat GPT integration with Galaxy Eye. That would be killer because I think it is the standard for productivity-based generative AI. But I think Galaxy Eye and the fun features, the phone features, the camera features, even rewriting email features that's baked into the OS. I think Samsung is doing very well there, so it should be very interesting Before we get on to the next couple segments story.
Speaker 1:You're using the motorola razor from last year because I gave it to you. How do you like the flippable form factor? Tori got the motorola razor 2023 for me because I had it as a sitting my desk and I was like there's no need for this to sit here and just like hang out in the drawer. So I gave it to him and he's been using that with his s22 Ultra kind of switching back and forth.
Speaker 2:What do you think?
Speaker 1:about the flip-able versus slab form factor.
Speaker 2:You know, it's actually pretty neat because at least on that one and I know we talked about it before in terms of how noticeable the line is, Like you hardly ever notice the line where it hinges. But it's a very nice and sleek phone and what I appreciate a lot about it is that you can actually do a lot of functionality with, just like when it's in clamshell mode yeah yeah, I mean I was texting, I was like siphoning through music and stuff Like you can do a lot without actually having to open the phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the Z Flip 6 is the same way too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. What do you think of the Motorola software?
Speaker 1:I mean, I know this is a Samsung show, but how do you think it compares to One UI in general? You?
Speaker 2:can be honest.
Speaker 1:Do you like the Motorola software? Do you think feature-wise? I?
Speaker 2:do, but for some reason I still like the snappiness and the feel and the vibe of the Samsung versus the Razr. But I think again it's that change and again I've only ever had like a slab phone, but I think it's just having that. What is it? The change of being able to flip and that innovativeness that just draws me more towards it, because we're definitely in that age of like innovative and having something different, uh, and so I think that what drives me in, but I think I prefer the samsung uh ui over the or the interface over the motorola razor you miss the s pen on the s22 ultra.
Speaker 2:You know, actually you know I really didn't because I don't know. I just felt like at least please put in the comments if anyone else also feels this way. But it actually made me feel like I'm a little bit more like productive and like on the go, because you can just do so much from just from the clamshell mode, that like I feel like I'm just as productive as I am like when I'm just using yeah, yeah, and samsung added some cool stuff to the z flip six, where you can do a lot more like quick responses and stuff for text messages, which should make it theoretically even better using like galaxy I on the z flip six.
Speaker 1:So you know, if tori likes the motorola theoretically they have a good deal. I could trade it in and get the Flip 6, and then he can talk about that too a little bit. It gives us more content and then Tori gets to play with more phones, which I'm sure he doesn't mind.
Speaker 2:So Tori gets to get initiated into having multiple phones.
Speaker 1:So have you thought about what I said in terms of making one of them your work phone eventually, versus your personal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, because I was thinking um keeping this, uh, the s22, as my work phone, but, uh, like on the weekends uh, or just like personally, uh, having the razor as as that phone, um, that's kind of just like my personal it's because it's a little smaller yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a little smaller, uh, less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a little smaller, less compact, and I don't really wear like my jeans or my work pants that have like a longer pocket on the weekend, so I definitely want something that's a little bit smaller, because the wallet and keys I mostly wear gym shorts on the weekend they take up a lot of real estate in my pocket. I don't have like a purse or one of those cool Nike bags. Yeah, I don't have like a purse or one of those cool Nike bags. Yeah, I didn't talk about it a lot.
Speaker 1:But usually when we go somewhere with the kids unless I'm taking, like my little shoulder bag, if we're going somewhere where I know I can't really take a lot of stuff, or if I'm going to the gym, I take the regular Galaxy S24, because I know I don't necessarily need the camera and so it's a lot smaller than the S24 Ultra or the Fold, and if I don't want that bulk I just take the regular S24. That's what I use it for. So I actually do use the regular Galaxy S usually.
Speaker 1:That's why I usually buy one even though I don't know that there's a lot of review value in it, but I take it with me to the gym or I take it somewhere where I don't want that bulkiness. If I need the camera, I have to think about how much do I care about having the best pictures versus the less bulk, because the S24 Ultra camera is a lot better than the regular S24. But when I definitely need a smallish phone, it's nice to have that, and of course the Flip takes it to the next level. So then once I get the new Flip every year, then I'm like oh, I take the Flip with me as well now, because it's even smaller, I can take that to the gym, and then it has basically the same camera as the S24 now. So the Z Flip 6 has kind of replaced that for me too.
Speaker 1:Like I usually take that when I need a small phone, All right. So that's the news and a little bit more about Tori's kind of phone adventures, which we'll keep checking in on that and see if we get the Z Flip 6.
Speaker 2:It'll be a weekly occurrence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tori gets the opportunity to kind of live the life of having multiple phones here being part of Sammy Guru, which is kind of fun. It's fun in the beginning For me, once you have like 30, it's a lot of diminishing returns.
Speaker 1:It becomes not as fun, because then it is a job. I still enjoy it, but it's also a chore to set them up and do all that stuff. All right, so we're going to get into the next segment. Before we do, though, let's take a quick break to hear from the sponsor of today's podcast. Today's episode of the Sammy Guru Podcast is brought to you by our partners at Mint Mobile.
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Speaker 1:I guess this is where we usually kind of talk about, like current events, hardware or anything like that, and this week we're going to focus on the Pixel 9 event, everything that Google talked about. We talked about some of this stuff briefly in the news segment, but I saved a lot of the hardware stuff in comparisons for this particular segment. So Google released four phones at the event the regular Pixel 9, the Pixel 9 Pro, the Pixel 9 Pro XL, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Now why in the world the Pixel 9 Pro Fold was called this, no one knows, because there's only been one Pixel Fold before. It's the Pixel Fold 2.
Speaker 1:And the funny thing is someone leaked the box that they had originally made. So you know, the warehouses, like in China or wherever, have the boxes, they get them early. Google had originally made the boxes and said Pixel Fold 2. So they obviously decided to change this at the last minute, I guess, to make all of them have nines. But this is not the the boxes and said pixel fold 2. So they obviously decided to change this at the last minute, I guess, to make all of them have nines. But this is not the ninth generation fold, it's only the second, so it doesn't make. I don't know. This is just a terrible like who. Who comes up with this?
Speaker 1:people get paid, yeah people get paid to make these poor decisions, like you could pay me money and I could do it better. I would just be like well, the number that comes after 1 is 2, so we should just call it the Pixel 2 Fold.
Speaker 2:That's easy.
Speaker 1:But, anyway.
Speaker 2:Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Speaker 1:They also released Pixel Watch 3, pixel Buds 2 Pro and then a bunch of accessories for those various devices. So the interesting comparisons here for us are basically the Galaxy S24 Ultra versus the Pixel 9 Pro XL. That's a very interesting comparison because of course, those are the two big slab style flagships and we wrote up a full comparison article. Sumit wrote it up over on the website so you can check that out. Actually, I'll pull it up while we talk. Essentially, there's a couple of key things to know about the differences between these phones. First of all, the Galaxy device has, in my opinion, a nicer display, more vibrant. It's slightly brighter. Google's phones do use the basically same panels. They use panels made by Samsung, but Samsung's a multi-billion dollar company. They have multiple divisions.
Speaker 1:One of their divisions is Samsung Display and they sell them to other people. Apple uses Samsung Displays on their iPhone. That's what a lot of Apple fans don't understand. Your iPhone is part Samsung, because Samsung makes the best displays in the mobile industry. Everyone buys them, but Samsung, of course, they save the best ones for their own phones because it's vertically integrated.
Speaker 1:Why would you sell your best displays to yourself if you were vertically integrated like that? I will say, in terms of the display, the Google displays usually look pretty good. They're the same size, they're both 6.8-inch displays, so they have very similar resolutions. The Galaxy S24. So they have very similar resolutions. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is 1440x3120. The Pixel is 1344x2992. So actually I was wrong. So I'm reading some neat specs here.
Speaker 1:The brightness I'm surprised by this. When I make a mistake, I admit it. I thought when I read this the Pixel had a lower brightness. It actually got 400 nits more, 3,000 nits versus 2,600. So I'll have to do a quick comparison outdoors in Arizona when I get it.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing I'll tell you, though. Usually, when you compare a phone to a Samsung phone, another phone, peak brightness you'll notice that while the rating might be higher, those ratings are usually like for just a couple instances. The samsung phones can usually sustain a higher brightness for a higher period of time and also, like that extra brightness boost they give, it really depends on, like, the viewing angle of the display, because as you tilt it, the brightness and the viewing angle kind of interact to determine how visible the screen is outdoors. Sam Samsung usually does a good job of mixing those on their own phones. Yeah, they do. So I don't know, we'll see the number being higher doesn't mean anything, but it is higher, so I'm just kind of going through it. The other thing you should keep in mind too is, if you are a Samsung fan thinking about moving over to the Pixel and I did put this in this week's newsletter, a couple of key things to keep in mind that you're going to lose S Pen. So if you use the S Pen, no S Pen on the Pixel. That's an obvious one.
Speaker 1:But another thing that a lot of people don't think about is a lot of people use the multitasking features built into One UI, like the pop-up view, the split-screen view, and they think if they go to another Android phone, a lot of casual users who maybe not are enthusiasts. They don't realize that that's One UI stuff, that's not basic Android stuff. So if you go to a Pixel, you're not going to get all those rich multitasking features. The Pixel has basic split screen, but it doesn't have all the rich kind of stuff Samsung has. It doesn't have pop-up view and all that great stuff. The multitasking is much worse on Pixel device and almost any other Android device. Samsung much worse on a Pixel device and almost any other Android device. Samsung is the top when it comes to that. You're also going to mix out on DeX mode. So if you use your phone as like a portable desktop with a monitor, you can basically plug we've talked about this before plug in a keyboard and mouse. You basically have a PC. Don't get that on the Pixel either. So there's a lot of stuff that you're going to lose out on if you move over to the Pixel XL, the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Now, performance-wise they should be pretty close. Google does use their Tensor processor, though, so in terms of gaming performance, typically they've not been on the same level as what Samsung has with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. So you might notice that you might have more heating on the Pixel with gaming kind of the same games, that you might have more heating on the Pixel with gaming kind of the same games that you're playing on your Galaxy. That's worth keeping in mind.
Speaker 1:What do you gain? So I'm telling you all these things that are great about Samsung. Of course, this is a Sammy Thru podcast, but I'm a fair reviewer as well. What do you gain by going to the Pixel 9 Pro XL. First of all, it has 16 gigs of RAM, which? First of all, it has 16 gigs of RAM, which the Galaxy S25 Ultra doesn't. But we already know. If that's something that appeals to you, I don't know why it would really appeal because it's not going to make much of a difference in day-to-day. We talked about this last week. Day-to-day use is not going to be a huge, like noticeable deal. But if you care about that number, the S25 Ultra is pretty much confirmed now to have 16 gigs of RAM. Ice Universe pretty much confirmed that. But here's another thing too that a lot of people don't know. I dug into this a little bit, talked to some people who already have one. I don't have a Pixel 9 Pro XL yet.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about why in just a?
Speaker 1:second, there's a good reason for that, but you can't use all this RAM. You can't. It's actually reserved for Google's on-device AI processing. So they put 16 gigs of RAM on the label, but it's really only about 12 gigs of usable RAM. So it's the fine print. So if you read the fine print in their release about the phones and some people who have this phone that I know confirm this for me, a couple of other journalists that I know it's reserved like about 4 gigs is reserved for this on-device Gemini processing. So you've only got 12 gigs of usable, so you don't really gain anything. Not to be like it's a pro, but wait, no, it's a con, but that is kind of how it is. It's kind of like a fake pro. At the end of the day, what you do get is the camera. In my opinion and I know maybe some of our Samsung fans out there may be disappointed by me saying this the Pixel has been ahead of the Galaxy camera the last couple of years. So because the Galaxy.
Speaker 2:That's like their selling point, right? Yeah, because the Galaxy. That's why it's called Pixel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because of the name, because of all the pixels in a photo.
Speaker 1:But I mean, here's the thing Samsung is rumored to make some big improvements with the S25 Ultra. I think when they push the next big update to the S24 Ultra, they're going to iron out a lot of these camera issues. That's why it's been delayed so long.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely unacceptable that it's taken six months to fix issues on a $1,300 phone because the S24 Ultra launched with a lot of zoom issues and low light issues, so I don't give Samsung a pass on that. And the Pixel takes amazing photos. I will have one for review that I bought my own money coming next week and I'll do a full comparison of the cameras. But you definitely gain an amazing camera. That's potentially I don't have it in hand yet, so I'm not going to say for sure potentially better than the S24 Ultra. For sure, potentially better than the S24 Ultra.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of software, though, back in the day people used to always say oh well, if you get a Pixel, you get smoother software, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to say that's not true anymore. I know some of the people on Twitter will disagree and they'll be like oh yeah, the animations. If you do the animations, you'll see they're a lot smoother on Pixel than Samsung. I just in day-to-day news, we've talked about this. I don't notice, and this past week another person posted one of those videos where they're like just going through the apps.
Speaker 1:I don't get it, man. I know people are like if you can do this, then your day-to-day performance will be great. But will it? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes into day-to-day performance that has nothing to do with just flipping through a bunch of random apps. You're jumping in and out of different kinds of apps. You're leaving your phone sitting for a while. There's a lot of things that go into it that aren't just like can I flip through 30 apps quickly and it doesn't stutter?
Speaker 1:And I don't notice that as a problem and no one I've ever talked to outside of tech has said you know, the reason that I use an iPhone over Samsung is just because the animations are just so smooth.
Speaker 2:No one ever says that I've never had any iPhone user be like I love the smooth animations.
Speaker 1:Maybe they do, but they don't notice it and certainly no one who uses a Samsung phone casually as a non-enthusiast has ever said that. So I don't think they have an advantage on software anymore. And One UI has so much more customization with GoodLock, with multitasking, with the S Pen, even Galaxy AI.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about Gemini a little bit more in a minute, I think has some features that are compelling that are not there. With Gemini, like sketched image, that's a fun feature, even though it's not a productivity feature. I like that. I've been using it for some of my content, for making thumbnails and stuff. If you could draw, it's even better. I can't draw, I'm a terrible artist. But if you could draw, it's even better because it does a better job of figuring out what you're trying to draw and make it into an image. But even for me, who is a terrible, awful drawer, it does a pretty decent job of interpreting and it's usable. You can use it for a YouTube thumbnail and I like that feature.
Speaker 1:I think Google definitely has software that their fans like, but I think One UI is ahead For me. Personally, I would prefer using One UI over the Pixel experience. Right now, the price Google did something really stupid. They released a 128 gigabyte base model. Everyone needs more storage than that. People are like I don't, but you really do, because your phone comes with only 30 gigabytes already used by the system, so you've only got 98 left or whatever. And then if you take any kind of videos if you take 4K videos a short 4K clip is like 3 gigabytes. So if you take any kind of videos, if you take 4K videos a short 4K clip is like 3 gigabytes. So if you want to store some videos on your phone I mean, I know people are like, well, I could upload it to the cloud Then you've got to pay money every month for cloud storage, which is what Google wants, because guess who sold you some cloud storage? Google. They're like hey.
Speaker 1:I get the emails they're like hey, you ran out of storage on your 128-gigabyte Pixel 9 Pro XL. Would you like to pay $19.99 a month for the 2-terabyte Google One storage plan? And then you'll be like, yeah, and then you'll just give them an extra $240 because you'll be out of storage. I think that's unacceptable. But the phone does start here for the Pixel 9 Pro XL at $1099. But that is basically 128 gigs of storage, so it's not really comparable.
Speaker 1:So Meet wrote in the article $1299 for the S24 Ultra, but that starts at $256. So basically, if you compare the two equal models, it's only a $100 difference. The Pixel's $100 cheaper for the same storage. That's not a big savings. Basically, samsung discounts and stuff like the education employee discounts you could find a discount and save that. So you're not really getting a big edge there. So those are my thoughts. I mean we'll link the article there Pixel 9 Pro XL versus the Galaxy S24 Ultra. And then, of course, the S25 Ultra is only five months away. So you've got to think like, if I'm a Samsung fan, do I really want to go drop $1,100 on the Pixel?
Speaker 1:Just wait five months, because then I'm going to upgrade to the next one, the other phone. Oh, one other thing I wanted to give Google credit for, since I did criticize them a little bit there. They did release a smaller version of the XL called the Pixel 9 Pro, which basically has the same features and a smaller screen, and that's something Samsung should definitely do. It's something Apple does. Having a flagship that's the same as your biggest one but is smaller is a good thing, because not everybody wants a massive phone. I think that's a positive thing.
Speaker 1:I obviously understand that for the Ultra phones, for Samsung, we probably can't get a smaller version because the S Pen won't fit in the small version but they could make a compatible Pro phone that's smaller, that has everything the Ultra has, except the S Pen.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a possibility. I've heard some people say that Samsung could consider doing that. I've had a couple of people on Twitter who do Samsung hardware leaks. I think that'd be a really good thing to do. Now, the other comparison is the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which, again, whatever it's the Pixel, I'm going to call it the Pixel Fold 2, because that's what it is. That, versus the Z Fold 6, is an interesting comparison. Now, this one is a little more interesting for Google because it has two things that I really like that I don't like about the Z Fold 6. You guys know Z Fold 6, two things I don't like the narrow cover display and the cameras are still ancient and they're not as good as any other flagship.
Speaker 1:Google, one has a wider cover display cameras are basically on the same level as their flagship slap phone. So they did two things that are really good but counterpoint to that. If you look at the front of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold or Pixel Fold 2, as I call it, you'll notice that the hinge on the front protrudes really big out to the side. It's very large and it looks kind of bad in my opinion. So the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, pixel Fold 2, definitely doesn't have an aesthetic advantage. Some people are saying it looks great. I think that doesn't look so great when it's folded. The usable screen real estate is great, but Samsung still has the aesthetic look Plus, keep in mind when you open the phone. I talked about this last week. The Pixel is going to be more square, so vertical stuff like Twitter, instagram, vertical scrolling, is not going to look as good. It's definitely better than last year because they made it a little less square. So I'll compare it because, again, I bought one. This doesn't actually come out until early September, so I'll have it and I'll do comparisons, but I do think there's some compelling reasons here to consider the Pixel 9 Pro Fold over the Z Fold 6.
Speaker 1:Do I think you should go out and buy one over the Z Fold 6? I don't know, because again there's some things that you're missing. What are the things that you miss? S pin again, no s pin. The multitasking software again and this is even bigger deal on a foldable is terrible. On pixel experience software samsung's multitasking on the fold is the best in the world. There's no other phone company that does it as well. And when you have a foldable, that really matters, because when I have my, have my Fold open, I use the multitasking a lot Three apps in various different size windows. You can do a lot of multitasking because it's a massive screen. So it really depends on what you want your phone for and it depends on what percentage of the time you use it closed versus open. If you're using it closed like 80% of the time, then you may want the Pixel 9 Pro Fold because that wider cover screen might make a difference. But if you're using it like 50-50 or 60-40, then I kind of lean towards the Z Fold 6.
Speaker 1:Now the one thing that would get me and I'll do a comparison. I don't want to make claims based off of just what we know about it. We know about the hardware. The Z Fold 6 does have older camera hardware than the Pixel Fold 2, but that doesn't mean on paper that software processing it'll necessarily be mind-blowingly better. Experience and history tells me that the Pixel Fold 2 will have a better camera than the Z Fold 6, because I've used the Z Fold 6 and it's not amazing. But again, is that necessarily a reason to go the direction of the Pixel fold too?
Speaker 1:It all comes down to how you use your fault. Do you use it open versus closed? What's the percent breakdown? I think that's a big thing, like if you're thinking about a foldable, you really have to think about that. That's the thing you should consider more than anything.
Speaker 1:What percentage of the time do I think I'll use the cover versus the main display, and it's kind of hard to figure it out until you actually use one, like Tori. With the flip it's even different because, like, it's a little bit different experience because obviously with the fold you have different use cases versus the flip. But that's also a good thing to ask. With the flip, how much of the time am I going to do like on the go stuff on the cover? How much time am I going to unflip it? It's easier to use the flip though unflipped, so you don't have to think about it as much. This is very hard to use while you're walking, cause like if you're doing this and you're walking like in the busy downtown Phoenix streets you're going to walk in front of a truck and like you're going to be a goner Cause.
Speaker 1:you can't, you can't pay attention to the immersive screen and also walk. You really have to think about that. I will do a full comparison, but there's definitely some things to consider if you're thinking about jumping over. The Pixel 9 base model is not as interesting. It's probably going to be a competitor for the base S24 or the S24 FE when that phone releases. We talked about it earlier. I didn't order one of those, but if people are really interested, let me know I'll consider it. You can get a great deal on that, though. If you go to Best Buy, they're actually giving you $800 trade-in for an iPhone 12. You could buy an iPhone 12 on eBay for like $175.
Speaker 1:So, essentially you could trade it in and get the Pixel 9 base for free after you buy the iPhone 12, like $175. That's a pretty good deal. So if you really want the base, pixel 9, the non-Pro, go and do that. I'll drop the link below if you guys want to check it out. I made a quick post on X about that as well, so let's talk about the other interesting news. I still want to talk about maybe some of the device stuff as well, but a lot of people have been asking this week and you might have seen it on X why don't I have a review?
Speaker 2:unit of the Pixel 9 Pro.
Speaker 1:XL or the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Well, I have been a member of one of Google's review programs. I call it a review program. There's some debate about that as well what we should call it but it's called Team Pixel and basically they are a PR agency called 1,000 Heads. That's the PR agency. They're based out of New York and they are tasked PR agency called a thousand heads. That's the PR agency. They're based out of New York and they were tasked by Google. Google hires them, so they pay them. So Google is obviously responsible because they hired this company. They're the ones paying them.
Speaker 1:If I hire a marketing company to do promotion for Sammy guru or my YouTube channel and they go out and say, for instance, a bunch of crazy racist stuff, I would have to take responsibility for that. For instance, a bunch of crazy racist stuff, I would have to take responsibility for that. So, like you have to be responsible for the people you hire as a business, right? Yes, I think we can agree. I would be the one in trouble if they go out and market a bunch of stuff under my brand, saying stuff that offends people, I have to own that. So the company called thousand heads. Basically they send out a survey every launch, just asking for your shipping information and some basic information, and they say okay, we'll send you the phone. I've been a part of this program since 2017, so basically seven years, and the basic agreement up until now was you just give us your address, you just say that you'll disclose that. We gave you a free phone. All you have to do is like, if you post something, hashtag gift from google, hashtag team pixel, we have no requirements over what you post. You can criticize the phone, you can say whatever you want, you can compare it to other devices. They did not give you any requirements, in fact. I'll drop the link below or I'll show a screenshot here from x. I posted the pamphlet they gave us last year when they sent the pixel 8 pro to everybody that says all your content should be honest, fair, fair, unbiased, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So this year the survey goes out. I didn't get it, by the way. I got kicked off the program before they even sent the survey. You'll understand why after I finish the rest of the story if you haven't heard it. So the survey goes out yesterday to all the different influencers that were still in the program.
Speaker 1:They kicked off a bunch of people, including me, and so these people are filling out the survey. They're just filling in their normal address info. They're like okay, we have to disclose that we got the gift, all the standard stuff. And then they get to the very last page before you submit the form. It's a Google form. They just use a Google form to ask for your info. They get to the very last page before you submit the form and the page says the following thing. It says do you agree that if you feature content with the phone, that you will not feature any other brands in place of or above the pixel in any content that you post? If you feature other brands instead of the pixel or you promote other brands above the pixel, basically saying that they are better, superior to the pixel, then google will need to terminate the relationship between the brand and the creator. Basically, you'll be kicked out of the program.
Speaker 1:So, obviously, a bunch of people who are part of team pixel who are still on the list they did not take kindly to this because most of the people that are on the Team Pixel list, contrary to what you might have heard from other people on Reddit, there's a lot of discussion about this and I'll talk more about it in a second. A lot of people were saying, oh, these are just influencers. That is not true. Most of the people on the Team Pixel list are reviewers on YouTube with tech channels who take their integrity fairly seriously. Just because you're not MKBHD or the Verge, you don't have 10 million 15 million subscribers doesn't mean you don't have integrity. You can still have integrity and take your review seriously, even as a smaller to medium-sized channel, and I certainly take the integrity here very seriously.
Speaker 1:Like, if I'm going to post a review, you know and label as a review, it's going to be unbiased. Not all the content I do is review content. Some of it is promoted content and I disclose that. But if it's going to be called a review, I've always made unbiased reviews. If something's crap, I tell you it's crap, whether it's Samsung or not. In fact, there's quite a few Samsung products over the years that I've ripped as actual garbage. If you go back to like the Galaxy S5 launch that was actually one of the first launches I covered I said the phone was trash, you shouldn't buy it, and if it's not a good phone, I'll tell you not to go buy the phone.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people take this, you know, very seriously, and so these guys who are upset about it, they screenshot it, the form, and they posted it on X. They said, hey, we thought people should know this is what Google is requiring now to be part of their Team Pixel program. And obviously it went viral. So I wrote an article about it over on Sammy Guru. I'll drop the link below. You can check it out. My article was called Google Allegedly Mandates Reviewers Favor Pixel Over Samsung in their reviews and so, yeah, it doesn't look good.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people have weighed in on this, including MKBHD, even made a video and posted on X this morning with his opinion, and while his opinion is useful, I think it's more useful to get opinions from people like me or some of the other medium creators who've been a part of the program. Because here's the thing A lot of guys like MKBHD and some of the big like tech writers who are editors or like at XDA and Android police, they're like you got to understand team pixels, all influencers. So Google is just saying now that they don't want. They're like they don't want you to, and this does happen. They don't want you to post your Pixel gift and then your next Instagram reel, you're making a video with your iPhone, because that's a bad look for them, and I understand that, but the thing is these guys don't know, because they're not part of the program.
Speaker 1:Most people in Team Pixel are not beauty influencers. That might have been the case when it started, and I've been here since the beginning, since 2017. But over time, they kept adding more and more tech channels, so these were units they were sending and they knew that people were going to review these devices, and in the past they've never had a problem with you posting anything you have. Now some people said they got kicked out before this year for posting negative reviews. I that could be true. I never did, though. I posted some negative stuff about the pixel. I said the pixel six pro was like an oven in your pocket, because it overheated so much because of the tensor processor.
Speaker 1:I talked about the screen gap in the pixel five a. These are all phones they sent me for free and I I bashed a lot of the things, the problems that were wrong with them, Talked about tons of the bugs in the early Pixel devices when they did the redesign, and then I also said positive things. In fact, last year I said a lot of positive things. I made a video about what Samsung could learn from the Pixel 8 Pro, because there was a lot of positive things that Google was doing, particularly with the camera processing. So I've been on both sides and so I just don't agree with the fact that a lot of these bigger people are saying well, it's an influencer program, it's always been one, and that's what Google is doing. Well, no, they changed the overall idea of the program. Now I understand where MKBHD is coming from. He doesn't have to be on Team Pixel because he's a part of the corporate reviews program.
Speaker 1:There's a separate program that Google has for big websites and also like the major tech reviewers on YouTube. They don't have to be part of Team Pixel. They get what's called a corporate review unit. Those are loaners. They don't get to keep them, and basically all they have to sign is that they won't post before a certain date. That's called an embargo, and so he doesn't have to deal with Team Pixel. He's never been a part of it. Most of the big websites never have been a part of it, because they get corporate units. Hopefully, eventually, with our website becoming a legit media publication, maybe we can get back on the media review list. Maybe not, though, because I wrote this article about them mandating that reviewers be unbiased.
Speaker 2:They might not ever let me back, but I'll be unbiased. They might not ever let me back, but that's okay, I don't care.
Speaker 1:I mean, I spent like four grand buying Pixel devices with my own money so I could bring you guys unbiased coverage.
Speaker 1:I don't mind spending the money to make a fair comparison, but I think this is a very bad look for Google. There's a lot of people defending them, basically saying that you know, it's not that big of a deal and it's an influencer program and Google might not have even signed off on it because the PR company at Thousand Heads they're the ones responsible. None of that is valid because, like I said earlier, if I hire some marketing firm to promote my business and they go out and do dumb stuff in the name of my business, well no one's going to care. That like, oh, I hired Tori's marketing firm to promote Sammy Guru and they went out there and basically got my site canceled by doing some crazy stuff. They're not going to cancel Tori's marketing firm, they're going to cancel Sammy Guru.
Speaker 1:And if I want to fix my brand image, I have to take responsibility and go back and say, okay, I made a mistake, I hired these people, I didn't really pay attention to what they were doing, I didn't sign off on something that I should have because I should have looked at it and yeah, that's my mistake, so I don't know. I mean, obviously I'm never getting a review in it from the Team Pixel program again.
Speaker 1:Probably not they didn't even send me the survey because they knew, as a guy who covers Samsung a lot, I was not going to say that I wasn't going to feature any other brands. They're like this guy he's never going to agree to that because Samsung is his primary focus. Of course he's going to want to do, and it's not that I would bash the Pixel, but every year I take the Pixel and I compare it to Samsung.
Speaker 1:And I tell you the good stuff, just like we just did on the podcast. And I tell you the good stuff, just like we just did on the podcast, and I tell you the bad stuff. The Pixel has some advantages, but Samsung has a lot of advantages too. I'm not just going to say, oh, give from Google, pixel is the best thing in the world, end of story, because then no one would ever listen to me again because they'd be like this guy talks about Samsung in every other video free phone and he said the Pixel is the device everybody needs. That would destroy my credibility and my brand image and it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:That's not worth it for an $1,100 phone. So we will have comparisons, but they're going to be a little later than usual, because usually if I get the phone from Google I get it early. I'd have it already. My Pixel 9 Pro XL will come next week, which is the official launch day, probably the 21st, and then the Fold doesn't come until September 4th, so I'll have to wait. I won't get that early because I paid my own money for it. Didn't really spend a lot of money because they gave decent trade-in value this year, which surprised me.
Speaker 1:I traded in my Pixel 8 Pro and my Pixel Fold from last year. So I spent $4,000 up front, but I think after my trade-in and my credit, I get back from being a Google One member. They give you 10% credit back for being a Google One member, which actually does make it somewhat worth it. If you buy Pixel devices, I'll probably spend like maybe $1,400 to get all the new devices. I got Pixel 9 Pro XL, pixel Fold 2, pixel Watch 3, and the Buds 2 Pro, the Pixel Buds 2 Pro. So I have comparisons to everything. Let me know if there's something specific you guys want me to focus on. I'm curious if you guys are thinking about jumping over to a Pixel. Maybe I'll let Tori play with it so you can give some thoughts too, because I want Tori to be able to kind of experience different phones so he can talk about them on the podcast.
Speaker 2:I always wanted to see what the Pixel was like. I always see the commercials and I'm like, ooh, I'm intrigued. But I still love the Samsung.
Speaker 1:Tori can't be just out there buying 50 phones.
Speaker 2:Nobody can do that. Unless it's making you money it wouldn't make sense to do it.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't do it either, unless we could make money off of it and obviously make the money back. But we'll get some of Tori's thoughts on that on top of the Razr, so it'll be fun for him too. So that's pretty much what's going on with the Pixel stuff. I wanted to give you guys kind of some insight into that. The event was very interesting. The watch looks good they made a bigger version of it. The Buds also look good, but I still think the Buds 2 Pro from Samsung might Buds sorry, the Buds 3 Pro from Samsung look superior, but again, won't weigh in until we get them. We'll compare them and see, yeah, kind of where everything is all right. So we're going to get into the out of the week in q a. Before we do, let's take a quick break here from the second sponsor of today's podcast.
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Speaker 1:All right, everybody, let's go ahead and get into the last third of the show. Here. We're going to go ahead and get into the app of the week. Well, basically two criteria A lot of people are like are they always new apps? The answer is no. I either pick an app that I think people don't know about, which is like last week we had Wavelet, which was a very interesting new kind of app for audio, keeping the same headphone volume, something that I've been using that I think other people don't know about. But the other way I choose them is if an update comes into an app that's really big and so it has new features. Even if I know people are aware of the app, I want to talk about it, to talk about some of that new stuff that rolled out, and so that is this week's app.
Speaker 1:It is Gemini, which is Google's AI suite. You can use it natively on your Galaxy phone. So, essentially, if you want to use Gemini, you have to go into your Google Assistant settings and say that you want to replace Google Assistant with Gemini, and so Gemini actually replaces Google Assistant on your phone, and then when you say OK, google, it will activate Gemini, and so Gemini is its generative AI. Like I talked about earlier, some big new features came out this week with the Pixel Event, which is Gemini Live. If you have Gemini Advanced, I still don't have it on the Fold 6. There's supposed to be a little button down here in the bottom right corner. If you have Gemini Live, then you can press it and activate it and then you'll have conversational view, but it's pretty useful In terms of comparison to like ChatG it's it's hard to say, so here's the.
Speaker 1:Here's what I would say about it. I want to do a comparison of all the different AI chat bots. Tori won't watch it cause he hates AI, but I'm going to do it on my YouTube channel at some point. Some people do like it Chat, gpt, gemini um, the one that Twitter has now, which is Grok Apple intelligence galaxy AI. Twitter has now, which is Grok Apple Intelligence Galaxy AI.
Speaker 1:But the thing about Gemini Advanced is, if you're a Google user which a lot of Android and Samsung users are, because there's Google services if you use Gmail, google Calendar, all that kind of stuff, drive, this integrates with all your Google services, so you can actually kind of install extensions.
Speaker 1:You have to allow the permissions and stuff like that inside here, but you can get like Google Flights, google maps, youtube, youtube music. It can hook into all these different apps and so then the ai assistant can actually use all of your data and info in those apps to help you with things. So like it will actually have context for, like if you say, okay, I need to make a dinner reservation in my city and I want to do Mexican food, it'll know where your city is because you have allowed location in Maps and then say a specific time, it can help you do those kind of things because it has context, you know, for your information and it kind of knows restaurants that you prefer as well. So it could try to figure out like say you know, make a reservation at my favorite restaurant because it knows where you've been, because it has Google Maps data. It's always listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly so if you like that sort of thing. I mean, yeah, it's a double-edged sword, but if you're using Android, you're already giving a lot of your data to Google at the end of the day. But you can manage a lot of that stuff in here, like your public links. You can allow it to have access to what's on your screen or not. You can turn that stuff on or off. So if you want it to not know much and not hook into the other Google services, you can do that. So if you're worried about it processing stuff in the cloud, you can basically make it such a little dumber, but it's still doing more on-device processing, like Galaxy Eye, like we talked about earlier. So I think if you're a Google user and you're deep in the Google ecosystem and you don't mind some of that stuff being given to Google and shared in the cloud, if you're not super worried about those privacy concerns, then that is something that you should consider using Gemini Advanced for.
Speaker 1:Otherwise it's not as good at writing assistant. Those kind of things like rewriting text is chat, gpt or even, in my opinion, galaxy. I write assist and of course, it doesn't really do anything like sketched image with the s pen. So there's some stuff that galaxy I and chat, gpt are better at. That's the unfortunate thing right now. It's like there's all these different assistants, but they all have like different strengths, so like, if you want to get the best out of all of them, then you really have to use like all of the different assistants that are out there.
Speaker 1:So I would encourage you to try it. I don't know if I would encourage everyone to go out and pay for Jim and I advanced only. If you're a super Google user and you think that you don't mind being hooked into all the services, then it is very convenient. You can do some crazy cool things with it, but still $20 a month. But you do get a lot of stuff. On top, you get two terabytes of Google Drive storage. So if you need the storage and you just also want Gemini- Advance, it's not a terrible way to go.
Speaker 1:It's nice for that because you get the whole package of Google services. Anyway, let us know if you guys use Gemini Advance. What AI assistants do you use? Do you hate AI? Do you agree with Tori? Let us know. We talk about it a lot because it's a hot topic right now in the tech and mobile sector, but I figured people would like to know about the new update, since it was Google Week and Google and Samsung they're best friends. Rick Osterloh from Google actually released a message this week saying that Samsung and Google's partnership is stronger than ever. So Google's partnership is stronger than ever. So obviously they're still kind of best buddies. Let's go ahead and get into that Q&A. Tori has a couple of Qs that we can A. What are the questions that you got? I think these are questions from last week's podcast comments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so from Macrochipped. We have perhaps a question for next week, fellas. But what was the year? Or phone specifically? Do you guys think Android had finally become a viable alternative to the iPhone?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I guess I'm going to answer this question in two parts. I think, for me personally, the Droid X, which I've talked about before, motorola Droid X I think around that time which was around the time of the iPhone 4, finally, android had matured to where it had a feature set that was forming a solid user base to compete with Apple, particularly around the world. It probably didn't gain a foothold in the US, though, and, like actually, obviously Apple has always been slightly ahead in the US and Samsung has then taken over the rest of the world, the majority, but I think Samsung really caught up and kind of got to, like, you know, a really big market share with the galaxy s6. That's where they went from like making plastic phones that were cheap. The galaxy s5, which I told you earlier, was one of the first ones I reviewed on youtube and I ripped it to shreds because it was really bad. Uh, lots of things about it were bad the heating, the design. There was almost very few good things about it, and the next year they come out and it's complete redesign. Like that's the biggest design change in the history of the Galaxy lineup. They went from plastic, cheap, thick, to like this sleek thing that was all glass and metal and had just like a beautiful camera change. That was where the paradigm shifted, and I remember people talking about just like what a massive moment it was for Samsung, and I think it was that's where they became kind of the brand, and I think that's actually the year that put LG and HTC and Motorola almost out of business in the Android sector, cause after that, that, samsung just gained so much market share that you slowly saw LG is like we can't compete, htc is like we can't compete and they just get absorbed into different other companies.
Speaker 1:Google's always been able to release their Pixel phones and their Nexus phones because they make billions of dollars from search. They lose money on their hardware. They don't need to make money off hardware, though. They just do it to show people like here's what we think Android should look like. It's really just like a reference for Android. It's not really to sell, like they know. They're not outselling Samsung. They're not going to try, but that's what I think. Tori, what do you think? What year can you remember like seeing people having a lot of Android or Samsung devices?
Speaker 2:Let's see. I would probably say 2014 is probably when I noticed. For me I mostly just saw iPhones everywhere I looked, because I had an iPhone 3 originally, I think in 2013. And by then I think the iPhone 4 was ending. Then I think the iPhone four was ending, going into the iPhone five.
Speaker 2:And I remember going into AT&T and in prior to I just saw all these commercials for Droid and like the cool commercials and stuff and so like. When I sat down I was like hey, I kept seeing this commercial for this HTC One phone, kind of look at it, and I felt like that was like a premium phone compared to what I was seeing my friends have with the iPhone, and so I was sucked into it. But yeah, I immediately after that, you know, I saw Samsung just kind of take off. So when HTC was gone and I couldn't get another HTC phone when I was ready to upgrade I think it was a year or two later the first thing that came to my mind was Samsung, because everywhere I looked it was just Samsung, samsung, samsung, the Galaxy, going on. So I would say somewhere around like 24.
Speaker 1:That's around the time the S6 came out. That was like around those 24, 2014, 2015. It's really unfortunate for hcc because they made two really good phones the m7, the m8 but that was also right when samsung didn't release the s6 and just crushed. But it didn't help. They followed it up with the m9. It was not very good, had heating issues, had some camera issues, and then samsung just like blasted everyone because they just like took the camera to the next level. Their build quality was premium. They started doing the curved glass, which had everyone intrigued, and yeah, back then that was like a really premium, like look that apple didn't have.
Speaker 1:You know, they kind of brought it in a way that they never had before. Okay, so that's our answer there. What's? What was the other question? Dory, you had one more, I think. Yeah, we got a few more queued up, all right.
Speaker 2:Um question dory had one more, I think. Yeah, we got a few more queued up, all right. Um, let's see, if pixel comes out with better uh modem, then samsung could have more problem. So that was just a comment, I think. Oh, here it is. Uh, is there some features for the buds 3 pro in ui 6.1.1, which I don't have for the s24 ultra yet?
Speaker 1:oh so this is a question someone was asking Is there a feature in 6.1.1 on the foldables that implements with the Buds 3 Pro that's not available in 6.1 on the S24 Ultra? The answer is no. They have all the same features if you use the wearable app. I've used them both with the Z Fold 6 and with the Buds 3 Pro, with my foldable and with the S24 Ultra. Absolutely no real changes that I'm aware of in terms of audio quality or feature set. If you look through the wearable app, there's no real changes there. The update that came out to the Buds 3 Pro, which might have been. Was that the other question you had?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the other one was from Luan Buki. What was the fix done on the Buds 3 Pro? I also got mine early, before they went or before they were put on hold.
Speaker 1:Are they offering any adapters for those they sent out? Oh, I think she's talking about the issue with the hardware. So two things the Buds 3 Pro got an update, software update. It was very small, like 8 megabytes. There were really no changes there, they're just stability and battery life fixes. But the thing she's talking about is that they recalled them and they stopped selling them, and the reason they did that was because they noticed the silicon tips were really easy to tear as you were switching them out. They haven't issued a statement yet, but I had asked a couple of people around who've talked to Samsung PR officially and they are saying that eventually they're going to send people a spare replacement set of ear tips who got?
Speaker 1:in on the first wave Now. If you order them now, they're just supposed to be fixed Like they're not as easy to rip. But if you did get a pair in the first wave I have a pair in the first wave as well we should get an email. Samsung is very slow with this. It'll probably be like, who knows, you might get an email like Halloween. They'll be like we're sending you a free pair of ear tips. You're like, oh, that's nice. So you know, if you ripped one of them, you can always order them yourself, or or wait and use one of the bigger ones.
Speaker 1:I think Samsung should also give people a small refund for the inconvenience Cause it's kind of annoying. I've mentioned that to them last year, the relaunch, when there were some issues of people kind of getting orders late, best Buy gave me a $25 gift card for getting my Galaxy Ring late, which I thought was nice. That was appreciated. Samsung should do the same thing because there was a lot of people who got their stuff late from the full launch. I always think brands should do that when there is a problem, so hopefully Samsung will take care of people there All right. So I think that's. Is that everything for the questions. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it for this show. I made a big announcement over on X and, by the way, I apologize for the door slamming. I don't know what's going on today.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about Toru at some point we may have to consider like can we do this on Saturday?
Speaker 2:Maybe we should think about it.
Speaker 1:I don't know, would it work for you? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, maybe we could just come over here, like Saturday, for a couple hours, because there won't be anyone here, yeah, and then we can just record the podcast. Maybe that won't really affect you guys until September, because I did announce over on X we are going to start live streaming on September 13th. So me and Tori will try to figure out. I don't know the doors. I'll have to count the number of door slams. I think there's like 10 today. So we may have to move the podcast to Saturday and then we won't have that. But I'll decide on a schedule. We'll live stream on YouTube the entire thing. So I'll have a chat. You guys can come in and join us if you like, kind of ask questions in real time, because I think people will ask a lot more questions if they can ask them right then and get answers. That's always a better way to go about it. And I'll also have some free prizes and some trivia. I've been wanting to do trivia so what's what?
Speaker 1:basically what we'll basically do is like throughout the show we'll talk about the news, we'll talk about the different segments that we normally do and at the very end, after we do the q a, we'll have like two or or three trivia questions and essentially it'll be stuff from the show. So if you've been listening the whole time, you can put it in the chat. Whoever's first, we will send you the prize. So I'll have a couple of physical prizes, maybe some cases or accessories, and then we'll have some app codes probably as well some weeks, and I think it'll be really fun. I know Droid Life used to do this on their podcast. I, I know Droid Life used to do this on their podcast.
Speaker 2:I totally stole the idea from them.
Speaker 1:So if Tim and Kellen listen to this. Yeah, totally rip that off. It's a great idea though, a way to engage listeners and, I think, give back to people who support the show, so I don't think they'll mind too much. Anyway, that being said, we will see you guys next week, and I want to remind you guys this week to make sure to not stop expanding your galaxy.