SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
Galaxy S25 Ultra Unpacked Preview + One UI 7.0 Beta Evolves
The podcast dives into the exciting features and rumors surrounding the Galaxy S25, highlighting the eventful journey throughout 2024 and expectations for the new year. With a perfect blend of personal experiences and tech insights, the hosts discuss important distinctions between reservations and pre-orders, explore One UI 7 updates, and share their overall excitement for Samsung's upcoming flagship launch.
• Overview of the year-end celebrations and personal experiences
• Insights into the Galaxy S25 launch anticipation
• Explanation of reservations versus pre-orders
• Discussion on expected features of the Galaxy S25
• Examination of One UI 7 beta updates and improvements
• General Samsung news including wearables and smart home tech
• Reflection on the podcast's journey and growing audience
Get your info off the dark web with Aura: https://aura.com/springer
S25 Ultra Mystery Box Sign up: https://laylo.com/springer/NTdpr
Video Podcast on Youtube: https://bit.ly/3yBw3Ro
Follow Jeff on X (Twitter): https://x.com/jspring86az
Follow Torrey on X: https://x.com/T_Martin_23
Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com
Welcome back everybody. This is episode number 27 of the Sammy Goubert podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me, as always, my co-host, tori Tori, say hi, hey, how's it going? And we're back for the final podcast of 2024. Yep, how about that? We started this podcast in June.
Speaker 2:Seems like it was just yesterday that we started this podcast.
Speaker 1:That we dusted off the old microphones, sat down for the first time, hit the record button. But here we are, december 30th 2024, and we got a lot to talk about. Because january 2025 as we turn the calendar to 2024 to 2025, stuff's about to get real in the samsung world because, as you guys know, it's galaxy s launch time and we've got s25 stuff. It's going to start hitting your inbox like crazy. Everybody's going to just be S25, this, s25, that, and today we're going to talk a lot of S25 stuff. We've also still got One UI 7 beta going on. Although Samsung appears to have taken the holidays off, which is good for me, because I got to cover beta 2 and then I got to chill with my family I kept thinking they were going to release Beta 3 and make me do some work, but they never did, so I won't complain about it. Tori, how was your Christmas break?
Speaker 2:So far it's been pretty good. I have one week left, or I guess this week before I'm back to the grind, but you know it's been quite fun and relaxing. Got to spend time with friends, family, my girlfriend yeah, I've seen a lot of movies and my girlfriend is Jewish, so we did Hanukkah instead. Oh, okay, I didn't know that you didn't tell me that I would wish her a happy Hanukkah then too.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I say happy holidays, for me it's like Merry Christmas, happy holidays. I don't get into that whole politically correct stuff. People know if I Merry Christmas, happy Holidays, I don't get into that whole. You know politically correct stuff, like people know. If I say Merry Christmas, of course I mean like if you don't celebrate Christmas, happy whatever it is that you celebrate.
Speaker 1:Like, I mean it's not personal, because it's like if you were to name a holiday that you celebrate even if you say Hanukkah then you leave out another holiday, so you can't name all of them. You know, happy Holidays is a great way to say it too, but I don't really think that that should offend anyone. That's just my personal opinion about that. You know what movie I haven't seen? Sonic 3.
Speaker 1:Me and Tori went to take my four-year-old son to Sonic 3 and we watched the first 25 minutes of it, and then my son was scared of Shadow, the bad guy at the beginning of the movie, and so my wife and I had to leave with him because he did not want to stay for the whole movie. That is the risk of taking three four-year-olds to movies. He's finished four or five movies completely and I really didn't think this movie would scare him. But for whatever reason, you really don't know, unfortunately, what is going to scare a little kid. You really don't have any idea until you take them. So I didn't get to see it. But I mean I'm going to go back and see it myself at some point, cause I heard it was pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did and again want to go back. Let me know I'll definitely go see it again. Okay, we can definitely see it.
Speaker 1:I would really like to see it. Uh, and nicole's brother, he knows we like to go to the movies he gave me and nicole for our christmas present and our card. Christmas card he gave us three $25 gift cards to harkin. So nice, I got some harkins gift cards now that I can utilize to see that movie that I already paid to see yeah, you can't be mad at your kid right, it's life it's a it's okay.
Speaker 1:Um, that's why you don't kick your kid to see a movie that you really, really want to see. I mean, I wanted to see this one but, like you know, don't take—I mean obviously for other reasons. You shouldn't take your kids to see R-rated movies about your four-year-olds.
Speaker 1:I'm not endorsing that, so don't do that, but anyway, yeah. So I didn't really get to see Sonic 3. I saw the first 25 minutes, which I thought engaging. Yeah, I got to see Jim Carrey's first appearance in the movie. It's pretty funny, as always. I'm big. I'm a big Jim Carrey fan.
Speaker 2:I was a big Jim Carrey fan.
Speaker 1:I like I like his work, whether or not people some people are kind of a polarizing guy because some people don't like his style of comedy, but I've always liked it all the way back to in living color. That's how old I am. Got his start on in living color. I mean, I was very young. I probably shouldn't have been watching it because I think I was like six or seven, but hey, you know, my parents were irresponsible.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just kidding. I turned out Okay, yeah, no, no, no, no, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. Um, definitely down to go see. I wanted to see the fire inside the boxing one, so maybe we can try to see that as well.
Speaker 1:I had pushed the mic away for a second. Really got to be careful with that. I had to clear my throat and then I forgot to bring it back. These are the dangers of podcasting.
Speaker 2:People don't understand our trials and tribulations.
Speaker 1:But yes, I do want to see that. The fire inside the boxing movie about the female boxer who wins the Olympic gold from Flint Michigan, I remember right, called from Flint Michigan, I remember right. True story Real life story is based on. I forgot the girl's name but I do want to see that a lot. It seems like a really great piece. That seems like something that's like most of the stuff I like. Usually isn't like going to win best picture, but that seems like something that could be nominated like in the Oscar realm of best picture, so it seems like a really good one.
Speaker 1:But overall, you know, I got to thank Tori here in our last podcast of the year, not only for being the co-host of this show, because when I wanted to do this show I really didn't have a long list of people that I wanted to bring on to co-host. I mean, luckily Tori was like my fifth choice and he said no, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:No, tori was my first choice choice and, uh, I think his perspective of being a non like tech geek, tech enthusiast, someone who reads the news every day on samsung websites or android websites has really brought a lot of perspective. But also tori, since we've been hanging out together more, we've seen a lot of movies this year oh yeah, a lot I had seen, maybe two movies in the previous five years since I got married and had kids.
Speaker 1:not my wife's fault or kids fault, fault, just you know, life happens and I've seen probably 15 movies since June since we started this podcast.
Speaker 1:So, this podcast had unintended consequences. Not only did we get to bring you guys amazing Samsung coverage and conversation had a lot of fun doing that but we also got to see a lot of cool movies together, which was enjoyable. So let's transition into the news, and it's going to be a Galaxy S25 palooza today. We got a few other things too, but there's a ton of stuff about the Galaxy S25 series, as you can imagine, because, by the rumors, we are currently only about three weeks away from Samsung's launch event, which is supposed to be January 22nd 2025 in San Jose, California, and we should be there live. We finally, it looks like, are on the media list this year. That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1:Anyway, say who knows, no takesie-backsies, guys Don't go back on your word, but hopefully I'll be there live to cover the event. Should be a lot of fun. Reservations are probably going to start next week for the S25 series in the US. This is just based on history. This is not officially confirmed information. I'm just telling you based historically, on every year, samsung usually opens reservations two weeks before they start the launch event and pre-orders, and I want to take a brief moment because I think this is something that a lot of people may not understand. Maybe some of the people who listen to the podcast do, but we get a decent number of new listeners now. We've actually been growing our listener base. So if you're new to our podcast and maybe you're thinking about ordering an S25 or you found us that way, there's a difference between the reservations and the pre-orders and I think a lot of people who are maybe buying a device as a casual purchaser someone who doesn't read the Samsung news every day would ask what is the difference between a reservation and a pre-order, because they sound very similar. The reservation basically all you do is put in your name and email and tell Samsung you're interested in the phones. That happens about two weeks before the event takes place, so probably sometime like we're recording this on Monday, the 30th, probably like next Monday, the 6th, or maybe even the 7th Monday or Tuesday the reservations will go live and you don't have to commit to buying the phone to reserve it. So you're just going to put in your name, your email, hit enter and then you'll say that you're interested. Samsung will be able to email you information about the phones when they're live.
Speaker 1:The reason you should do this is two reasons. One, if you pre-reserve your phone, put your name and email in, samsung will give you a bonus credit from them to use if you decide to pre-order. Usually it's like $50. So you'll get $50 bonus credit if you fill in the reservations form, which you can use on launch day towards anything you want on Samsung's website. So that's the first reason to go about doing the reservation form. The second reason to go about doing the reservation form is that you can also get our mystery box as well. If you do the reservation form, we will send out a link to everyone who signed up for the mystery box list when reservations go live. Fill out the reservation with your email and then, on launch day, use our new link that we send out that day to pre-order your phone with the same email and that's how you qualify for a mystery box. So those are two good reasons. You get $50 from Samsung. You get a free case, cleaning kit, desktop phone stand, a bunch of other cool stuff from us as well for pre-ordering.
Speaker 1:Now a lot of people ask do you need a credit card to reserve? The answer is no, you do not. Samsung does not take any payment information to reserve your device. So when it goes live, tori will go and put his name and email in and sign up because he's going to buy. Well, I'm going to buy Tori, I'm going to upgrade his S22 Ultra to an S25 Ultra. I'm going to turn it in. I'm going to do some magic. He's going to hand me an S22 Ultra. I'm going to go abracadabra, I'm going to turn it into an S25 Ultra Boom so that we can talk about it here on the podcast. So Tori's going to sign up for that. He's not going to put in any credit card, paypal, anything like that. No payment information. So if you don't buy the phone, nothing happens. You just't lose any money. So it's really no risk. Offer to do the reservation.
Speaker 1:Now the pre-order is completely different, right, because the pre-order, you have to put in your information and actually buy the phone. Your card's going to get charged. That's what's going to happen on, and here's something that actually leads us to the very first news story about the S25 Ultra. In the middle of this explanation, there's a rumor and I haven't even heard this from any of my contacts or anything yet, but there's a rumor floating around. I think it was Financial Times in Korea. We reported on it, sammy Guru.
Speaker 1:Samsung is considering not pushing the devices to be live for pre-order on the same day as the event. That would be a huge departure from what they've done every other year, so you should at least anticipate this could happen. Samsung may put the devices up either on launch day, the 22nd, if that's the event day, or the rumor from Korea Times is two days later, on the 24th that Friday. They might wait to put the devices up. Now I can think in my mind a good reason why they should do this, and it might actually be beneficial for us. Their website always crashes and is an absolute disaster on launch day because everyone is trying to hammer the website at the same time, right when the event's going on, and that obviously creates a bandwidth problem. They might be trying to open them at a certain time so they can prepare the servers and kind of manage the traffic, which could be good, but you should be aware that you might not be able to buy the phone on the 22nd.
Speaker 1:Of course, the best thing to do to make sure that you know bookmarksammygurucom. We'll keep you up to date. Sign up for the mystery box list. We'll be sending out the links as soon as they're ready so you can buy through our link and get your box. But I just want to prepare people for the fact that that could happen. What do you think about that, tori? Maybe then pushing back the pre-order date 48 hours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think that'll probably be a good idea, just basing on, because I've only had the experience of the foldable launch of this current year and I mean the site was crashing, people couldn't get on. You were busy trying to put out fires and redirect people and help people and you know it's just, I'm quite a fireman, yes, you are, you know, but it was just like a hectic morning and you know people are just really just trying to get in and get their orders and get the devices that they wanted, and so you know this could really help in preparing for servers. So if they do do this, I know there will probably still be some people who are like I want to buy it on today. I mean, it's going to be weird for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it actually will be good for me because if I go to the press event I can now actually peacefully cover the event and all the news without having to either train my wife to answer all the emails from people who have issues ordering for the mystery boxes and getting people the links, or trying to do it myself while I'm also live tweeting and covering that. I don't know how I would do that. I haven't even figured that out yet.
Speaker 1:This does kind of make it difficult because I mean, luckily again, fingers crossed we're on the press list. We will know, hopefully in the next week or so, which one of these two things is actually true. Now I won't be able to tell you guys, unfortunately, because I'll be under embargo, but hopefully I will know ahead of time which day things will actually be preordered.
Speaker 2:I don't know right now, so I mean, I couldn't tell you if I did, but I don't know right now if it's the 22nd or the 24th, but hopefully I will know.
Speaker 1:Maybe by the next time we record the podcast, you know, during CS I'll have some kind of idea, cause if not, you know, it's going to stink for me because I'd have to figure out how I'm going to get mystery box stuff out while covering Cause. I'm planning to go to the event and some meeting guys will be writing it up. But anyway, that's what's going on with the pre-orders themselves. Some interesting news and also for that helps clarify a little bit people the reservations versus the pre-order. I think it's a good way to do it, but it's also confusing because some people have no idea what the difference is. And so, basically, reservation, no commitment, don't need your credit card. Pre-order, that's when you're actually buying the phone. Essentially, they don't charge your card until after they ship it, but you're actually buying the phone. Essentially, they don't charge your card until after they ship it, but you're still getting charged. You know at some point that the pre-order is where you actually place your order. But to get our mystery box you need to do both of those things reserve with us, pre-order and then submit your shipping address and your verification, which is just a screenshot of your order. We don't need your billing info or anything like that, because I don't want anyone sensitive info not trying to steal your info. Sometimes people are like you don't need your billing info or anything like that, because I don't want anyone sensitive info not trying to steal your info. Sometimes people are like you don't need my info, do you? No, I don't. I just want to see the devices that you ordered um, so that we can verify, because otherwise we have people trying to scam us, yeah, saying oh, can I get a mystery box? And they didn't order anything. Why they would want a case or a phone they didn't order, I don't know. I guess try to sell it for 15 20 on ebay, but we don't want to get scammed either, because otherwise then we can't keep doing the mystery box program. Um, another free perk that you may get with your galaxy s25 device came out. You could get free gemini advanced from google with your galaxy s25 series pre-order. Potentially might be something that goes on past the pre-order.
Speaker 1:Uh, this news came out. Some people probably would not be happy about this, cause they'll be like oh no, google is furthering their invasion of Samsung. We talked about this with the messages and a lot of other stuff. People really hate Google. It's come to my attention.
Speaker 1:I made that video and now Google's going off on all my Samsung phones. How ironic. Um, I made that video about Samsung messages losing RCS, which is going to happen on January 6th just like six days away from now yeah, seven days away from now. It's going to happen next Monday on Verizon and people were so mad that video has gotten like 400,000 views. So whenever you get really a lot of views on YouTube, you really get to see some interesting quote unquote comments, because people really let it all hang out. When you get that many views, you're going to find some interesting quote-unquote comments, because people really let it all hang out. When you get that many views, you're going to find some people who are angry, and there's a lot of people who are angry. They do not like Google, that really think they're like trying to implant some chips in their brains and stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's so weird, yeah, so anyway.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you don't like Google, then just ignore this. But if you do like Google and you want to try it, gemini advanced uh, you might get a free Gemini advanced subscription, which I don't remember how, what the value is on that, it's maybe it's 48, $50 or something. If you were to pay for it. Um, but yes, this does kind of solidify further Samsung and Google's partnership. But I don't know why anyone is surprised. I mean, google makes Android and Android is the operating system that one UI runs on top of. Samsung doesn't make their own operating system. So why would you be surprised that Google and Samsung are continuing their partnership?
Speaker 1:My take is you know, if you're on the Internet, your information is going to someone, so you just can decide who you want to trust. And I guess if that's not Google, that's okay. But they're responsible for almost anything you touch online in some capacity. So, even places you don't think you're giving your information to Google, you probably are. They have so many partnerships with searches and ads and everything right. Pretty much, if you do something online, you're giving your information to either Google, meta or Apple or Microsoft. For sure, those four, those are your options and most likely, as hard as you might try to avoid it, it's like you're going to probably touch one piece of information that you send to all of those places. So I don't know. I don't have my tinfoil hat on about Google. I mean, I'm an Android fan in general as well as a Samsung fan, but I don't know what do you think? You haven't used Gemini much because you don't have Gemini Advanced, but would you give it a go if you get free Gemini Advanced with your S25 Ultra?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's what I was just looking up, I think you get a one-month free trial and it's $20 per month for the subscription.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:really yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, Is it really yeah?
Speaker 2:We got all kinds of bloopers today because I keep moving my mic away to take a drink, but is it really $20 a month?
Speaker 1:Let me see. Yeah, yeah, I have it for free because I bought a Pixel 9 Pro, so I had no idea. Google One oh, that's right, because you get storage too through Google One oh, that's right, because you get storage too through Google One. So if you want the Google One, that might be the only way you can get it right now. Is it really the only way? It might be? The only way you can get it right now is through the Google One AI plan? I think it is that's crazy, man. So anyway, so technically, this is like essentially a $240. But the question is, I guess, are they going to give you the two terabytes a month of Google Storage, Because that's also big? I don't know about that Because I also have a Google.
Speaker 2:They'll probably just give you the Google Gemini, yeah, and not the storage, that kind of lose, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because part of that is a big part of the value, because I have a Google One plan the two terabyte. One plan the two terabyte. I still don't pay anything for it, cause I bought a Chromebook that gave me 36 months of the two terabyte plan for free.
Speaker 1:I actually bought the Chromebook only for that plan, cause the Chromebook was $500. It was a Samsung one, and the plan the two terabyte Google one storage would have cost me about 700 over the same lifetime. So I got a discount plus I got a free Chromebook. Basically, um, but yeah, that's crazy though that's, so, that's really the only way you can get it, so I would definitely try it. You were saying, though, you you would give it a shot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, especially that way. I mean cause, like currently, if I'm looking at it as like a just an average, like user of just most media stuff, $20 is a pretty high price tag on top of all the other subscription things that I'm paying for, and in my mind I'm like wait, why, you know, can I just use like chat, gbt or you know, or some other things? So, you know, if, if I was able to get it for free, um, then yeah, I would give it a try, Um. But you know, just overall, though, I think Google in itself, with the Samsung phones I think that's what drove me to want to get a Samsung phone was just having the accessibility to use Google products on my phone so seamlessly, you know, I think it is for a lot of people too, yeah, I mean obviously the people with the tinfoil hats.
Speaker 1:Put your tinfoil hat on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people with the tinfoil hats, put your tinfoil hat on. Yeah, but the reason I like gemini and I've used it because I've had it since I got the advanced plan uh add-on with the pixel 9 pro purchase I don't know if it's the pro or the pro full, but I have a subscription from buying a pixel phone this year. I've used it and the main difference to me versus chat, gpt or claude or one of those other ai services that we talked about when we had max we Weinbach on the show, is that it can integrate with all my Google stuff. So obviously, if you're really paranoid of Google, that makes you even more paranoid because you're like, oh no, google knows everything about me. But for me it can integrate with my Google Keep notes that I have for my research that I'm doing for stuff for the website. It can integrate with my Google Sheets, my stuff that I keep track of finances for the business. It can integrate with my Google photos that I have from my personal stuff. It can pull stuff from everywhere.
Speaker 1:So if I want to ask, jim and I advanced a question it knows so much stuff about me contextually that just a random chat bot's not going to know. You know I don't use chat. I don't use chat GPT photos. So chat GPT is not going to know personal context about me and the stuff I like to do or vacations my family and I have gone on. They're not going to know that kind of context. But if I want to research, like ideas for an upcoming vacation I want to plan a vacation for the family Google knows where I've went in the past so it knows where I might like to go. It could give me some ideas and they might actually be good. If I ask ChatGPT or Claude, there's going to be general ideas. They're not going to be specific to me. That might actually resonate with what I've done in the past. So that's something I like and you can get a lot of more valuable help from an AI chat assistant if it has that context.
Speaker 1:Which is why I'm also excited about the next generation Bixby, which is supposed to be more AI-based. Stop it, bixby. All these chatbots go off when we start talking about AI. That's why I try to avoid it on the show because I just have to swipe away all these chat bots. But the next generation of it is supposed to have basically built-in Galaxy Eye features and those could be arriving with the S25 series as well. So I'm really excited to hear what Samsung has in store, because obviously I use my Samsung phone a lot for everything, just like I use Google for everything. So, theoretically, if B has AI you know B has AI then it would also be able to give me a lot of contextual information, because it obviously knows my usage patterns of my phone. It knows about a lot about my files and stuff that I do.
Speaker 1:So I mean, if you want to use AI and you want to get the most out of it, you have to be willing to let it use your data, because otherwise it's not going to be able to do much for you as an assistant. It'll just be able to let it use your data because otherwise it's not going to be able to do much for you as an assistant. It'll just be able to answer general knowledge questions, but you can already do that with google search. So unless you, unless you want to use it, either it's just a general knowledge or you want to use it for something like programming, which it works great for that, like if you want to have it write a piece of code for you. I've used that for my websites. Like I don't know a lot of HTML, I know minimal. I'm like here, write a piece of HTML that does this for my website. Claude can do that, chatgpt can do that Boom, it's great. But if you want contextual AI assistant personal for you, you have to give over some of your data.
Speaker 1:What else we got? So much S25 stuff. S25 Ultra may feature car crash detection. Leak files from Android Authority. They went through an APK teardown, found this out. Could be very interesting. Car crash detection is already on a lot of other phones. Of course the iPhone has this. It's not like a sexy feature. People always get upset when I say sexy about phones. Yeah, you can say sexy Phone features can be sexy. Yeah, you know like, this feature is very sexy. You know, like, if you had like I don't know like, think of something that might be sexy. Like if you had an S Pen that could also double as a laser pointer, that would be a sexy feature. That would be.
Speaker 1:They could put a laser pointer on the other end of the S Pen I just gave Samsung a million dollar, billion dollar idea. But that would be, they could put a laser pointer on the other end of the S Pen. I just gave Samsung a billion-dollar idea, but that would be a sexy feature, and so this is not really like. No one's going to be like wow, I bought my S25 Ultra because it has car crash detection. I don't think anyone's going to say that.
Speaker 2:No, not necessarily.
Speaker 1:But it's certainly a great safety feature to have, and if you get into a bad car crash, that could save your life and you'd probably be pretty stoked about it. Then, like, if you got into a near-fatal car crash and it got people there to help you a lot faster, you'd be like well, car crash detection is a very sexy feature, jeff. What's wrong? So this is not a massive piece of information in terms of is it going to sway your preorder one way or another, but it's one more thing that Apple had that Samsung didn't have, and it's always good to make sure we're not behind Apple in any place. I don't want to see us behind Apple, so I'm glad to see that happen.
Speaker 1:Uh, some bad news for our friends who are planning to pre-order the little brothers of the S25 Ultra, the S25 and S25 Plus. They may miss out on the 50 megapixel ultra wide camera upgrade that the S25 Ultra is getting. Oh man, that's, that's rough. I mean, honestly, as much as I'm trying to be out here wanting people to get some mystery boxes, I can't tell you anybody they should buy an s25 or s25 plus, because at this point, the s25 ultra was already only getting one camera upgrade, and it's the ultra wide, and now the s25 and s25 plus are rumored to miss on that. So basically, they have the same camera as the s24 and the s24 plus, and the only thing I can think is I mean, why are they even selling these phones at this point? Because we've already heard, the S25 Slim is rumored to have an even better camera than the S25 Ultra.
Speaker 1:They're just like making such a disaster of the camera, like landscape on the S series, like no one is going to know, like what has the best camera. And then no one is going to think they should buy the S25. With the S25 Plus they're basically going to be like these are like mid-rangers. People are going to basically I should just buy an S24 FE at this point because it's the same hardware and the screen's a little more high resolution, but that's not enough of a differentiator for the average consumer. Samsung is really just relying on the fact that, like in the US, people mostly only buy flagships. A lot of people don't buy mid-range phones in the US and there's one reason for that. We've talked about it many times Installment plans on carriers. Because when people see, oh, it's only $35 a month, they're like, oh, it's nothing For 36 months. I mean, that is something that's $1,200. It is, it's not nothing, right? But people say that they oh, yeah, it's not much money, but it is a lot of money.
Speaker 1:But in other countries, you know, like, for instance, our writers, our two writers who write on the Korean time zone they're both from India. In India, a lot of people buy mid-rangers because they don't have subsidized carriers where you can get an S-line flagship for $30 a month over 36 months. They got to pay for it up front for the most part. Sometimes there's some subsidies, but not as many. I was talking with Sumit, our lead writer, about that last night, and that's why Samsung really can't go after some of those markets as aggressively, because there's not as much profit margin. They can't sell as many flagships In the US, though. People are just like oh yeah, $30 a month, let's buy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's get it you guys going to give us some pre-order credits and like, oh, I'll get that mystery box.
Speaker 2:I'll get that mystery box from Jeff. It's only $30. Yeah, it's only $30.
Speaker 1:Times 36. Yeah, I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 2:I know Don't even worry about the 36. I mean, just sign on the dotted line.
Speaker 1:Just sign on the dotted line.
Speaker 1:Here's a digital pen, this new contract. So I mean, that's the thing is that I can't tell anyone to buy an S25 or S25 plus. It's. It's not a good idea. Just don't do it. I mean don't do it. And the funny thing is too. Here's another thing I want to mention. I was going to save this for the end of the show Someone this morning. You know, sometimes I have to, sometimes I have a bone to pick and the podcast is the place where I can do that. This is the place where I can pick a bone.
Speaker 1:Someone commented on my YouTube channel saying that they were not going to buy the Galaxy S25 Ultra, despite me trying to market the S25 Ultra nonstop. Let me find the comment. I'm going to read it. I don't know where anyone got this from, because I haven't tried to market the S25 Ultra to anybody. I have absolutely no idea where this came from. So it's right here. It says in this comment Jeff, despite your effort to market the S25 Ultra to us with that minimal upgrade, I am not buying the S25 Ultra. I've never said for anyone to buy it. We do the.
Speaker 1:I think maybe sometimes you will misconstrue the mystery boxes as an endorsement of the phones, like I do it for every launch. It doesn't endorse the phone. I'm not saying it's good. If you don't want the S5 Ultra, don't buy it. There'll be enough people who will want to buy it. Who will get a mystery box. It's not going to hurt us. I promise I'm going to get him a phone.
Speaker 1:Tori will do one. We'll do one on the podcast. We'll have a written review. I'll do a video review. I'll tell you if it's good after I used it. I have no idea if it's good right now because I haven't used the final software I don't know anything about, like the camera software. I don't know if they've improved the computational photography. I can just tell you the rumors about the hardware and I can tell you whether or not it seems like a good value.
Speaker 1:And for the S25 and the S25 Plus, with no camera upgrades, it just seems like why would you buy those devices at all? Basically, I think you only have two choices when it comes to the S25 series. You either buy the Ultra or you buy the Slim, which you're probably going to have to wait a few months because I don't think it's coming out right away. So you buy an Ultra or you wait a few months and buy a Slim in like March or April, because those are the only compelling options. Because it looks like the Slim, for some reason, is going to have an improved camera. It looks like it might even have improved primary, which is really going to make a lot of Ultra buyers angry. I hope that Samsung has thought that through, because if they come out with a Slim in April and it has an upgraded primary sensor, those people who bought the ultra are going to go bananas they're going to go ballistic emailing them.
Speaker 1:They're going to want refunds, exchanges, because you see how angry people were when they bought the z-fold 6 in july and then this phone came out in korea and china in october. I have the z-fold se right now in my hand. This phone came out in k and China in October and that wasn't even a global release and people were absolutely upset. They're absolutely upset about it, even though it wasn't a global release. And so if they release the Ultra globally and they're like oh, we got no primary camera upgrade for you guys. Sorry, couldn't do it this year. And then in April they're like hey, check it out, galaxy S25 Slim. It's slimmer and it's got a better camera than the Ultra on it. People are going to be like Samsung, we're done with you. Everyone's going to be switching to apple. I hope they've thought this through. I hope there's some you know gotcha where this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:But there is a rumor. We saw a rumor that samsung is going to put the new alop sensor at uh into the s25 slim and they're going to unveil it at ces next week. I'll be there so I'm going to find out if. Well, they probably won't tell us if they're going to put it in the s25, but they'll talk about the sensor and I'll be able to cover it. What do you think, tori, if they release the Ultra in January, they only do an ultra-wide upgrade no primary camera sensor and then they put a new primary camera sensor on the Slim, are people going to go crazy? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean for me, I feel like a slap in the face. I mean, like here I am some person you know, like if I was just like an average consumer going out to buy the phone, um, if I just recently, or you know, even if I have like the, um, the 23, um, like what would compel me enough to buy the lower two tiers, and then if I were to buy the ultra, you know, because I know a lot of people like to do the pay what?
Speaker 1:30, $30 a month for 36 months, even though the price increase this year will probably be $40 a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably about $40.
Speaker 1:So hopefully you don't mind that extra $10 times 36.
Speaker 2:Yeah but you know, I know a lot of people still do it. I mean, even if I was in that you know situation, I would do it too. But then do it too. But then, yeah, like what? Two months later or three months later, you're going to release a better version of all three phones that just released. Like then why would I even waste time? I just wait the three more months. Um, because now I'm stuck with this phone for at least another three or so years you know.
Speaker 1:That's why it's going to be interesting to see how they handle this. Are they going to talk about the slim and unpacked? And, and if they do, what are they going to say about it? Because you can't say, oh, look at this thing, it's coming in three months and oh, by the way, it has a better camera than the thing we want you to pay $1,400 for today. People are going to be like then wait, why am I paying $1,400 today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait, three months which, which again, like, again, like the average user, I mean, they're already very, um, you know, like I see, skeptical of just making new phones. You know, buying new phones, like you know, like the like, like most average consumers, put a lot of time and thought into the next phone that they're going to get exactly.
Speaker 1:This is like an event for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a it's like a real event, like a lot, lot of um, you know, with family and friends of my girlfriends coming in, like a lot of them are Samsung users and they they know about the podcast I've been turning them onto and stuff, so like they've been coming and asking me, like my thoughts, but you know, like they have, um, you know, a lot of questions and things that they weigh on and so Make sure they hit the link in the description to sign up for those mystery boxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I haven't done them all about it, but you know like it's just more to like like a reflection of, yeah, like most average consumers, they put like a lot of thought into buying a phone and so, with that on the horizon, I even have to think there has to be even some, you know, skepticalism with uh, some of our viewers and listeners uh, who, um, are average samsung consumers. I mean like it to to some degree. I mean like why would they also buy the 25 ultra or the uh and then turn around and buy the slim? Yeah, I mean this is.
Speaker 1:This is the reason why we need Tori on the show, because for me it's like I'm not going to get angry because I do this for a living, so I'm just going to buy the Ultra and then three months later I'll buy the Slim and I'll just keep both of them because I use them for work. They're business expenses.
Speaker 2:I'm going to write them off, so I don't care.
Speaker 1:These aren't my personal. I mean I enjoy using them. It's still fun for me, it's still a hobby, but like I can write these off on my taxes and it's going to save me money on my taxes, so it's good because it's justifiable business expense. I cover Samsung phones for a living. They are Samsung phones, I'm going to get them regardless. So for me it's kind of hard to contextual,200 to $1,400 phone three months later and their carrier is not going to let them trade in the one they bought in January to get the one in April, at least for two years yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't do that. You don't get a three-month upgrade opportunity. So I really am curious. This is going to be one of the most interesting things about the Unpacked event It'll. It'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:More interesting since it should be my first one where I'm there in person to see how does samsung, how do they handle this? Because obviously they have to have some kind of plan for, like, are we going to tell people they're going to be upgrades? Are we going to differentiate them in somehow? Um, obviously the s pen won't be in the slim. Yeah, but do I really want a camera? That's worse. With an s penpen, then you have to make people choose and you kind of cannibalize your sales. This seems like they're now going back to separating out the s-line and the note line, which was a rumor that they would do that. Remember how we used to have an s-line, then we had a note series. Seems like we're just going back to that again because then, like, the ultra will be the note and then the slim will be the original, proper s phone. It's like everything is just.
Speaker 2:You know, we're going back to the future or back to the past I know, I mean, I don't know, they they need to get the camera thing I, I think, situated. I mean, like, uh, most average people that I talk to mean kind of like what we said before, people want, you know, upgraded battery and camera, and camera is a very big thing that a lot of average people look at, and so if the camera quality is not going to be, you know, greater on one phone versus the other, I mean like you really are going to kind of cannibalize sales, because that is something that I know a lot of average people look at, um, and so I I really hope, uh, that the cameras are but maybe what if they?
Speaker 2:do something crazy.
Speaker 1:What if it's like everyone? I mean, this is almost impossible at this point because we've seen so many leaks that are reliable. What if they just kept everything so locked down and they're like, oh guys, we're wrong. S35 Ultra does have a primary camera upgrade and it's the same one that's in the Slim. We just got you so now the Ultra is Ultra and they're like what Boy, that's it. We just dropped a bomb on you. That would be like a one more thing from Steve Jobs during the Apple keynote.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's going to happen, but if that happened it'll blow my mind.
Speaker 1:I literally wouldn't know what to say If TM row is like it turns out, the slim and the ultra actually do have the same camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then he started just doing a little dance and, just like you know, shove it in the media's face. I highly doubt that will occur, though, because we've seen spec sheets. The phones have passed through certification agencies. You can't fake those. When they go through the certification agencies it has to be the real specs, and when those leak, I mean there's really no doubting those, because they can't send fake stuff to the certification agencies. We have a bunch more S25 stuff that's come out. Let me just tell you some different things that have come out and you tell me how excited you are about that on a one 1 to 5 scale.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you some stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, you ready. The first one is that, and also, if you don't know what it is, tell me that too. You're excited about it. 1 to 10. 1 is not excited, 10 is very excited. Or you don't know what that is, Got it. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will apparently not feature upgraded haptic feedback.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I know from like playing video games that's like the vibration, the touch, feedback, oh okay.
Speaker 1:How excited. How much do you care about?
Speaker 2:that haptic feedback We'll not have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll not have it. How much do you care about the feel of haptic feedback when you press keys on your phone?
Speaker 2:I would say 50-50. I mean, whenever I'm on a phone and it does have the haptic feedback, I'm like, ooh, that's kind of nice. But I mean, if it didn't have it I would be fine with that.
Speaker 1:It's going to have it. It's just people think that the motor is not substantial enough.
Speaker 2:I disagree, do you?
Speaker 1:have a problem with haptic feedback on the S22 Ultra. No, I really don't have a problem. I don't know. There's a lot of people who've been like I mean, it could always be better. People say the iphone is the gold standard of haptic feedback. Even a lot of android people say this. I mean, the iphone is such garbage in a lot of other ways I wouldn't know because I don't use mine enough to try it, I guess. But I don't have a problem with the s24 ultra's haptic feedback so I don't know. I would rate that as like a three out of ten for me on the importance scale. If they blow some other stuff out of the water, I'm not going to be upset about that.
Speaker 1:Galaxy S25 Ultra might not include the ability to find your device while it is offline. That is a critical theft feature that actually is in on the S24 Ultra. It's provided by Google. So those of you who hate Google, you'll be glad to know Google won't be able to find your phone while it's offline. But who hate Google, you'll be glad to know Google won't be able to find your phone while it's offline. But what do you think about that? Do you think they potentially could remove this from the S25 Ultra. It might be invisible if it's offline.
Speaker 2:No, that needs to be there. I think there's just so many instances and like even working at like a school where, like things go missing like all the time, like you know, people being able to find stuff, even if it goes offline, I think it would be a very important feature and, come on, we're entering 2025. I think we should be there.
Speaker 1:Now here's two good positive ones. You ready for this? Yep, the Galaxy S24 Ultra's brightness could be even brighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It could be so bright that outdoors it could potentially scorch your retinas. I mean not literally, that's just a little bit hyperbole. 3,000 nits of peak brightness, according to Android Authority.
Speaker 2:What do you?
Speaker 1:think about brightness upgrades. I mean just on any phone.
Speaker 2:I don't know, because I use dark mode just about for like everything.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean when you're outdoors, like in the Arizona sun, it just helps you see it a little better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true I would say. I mean, I don't want to be scorching my retinas. No, you don't, but I'll give it like a 7 out of 10. 7 out of 10. 7 out of 10. Yeah, because sometimes especially I'll say mid-June, mid-july from outside and it's very sunny, it is a little hard to see sometimes. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:That Arizona sun will get on you. You don't want your retina scorched though that's just a little bit of hyperbole for me, they won't do that to you, I promise. I posted that on X and I said that Someone's like. I don't want my retina scorched. Just calm down, they won't do it. I promise, I don't want that Galaxy S25 Ultra and this is the one I'm most excited about personally gets Gorilla Armor 2 with improved anti-reflection.
Speaker 2:So that's the glass, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I've talked about the S24 Ultra. I was charging mine over here and it has this anti-reflective coating on it. Let me actually see if I can show you and you can notice. Like if you look at this phone versus this phone, look at how the reflections are much more substantial on the Z Fold Special Edition.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This phone just looks blacker on the front.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does, even with light.
Speaker 1:That's because of the anti-reflective coating. What do you think about that? Is that a feature that?
Speaker 2:kind of gets you excited. 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:Because that's super useful, like when you're trying to view your screen outdoors at night, when you're trying to read something on it, or just when it's sitting on my desk, and it doesn't annoy me as much because I don't have to see the reflections and the nasty fingerprints that are on there Not that my fingers are nasty Everyone gets fingerprints.
Speaker 2:You just want to see it be nice and classy all the time.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So not only do you get better scratch and drop protection, you also get although it's probably see the thing about drop protection. What a lot of people don't realize is drop protection and scratch protection are inversely proportional. When you increase the drop protection, you usually decrease your scratch protection. So when a glass gets more drop resistant from cracking, it actually gets easier to scratch. So we'll have to see about that. Hopefully it's not too easy to scratch, but you get improved. You know drop protection from the glass but you also get the anti-reflection. It's upgraded. That's a big one. I personally really like that one. That's one that I'm really looking forward to. And then the last one which and then the last one which you may not know what it is the Galaxy S25 series will support seamless updates. Do you know what seamless updates are?
Speaker 2:Seamless updates. I had to take a guess. It'll probably be like it'll just update, like on its own.
Speaker 1:Kind of yeah. So you know how, like on your Galaxy phone, when you install an update, you have to actually wait for it to update. You can't do anything with your phone With seamless updates which the google pixel has. You can basically let it install in the background while you're still doing other stuff okay, and the update will install. You don't have to stop and stop using 10 out of 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it always like. It always picks like whenever it's always like updates when you're like trying to go somewhere like I've got to navigate somewhere yeah, that's really important.
Speaker 1:It's like sorry, we've got to be shut down for seven minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like Rebooting. So now I've got to sit in a parking lot. I've had that happen to me several times.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, seamless updates, I think a lot of consumers average consumers don't know what they are, but they're going to be thrilled when they get laptops like you, don't have to stop through your updates, like when it says rebooting. I hate that. It's one of the reasons that I sometimes don't like windows, because sometimes the updates take too long. Although I do love my galaxy book 5 pro 360, I will say if it had better video editing I would consider moving from my macbook pro because it has such good integration with my samsung phones. I've been using this thing for like four months now. It's, it's fantastic. I mean, it's really good.
Speaker 1:Um, I would consider moving from the macbook. The macbook just has crazy more power in terms of video editing and since I edit 4k videos every day, it's not really possible to move over. And the battery life combined with video editing on the mac like I can edit 4k video for 12 hours off a charger like yeah, nothing else is close because of apple silicon. But if eventually snapdragon or someone figures out how to make a Samsung laptop have a lot of video power, you know, editing power and also crazy battery life, I would switch I used to be, you know more for to the Mac side for desktop operating or laptop, but I mean because of the Samsung phone. I'm never going to an iPhone full time obviously. So I would love having the integration because. So I would love having the integration because, you know, using my Samsung phone with my Mac, I have to do some tricks to try to move files between them.
Speaker 1:So no AirDrop. So it's a lot easier on the Samsung phone. I just use QuickShare to get it done. Anyway, that is pretty much the first half. We talked about S25 stuff. We're really excited about the S25. It's going to be fantastic. Everyone's looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:If you haven't yet, make sure you go and check out the Mystery Box program, of course, if you're going to be ordering one, and to tell you more about the Mystery Box program, here's the sponsor of today's podcast. It's me. This episode of the Sammy Guru podcast is brought to you by Sammy Guru. That's right. We sponsored our own podcast this week and we did that because I want to remind you guys if you're going to be ordering a Galaxy S25 device this January 2025, to make sure you sign up for our mystery box program on our website at samigurucom. Slash pre-order. Yes, you can get a free case cleaning kit, desktop phone stand, other randomly inserted goodies like Amazon gift cards, google play credit. We have a golden and platinum ticket where you can actually get the device you purchased for free. We'll pay you back the cost of the device. It's an amazing program. All you have to do is use our Samsung affiliate link to place your order on launch day we send out a text message or an email. You can put in your phone number or your email or both on our signup page and once you do that we cover the cost of shipping. The cost of shipping, the cost of the products, all that good stuff. You pay nothing additional to get in on the Mystery Box program. It's a great way for us to give back to our listeners, to our viewers, to our readers on the website and then also continue funding the site as well, because we do make a little from that affiliate income. Keep bringing you guys great Samsung coverage. If you want to check it out, go to samygurucom slash preorder and I hope you guys really enjoy your Galaxy S25 device. All right, guys, we're back.
Speaker 1:Second half of the show, just going to go over some miscellaneous news. We've got some One UI 7 news to cover A little bit of stuff that's not Galaxy S25 related. One UI 7 beta number 3, we're waiting on that did not come out this Monday because we're recording it. Today is Monday, it's 526 pm here in Arizona, so it's definitively not coming out today because it's already Tuesday in Korea at this point it's like probably 10 am in Korea already. So it didn't come out on Monday, and if it was going to come out it would have already, because it usually comes out around 6 am Arizona time. So that leaves us in a weird spot.
Speaker 1:I don't think we're getting a Beta 3 before the end of 2024. A lot of people were saying we might get it before the end of 2024. I don't think so because tomorrow, new Year's Eve, that's a big holiday everywhere, but particularly in Asia. They celebrate New Year's pretty. They like New Year's. They like their New Year's over there. So Korea, I don't think they'll release the beta on New Year's Eve. Seems unlikely to me. You know I could be wrong I've been wrong before but I highly doubt that. So we're probably not going to get beta number three until 2025.
Speaker 1:We heard some really bad news for our friends who have S23 devices. We originally thought they were going to get the beta. It doesn't look like they are. So some rumors have come out from some trusted leasers that look like no S23 series. I kind of predicted this when we were talking about the first time. First week we got the first beta. We were asking if Tori was going to get it and I was like I don't think we're getting it on the S22. I don't even think we're going to see it on the S23. Everyone back then was like, oh yeah, it's definitely coming to the S23. And then people were telling me how wrong I was to tell people they weren't going to potentially not get it. Well hey, I.
Speaker 1:The thing is, a broken clock is right twice a day.
Speaker 1:That is true, and so even Jeff Springer, the Sammy guru. He's right. Occasionally Some people claim less than 50%, but I think it's closer to about 80% of the time. Yeah, so yeah, no One UI 7 Beta 3. We have heard what's going to be improved there, though it looks like they're improving animations again. Some sound improvements are going to be coming, not any of the really big features that people were hoping for, like, for instance, the notification summaries, the AI notification summaries. I think you can kiss that goodbye in the beta. I don't think that's coming until the S25. So if you want that, you better buy an S25 device.
Speaker 1:Going back to the first half of the show, because I think a lot of the new features for One UI 7.1 or whatever they end up calling it. There's also some debate. Are they going to call the version on the S25 7.1 or 7.0? It's kind of awkward because they never really officially released 7.0, even though it's in beta. So why would you call the new version on the S25 7.1? Because people will be like wait there was never a 7.0.
Speaker 2:So why don't you?
Speaker 1:just call it 7.0? It was never a 7.0, so why don't you just call it 7.0? It was never officially released so we don't really know what they'll call it, but it seems like a lot of the new galaxy I features are going to come to the s25 series. I'm personally still excited for the notification summaries and the video object eraser which we talked about on the last show. I know you were excited about that one too, where you can erase objects in your videos. Obviously that'll be really cool for me to have as an editing tool, because I shoot a lot of video with my phone for the channel, like shorts and stuff like that, and also when I'm traveling for conferences like like the unpacked event I shoot some video on my phone. That'll be really useful for me to have. So I'm looking forward to that, but I don't think they're gonna happen till the galaxy s25. So if you have an s24 and you're testing it, probably don't get too excited for that just yet. Um, one ui 7.0 beta leaked the galaxy z fold 7, z flip 7 and special edition. So they put the model numbers for the next upcoming foldables in the second beta and someone found them. So we now know the model numbers for the z fit, z fold 7, z flip 7 and the special edition 2 which I guess is going to be the z fold ultra, default 7 ultra. So that's interesting if you're waiting on that particular phone that should be coming out sometime in july.
Speaker 1:Uh, samsung is almost done updating all the good lock modules for one ui 7 support. They're 70 done. They've updated 70 of the good lock apps. So if you're worried, is good lock going to work when you get the stable version? I? I mean, we all knew it would, but that's you know. Some people were concerned that it might not. Oneui 7.0 brings camera continuity to seamless Galaxy device workflow between your Galaxy Book and your phone. Now, I think I told you about this, but it's not live in the beta yet. Basically, you'll be able to use your Galaxy phone as a webcam for your Galaxy Book. What do you think about that feature? Oh, that'd be really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be really cool.
Speaker 1:Because the camera on your Galaxy Book, just like any laptop, is not nearly as good as the one on your phone.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you could basically use your phone as a webcam for your Galaxy Book, using this camera continuity in One UI 7. Now it's not live yet in the beta, so I've had a chance to test it. When it is live, obviously I'll make a video, because I have the Book 5 Pro 360 and the S24 Ultra on the beta, but both of them have to be updated. They have to update the Windows firmware too on your laptop, so you can't just update the phone, they also have to support it on the laptop for them to talk to each other. Now, this is a feature that the Macs have had on the Apple side for a long time, and it's one of the ones that I really like using on my Mac. You can use your iPhone as a webcam. But I will say this, someone who's used it many times on the iPhone side, especially when I was teaching, because Apple dropped this feature a few years ago.
Speaker 1:If you remember, during COVID, we had to do a lot of Zoom calls. I did a lot of teaching on Zoom, and so I wanted my webcam quality to be pretty good, and so I wanted my webcam quality to be pretty good. I used the iPhone with the camera continuity, or whatever they call it on the iPhone side to the Mac. It would drop the connection all the time, and Apple is usually known for being pretty reliable here. So I hope Samsung can improve that, because literally I'd be on Zoom all the time and the students would be like we can't see you anymore and I'd be like, oh, my iPhone's no longer connected to my Mac and so it doesn't default back to the original MacBook camera because I had my laptop docked to an external monitor.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see so the camera's closed because the laptop's closed, it's docked, it's in docking mode, so it would just be black. The students would be like, sorry, we can't see you anymore, mister. I'd be like, sorry, we can't see you anymore, mister. I'd be like don't call me, mister, it's Professor Springer to you.
Speaker 2:Professor Springer.
Speaker 1:My name's not, mister. Come on now. What am I teaching? Fourth grade, fifth grade I don't know.
Speaker 2:I know right what's going on in this industry with these kids.
Speaker 1:Luckily I haven't had to deal with that. For the first semester of my entire life I did not teach any college courses in the fall of 2024. It was quite refreshing actually, and I'll have one more semester at least off. There's a good chance I'd take. I go take one class, I don't know where in the fall, you know cause I like doing it. I like doing the math. I don't know how much I like dealing with the students, but I like doing the mathematics Like I like going through doing some relaxing derivatives, some gradients, some differential equations. I like doing that. For me that's kind of fun. So I mean I don't really care about money, because it's not a crazy amount of money to do one adjunct class.
Speaker 1:But, it's a little something. It covers my gas money to drive there entertain myself for the most part.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so that was a problem when I did the camera continuity on the iPhone. It would drop the connection all the time, and so hopefully Samsung fixes that, because obviously that's really annoying. If it drops all the time, you can't really use it. The other thing is that I always found tricky. You have to have a stand for the phone. But you know where you could get a stand yeah, the mystery box program from Sammy guru. All you got to do is go to Sammy gurucom slash pre-order sign up by your galaxy S 25 device.
Speaker 1:You'll get a desktop phone stand there, and there's one in every box, and then you can use your camera continuity. When your new S 25 comes with one UI seven, that's what you call a world class advertisement integration. It's world class, Anyway. Uh, what else we got? We got a dual messenger and routine support in one-hand operation plus. So now you can basically turn on or off one-hand operation plus using a routine on your Galaxy phone. I showed you one-hand operation plus before. Basically, it allows extra gestures on the side here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like your quick launchers, stuff like that. I really love it. And now you can turn it on or off using Routine. Also, now you can have both of your dual messengers inside of this setup. So I don't know if you know this, tori, probably not, because why would you need two messengers? Most people don't, but some people need one for business.
Speaker 1:You can have two copies of Facebook Messenger, for instance on your phone, and then you can have different accounts sign into each one, so if you manage a business page or something. And so now with OneHand Operation Plus in One UI 7, you can have both versions of Messenger on your Quick Launcher. Before you could only have the regular one, because the second copy isn't a standard app, because in order to make it let it log into a different account, they have to actually silo the app off into a different part of the memory, because otherwise Facebook will be like wait a minute, you already logged into another Messenger account, so to do the dual Messenger feature they have to do some trickery. So now you can actually use both of them within one-hand Operation Plus. That's kind of useful, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Oneui7,. I cannot believe I missed this feature. I was so mad when I saw this I mean 7, this is. I cannot believe I missed this feature. I was so mad when I saw this I mean not mad at michelle. Michelle ramon, android authority spotted this over on reddit a new feature in one ui 7 that lets you filter your notifications, and this is a big feature. How I missed this one, I have absolutely no idea, uh. And so, if you go in here, let me go into settings, because I forgot exactly where it is. Go to settings notifications, go to advanced settings and then, right here, the second one down says filter notifications. Now, when you have seven beta two, you have three options. You can bundle all of these notifications that are less important into one big bundle at the bottom of your notifications tray. You can do old notifications, notifications that are received more than a few days ago. I don't really store any notifications received more than 48 hours ago on my phone. I don't know about you, corey. Do you clear your notifications? Usually within 48 hours?
Speaker 2:No, you don't. You leave yours there for days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, nicole does that too, so this might be really helpful.
Speaker 2:It's like a good reminder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, reminder. Yeah, I, I clear mine. But remember I do this for a living. My phone needs to be clean sometimes when I do videos.
Speaker 1:So because I don't want personal notifications in my shade when I'm making a video, so like if I have a text message or something that's personal or has financial information or something, I can't leave it there. So I tend to clear mine more often than maybe the average person does. I know my wife leaves them for like a week, so this would probably be really useful for a lot of people like nicole, like for you that leave them there, because now all your old ones will be bundled at the bottom so you, the newer ones, take precedence.
Speaker 2:You can still review your older ones yeah, because sometimes, like now, like on the notifications, it can be a recent one, but sometimes it's at the bottom, exactly so you gotta like this feature right. That sounds like a pretty cool feature. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:I missed this one because I found a lot of stuff before anybody else in 1.8.7, beta and beta2. But I didn't see this, and this is awesome. There's two more background activities, so filter notifications used to show the app is running in the background. So like when you have that notification when you do android auto and it says android auto is running, yeah, that one will get bundled into the bottom with all the background notifications, so you don't have to. You know, obviously you don't want them front and center because they're not telling you anything useful.
Speaker 1:It's not a message or an email or something you need to take an action on.
Speaker 1:It's all bundled, right, you know what's going on. And then the last one, which is awesome you can filter out notifications that you specifically told One UI to minimize. So when you go into notification settings, there's an option called minimize notifications. If you turn that on for a specific app category, it'll then filter all of those into one. So, like if you have some apps that are less important to you, like you don't want to have to check them or sort through them very often, you could put them all in the minimize category and then you could just review those, like once a day, like if there are things you want to check once a day but you don't want to see all the time.
Speaker 2:So I feel like this is like a really. I feel like this is a super useful feature. I mean, I I think oh yeah, no, no, I I'm 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this, this seems like a one of the better features that they've included in one ui7. I made a video about this and there's a lot of positive feedback. People seemed really enthusiastic about it. I think this is one of the better features they've included, so I'm really happy to see that Samsung is trying to make some usability improvements. They've done a lot of things with the One UI 7 correctly, and this is definitely one of the bigger ones they have In terms of other device news, because I know people are like you guys, talking so much about phones, we want some other Samsung stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, here's some news for you. Not only is Samsung gearing up to potentially launch the Galaxy XR headset or announce it officially remember, they already put a press release with Google. We talked about it on the last show, talking about what it is and how it's going to work. They didn't say a launch date. They're going to show it more in depth at the Galaxy S25 Ultra event. And not only that. There's now a rumor they're going to launch the second Galaxy Ring at, unpacked with the S25 Ultra, only six months after the first one launched with the Z Fold. I don't know what to think about that. What do you think about that? Is it too soon, is it too late, too early?
Speaker 2:that or an accessory that has been out for like years and they're like on several iterations, I would feel like, okay, why, why are you guys doing this? But since it is still a fairly new product and I think too, like, if they're trying to compete with aura, um, I I think this is a good move because, like, obviously, you know, six months ago they just put out their first ring and you know, and I feel like Samsung has taken a lot of feedback back on, you know, just from like the community of Samsung users and what you know they may want and want to get out of the Samsung ring and also like just the launch of it. So I think this move is still good in my books, even as a average user, because then it'll also get people who maybe were on the fence the first go around when the ring came out. Maybe they want to give the new ring a chance to.
Speaker 1:I also agree with you, just because this is not like the situation with the S25 ultra and the S25 slim, where people are going to be mad If you bought the new ring. A chance to. I also agree with you, just because this is not like the situation with the S 25 ultra and the S 25 slim, where people are going to be mad. If you bought the first ring, it's a ring. It's not like the second one's going to do anything crazy.
Speaker 1:Now let me say, with one caveat if the galaxy ring two has NFC payment, functionality and you release it six months later and I bought the original ring I would be pissed and I did buy the original ring, so I will be pissed, even though I'll get the second one, obviously. But if they put NFC payments in this one we don't have any indication that's going to happen yet. We don't actually know much about it. We've just heard from a couple of credible sources that they could release it at Unpacked. If they bring the NFC payments and people already bought the first one and they don't offer good trade in they offer like a lot of money in trade then that's fine. Like let's say, okay, you bought the first ring, the new one's also 400. We're going to give you 300 in trade.
Speaker 1:I'd be okay with that because I still got six months of use out of the other one. I'm only paying a hundred upgrade feature like nfc payments, because I really want that. Yeah, I want that wizardry tapping my finger and, you know, blowing people's mind at target functionality and if they bring that, I think a lot of people that's one feature like people really want that. Um, if they do that and they give you more gestures that you can integrate with other apps, the ring could be such a massive success. I feel like I mean, I don't know if it's going to happen this quick, because six months I feel like they're probably not going to integrate either of those things. It's probably just going to have a slightly larger battery and maybe they'll remember we heard they were going to release some bigger sizes yeah they'll probably just be like look, now it's available in size 15 and 16 and it has a slightly bigger battery.
Speaker 1:In that case, no one should be mad if they bought the first one because the battery life is already like nine days. Yeah, it's not like that's really bad for a ring and you're not getting any new features by buying the new one, so you won't need to upgrade. But if they'd introduce any of those new features, especially nfc payments, yeah, they have to give they need to give solid trade-in value, um, because people are going to be upset otherwise.
Speaker 1:we also heard remember back when the ring first launched that after two years the battery basically will be destroyed and you can't really replace it, so you have to get a new one anyway after two years. It basically becomes e-waste after two years, which is not great.
Speaker 2:Remember that report we read back when it first came out, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's a lot different than the S25 Ultra, S25 Slim situation. But if they bring one of those critical features, I think they got to help people out with a little bit of information about you know what kind of pre-order value they're going to get. Samsung CES conference press conference, which I will be at next week, six days away from me heading to CES. I'll be heading to CES on Sunday, recording this on Monday, January 5th Could be heading out there. Monday next week. A week from today, is the press day, so the show's not open yet, but the press people who have press pass, like myself, can go to the press conferences. Samsung's holding one. They don't ever really talk about any phone stuff. This year the press conference invite says AI for all and then it also says basically here that you can find information about smart home and all that kind of stuff like that. There really isn't a whole lot of information otherwise about it. It's 2 o'clock to 2.45 pm. Is the press conference next week? Usually they talk about smart home. They'll probably talk about sustainability.
Speaker 1:I went last year and that's mainly what it was about. They released the Galaxy smart tag and the smart hub. I think they gave us all a free smart hub to there, which was nice. They gave you some kind of gift still, you know, at the event. And then of course you can schedule a booth tour as well, and so that'll allow you to kind of get information about about the booth tours. So I'll be taking a tour of their booth. I'm sure they'll have a lot of mobile stuff at the booth, but it won't be anything new. There won't be any galaxy s25. It's probably going to be a lot of smart home. They might talk about the alop sensor for the s25 slim. That could happen, but they won't say s25 slim. They'll just say here's a new sensor we're working on for mobile cameras.
Speaker 1:They don't ever specify a device when they introduce new tech um atES anyway, and then they will also have some information on TVs. There's a lot of TVs at CES. Tvs is a big thing at CES. They'll have all their TVs on display. Smart home appliances are a big thing at CES. They might talk about the Galaxy XR. That would be the most exciting thing that we could possibly see at the CES event. Maybe it's like a little preview to Unpacked. I could see them doing that. There were some rumors they might show off the Galaxy XR headset at the press conference, but I really don't think so. I think we're going to see appliances, tvs, maybe some stuff about their camera sensors. They'll probably show off some new technology. They usually do new foldable tech. Last year they had the new rollable screens.
Speaker 1:When you press a button and it rolls out that's going to hopefully replace the foldables one day. They'll have some new prototypes. Those are always on display at the booth. You can go in there and check out the prototypes. Of course I'll do that. We'll write a lot of stuff about the prototypes that Samsung has on display. We'll be having full coverage. Sam me, it'll be writing up all my notes that I take during the day from the seventh and the eighth. Uh, kind of talking about, um, kind of talking about what Samsung has on display. But don't expect any mobile stuff. That's going to wait to unpacked but it's still fun.
Speaker 1:If you're a Samsung fan, particularly if you, like you know Samsung TVs. They have some of the best TVs in the world. I mean, all the TVs in my house are mostly Samsung, except one Sony TV that Sony gifted me to promote on the channel. I mean it's a free TV. I'm not going to tell you now. They wanted me to make a quick short on it, just saying, hey, this is a TV, this is a nice TV, it's in Jonathan's room, but the rest of them are Samsung TVs that I paid for and they will have some of their newest TVs, all their QLEDs, their 8K TVs on display. So if you're a tech tech fan, cs is still a lot of fun, even though it's not right in our wheelhouse since we mainly cover mostly mobile, but it'll still be a lot of fun. Samsung stuff I'll also be attending the TCL press conference and probably the Sony press conference as well, just to kind of hear about anything that's new in the world of tech at CS. Not a whole lot of other crazy stuff here.
Speaker 1:Some more stuff about haptic feedback. Some people were asking them to change haptic feedback in the software for One UI 7 instead of at the hardware level. We were talking about haptic feedback earlier when we talked about the haptic motor upgrade. I feel like it's really hard to improve the haptic feedback a lot in software. I think you kind of need hardware for that and so far the leak suggests there's no upgraded haptic feedback. A lot in software. I think you kind of need hardware for that and so far the leak suggests there's no upgraded haptic motor. So I don't see Samsung doing this in One UI 7 hardware or software. It's kind of hard to make haptics a lot better in software. You can try, but you really need an upgraded haptic motor to make it more substantial. But I'm pretty happy with the haptic motor that's in the S24 Ultra. I don't have any huge qualms about it. I think that's mostly it for this week.
Speaker 1:That closes the old books here on 2024 on the Sammy Guru podcast. What a year. First year we really went from, I think, six or seven listeners on the very first podcast up to about 1,300 downloads on the last episode. I posted across all platforms, not even including YouTube, so we really appreciate everybody who's listening to the podcast. I felt like there was an appetite for Samsung-specific mobile podcasts because there's a lot of Android podcasts out there. There's a lot of Apple podcasts, but there's no podcast about Samsung really specifically and Samsung is the biggest Android player. It basically is Android. Yeah, there's some people who want to hear about Google stuff, I guess, on other podcasts, but there's really no podcast that focuses only on Samsung and I'm glad that you guys have responded and enjoyed it. I do want to mention I've been hyping it for weeks we finally launched it today in spirit causescom.
Speaker 1:Our brand new case brand with one for studio is now live. We are accepting pre-registrations for information about s25 pre-orders. We haven't got those cases on the site yet because the molds are still in production. But if you want to sign up on the website, I'll put a link in the show notes. You can be notified when we get s25, s25 plus, s25 ultra case stock. But if you have another phone you don't plan on upgrading and you want a stylish case that comes with a premium wallpaper pack for no additional charge. All of them come with the free. Wallpaper pack has 120 plus premium wallpapers in it. All of the designs that are on our cases are also in the wallpaper pack as a wallpaper, so you can match your case to your wallpaper, or you can try something completely new from the wallpaper pack and rock your case to your wallpaper, or you can try something completely new from the wallpaper pack and rock your case with a different wallpaper. But all of them include that as an extra perk.
Speaker 1:We'll be doing a lot of cool stuff with the Spirit Casas. There'll be a lot of crossovers with Sammy Guru Promo codes for you guys listening to the podcast. I'll drop one below in the show notes as well. So if you listen to the podcast, sgpod10 will get you 10% off the Sammy uh inspire costs of Samsung cases. So if you want to purchase a case, um, you can also purchase the wallpaper pack standalone If you don't want a case. I think it's for nine, 99. You can get all the wallpapers, uh, if you don't want, if you don't need a case, um, but yeah, we hate foldable cases. So I don't know that I really want to sell people foldable cases because I think foldable cases suck. As you can see, tori, there's no case on my Z Fold Special Edition.
Speaker 2:I don't think you ever really rack a case. Yeah, not on my Fold, On the Ultra, on my slab phones. I do a lot Today.
Speaker 1:I don't have one, but I do a lot on that phone. I have an Inspiracasa case for this one over there that I've been using, but on the folds I just hate them because you have to have that sticky adhesive. It's a disaster. I just don't know that. I want to produce foldable cases. I don't think they're worth the money and until there's something that is worth the money, we may explore doing skins instead of cases, so we can have skins as well as cases and like just a vinyl skin that you can put on the back with a design. Yeah, instead of having to do a case because cases are a disaster for foldables and I don't really want to, I don't want to sell something I'm not proud of. The cases we've made, I'm very proud of them. There's a couple of different designs. You've got a tough case, a snap case, which is a thinner, lighter profile with less bulk. The tough case has drop as drop protection. We'll be introducing some new designs with the S25 Ultra, like some clear cases that have designs but still let you see the color of your phone. There'll also be some specific designs that are exclusive to the S25 series that will match the colors of the phones as well. So if you want to match your titanium jade green to that color, we'll have a titanium jade green themed collection that you can go and shop. Lots of cool stuff.
Speaker 1:One4studio has been our partner for a long time. Vukondrik we're going to get him on the podcast at some point. He designed all the cases and the wallpapers and he and I are going to design some exclusive icon packs which will also be then sold through Inspiracast. It's going to be an entire customization kind of brand, not just cases, but eventually other stuff skins, icon, icon packs and things to completely style your phone. That's actually the motto of the new brand is style your phone inside out. So you style it from the inside out with icon packs, wallpapers and then a case of skin, whatever else you need. So lots more coming there. Just launched it today, but if you want to be one of our first customers, sgpod10, you can check it out in the show notes and pick up a case today. Anyway, that's that's about it, tori. Anything else from you. I want to wish everybody a happy new year. Anything else you have to say to the people?
Speaker 2:Just a happy new year. Thank you for listening to us. We weren't quite sure how this was all going to go, but we are really thankful for you guys tuning in every week, listening, and we're looking forward to doing it some more in 2025.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah. We're looking forward to another 50s you episodes, hopefully in 2025.
Speaker 2:We're close, as close as we can get. Yeah, but yeah we really appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Some of you even downloaded and listened on Christmas Eve and Christmas. I don't, I don't know why people would do that. Listen to me on Christmas, Christmas Eve, but hey, if provide it with the last episode. Sometimes I probably do that kind of stuff too. Happy New Year, Appreciate you guys. And until we talk to you guys next week I will be at CES. Tori and I, I guess, might figure it out remotely. We'll get it figured out, though. And everybody this week. Keep expanding your galaxy.