SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
Samsung vs Apple 2025 Recap + Tab S11 Omissions and S25 FE Unboxing
Apple and Samsung compete fiercely in the ultra-thin phone market as we compare the newly released iPhone Air with Samsung's S25 Edge, analyzing their designs, features, and trade-offs.
• iPhone Air launches at 5.5mm thickness with a focus on aesthetics and premium design
• Apple's marketing strategy excels by positioning each iPhone model for specific customer segments
• Samsung S25 Edge offers better value at $649 versus iPhone Air's $999 price point
• Apple brings anti-glare display technology to their entire lineup while Samsung keeps it exclusive to Ultra models
• iPhone Air compromises with mono speaker and single camera while S25 Edge maintains stereo sound and dual cameras
• Samsung needs clearer product differentiation across their lineup to compete effectively
• Apple embraces thicker designs in Pro models to maximize features while sacrificing aesthetics
• Samsung should consider keeping S Pen in Ultra models rather than pursuing thinness across all devices
Samsung has an opportunity to respond with their S26 lineup by focusing on distinct advantages for each model, bringing premium features to more devices, and ensuring clear messaging about who should buy which phone.
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Welcome back everybody. This is episode number 43 of the Sammy Guru podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me, as always, my co-host, Tori Tori, say hi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how's it going?
Speaker 1:And we're recording this on Tuesday, september 9th 2025, commonly known as Apple Day. For all those who celebrate that holiday, it is Apple Announcement Day, tori. Happy Apple Announcement Day to you.
Speaker 2:And happy Apple Announcement Day to to you too, Joe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course Some people would say it's the most innovative day of the year. I mean, I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 2:but some people would Me either, but I know there's people out there who would.
Speaker 1:There are people out there who would say that, and of course this is the Sammy Guru podcast, not the iPhone Guru podcast. So we're not going to talk all iPhone today, but we're definitely going to talk some. I think we're probably going to try to. Maybe we'll do the first half of the show. We'll be some iPhone stuff, not the whole first half, maybe like the first third. So that way you guys know like I'll put chapters down there. So if you don't like, if you want to skip the iPhone, I won't blame you. I'll hold it against you, but we're going to be telling you to buy a new iPhone. I promise Tori might. No, no, no, he won't. He said he's not going to do that, but we will talk about that before we do. Tori, how's your week going so far? It's early in the week.
Speaker 2:It is early in the week, so far we're rolling, grades are due, so I'm trying to get that squared and out the way.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, just making it through the week. How about you? That's fantastic. Uh, yeah, kind of a slow start to the week because you know, sometimes this job, you know, I always feel like because I don't post, if I don't post a video, like I'm behind. I'm trying to get out of that mindset because I'm trying to get to where you know what I'm trying to do with my channel, trying to cover a little more, you know, general tech and like stuff that's not all Samsung, and then put all my Samsung stuff on the Sammy Guru channel. But then I feel like if I don't get to making a video, I'm like Jeff, you failed today. But but with what I do, sometimes I have to do administrative stuff, I have to edit for the website, but overall, feel good. You know, at least I'm not still teaching at the university. I could be in a much worse situation right now, that'd be quite dire.
Speaker 1:Listen to some nursing students whine about their statistics, grades and all that sort of stuff. So every day when I get frustrated, I'm like, oh man, you didn't get everything done you wanted to. Today, I'm like, well, it could be worse. You could still be sitting there listening to those students whining. I don't mind teaching. I just don't want to hear people whine. Alabama with a 73 to nothing win on Saturday is massive Yep Step in the right direction, great yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, they basically played a glorified high school JV team.
Speaker 2:But you know, I mean still, I like to see 10 touchdowns in a game.
Speaker 1:There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:At least they showed some fire and they answered the call, showed some passion and if they limped out there and won like 14 to 3 or something, I would have been a little more disappointed. So you can't really fault them by winning by 73 points. So we'll see what they do against wisconsin. I mean that's going to be a big game, yeah. Wisconsin badgers one-on-one. Uh, if they come out and win that game by a bunch of points, then I'll be very impressed because wisconsin's legit team and of course we. We got Georgia in a few weeks. We have a bye week before that, so a chance to get some of that momentum going in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Get some strength back.
Speaker 1:Tori and I saw the conjuring last rights. Yep, it was pretty, it's pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good. It tied everything together. You know from the whole series.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it really does have to be the last one, because this is based on a true story. Yeah, so it's not like you can just go back and change what the true story was. I know. You can be like oh, by the way, this actually wasn't their last one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they came back. We were just kidding. Well, you know, I think it's definitely going to be the last one for the Warrens.
Speaker 1:Of course they could spin it off, they could be like look, now we'll follow the story of some different exorcist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they make it like a universe.
Speaker 1:They'll be like and this is when they defeated thanos yeah, and next maybe they'll take on galactus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what wait, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3:here. I know wait, everyone's just trying to copy the marvel cinematic universe like guys we can't can't be doing that.
Speaker 1:It's a horror franchise.
Speaker 2:But you know, I'll say this has been the year for horror movies. Final Destination was really good. Oh yeah, final Destination was really good. We saw that over the summer.
Speaker 1:It was when we weren't doing the podcast regularly, but it was good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty good. I think let's just keep this momentum for the horror movies. Let's just keep this momentum for the horror movies, yeah, and it's finally a little bit cooler in Phoenix.
Speaker 1:It's not regularly below 100, but it's cool enough. So I'm feeling like fall is finally coming. Fall has fallen upon us. You might say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you might say which is always nice.
Speaker 1:Anyway, let's jump into it. I guess let's just get the iPhone stuff out of the way. Yeah, there's a lot of iPhone stuff, so Torri was reading up on on the way here. Of course, he was teaching during the actual event. I did watch the event. I watched the full thing, took some time out of my day to see what the competition was up to, because I think it's important to know your enemy. It is. You know. You have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer yeah, I think it's somewhere in the art of war.
Speaker 1:That's right and so essentially, apple introduced a bunch of products. Let me just name all of them real quick, and we'll talk about the big ones. You got the AirPods Pro 3. Airpods 3 Pro. You've got the Apple Watch Series 11. The Apple Watch Ultra 3. The Apple Watch SE 3. You've got the iPhone 17, the iPhone 17 Air, the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone 17.
Speaker 1:Pro Max and that's pretty much it for their big hardware they introduced today. So let's just talk about the AirPods Pro 3 first, I guess, because those are not really a ton to say about it, but it was a pretty nice upgrade. First of all, airpods are really good headphones. I mean, if you're a Samsung user, obviously it's better to buy Galaxy Buds because they work a lot better with your ecosystem.
Speaker 1:But from perspective of the audio quality and the noise cancellation, apple makes a good pair of earbuds and I think they are worth the money. I have a pair because I use a macbook pro as my main video editing machine. Um, video editing mac is just still better and so they did improve the active noise cancellation like two times. They said better than the previous airpods pro, the airpods pro 2, the previous AirPods Pro, the AirPods Pro 2. They have some new health-related features that are in there better battery life, supposedly, some better sound. They made it. So the design's a little bit different and it's supposed to have some foam injected into the ear tips, kind of like Comply tips, which they do make those for the Galaxy Buds. They just don't come in the box. Have you ever tried Comply tips for your buds? No, never. They're like the Galaxy.
Speaker 2:Buds. They just don't come in the box. Have you ever tried comply tips for your?
Speaker 1:buds? No, never. They're like the memory foam ones. I actually recommend them. We wrote an article about it over on Sammy Guru. Some people find them more comfortable. But in addition to that, what I would say is if, whatever buds you have, if you take them to the gym to work out, they tend to hold up better and they tend to like fit better in your ear.
Speaker 2:So I would just say I would like that I feel like mines are always like trying to escape my ear.
Speaker 1:Exactly so for that purpose it's better to have the comply tips and apparently Apple tried to do like some version of that for the tips that actually come on them in the box, which usually isn't the case. They're like that flimsier rubber which doesn't they feel a little different in your ear. So you rubber which doesn't they feel a little different in the ears. They have to get used to it with the comply tips, but I think a lot of people like them so we'll see how that goes. But overall they look like a nice upgrade.
Speaker 1:Some people thought they weren't going to upgrade the sound or anything on them and they ended up doing that. So the the active noise cancellation and like the way the sound gets channeled into your ear both of those things apparently got an upgrade on the uh airpods 3 pro. Um, they don't look crazy different. They still have like a little stem but they're a little shorter. So now, like the buds 3 pro, kind of look a little bit more airpod like than the airpods just because it looks like the stem's a little shorter, but the same price and everything like that.
Speaker 1:still two, 49, which is, you know, no surprise. It's the same price. Samsung charges Cause they want to stay competitive.
Speaker 2:You guys stay competitive.
Speaker 1:And so that's not like a massive release. I don't, I don't know. I mean thing about buds is it's not really really easy to compare. I mean, you compare the audio. I think the audio is good on both, but in terms of like no one's really. If you're a Samsung phone user, you're probably going to buy Samsung Buds or another company that's not Samsung or Apple, and for an Apple user, you're more likely to buy Apple Buds. It's not like you're going to say, oh well, the Apple buds are so good as a Samsung user should buy them. Vice versa, right? I mean, so I don't know, there's not a ton to say about them. Have you ever listened to AirPods at all, Tori? Nope.
Speaker 2:My ears have only ever been graced by Samsung buds. Oh, there you go. Look at that.
Speaker 1:Tori doesn't even he doesn't F with those AirPods.
Speaker 2:So to speak no, so to speak? No, no, not at all. Does your girlfriend own some airpods? Uh, no, she does not. No, she does not. I know, I think she. I think she has an apple watch that she never wears and, um, just an apple iphone, which I give her a lot of crap about.
Speaker 1:She doesn't like uh, she doesn't like wireless buds, or she doesn't have, or she has a different kind of buds, or what uh, no, actually no, I don't think she has any any kind of buds she has regular headphones, yeah oh, no, no, no, she doesn't like headphones at all yeah, no, no, that's just she hardly ever plays music like out loud.
Speaker 2:It's mostly when she's going like in the car oh okay, yeah, yeah, she would be an outlier I I have them in all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love music. Tori's like she's trying to talk to me and I'm just trying to tune her out. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually that happens a lot, which I do. Like the feature of where I can just touch the stem and you know it pauses the music. Yeah, because I hear my name like a lot and I'm like, oh wait, you're talking to me. Oh sorry, I have my toy's trying to get himself in a lot of trouble on today's podcast.
Speaker 1:We'll skip.
Speaker 1:We'll skip ahead past the airpods discussion but anyway, I mean they look like a pretty good upgrade. I'm gonna buy a pair just because I use them a lot when I take business calls, because I use my macbook pro as my main work machine. The fact is there's no windows machine that can get as good of battery life as the apple macbook pro and still have like the crazy power that it has. So until windows does that, then I'm gonna still be using a mac. People always ask me why do you use a mac? Well, it gets like 15 hour battery life and I can still edit 4k video on the go.
Speaker 1:That's a huge advantage. I mean, even with I had a galaxy book ultra, like a four ultra, cause they haven't done the five yet and I I can the same workflow I only get like a third of the battery life, like five hours.
Speaker 1:I mean, I do have my galaxy book, uh, five pro Um, and I do like it. My 5 pro 360. I use it a lot for personal tasks and when I'm at home, just for you know, stuff that's not video editing, but when it comes to heavy workloads and the mac just tends to do a little better so that's why okay, so that's the airpods.
Speaker 1:the next thing, the apple watch. We can get that out of the way. There's some small I mean not, I wouldn't say super small. There's one big upgrade with the apple watch it now will detect and warn you if it sees signs of hypertension, so high blood pressure. It can now detect high blood pressure by analyzing how your veins change when blood is pumped through them. So it basically takes hundreds of thousands of data points every hour and analyzes how they constrict or whatever, as the blood kind of flows through your veins. They patent this along with some various doctors and other medical professionals, and they say that they expect to warn a million people about undiagnosed hypertension in the first year.
Speaker 1:So with Apple Watch Series 11, which seems like a good feature, it does seem very cool technology Like maybe Samsung should try to implement this into the Galaxy Watch eventually if they could. I definitely do think that this is something that will help a lot of people. Obviously, high blood pressure is a very big medical issue. I think that Apple said in their keynote it affects like 1.3 billion people, which is basically close to 20% of the entire world. So one in every five people have high blood pressure. Those are just the ones diagnosed with it, and a lot of people don't know they have it because of course there's not usually a lot of symptoms of it a lot of symptoms of it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean that's. I mean I'm sure the medical, the big pharma is licking their chops because they're like we're going to get to write a million more high blood pressure prescriptions in 2025, 2026, because Apple's going to get some people through the door saying, hey, my Apple Watch told me I might have high blood pressure.
Speaker 3:Just write them a little prescription. Just come on in, told me I might have high blood pressure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just write them a little prescription. Just come on in, let me get you guys some prescriptions. No problem, yep, no problem. Give you the Apple watch special, yeah. And then the Apple watched ultra three. Oh, the Apple watch, sorry. The series 11 has some other upgrades as well, but there aren't a ton of them. It's their lightest one ever and their thinnest one ever by like a very small margin. They upgraded. They have sleep scores now, which of course Samsung's had that.
Speaker 2:That's one they borrowed.
Speaker 1:The big two health features were the hypertension warnings and sleep scores. Of course, samsung already has sleep scores, apple just putting their spin on that, but that's a good feature. Still, though, my concerns with the regular watch and I can't say Samsung does a lot better is they rate it for 24-hour battery life on the regular Series 11. If you want people to wear it to bed so they can get the sleep score, that's not enough battery life, not enough battery, because when the hell are you charging it?
Speaker 1:then, I know Because I've charged my phone overnight. But if you want me to wear the watch to sleep, to get sleep data, when am I supposed to charge it? And if it only gets 24 hours, then in the middle of my next day, when I go like, stop to get a coffee in the morning and I try to use samsung wallet on my galaxy watch a classic they'll be like, sir, it's not working.
Speaker 1:and then my watch is dead and I'm like that's why it's not working, because I didn't charge it last night because I had it doing all that work of tracking my sleep data.
Speaker 2:That seems like a problem to me yeah, no, I have a hard time finding that that balance too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's tricky because if you want to wear it and that's exactly why I like the galaxy ring, because at one it's less obtrusive to me, intrusive to me when I wear the ring versus the watch, uh, doesn't bother me as much when I sleep, but also it has nine day battery life, so at some point I will find some time to charge it over nine days. 24 hours is a little more restrictive, yeah, um, and also, like I said, I don't use it for as many things because as of now, it doesn't also support samsung wallet, which we talked about. We would love to see the galaxy ring to have that magic wizardry feature, but it doesn't yet. There's no wizardry yet. Um, but yeah, there wasn't anything else that like shocked and awed me about the galaxy.
Speaker 3:Uh, sorry the apple series 3 series, 11 um.
Speaker 1:It does have 5g now instead of lte, so I guess that's kind of big. It's the first uh, apple watch and I guess samsung as well to support 5g on watches, because so far they've all been lte. So you have that. The hypertension, the sleep scores a little bit thinner and lighter, but nothing crazy crazy. They got some new band colors and all that kind of stuff. I didn't really see anything that like blew my mind in terms of that. The hypertension one's probably the most interesting because in terms of something that's new and novel. And then the Apple Watch Ultra 3, which, of course, is their competitor to the Galaxy Watch Ultra, which you're wearing on your wrist, tori is they did do some stuff to that.
Speaker 1:They made the bezel slimmer, so it's got a bigger display. It does look really nice. It also got the same health features. It now has satellite connectivity. You get two years of satellite connectivity for SOSs and Find my Device and everything included with the watch. It also has the 5G in it as well and yeah, I mean it's got some nice stuff. It's brighter, display brighter. But yeah, I mean some new bands and stuff. But kind of like the Apple Watch Series 11, the new health features are one of the big selling points. But I think the real thing that I mean Apple's watches are great. They are good.
Speaker 1:It's hard to say anything bad about their watches, because they really had the best watches for a long time, only in the last two years, would I say. Samsung has finally gotten their crap together and started really competing in the smartwatch in a way that they come close to the Apple Watch or exceed it in some ways. But I mean, yeah, the question really comes down to battery life. The Apple Watch Ultra 3 probably gets really good battery life, just like the Samsung Ultra. But that means that if you want a smartwatch that has good battery life, you've got to buy the biggest one. Not everyone wants a 47 to 49 millimeter watch on their wrist. How many days do you get out of your Galaxy Watch Ultra still?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say, like, without me charging it, probably two days, because I use the um, I use the stopwatch a lot for work and that drains the battery I'll kill it. Yeah, that battery because I set it up to the, the click button, the orange button it's a kill shot, yep, and it's just like zoom.
Speaker 2:But what I do is when I, as soon as I get home, I put the watch on a charger and then, right before I go to bed, I'll put it on, so then that way I can get my sleep and my energy score. So he's like let me get it bobbing on the energy score.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no.
Speaker 2:I will, cause I I really like all the feedback that it gives you. It allows me to keep track, especially as we're getting older. You got to watch out for those health stuff.
Speaker 1:Me and Tori are just getting so, so old. You got to do something about it. It's too old. I mean, I'm 10 years older than Tori.
Speaker 3:I'm getting kind of old.
Speaker 2:I'll be super old.
Speaker 1:in January I'll be 40. It seems pretty old.
Speaker 3:But it's not that old 40 is the new 30.
Speaker 1:And 30 is the new 20. So Tori is basically 20 and I'm basically 30. Because those are the new ages.
Speaker 2:They are.
Speaker 1:So basically, 20-year-old, 30-year-old guy doing this podcast, A lot of life experience, though for those ages. Okay, so that's the series. I mean Apple Watch SE3, I'm going to be honest, I didn't listen to that one. I took a bathroom break because it's the budget model.
Speaker 1:And Samsung doesn't really have. I guess Samsung does have the Watch FE as well, but it looks like basically it's the previous gen watch, but they put the new processor, the latest Apple watch processor, in the base model, which is actually a big deal. Yeah, cause Samsung doesn't usually do that. They don't usually put the flagship watch processor in the like budget one. It seems like they did that and then the price is cheaper. It's like two, 99 or something, maybe, even maybe even a little bit less. And then the Series 11 starts at $399. But remember they have different levels, because they got like the aluminum one and then they got like stainless steel. That goes up to like $650, $700. And then the watch Ultra. Apple Watch Ultra is $799, which is even more than Samsung's Ultra. Remember, samsung's Ultra is only $649.99.
Speaker 1:So about $150 more if you want the apple ultra but, again watches, even though we might talk more about them once I get a chance to play with them, because I will order a series 11 and an ultra and do video comparison to the samsung equivalents, probably compare series 11 to the watch I have on, the eight classic, and I'll probably compare the ultra 3 to the watch Tori has on, which is the galaxy watch ultra. And I'll have those. We can talk about it when we get them, cause I'll be able to see more of the nuanced specs. But I mean, it's just like the buds. It's like if you have a galaxy phone, you're not going to buy no-transcript comparing these watches because there's. There's like there's a choice. It's not like you're going to be like oh, I got this galaxy s25 ultra, let me go buy a apple watch ultra 3 to pair with it and you're not going to go out and be like, oh, I want my iPhone 17.
Speaker 1:Let me go get that Galaxy Watch 8 Classic. That's not an option for you. But, people are still just curious because they love Samsung versus Apple and just like which one provides the better specs, even if you're already in the ecosystem, it's definitely a market.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you're in the ecosystem, you really don't have a choice, but it's still fun. Okay, so that's like the appetizer. Let's get to the main event, which are the phones. So we talked about the buds, we talked about the watches. The phones first. Let's start with the iPhone 17 Air. So this is the newest phone, and Apple really did. I've got to give them props, tori. They did a great job marketing this. We like to dive into the marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is it this middle one right here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, tori and I are like, basically we're like freelance marketing experts, even though neither of us have a marketing degree. No we like to weigh in on our marketing opinions. You know, it's like people who are. You know recreational Facebook mathematicians. Yeah, they like to post those little math problems with all the order of operations and they think they're a mathematician or something those gets me every time or something. People like Tori and I hate that stuff Because it has nothing to do with real mathematics.
Speaker 2:It's arithmetic.
Speaker 1:It's just useless. But anyway, apple did a great job marketing this, so they came in. First of all, it is not the iPhone 17 Air. There's no 17 in the name, it's just iPhone Air.
Speaker 1:So the number does not persist. It's a brand new thing in its own lineup. Secondly, apple very much framed the iPhone 17 Air in a way that Samsung didn't, in that they basically made their entire little video package about the Air, all about the aesthetics, which I think is what this phone is targeted at. People want the nice-looking phone and they don't care about the max performance the whole thing was about oh, we polished the sides and, yeah, they wanted they emphasize two things, which I think was genius. Samsung didn't do as good of a job as this.
Speaker 1:I got to get Apple props they're like, it's beautiful, but it's still durable. They're like it, but it's still durable. They're like it's beautiful. But remember, we reinforced the ceramic. We got the ceramic reinforcements on all sides and the back and the front now. So it's, you know, not going to break. If you drop it it's not going to snap. You know the frame is reinforced, but it's so polished, it's so thin. And then they had the phone like resting on someone's finger. So, like resting on someone's finger, so you can see that it's basically as thin as your finger and light, and it was a really good marketing campaign. So just to read some of the specs it is total 5.5 millimeters thin, which is very insanely thin. It's slightly thinner than the galaxy s25 edge, which I brought out of my archives today just to talk about it, because we do have the Air to talk about. It's slightly thinner than that. It has 6.5-inch ProMotion display, which means 120 hertz dynamic refresh rate, 8 gigs of RAM, up to 1 terabyte of storage, a single camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I noticed that. Not too like the Edge, but only one.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that more in a minute because Apple got I noticed that Not too like the edge, but only one. We'll talk about that in more in a minute, cause Apple got a little tricky there. They did a little tricky, you know, a little juvenile action.
Speaker 3:We were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1:Um, it weighs 165 grams. But here's the crazy thing it's thinner than the S 25 edge, but it actually weighs two grams more. Now, in practice no one's going to notice two grams, yeah, unless you know you are a connoisseur of fine items from the streets. You might notice a two gram difference, because if someone shorts you two grams, that could be quite a bit of money. Yes, but I'm just saying in a smartphone that you're carrying around daily in your pocket, you're not going to notice the two gram difference no no, but the question is how the hell does it weigh two grams more when it's actually thinner?
Speaker 1:someone asked me this on x. I think it's because they did put that ceramic shield around the front and the back. It's on both sides now, so that ceramic shield may add a little bit of extra weight. That makes it a little bit heavier, because people are like how the hell is it? Way more than this because this has two cameras in it, so it's got more camera hardware yeah and obviously that one's thinner.
Speaker 1:so you would think the one that's thinner would weigh less, but it doesn't, especially since this one also has the two cameras and apple only has one. Um, it has their latest processor, so, just like the, which we'll talk about, the Pro iPhones in a minute, enhanced GPU with a neural engine. It's Wi-Fi 7, bluetooth 6. A new C1X 5G modem, but it does not come with millimeter wave 5G. Do you know what millimeter wave is, tori? Not a clue. Tori doesn't know what millimeter wave is. No one does. Probably people don't know 5G, you know, know, it's like a mystery, you know it's like what's inside the mystery box.
Speaker 1:But uh, I'll tell you really quickly, very simply. 5g has a bunch of different types of 5g, and so there's sub 6 5g basically and millimeter wave basically. Sub 6 5g works even if you're far further away from the tower. But then in certain places, uh, you'll have like these little 5g towers that are millimeter wave or they're like stuck on buildings and stuff.
Speaker 1:When they started putting up the 5g infrastructure, yeah and if you're really close to them you can get crazy speeds, like over a gigabyte per second downloads oh wow per second. But they only work really localized, so like if the millimeter wave device is right over there on this other side of my room, once you leave the office you're not going to get that anymore because it's localized. If you're not close it doesn't work. So sub-6 is the more popular 5G that's what people think about as 5G. But millimeter wave is useful and if you have a carrier, usually they show you like a little letter or something Like you have T-Mobile, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, at&t.
Speaker 1:So, like AT&T, like they show you like a UC or something next to your 5G or some kind of other 5G next to your 5G if you're on millimeter wave versus sub-6. I forget the exact letter for AT&T, but Verizon has like a UW for ultra wide band. They'll let you know you're getting those boosted speeds. And of course, if you're in a big city like Phoenix, like we are, there's millimeter wave things like devices everywhere. So you have a good chance of getting it like in the city. But if you go somewhere, like even Tucson, the amount of millimeter wave it goes down a lot because you're not, you're not going to have as many of those devices. It goes down a lot because you're not, you're not going to have as many of those devices anyway. That's a fun aside. Uh, so rear camera, only one of them.
Speaker 1:and here's the interesting thing apple put in their marketing materials that it actually has two cameras, even though there's only one because they put in there that even though it only has one sensor, it can also give you 2x optical quality zoom by actually doing it as a crop to get optical quality zoom. It's not optical, it's optical quality, just like Samsung says with the 10x on the S25 Ultra, because it's not really optical, it's optical quality. It means, quote unquote it looks like it was not really optical. It's optical quality. It means, quote unquote it should looks like it was an actual optical zoom, but that just seems like false. One plus zero is not equal to two, I hate to tell you guys, if you have one lens and you don't have another one.
Speaker 1:You can't add one and zero and get two.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work that way, man and maybe they need to watch those facebook videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they might need to go back to the to our classes, tori, and take some arithmetic, because I don't think they know how to properly add. You know adding can be hard, though man, you got to understand like this is the industry, where you know you need to learn how to add things and they just don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1:That's a crime, it's a tragedy, it has an 18 megapixel front camera, no ultra wider telephoto rear, as we said, which I think obviously puts it a disadvantage to the Edge 3100 milliamp hour battery. It is a silicon carbide battery, though, according to the specs, 20 watt wired charging, 20 watt wireless charging, and they introduced a battery pack slim MagSafe battery pack. The funny thing is, though, that doesn't instill a lot of of confidence, though. They showed the device and they showed how beautiful it was, and then, immediately after showing it, they're like it can get all day battery life. And then they show this thing that they made just so you can extend the battery by putting the MagSafe. That's basically saying well, we're lying to you. It's definitely not going to get all day battery life by itself, but if you buy this battery pack for an extra hundred which is how much it costs $99, we'll sell it to you.
Speaker 1:Then you could get that just seems like it just seems like you're telling people no, it doesn't really get all day battery life unless you buy this yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause Samsung. You know they didn't do that. They didn't say oh, you need to buy a battery back to get all the battery life from the edge. Again, we went over the weight. It comes in black, cloud, white light, gold, sky, blue. It's eSIM only, worldwide Dual eSIM, so no physical SIM. Ip68, water dust resistant, face ID. For its configuration, there's no fingerprint sensor on it, just like a lot of other Apple phones. It starts at $999 USD.
Speaker 1:So what do you think, tori, about it? You saw the picture right now you just showed me on Instagram Personally, I'll give you my quick thoughts on the look of it really quickly and we can talk about the specs and how it compares to the S25 Edge in a second. I think it looks better than the edge. You can pull up a picture on your phone too if you want in your search and see how the back looks. I actually think it looks a little better than the edge. The polished sides and and also having the single camera kind of does make it look a little elegant but obviously takes away from the functionality. They kind of copied the pixel with that camera bar on the top. It kind of looks like the pixel camera bar. Remember you saw the pixel camera bar when I was doing the pixel 10 pro excel review.
Speaker 2:kind of looks like that yeah, no, um, well, I like how it's kind of like up and out of the way of where the chi 2 would be, um, and it does look, you know, nice, with just like the one camera, for like the simplicity and the colors. I think look nice, um, but I don't know, it'll be interesting, because I know you have more time um with um I, I forgot what it was called, the Edge. Yeah, with the Edge, you know. So I'll be interested to see how it compares if you end up do picking up the Air. Now that we're kind of getting into this is in moving from you know how, like we were seeing earlier, a few episodes ago, how flip phones are starting to be like the thing or foldables, and now it kind of seems like we're trending more towards the thin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. Well, the kids, well, that's what Apple and Samsung thing. Anyway, it remains to be seen if the people really want a thin phone, because there's no sales numbers to support that yet. We'll have to see.
Speaker 2:I would like to see the sidekicks come back. That's what we all want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so here's the thing. Here's some of the downsides, though I told you I think it looks good, but here's some of the problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do think it looks good, it's only got one rear camera yeah.
Speaker 1:Only one, so less versatile camera system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't see girls wanting it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I feel like they'll want it for the compactness of the ladies, but like it's all about the pics, you know I mean it does have a good selfie camera on the front too, but it only has one rear camera and you know you've got to capture some photos of your girls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're like girls trip Woo woo, you've got to get, I got some pictures on the girls trip, all the histogram pics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the battery life is very suspect, very suspect. Oh man, I'm really concerned about that. No millimeter wave 5G we just talked about that. I don't think that's a big deal. No physical SIM globally. That's one of the other shortcomings. I listed a bunch of the shortcomings here. I really think that sucks. But Samsung's probably going to do that too. But eSIM only dual eSIM thumbs down from me Don't like that. This is a big problem though. I saw this. Someone else posted about this. It's got only a mono speaker. No stereo speakers on the iPhone 17 here, that sucks.
Speaker 1:Because if you like to game or you like to watch any kind of videos without headphones, the audio quality is probably going to be dookie. So we'll see Big dookie on that. You know big turd.
Speaker 2:Well, like, how do you like the price of it being $999? Well, it's the same price. Actually no wait.
Speaker 1:The S25 Edge, when it originally launched, was $1099, I believe it was actually slightly cheaper, but honestly, now though Samsung has slashed the prices Essentially, right now on Amazon or Samsungcom, you could get the Edge for $649, which is a steal.
Speaker 1:This device is honestly a steal for $649. I mean, I have continued to use it since May just because it's so light and thin, because you know I'm a strong guy. But sometimes I just get a little tired. Sometimes that S25 Ultra is just so heavy, weighs you down, I'm just like I can't pick it up and then I reach for my edge yeah, and then boom.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean honestly too, even on the edge, the presentation, the back, looks really nice it does look clean, yeah it looks sleek.
Speaker 2:Um, I I do kind of like how, um, uh, at least for the air, how the like the sides look like it. I think I think they do a really good job of matching that color difference. Yeah, versus like when I look at samsung sometimes like it just seems like they kind of go with like a different color or like a really really light color. But I like how they go the dark color on the edge and then the lighter color is on the back.
Speaker 1:Um, oh, I just remember something too yeah, for the airpods pro 3. I was just looking at something next I forgot they. They have now heart rate tracking inside the buds wait and yeah which is pretty cool, right, that's a cool feature and they stole live translate from samsung and google and now it does live translation across languages. Those are the two features I forgot. Those are actually big ones. I tried to block it out because they're just thieves, dirty thieves.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 1:But I don't want to forget about that, because someone will be like Jeff. You forgot those features, so the mono speaker, that really sucks.
Speaker 2:I'm not a big fan of that at all. I think that's really going to suck.
Speaker 1:Obviously no telephoto. Potentially it's going to be a little more fragile, but I'm not worried about that. So, essentially, if you compare it to the Edge, basically it's slightly thinner than the Edge by 0.2 millimeters. It's got a slightly smaller display because the Edge has a 6.7-inch display and the Air is 6.5-inch display. They're both 120 hertz. The front camera is 18 megapixels. On the iPhone 17 Air, um effective, where we have 12 megapixels on the edge, um, the battery is smaller by 800 milliamps. On the iPhone 17 air I keep saying iPhone 17 air, it's just the iPhone air, sorry. Uh, the edge has the physical SIM, uh, samsung, where the air does not, the iPhone air, um. And then, of course, stereo speakers also on this beautiful guy right here yeah and they're actually really good.
Speaker 1:Um and oh, here's the other thing. Remember last week we were talking about the samsung? Uh, apple was supposedly going to invent reverse wireless power sharing and keep magSafe they didn't do it. It turns out that leak was wrong. They have MagSafe still, but no reverse wireless charging. That feature was not included in these phones the Pros either. So it's not there that little cutout on the Pros?
Speaker 1:it's not for reverse wireless power sharing. At least they didn't mention it. I mean, I guess it's possible, it could be, but I don't think so. What I will say about the Air, because we're going to talk about the Pros as well Apple did a better job marketing it and they also gave it the attention it deserved. Samsung did not introduce it at the main Unpacked event in January.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know that was a huge missed opportunity. No, I agree.
Speaker 3:Whereas.
Speaker 1:Apple introduced it at the actual massive iPhone event, where all the other phones were also, so it actually put it on equal footing with the 17 and the pro and the pro max yeah um, oh.
Speaker 1:And here's the other thing that apple did across the entire iphone lineup. We'll talk about the 17 and the pros in a minute. They now have the anti-glare coating on all of their phones the one that's on the s25 ultra, but not just on the pro, and the pro max on the air and the Pro Max on the Air and the regular base iPhone 17. Samsung hasn't even done that, so they just one-up Samsung.
Speaker 1:They basically took the anti-glare feature and they said well, we're not just going to give it to our top models, we'll give it to all the other models too. So, even if you're a peasant, you can have anti-glare on your iPhone 17. Peasant edition.
Speaker 2:That's what people call it. We're just kidding.
Speaker 1:But, that's what some people call it in the tech community the base model. But the base model is actually pretty fantastic. This year they added that anti-glare.
Speaker 3:They put a 120-hertz screen on the base model just the regular iPhone 17, non-Air, non-Pro they had a good price yeah, $799 for the base iPhone 7 and 8.
Speaker 1:This is a great deal especially with that increased refresh rate, the anti-glare screen, the upgraded processor. They put basically the same level of power in it. You're getting 256 storage. I mean everything is like they knocked it out. They put a lot of pressure on Samsung. We were talking about this earlier on X with some of the other guys from the Sammy Guru team. They put a lot of pressure on Samsung to deliver on the S26 Pro and the S26 Edge. The S26 Ultra is still a good competitor from the leaks we've seen, but I think Samsung is going to be a little behind on the lower models of the flagship lineup because that anti-glare screen across the board and also, finally, apple puts 120 hertz. Samsung's got some pressure to deliver on the pro and the edge what do you think about that tory?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, no, um, uh, I think so too. Uh, I mean just looking at, you know, because I didn't see it, but I've been looking at all like the big uh features, for I think what apple is doing, I think they're hitting them good with the, with the price, the presentation. I've always felt like Apple does really good at showcasing the presentation of the phones. You know, I still think Samsung is the best, the better of the two. But for the Air, I want to have some thoughts for you. Hit me with it. So some people, you know, because I'm just reading different people's reactions to it but do you feel like this is more of a consumer test for Apple to be releasing the Air?
Speaker 1:Well, I think for Samsung and Apple, because obviously people don't like it.
Speaker 1:They're not going to keep making these super thin phones, yeah, yeah, but I think, again, apple did a better job marketing this and giving people a reason. They gave a target audience to it. Samsung didn't. Samsung was just like well, it's May. We're just going to put out a press release about this new you know do a small little virtual event, about this new phone. We're not going to tell you why you should buy it and also, since we released it, four and a half months later, you probably already bought a phone, so you don't even have a choice to get this. So I don't think Samsung did a very good job of telling people why they should want it and also, it doesn't make it a very good test if you don't release it alongside the other phones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right Cause you're not finding out if people really want that device because they weren't given that choice when the rest of the S25 lineup came out. Apple is really doing a test. They're saying do any of you guys who used to buy the Pro really want the ultra-thin phone enough that you're going to switch from the Pro or the Pro Max to the Air? Or any of you guys who buy the Peasant I'm just calling it that just for distinction. Anybody who buys the regular iPhone do you guys want to pay a couple hundred extra $799 to $999, to get that ultra-thin, sexy form factor? And is it okay to trade battery life to get that really nice-looking phone?
Speaker 1:I put out a tweet earlier which I think a lot of people liked. It got a lot of reposts on X where I said Apple's strategy differentiating is clear. The iPhone 17 is for the budget minded consumer. Iphone air is for the people who are concerned with aesthetics and the iPhone 17 pro and pro max are for true pros because they have pro level videography. But people who don't care if their phone looks ugly as all hell to get those features.
Speaker 3:Cause, honestly, they do look ugly.
Speaker 1:I the pros and pro max look bad, so that's a good segue into it it. Let's talk about the pro and pro max first of all. Just looking at the visually, apple did something that surprised me a ton. They released a pro lineup without a black iphone in it for the first time I think maybe ever, I don't know. It's been a long time since they've done that. So there's no black option in the Pro and the Pro Max. You cannot get a black iPhone Pro. This year the only one that has a black option is the Air. So if you want a black phone, you have to get the Air. That's how they also created some kind of distinction because, there's no black phone on the pros.
Speaker 1:Now they also kind of distinguish, because the main focus of the pro phones was better battery life, faster charging, because now you have 40 watt charging. Apple finally increased their charging the same year. Google did uh, still slightly slower than samsung, but regardless. Um, they talked about video performance pretty much the entire time the camera system, and Apple has always been really good at video. You now have some insane video features. You've got ProRes, raw, apple Log2, and GinLock for professional multi-camera synchronization, enhanced Dolby Vision, hdr recording and you've got APIs for deeper integration with pro editing tools like the Blackmagic ProDoc, so you could basically use this as an almost professional camera, like if you're a YouTube creator.
Speaker 1:This is a big deal, and so they're really targeting it at pros for real. So that's what I mean by Apple distinguishing their lineup. They finally are saying basically okay, we've always been on the fence between do we add more professional features at the cost of making it not look as pretty, or do we try to keep it pretty and balance the features? Now they're just like okay, the air is where we're going to do the pretty stuff, and the pro and the pro max are now where we actually put in pro features bigger batteries, but it might be thick and ugly so you can choose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you need all the?
Speaker 1:performance. Are you a creator who needs all that performance? And if you're not, well then you should spend less money and get the sexier looking device. Yeah, but of course it's always going to come down to for the average consumer or for the non-pro consumer I I'm not saying average. Say, if you're an enthusiast who's not a professional video creator Obviously someone like me it's obvious that the pro is targeted to you because you create videos for a living. It's a no-brainer, I mean, aside from the fact that the phone's ugly, let's just put a case on it I guess, but it's a no-brainer.
Speaker 1:Let's just put a case on it. I guess, but you know it's a no-brainer. But if you're a prosumer who likes good cameras but you also like sexy design, then really you have to choose. Like am I okay with crappy battery life because the air is not gonna have good battery life compared to the pro or the pro max? Maybe it's okay compared to the pro, but if you're a pro max user, going from a pro max to an air is going to be quite a shock. You're a pro max user, going from a pro max to an air is going to be quite a shock. You're definitely not getting, because sometimes with my six iphone 16 pro max I can get like almost two out two days of battery life because I don't use as my main phone, of course, because I use the s25 ultra or the z fold 7, but still it's good battery life. And the iphone 17 or I keep saying 17 air. I wish I hadn't done that because it's so annoying because all the other ones have 17 in it, but it does make sense. Of course it ships with iOS 26. It has integrated antennas for improved connectivity. So it's all machined from one giant piece of metal when they actually did this and overall I mean it looks like they made some nice upgrades, particularly with the, like I said, the camera system was the big thing they focused on and I think that's a big deal. They also put the ceramic shield too, on the front and the back, so it's more durable as well, and it does have a vapor chamber in it for cooling the first time ever for Apple Another thing they stole from Samsung.
Speaker 1:But hey, you know, know, we like to give some. You get a little help from your friends, like the wonder years. I need a little help from my friends. Oh yeah, oh. Eight times optical zoom inside the iphone 16 pro sound lineup as well. So now they actually have, you know, essentially, I guess, not as good, because it's optical quality not exactly optical all the way up to eight X. Samsung technically says optical quality to 10 X, but I'll definitely be comparing those when I actually get it. And then the eight 19 pro, of course, is just a beast of a chip. So overall I mean the camera upgrades are nice and I have to give it to Apple they did a good job in targeting their lineup, marketing it, making some upgrades, but also kind of telling you who should buy each phone they're like.
Speaker 1:If you're just the everyday person, you want a great phone. You don't want to spend much money. Buy the iphone 17. If you're the everyday person who's a little more techie, you want a good camera, but you really care about design and you also wouldn't mind having something lighter, smaller, thinner in your pocket. Get the.
Speaker 2:Air.
Speaker 1:But if you're someone who really needs all the maximum performance and really specifically pro camera in terms of photo and video, and also you want the maximum battery life, then buy the Pro or the Pro Max. They have a really well-distinguished lineup, whereas we've talked about Samsung really doesn't right now, like right now, even with the upcoming S26 Pro, s26 Edge and the S26 Ultra. From the leaks we've seen, it's like well, what are the different people who should buy each phone? Because so far we haven't seen any leaks to suggest what the Pro means in the.
Speaker 1:S26 Pro. Does that mean it has a pro level camera? Does it mean we just put a word on there so it does not just a 26 anymore? And then they never really told people why they should want to buy the edge either.
Speaker 3:In May. They were just like look it's thinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they weren't like well, it's so beautiful and that's what Apple did, is they really?
Speaker 2:Not even that, and it was really kind of like secretive, just about like leading up to, to be fair though, the Edge does also have a vapor chamber in here too, so the Edge does have a lot of wins over the iPhone Air.
Speaker 1:I mean you could go either way with them. I think the iPhone Air looks better, but the Edge obviously has a real dual camera system, it's got stereo speakers. It doesn't have anti-glare display though, so the air winds there. It has a physical SIM slot and it is lighter actually. So it'll be interesting when I make a video comparing these two. Don't forget, the iPhone air will probably not go on sale ever, because Apple doesn't really put their phones on sale. This phone's on sale for six 49 right now.
Speaker 2:That's a good steel, that's a steel a steel like if you
Speaker 1:really want if you want a light and thin phone, I mean 649, I definitely, even though I don't have one yet. I don't think I could see the iphone, even if you're just an object, you know. If you're just looking at it from an objective point of view and you're like I want the best thin phone I can get, I don't think the iPhone Air is going to be $350 better than the Edge. I mean, obviously they both have pros and cons, but I don't think it's $350 better. So, overall, my thoughts on the Apple event it's Apple Surprising. They didn't have a black phone. I'm surprised by that. The orange phone I'm very skeptical about because it looks dark in their marketing materials. But you never know.
Speaker 2:But you never know, I saw some people Dua Lipa.
Speaker 1:You know the musician.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They gave her one early and she posted a photo with it and it looks more like a sherbet color. So I'm not sure if they're lying to me. I just don't want to order one, and then I open it up and it's rose gold again. I have nightmares about that, Tori.
Speaker 2:I mean between the colors. I think they're all good. I think I would probably lean more towards the silver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the silver's clean. Yeah, yeah, the silver's clean.
Speaker 2:The blue's nice too, but I like to also test the really interesting colors, so I would probably also go for the orange as well.
Speaker 1:As a content creator, it's always like you got to get the new color, because if you want to make a thumbnail it just gets more clicks if you have the new color, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I always feel like I have to get the new color. Unless it's going to be like my personal phone in the long run, then I'll maybe swap the color out, but I'll probably get orange. I'm not sure what I'm getting yet for the air. I'm definitely gonna get the pro max in the air. I don't think I'm necessarily gonna get a 17. I'm not sure. A lot of people have asked me like if I would compare the 17 to the galaxy s25 fe. Yeah, I'm thinking about it, maybe, but that's an extra 799.
Speaker 2:I really like that gold, though, yeah, I might get the gold, it's possible yeah, I mean for the air.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might get the gold. I was kind of leaning towards the gold or the black, I'm not sure, but the black doesn't look that great because the camera module is black as well, so it doesn't have as much distinction. I don't know, but I definitely. I'm thinking about getting an air and comparing it to the s25 fe. Just people got to like that's still a lot of money for me, like $799. I have to be sure that I can actually get value out of it. I don't have unlimited money. I just buy these so that I can hopefully make content which gives us value and we can make some of the money back. Anyway, we spent a lot of time talking about Apple, which is fine. I mean, it's the competition, like I said, what I would like to see samsung take away from this event. So let's wrap this up and then we'll take a break and we'll come back in the second half of the show.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about all samsung I promise the last 30, 40, 40 minutes of the show, because I got a lot to say about various things hardware related. I'm gonna talk about the tavs 11, s25, fe, buds, 3fe. I mean tory, have some questions. We're going to answer too for you guys. There's a lot to talk about, but I'll say what I'd like to see Samsung take away from this is one they need to distinguish their phones a little more in the S series right now. So in January at Unpacked, they need to make it obvious this is who should buy the Pro, this is who should buy the Edge, this is who should buy the Ultra.
Speaker 1:And I really think they should lean more into the ultra. It doesn't like I like apple's strategy of we don't care what the pro max looks like. It can look like. It looks not that nice pretty. It doesn't need to look pretty. We don't care if it's thick, it's heavy, that's fine because it's for pro applications. You're using that to create video. You need those features. So the price you pay is your phone is going to look ugly as hell. And we're okay to create video. You need those features, so the price you pay is your phone is going to look ugly as hell and we're okay with it.
Speaker 2:But you have those features yeah, and so sam.
Speaker 1:I think samsung should lean into that too. This is all the ultra. It's not going to be the most beautiful phone, but it's got everything in it. We're putting a bigger battery. We're increasing the charging even more. We're going to put more camera sensors. We're going to keep the s-pin. We're not going to delete it, s-pin stays. We bring back some other features. Maybe we bring back the sd card slot. Get crazy, oh yeah. Maybe bring back the headphone jack. Oh that would be.
Speaker 1:Maybe we put in a hd mini hdmi port on the side. Maybe we bring back magnetic stripe reading technology for samsung wallet. Just throw all the kitchen sink in it I love it, and then it's truly ultra.
Speaker 1:And then you say oh well, you don't want to pay fourteen hundred dollars and have a ugly phone that's thick and heavy, because you're not truly a pro. Then here's a thousand dollar galaxy s26 edge. Yep, that's the one you should buy and then if you just want an s26 device and you still want a great camera but you don't want to spend as much as the edge you don't care about it being thin then you should get the pro this distinguish their lineup, then it's distinguished.
Speaker 1:Um, I also would like to see them bring anti-glare screen to the whole lineup. The pro, the edge and ultra all need to have it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, samsung has just given all the preferences to the whole lineup.
Speaker 1:The Pro, the Edge and the Ultra all need to have it. Samsung has just given all the preferences to the Pro I mean to the Ultra lately. That's a feature that should be standard across the whole lineup because it's just too important. And now that Apple has it across the whole lineup, they need to do that as well, because people are going to expect that, so I think they need to bring that anti-glare across the board.
Speaker 1:What do you think, Tori, what would you take away If you're Samsung? If you're, you know you're taking your notes, like Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. What, what, what notes would you say they should take away from this Apple keynote?
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, no, I mean, I think I felt like you hit all the same marks, that um, I think I would say um, I think they do need to do better marketing. Now that I've seen a few samsung events, it just kind of seems like, um, you know, you ever you ever seen like e3 back when they were still doing like the electronic game show, okay, yeah. So like how they just like, all right, here's this game, here's this, here's this. And that's what I kind of feel like when I watch the samsung ones and like they've I know they've been very hyper focused on the ai, ai and stuff, but like I, really, I, I like the ultra phones but like you're really not, it's just the marketing seems all over the place.
Speaker 2:Like at first it seems like they were targeting the flip to, you know, the girls or ladies and younger audience, and then now it just kind of seems like it's everywhere. And you know, I think they just need to streamline it and I think they should just stick to two events just the foldables and the slab. Move the edge in with the slab, which is, you know, that's what they're doing. But yeah, I think it's just marketing. I know we don't have our marketing degrees and the other thing that Tori said there, though we forgot to mention this.
Speaker 1:Apple did not really say AI a single time. In their event they unlike Google, who said it 5,000 times, and Samsung, who probably said it 500 times, in Digital Eye Unpacked Apple did want to talk about it, and there's a reason, because last year they unveiled Apple Intelligence and then they couldn't actually deliver on it, and 12, 13 months later, they still haven't produced it, so they didn't want to bring that up. I'm like, hey guys, you guys remember that thing last year that we said we'd ship on the iPhone 16 pro max and we never gave you after you spent all your money. Yeah, we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 2:So they didn't even talk about it.
Speaker 1:They didn't even talk about it. They didn't talk about the new Siri or anything. I think it's funny, because Samsung always is like tweeting during the iPhone event, like giving them crap, and they're like oh, 48 megapixel camera, that's not 200 megapixels like we have Burn. That's what they were tweeting on the Samsung account, but they didn't give them crap about anything that actually matters. Apple camera is still good. 48 megapixels Megapixels don Mac pixels don't really mean anything. So in my opinion, that's a stupid insult. What they should have said is where's Apple intelligence? That's what Samsung should have said yeah right, because that's something they promised and never delivered. Released to.
Speaker 1:Apple intelligence and actually you know, I think AI, even though we give a crap for being overemphasized, it is still something people expect now, now, and so I think a lot of apple users average is probably hey, what happened to all those cool siri features that supposed to use apple intelligence that you guys demoed in the iphone commercials last year? Like, is my iphone 17 pro gonna get those features and apple's just not talking about it because they just haven't delivered?
Speaker 1:it so they're not even commenting on like any of that. They didn't say it at all. I know that was the most glaring omission. They're like closer comment.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:Samsung is still dominating there, for sure, the Galaxy I. They obviously still are dominating foldables, because Apple doesn't have one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I do think they need to step it up on the pro and the edge models If they want to compete with the 17 and the iPhone air. The S6 Ultra is still a worthy competitor to the Pro and the Pro Max, but there's always more work to do. Anyway, hopefully everyone enjoyed that. I know it was a long time talking about Apple. We tried to connect it to Samsung because that's what we do here and, speaking of which, before we get into a lot of Samsung hardware software Q&A, I've got to buy these iPhone devices to make some videos and, as you, amazon hardware software Q&A, I've got to buy these iPhone devices to make some videos and, as you probably know, it's very expensive, and the reason I bring that up is I got to pay for it somehow, and so it's about time to hear from the sponsor of this week's podcast.
Speaker 1:This episode of the Sammy Guru podcast is brought to you by our partners at US Mobile. Us Mobile has wireless service on all three of the major carriers in the united states. You can get service on their dark star, their warp and light speed networks, and you can even switch between those on your plan at any time that you like. They have various different promos running right now, including their yearly promotions. They have a 30-day free trial if you bring your number to US Mobile, as well as three months of service for $45, which is $15 a month on their unlimited starter plan, and you can do that with porting your number in or getting a new number with US Mobile as well. They have some really amazing deals, and the fact that you can actually switch between the three major US carriers is quite a great deal for a prepaid carrier and something that I really like about us mobile.
Speaker 1:If you guys are looking for a great new wireless service, check out our friends at us mobile. We appreciate them for sponsoring this episode of the semi guru podcast. All right, everybody, we're back and here in the second half of the show. We're back to the semi guru podcast. The first half was the apple guru podcast.
Speaker 1:It was but now we're back for the real Sammy Guru podcast today and I got a few things I want to talk about. First thing is just revisiting something from last week the Galaxy Tab S11.
Speaker 3:I had time to use it now.
Speaker 1:Last week I just unboxed it and so I just had some very preliminary thoughts. I found out some things about it that surprised me, that upset me, that delighted me, and the first one is the Galaxy Tab S11 does not have the anti-glare coating like the S11 Ultra. So if you buy the smaller one, you got glare galore. I know it is a lot of glare it's like ah, it's blinding me, so that's disappointing because it's blinding me. So that's disappointing because, like 800, it's an 800 tablet that's very disappointing for that price.
Speaker 1:Uh, the next thing is samsung got rid of the haptic motor on the tab s11 and the s11 ultra, which means no vibrations. You can get mute or sound, you cannot get vibrate. So no haptic feedback, no vibrations when you're navigating around the ui yeah so you're not going to get good vibrations.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. You're not going to get good vibrations. Um what else? No, wi-fi 7 on this particular device. The tab s11 ultra has it, um, but the galaxy tab s11 does not. Uh, which is not a huge deal. I suppose um other than you know. It's just future proofs it at the end of the day, um you know, because this device has seven years of support yeah and so wi-fi seven's not that important right now, but in four or five years it might be more important.
Speaker 1:You might have a Wi-Fi 7 router by then and you might want it if you're going to keep this for a while. So I hate to see them not include that on this device. Obviously, the new S Pencil that looks like an Apple Pencil doesn't have Bluetooth, which is kind of disappointing that it doesn't have Bluetooth, which is kind of disappointing that it doesn't have Bluetooth on it. The case that Samsung the first party like book cover case sucks pretty bad. I'm not a big fan of them. Their book cover is like if you fold it over it like sticks out the side of the device which makes it hard to hold.
Speaker 1:Their book cover is unfortunately not as good as Apple's and considering how much you pay, it's a little annoying to have those sorts of issues. But I mean, aside from all of that stuff, I really do like this device. It's just because the One UI 8, they now have this new desktop mode on here where you can add desktops to your tablet, um, and the way it works yeah, if you add a desktop.
Speaker 1:So over here's my desktop. Now you can basically use this as a desktop. You can resize the windows and you can minimize these apps and you can open a bunch of windows, you know, at one time oh, really like that, and so they do make this easier to use like a real laptop.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Instead of just a tablet interface, and the new DeX is really nice.
Speaker 2:The new one you like. I always have to wait for that keyboard. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The Pro keyboard doesn't come out until probably January. They do have the thin keyboard, but it sucks. Definitely don't buy it. I talked about that last week. Don't buy it. I talked about that last week. They have a new like quick settings and new notifications panel for the tablets, which actually looks really nice. Last year with One UI 7, I criticized them because basically the notification panel was just like a stretched version of the phone, and this year it's a lot better. But man, I mean no haptic feedback is definitely kind of disappointing. I do like this tablet, but for the price it's just. Some of these omissions are disappointing. The anti-glare is the most disappointing. I wish they'd put the anti-glare on here, given the fact that it's $800.
Speaker 1:I know it's not $1,200 like the Ultra, like the uh, like the ultra, but you should still have anti-glare. Anti-glare is so nice on the, on the, on the S25 ultra and on the tab S11 ultra. I think all Samsung devices should have that anti-glare which we talked about at the beginning with the Apple event as well. So I really like this. I'm going to use it as my main tablet. Probably.
Speaker 1:The big bezels on the side don't bother me because I use them to grip when I'm reading and when I'm taking notes, and the S Pencil is more comfortable for notes, so there's nothing wrong with that and that doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:Oh, they also switched the power and the volume buttons, so now you can't use cases from last year on the Ultra. So if you're an Ultra user the S10 Ultra and the S11 Ultra they have the same design but they swapped places, so now you can't. They changed where the pens go for the keyboard case because presumably, like I said, they're going to try to copy Apple's Magic keyboard design and that's what they're going to release in January. Who the hell is buying that in January? I don't know, because people have already found a third-party keyboard solution. In my opinion, like, if you're buying this, you're going to just buy a keyboard from someone else, because there's other companies that are making keyboards for the Ultra Tab, s11, ultra, anyway, who knows, but that's what's going on with that. I did get the Buds 3 FE, which you've been able to take a look at, tori what do you?
Speaker 1:think of that. These are all matte black.
Speaker 2:I do like the matte black.
Speaker 1:They don't offer the buds 3 pro in matte black, but these they're. They're not super dark black, I mean, they are kind of a gray, but they're definitely not silver like the buds 3 pro are yeah, no because I gave you a pair of buds 3 pro that are silver.
Speaker 1:The case is pretty similar size. It's a little smaller than the buds 3 pro, I guess, but it's very similar design to the buds three pro. Um, I've been listening to them all day today. I, uh, I listened to the apple event this morning so I could see how it handles like spoken word, and I listen to a lot of music. I listen to some hip-hop, some rap, some pop. You know a little country yeah, a little country country I listen to a little. Uh, what's that guy's name? Um?
Speaker 2:what's that guy's name? The?
Speaker 1:new country guy. I forgot his name. Um oh man, I can't remember is it jelly?
Speaker 1:roll man, not jelly roll, it's another guy that's like super popular. I don't listen to north country music anymore. I'll have to tell you guys. Next week I'll look it up. He does a bunch of collabs with rappers and stuff. He did a collab with big x the plug. I don't remember what his name is, though he did a a Big X the Plug collab in one of his songs. Anyway, these things have great bass and mids for the price at $149. They don't sound too much different than the Pro. The Pro definitely gets louder. The maximum volume on the Buds 3 Pro is a lot louder, but they do get loud enough and they still have really good bass and mids considering they're a hundred dollars less. Wait, was it morgan wall?
Speaker 1:it is morgan wall and I get it yeah, morgan wall, and he does collabs with a bunch of rappers, particularly big x.
Speaker 1:The plug I like a lot of his songs so I listened to some of his album uh as well. With the buds 3 pro and the buds 3fe, I kind of compared them side by side, just kind of listening to the same song back and forth. They're good value 149. The only main thing that is on these you know that's on the Pro, that's not on these the sound quality I would say is good. I mean, obviously you get better sound quality. The bass is a little more thumpy on the Pros, the mids are a little bit. You can see distinction in the lows and the mids and the highs a little more on the Buds 3 Pro. So you do get some improvements.
Speaker 1:But it's not like you're going to be disappointed unless you have a really high-end pair of Buds. Obviously, for me I always have to be a little careful because I have a very wide range of earbuds. I have Buds that are $40 earbuds all the way up to I have the Bang Olufsen earbuds, the 11 ones that just came out. They're like $500 earbuds and so obviously you can't expect if you're used to listening to those, don't expect the same quality for these, because these are 150 buds, yeah, but I would say there's not a massive difference if you're not an audiophile or if you're not someone who listens to primarily hip-hop, there may not be as huge of a difference between these and the pros for a hundred dollars. If you listen to hip I still get the pros over these because the bass is thumpier Always.
Speaker 1:The more expensive the headphones, you're always going to be able to get bigger bass because the drivers are going to be better. Yeah, and it makes sense. And they're more expensive. The hardware is more expensive. But if you don't listen to hip hop primarily, I would say these are pretty similar for a lot of other types of music where it's mainly, you know, some of that mid-range type music you listen to. But the wireless charging is isn't missing the case doesn't wirelessly charge on these, which I don't like. That I mean, but it's. That's something you lose for a hundred dollars. So, yeah, um, I get it. You still got usbc charging, but with my buds I typically always drop them on the wireless because I have the three-in chargers actually quite a few of them here and at the house so that might be a problem for me, cause I'd probably sit these down and then I'd come back and I'd be like, why the hell are these earbuds still dead?
Speaker 1:And I'll be like, oh yeah, they don't. The case doesn't want to charge.
Speaker 2:I forgot about that. Can you use that?
Speaker 1:When I first got it. Actually this morning when I got out of the box I did the unboxing I sat in on one of my UAG wireless chargers and I'm like, why isn't it wireless charging? And I was like, oh yeah, I forgot, this is on wireless with charge, so you know. But I would say these are good value. If you want just Galaxy Buds, you don't care about missing the wireless with charging and you don't need the maximum maximum base, yeah, Then they a really good value. They're $100 less. Probably around Christmas time, I bet, these will be on sale for $119. And at $119, they're like a super.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think that would be a really good gift, especially for an average consumer. And they look so good.
Speaker 1:I mean, they look the same design as the Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro and I wish they would have did the all matte black option in the Bud 3 pro. Yeah, that would have been a nice option to have for the buds 3 pro. So if you want black ones and you don't mind slightly less bass no wireless charging go get them. I'll do a full review of these on youtube and sammy guru. But you guys get early access on the podcast because usually, usually I just get to kind of give my thoughts, raw emotions here on the podcast without having to write them down or put them in a formal video, because that takes takes time. Just telling you on the podcast doesn't take that much time. No, I just got the S25 FE, tori, I got this white S25 FE, I know.
Speaker 3:It looks really nice, it does look nice.
Speaker 1:You know Some people say it's the phone that shouldn't exist. You know, that's what some people say. We talked about that last week because it's like it's a weird spot in Samsung's lineup.
Speaker 2:It looks sleek. It actually looks really nice. I like the back how it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it looks very much like the S25 series. It's lots in there. It looks like an S25 Plus from the back. Yeah, it does, except the S25 Plus doesn't have an all-white model. I got the all-white just because I don't have an all-white Samsung phone right now, and the white does look nice on this particular device. Um, I think of the colors that they released, the fe, and it looks nice. They improved some things from last year. It has a matte back on this one instead of a glossy. Last year my blue, baby blue or whatever it was called s24, if you didn't have a glossy back. Uh, they have some nice upgrades. They didn't upgrade the processor, but they did upgrade a lot of the other stuff inside here in terms of the display, uh is a little bit brighter. You also have the cameras, got a little bit of a bump on an upgrade on that. You got all the galaxy I. This thing comes with one.
Speaker 1:You know I ate out of the box yeah one thing that they didn't do is they didn't put an optical. I'm sorry they didn't put an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. I think samsung got a little tricky because the animation looks exactly the same as the one on the S25 series, like, if you look at my Ultra this I have extend unlock on because of my watch on, but the fingerprint sensor animation looks the same as it does on the other S25 series. But this is an optical scanner and these ones are ultrasonic, which, tori, I don't know if you know the difference between them. Basically, ultrasonic is faster and more accurate. But honestly, you also see how this one is lower on the screen. Oh yeah, usually the optical ones are lower and the ultrasonics are higher on the display, so this one's usually faster and more accurate. It's a little bit slower.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, I can tell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the ultrasonic, if you do it side by side you'll notice, yeah, but this one's very fast and accurate, honestly. But I think samsung tried to get a little tricky, because usually when you have the optical scanners they have like a little bright, super bright light under your fingerprint, when when it's doing it on this one you really can't tell.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if they were trying to be tricky or not but some people thought this was an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, but it's actually not an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, um, but I mean some solid upgrades. They definitely upgraded the overall design looks a little bit cleaner. Like I said, the matte back and sides camera rings look very similar to the rest of the s25 lineup. Um, they upgraded the camera slightly. I mean there's some small camera upgrades here, nothing too massive. I just unboxed it today so.
Speaker 1:I can't say. I'll probably talk more about this one next week, kind of like how last week I just unboxed the tab and then, I had to have a week with it to tell you actually insightful things about it I can't give you a lot of insight.
Speaker 2:It's like leaving little breadcrumbs for you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm breadcrumbs, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna look forward to. On the next, yeah, I can't give you crazy insights on the hardware with. I just took out the box like two hours ago, yeah, but just in general. Some minor camera upgrades. Uh, you've got again some small design upgrades. The display looks a little bit bigger, a little bit brighter I should say um, and then it gets when it gets, when you eat out of the box, which is pretty nice. No processor change, like I said, which disappointed some people. But overall, I mean, this lineup is like kind of in a weird spot. Like we talked about this phone still 650 dollars, which is almost the same price as the base s25, which you could say, well, it's got a bigger screen because the base s25 is smaller. But that also makes it kind of weird. It's like, do I want to spend slightly more money and get a smaller phone?
Speaker 1:Samsung has got all these their lineup is very disjointed which is one thing I think they really had to clean up a little bit. It's definitely a good phone. It's just some of the compromises that you get in buying this over the S25 plus or buying the S25 over this because you want the more flagship device but then you have to get a smaller screen. It's just some weird choices you have to make as a consumer in the S25 lineup. But I did unbox this, I will give some impressions on this next week and probably make a video on this at some point and if you guys are interested in me making a video on this, versus the iPhone 17, which I think is actually the best competitor to the iPhone 17 in terms of size and feature sets and all that stuff. Obviously I could do the S25 plus versus the iPhone 17,. But the iPhone 17 and S25 plus are separated by a little bit more in terms of price. So let me know which comparison you guys would kind of like to see on that. Curious to see what you guys say to what you'd like to see on that. Curious to see what you guys say in terms of what you'd like to see me compare.
Speaker 1:I think that's mostly what I had to say about the hardware. We have a little bit of Samsung news we can get to before we get to our Q&A. We've got to cover a little bit of the news there we do. The people love the news. We've got to get a little news. So apparently the S26 Ultra's camera bump is twice as thick as the s25 ultras, so it's going to protrude twice as much as the rings on the s25 ultra.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a thick boy yeah, it's a thick boy right there um I don't know how I feel about that, like we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know why they don't just make the whole phone thicker, yeah, and then just put a bigger battery in it right and just go that route that apple went. It's like oh well, you, you get a thick phone, it's a little uglier, but it's got all this stuff. That's what I think they should do. Still, I think that's the way to go. You know, I agree we wrote a post about best samsung tv deals. I gotta get this off my chest this is the podcast my samsung tv.
Speaker 1:I don't think I mentioned this yet on the podcast. My 85 inch kuled right before we moved, got two red lines right down the middle. Did I tell you this yet, tori?
Speaker 1:no, no, yeah, it was only two months out of its warranty, because I got this with tv last year on may 31st around august the beginning of august or middle august it developed the red lines like a couple months after the warranty ended, right down the middle. And now samsung has given me a huge runaround in scheduling the repair and I'm kind of frustrated because I got to pay 140 bucks for someone to come and just look at it and then more to potentially fix it, and they won't even schedule the repair without me taking very specific photos and I told them like guys I know that it's obviously an issue with the display panel. I need someone just to come and open it and fix it. I don't have time to be sending you like glamour shots of my TV, just send someone out here to fix it.
Speaker 1:Let's get it going, let's get it moving, let's get it grooving.
Speaker 2:We got to get moving and grooving.
Speaker 1:Yeah and they're like no, you got to have all these pictures and I'm like, well, we're not getting them as well. I really think Samsung's after-sale customer service is one of their weakest points for their whole product portfolio compared to Apple. We haven't really talked a lot about that on the show, but if you compare them to Apple's after-sale support like if you buy an iPhone or you buy anything, not only can you get AppleCare, but even if you don't have AppleCare and you take something in, you're like something's wrong with this device. A lot of times Apple will just be like oh well, here's a new one or we'll fix it without charging you much. If they do charge you something, they don't try to extort you and they always get the service scheduled quickly. Samsung gives you a disastrous time.
Speaker 3:To run around Whenever you contact their customer service.
Speaker 1:they're slow, inefficient and all their different channels. That's just the truth. I mean, I love their products and it doesn't stop me from buying them, but if I were an average consumer, that'd give me pause. Because you want great customer service, tori, right? Yeah, you do.
Speaker 3:You need it.
Speaker 1:Like, if you're a person who doesn't his tech isn't your job or hobby, like me you can't be spending an hour or two hours chasing down, like someone just to come out.
Speaker 3:I want to be able to call someone. Yeah, just be like. Call someone.
Speaker 1:Be like hey, I want to give you $140 so you can schedule. I told the lady today I was like I just want to pay the $140 and have a certified Samsung technician come out here and look at the TV, and she still wouldn't do it. Like have a certified Samsung technician come out here and look at the TV, and she still wouldn't do it. Like I want to give you $140 right now, let's do it. And she was like no, sorry, Can't do it. I need these three pictures of your TV. I'm like geez man, really. No, just send someone out here. I already told you it's got red lines down the middle, damn, all right. So that's very frustrating. Apparently, samsung was voted the number one TV and home appliance brand in the US.
Speaker 1:We wrote an article about this so I thought that was funny, just because they've been giving me the runaround, so I don't know if I voted them the number one appliance and TV brand in the US.
Speaker 1:Someone did. Someone did, but not me. Apparently, samsung is. We already know that in terms of their sensors, they're upgrading the sensors in the S26 Ultra, but they're not like doing a massive overhaul, they're just shrinking down that aperture, opening it up a little bit, I think to F1.4. Apparently, Sony's got a 200 megapixel IMX09E sensor that may outshine outperform the S26 Ultra's ISOCELL HP2, which leads people to believe. Also, samsung is supplying apparently some better camera sensors to other manufacturers, which is kind of weird, because Samsung is a huge company and they don't just make phones, they make everything. They have their own camera division that makes camera components. They sell those to other people. So should Samsung really be selling better camera hardware than they're putting in? They're selling to themselves because they're selling like better cameras to like some of these chinese brands, so like honor and them can beat them in in mobile phone photography.
Speaker 1:that just doesn't seem good to me, I understand it's they're different business units, but I just don't know about that. Maybe they should vertically integrate that a little bit more. Um, and here's another spicy rumor. So apparently Samsung is going to release not one, but two folds for the fold eight one that has a tall aspect ratio, like the current fold seven, and one that has a more square aspect ratio, like the pixel pro fold.
Speaker 1:They can probably guess why they're doing that Because Apple is planning to release one that has a very square aspect ratio, and so they don't want anyone to look at the Apple Fold and say, oh well, Samsung has nothing like that one. So I'll go with Apple because I like that Nope, we do.
Speaker 1:They're like oh, we've got a square one that opens more like a traditional phone, or the taller one that has a narrower screen. But I actually think Samsung is on the right side of history with the taller Fold because, as I said when I reviewed the Fold 7 on the podcast, it's very annoying to open those ones that have wider cover screens because they have very square aspect ratios on the inside. It's not good for reading webpages or anything, and it's not good for playing games you get letterboxing. If you watch media, you get letterboxing. No one wants letterboxing like that. It looks terrible. It's not my jam, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Not the jam Not feeling that at all. And then, lastly, huge news. We had to talk about this. This is actually the post that's got us kind of our most you know page views in the last few weeks. Is the Galaxy, sorry know page views in the last few weeks. Is the galaxy, sorry, the one?
Speaker 1:Ui8, uh, release schedule has leaked. So now we know when people are going to get their one ui8 updates and you know people are always asking us. They're like when's the one ui8 update coming? When's it coming? Yeah, when's it coming? Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Um, and so apparently, according to this leak from alpha turcon x this is turkey, by the way, this is the turkish rollout and every region slightly different. So don't think that this means exactly your device will get it the same day, but it should be close. The s25 series is going to get it on the 18th, except for one device, the s25 edge, which we predicted last week. We said there's no way the s25 edge will get it the same day as the rest of Edge, which we predicted last week. We said there's no way the S25 Edge will get it the same day as the rest of the lineup and we were right the S25 Edge is going to get it a week later with the S24 series. So S25 Edge has been demoted and relegated to the previous year's flagship, even though it released later than the rest of the S25 phones. So S25 Edge, s24, s24 Ultra, s24 Plus, s24 FE, all get it on September 25th.
Speaker 1:And then we keep the party rolling into October, with the S23 series getting on October 2nd and the S22 series getting it on October 6th. So all of the last four S series will have it by October 6th. So within like four weeks all the people on the S flagships from the last four years will have one UI eight. The fold six and the flip six get it October 2nd, and then the fold five and flip five, fold four and flip four get it October six and October 13th. So foldable users have to wait a long time, which is very weird because One UI 8 launched on the foldables.
Speaker 1:So you would think it would be easier to just port it directly to those older foldables because they're still the same type of device. You would think those would be able to come out even before the S25 series. But Samsung's update schedules never make any sense. No one knows what the hell is going on. Never the A series this year's iPhones 36 and 56, get it on the 25th of September. The rest of them are waiting until October. The Tab series the Tab S10 Ultra and S10 Plus get it on October 1st. The whole S10 series and then the S9 series has to wait until October 23rd. Of course, the Tab S11 already launched for the One UI 8.
Speaker 1:So you know Samsung's like. If you want that One UI 8, come buy these new tablets. Get that money out, go ahead and get the credit card Just swipe here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll take it, boop, We'll tag it. Just bag it and tag it.
Speaker 1:We'll ship one to you Galaxy Watch update for One UI 8 Watch October 1st, the Galaxy Watch 7, the Watch 6 Classic and the Watch 6, and the Watch FE, and then the rest of them have to wait until November. Watch 5 Pro, watch 5, watch 4 Classic, watch 4, all get it on November 3rd according to the schedule. So our original prediction from last week was somewhat correct. Some people could be waiting for almost till Thanksgiving to enjoy some delicious One UI 8 on their device.
Speaker 1:Not quite Thanksgiving but potentially, depending on your region, could be around Thanksgiving time when you get it. What do you think, torrey, will Samsung deliver here?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm assuming that they've learned from One UI 7, so I think, yeah, people will probably get it on time.
Speaker 1:We hope so, and I hope so Because if they didn't, the people are going to be pretty upset about that.
Speaker 2:And we'll be talking about it on the podcast. They did not deliver on One UI 7.
Speaker 3:No, they did not. We need to deliver there.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, that's pretty much what I wanted to hit. We got some good news. We had to talk about the fruit company today, the fruit company.
Speaker 3:today we had to give them their just do you know?
Speaker 2:I only talk about them on this podcast, like once a year, and that's during the launch time Cause they only have one launch a year, just to see what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Same thing with Google, like we talk about them during the pixel event, just to compare, you know. So we try to keep it Samsung only, but it's important to compare. Uh, we did get a question. We got a question in our fan mail, actually three, so we'll talk about them. I don't actually know this guy's name. He just wrote on Buzzsprout, which is our platform for the podcast. He said big fan of the channel and podcast. I have a few questions. There's three which we can address. First one is do you think Samsung's dead set on removing the S Pen down the line or is it more a last resort in their minds? Do we think they're dead set on it?
Speaker 2:You know it's always a hard topic for me because I really do like the S Pen. I really hope they keep it. Tori loves the S Pen. I really do.
Speaker 1:In terms of do? I think they're dead set on it. I mean, I don't think anything's in stone yet because they're obviously keeping it on the S26 series and the S27 series is still far enough away that even if they were going to thinking about getting rid of it, they could still change their mind. It's long enough away.
Speaker 1:The S26 series they really can't change their mind about much of anything because that's going to start being mass produced in November and mass produced in November, and when you're going to make millions of phones in like two months, you can't change a lot of stuff because all that stuff needs to be starting, you know, going to fabrication and all the components have to be getting ready for them to go down the assembly line and in order to ship phones in January. It's not a lot of time. But I think Samsung needs to evaluate their goals. I think right now they are set on it because they think this whole thin trend is what they need to do, but I really think they should reverse their course, like I said many times in this podcast, towards what Apple is doing. If you want thin to be a thing in your lineup, just make the one phone that it's about.
Speaker 3:Make it all the way.
Speaker 2:Just go all the way. It doesn't need to be across the board. It can just be the one phone, um, you know, because like, look, I think a lot of people probably still really like um the pen, and I really would like for them to kind of think of it kind of like how I was asking earlier about the consumer test, like hey, let's see how these slim phones are doing a few years from now, like you know, two to three years out, I mean, cause they started to do it with the foldables and I feel like the foldables are like growing, but they're also kind of like plateauing in terms of like with the flip, you know, and stuff like that. And so I'm like give, like, give us some time. I didn't have a wiper portfolio and they can really just put all their eggs in the basket of the edge and still allow for the slab posts.
Speaker 1:You mean for the thinness? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just put all those thin eggs in one basket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just flatten them up, really thin eggs, and put them in.
Speaker 1:Put them in one very small thin basket and then leave the ultra alone and throw everything in the ultra. Yeah, because the people buy the ultra, they want all the stuff. No, I mean, from what I've heard, I've very I've almost never seen anyone on social media or anywhere on the internet say, oh man, I just wish the ultra was much thinner. No, they always want a bigger battery yeah, they want better performance, bigger vapor chamber.
Speaker 1:They want the s pen. They want the bluetooth back. They would love to have a micro sd slot back. They'd love to have the headphone jack back, just put all this stuff back in, yeah you know, you might even get more sales you probably would if you put all that stuff in there it'll blow people's mind. Oh yeah, people's mind probably still some apple people, people's mind would be blown they'd be like, oh my god, a headphone jack and sd slot, and the bluetooth s pen is back. No, I'll take three what is this 2010?
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna put three of them in there. I'll take three in my cart by the right.
Speaker 1:I'm serious, though I think they should. Why not throw everything in kitchen sink in the top phone? It doesn't need to be thin, because those people don't want thin. They want multitasking, they want longer battery life because they do stuff with their phone. Obviously it's not like the phone if you make it a little thicker is going to be so heavy you can't hold it. These phones are already super light and they've already gotten to the pinnacle of industrial design.
Speaker 2:It's not like if you make it a little bit heavier, I'm going to be like oh no, it's so heavy. No, I mean, of course, how can I walk?
Speaker 1:you can say oh well, some not everybody's going to want that, well, okay. Well, that's why you have the edge. Then the two products are much more differentiated, so then you really appeal to two different consumers instead of making one person decide if they're going to sacrifice one thing or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, because you're so dead, you know there's so much the same thing. Like you know you're trying to make three phones. Essentially Do I want this phone.
Speaker 1:That's a couple of millimeters thinner but loses a few features? Or do I want this other phone that's a couple of meters thicker but it really doesn't add that many features?
Speaker 1:because to make it as thin as it is, or why don't I just have a phone that's really ultra but it's 10 millimeters thick. Who cares? That's what Apple did, and I think actually in this case Apple made a good decision. So I think right now Samsung's mind might be set on it. But maybe once they see what Apple did and they see how that performs for Apple, they're like maybe we should just be like we're all in on thin on the edge, but we're all out on thin on the Ultra. Let's just push the premium features experience on the Ultra.
Speaker 2:Even with the Ultra. I like this. I think this is fine, like with the S24 Ultra. I think this is totally fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean basically, tori, you have the UAG case on your Ultra.
Speaker 1:So it's basically 10 millimeters thick now because the UAG case is massive. So if you use a relatively protected case on your phone, you already know what 10 millimeters thick is, because that's basically, if you put a case like a UAG case on there, you're basically adding that much thickness to it. Yeah, everyone would be okay with that. I would anyway. How many Pixel 10 features do you think will find their way onto the S26 series in One UI? 8.5? It's a good question. I really hope they don't do that.
Speaker 1:100x AI reimagining of the photo, bs. I could see them trying that, but I hope they don't because that's not a place where I want AI to guess on what I took a photo of. Personally, I definitely see something like MagicQ. Samsung will probably do that where it's supposed to suggest. They have suggested replies already, but suggested actions in specific apps. That's what Google did with MagicQ. That would be okay because that's actually the most useful of the Pixel features so far in my experience using the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't surface that often and when it does, it's usually not helpful. So pixel. So I mean that's the problem. A lot of times with AI it's like the feature doesn't show up when you want it, and when you does show up, it doesn't give you the information you want. So you know the AI dream is still a little farther away than most people would like. What other features? The journal I could see Samsung doing something like that. The Pixel journal they might add that to you know. One UI 8.5. I could certainly see them doing something like that. Samsung already is working on a version of the Pixel screenshots app, which is actually one of my favorite things about the pixel screenshots. If you take a screenshot on your phone, the pixel screenshots app categorizes it and it'll automatically let you extract information
Speaker 1:and summarize your screenshot and puts into different categories, like for different types, like if you take a lot of screenshots, like I do for tutorials yeah, I do too it'll put them into things or like math problems.
Speaker 1:It'll put them there and, like for a math problem, you can get like long press on it. It'll solve the math problem for you, export it to Google search that kind of stuff. And it'll also if you have a website. If it's a screenshot of a website, if you just tap on it it'll take you back to the website that you were at when you took the screenshot.
Speaker 2:So that's very useful.
Speaker 1:So they're working on thatsung is working on a version of that called collections, and I think that will. Right now it's only works in china and korea, but I think that's going to be included for the global one, ui 8.5. So for our s26 rollout in january, probably we'll see that. Um, a lot of the other stuff, though, probably is going to be pixel exclusive, because, of course, google doesn't want to share all their pixel features with samsung, because they still want to be able to sell some phones themselves, because obviously, if they gave all their pixel software features to samsung samsung has better hardware no one would buy a pixel, because they'd be like oh well the software features are one and the camera yeah, it's like the
Speaker 1:two main reasons to buy a pixel. I'll just go buy a galaxy phone and get all those pixel features anyway, and most people would probably do that, because samsung has better hardware, in my opinion. Um, the last is do you think they've reached a point where it makes more sense to merge the A-line and FE lines? To me, they're more redundant than the Note S-lines ever were, and we know how that went. This is what me and Tori have been talking about. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say these two the FE and the A series.
Speaker 1:They basically serve the same purpose. That's why I said earlier, some people say this phone that I have here shouldn't exist because it doesn't really serve a distinct purpose in Samsung's lineup. The A56 and the S25 FE are so close in terms of feature set. Just pick a lane, yeah right. One of them is 450, I think, or 500. One of them is 650, 650. Just take the midpoint, let's make it 550 and just merge the features into one there you go and then sell it.
Speaker 1:Call it whatever you want. I don't know. Fan edition still makes no sense to me, so don't call it that, because I think that's stupid. Still, call it whatever you want, if you want to keep the a name or you want to give it a new name yeah um, yeah, the a, the A series.
Speaker 1:I just feel like. But of course, remember I should look at this from my obviously someone who covers Samsung all the time. We live in the US where there's not that many people who buy budget phones anymore because we all just buy stuff on carrier plans and like, oh, it's only $699 a month for 97 months.
Speaker 2:And that sounds fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But in other countries, where no one does that and they don't have these monthly carrier payment plans, a lot of people still buy budget mid-range phones, and that's why Samsung does it. So I think the answer is yes. In the US it definitely, just why sell these? I think they're not. I'd love to see the sales data specifically in the US. I don't think they probably sell that well, because who's going to buy an S25 FE at Verizon when I look at it and I'm like, oh well, that one is $12 a month and the S25 Plus is $15 a month. But this one has a higher res display, better cameras. Basically, it's got faster charging.
Speaker 2:Is it better?
Speaker 1:processor for gaming, better cameras. Basically, it's got faster charging. Is it better processor for gaming? Better cooling? I'm just going to buy that one.
Speaker 2:It's only $3 more a month, I know right.
Speaker 1:It's the same, basically similar size, but it's got better, everything. For the most part, there's almost nothing that the S25 Plus doesn't do better than this. Yeah, but of course, if you're buying it outright, you're like, oh, $1,000 versus $650. Well then someone might buy the $650. Someone might, yeah, because $3 a month is different than $350 up front to people.
Speaker 1:So it depends on the region. Will Samsung ever get rid of both series? In practice, very unlikely in global regions because they sell well, but in the US I really think. I'd love to see the sales data, but I feel like they probably could merge them into one phone. A56 and S25FE could just be one device, and then they have less SKUs to support here, which would be fine Great question I don't know this guy's name.
Speaker 1:We should have included it. Let us know if you want to. He's from Los Angeles, California, according to Buzzsprout. But some great questions for us to discuss on the podcast. One other piece of news, which is actually kind of big news, because last year when I went to Samsung Developer Conference in October, we kind of got a huge break at Sammy Guru because I found those One UI 7 phones that were hidden there apparently samsung is not holding an sdc conference this year.
Speaker 1:Um, according to several sources, we saw a listing for local california calendar website that had it on the calendar for october 3rd, but apparently that's not the case. Samsung has not confirmed it. Usually by now they definitely would have oh yeah for Because it's only like three and a half weeks away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get those travel arrangements.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't think it's not happening this year. Very weird they haven't not held an STC in a long time.
Speaker 2:Interesting. What do you think about that, tori? No STC.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, I don't like that you know, because I wanted a chance to go to California.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know, you know I'm going back to Cali.
Speaker 2:strictly for the weather. Yeah, I know It'd be way better than that Nice song.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I mean that's surprising. Maybe they just don't have anything to talk about because they talked about some stuff at IFA, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know. I mean, they just have so many like this event, this event, this event. Maybe they're just tired.
Speaker 1:Maybe their executive staff leadership is just like guys we're exhausted.
Speaker 3:We can't do another event.
Speaker 1:They're like I don't really want to fly to South Korea. I'm from South Korea to San Francisco in October, so let's just cancel it, why not? Maybe, they don't want to talk about One UI 8.5. Yet Maybe they're not ready to share anything and they're just like, eh, I mean it's possible. Maybe they felt like last year because last year they didn't really say much about One UI 8, and everyone got mad about that.
Speaker 1:And then we leaked the phones that were they forgot they had some phones running it and I leaked all that stuff, maybe they, maybe there's like, oh, we don't want to deal with the hassle again, we'll just wait till January and talk about one. You know eight, that five during the unpacked event for the S26. Then people can't say anything because we haven't commented on it yet, so it's possible.
Speaker 2:No, it is possible yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll see. Anyway, next week. Um, we won't have come out until next Friday so I won't have them. So the iPhone, like hardware thoughts, will be like two weeks away. Probably next week I'll have a lot more to say about the S 25 F E, so if you're curious about that you can tune in. Yeah, um, trifold news keeps coming fast and furious. I think. Hopefully we'll hear something about like the event for the trifold Some point. I'm planning to get one now because I was trying to see if I could get some S26 leaks for Sammy Guru but I missed out. So I have some extra budget Now I can probably put towards the trifold. There was a lot of S26 leaks that come out, but they're very similar to those dummy units we talked about last week.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we'll see if there's any other information that comes out about that and always a lot to talk about here. And also, all the chinese manufacturers are gearing up to release their phones, because they tend to release their new phones like at the end of the year. Yeah, um, to try to get ahead of samsung, like let's release it before the s26 comes out do it before xiaomi's, like we're gonna get in there.
Speaker 1:We're before them, we're going to show people how it's done and the Snapdragon Summit is coming up. So we'll be talking Snapdragon Summit. We'll know exactly which processor is going to go in those S26s. We can talk about any new features that are coming out. We went pretty long today. Yeah, I know we did. Sometimes you like to go long and strong, that's what we did today. Anyway, anything else, tori, you want to add to this podcast? Nope, just that, keep expanding your galaxy.