Galaxy S26 Series Delays and Samsung's Immediate Camera Crisis

We react to Samsung canceling the S26 Edge, unpack why slim phones fizzled, and weigh a simpler S26 lineup that leans on Ultra. We also share the Galaxy XR price, early One UI 8.5 wins, and first impressions of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

• S26 Edge cancellation reasons and timing
• Base vs Plus vs Ultra lineup clarity
• Camera performance lag and user impact
• Launch window logic and tax refund season
• Galaxy XR price, apps, and who it fits
• One UI 8.5 polish and cloud sync changes
• Android Auto support cutoff for old phones
• Qi2 pros and cons vs reverse charging
• Trifold timing, supply limits, and strategy
• Pixel 10 Pro Fold weight, hinge, and aspect trade-offs

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Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, everybody. This is episode number 47 of the Sammy Guru Podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me as always, my co-host Tori. Tori, say hi. Hey, how's it going? We're here on a Sunday, man. Very rare Sunday podcast. Very elusive. You know, it's kind of like catching a shiny Charizard in Pokemon Go. Very rare, very elusive.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Very, very elusive.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Anyway, how's how's your weekend going, Tori? Not your week, but it's the weekend. How's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

No, uh weekend is going well. Uh just trying to, you know, I mean, I feel like there's been like a lot of things going like every weekend. I feel like this has probably been the most chillest weekend. So now you had a lot of grading to do. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a lot of grading. Then I have my evaluation coming up tomorrow. So I've been trying to prep in. The key word is value. Yes. Do you have any? Hopefully. Yeah, you know, we will find out. We'll find out. Do you does Torre have value to the organization?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I heard the football parents are a little upset because you know they want those grades in there for those players, huh? Yeah, they do. They gotta put them in there. I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

So it's like a rush order. So I'm like, okay. So they're like, I'm gonna don't grade anyone else's. I just gotta grade there.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

My son's not here to get an education, they're here for the football, you know. Yes, they are. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Just the football. Yeah, no, just the football.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

But speaking of football, Alabama, wow, man. All those people who said Calen DeVore should be fired, they look like idiots now. Yeah, yeah, they do. They look like one of the best teams in the country. Yeah, no. Besides Ohio State, I think they might really be. They're they're probably gonna be ranked number four when the rankings go out today, but they put a beat down on Tennessee last night. Yeah, yeah. And they've now beat four ranked teams that were in the top 15, including Georgia, who was in the top five at the time. Uh, I don't see anybody beating us because LSU, they don't really look that good. Yeah. Oklahoma hasn't played all that great. Those are the two big ranked games we have left. And then Auburn, you know, they're okay, but you know, they're not having a great season either. Of course, that's the Iron Bowl could always anything can happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah, yeah.

Galaxy S26 Lineup Recap And Confusion

SPEAKER_00 1:58

It doesn't matter what they're ranked in the Iron Bowl because it's a rivalry. But uh, I'm really impressed. I mean, I think we got a real real shot at somehow winning a national championship even without Saban. I think it could happen. You know what I mean? Yeah. Be pretty pumped about that. Um, and then the Steelers are also having a good season. Unfortunately, they lost this past Thursday. They had a game against the Bengals on Thursday night football. But Nicole's team's doing pretty well too. They're four and two, they're leading their division. So which is a little surprising given that they have Aaron Rodgers, he's like 43 years old as their quarterback, but yeah, you know, the rest of their team is pretty good, so they've been figuring it out. Aaron Rodgers hasn't played bad, but the defense didn't play good in this game on Thursday. So yeah, we're here on the Sunday. Um, you know, a lot of fun stuff going on in Phoenix. Things are finally cooling down. Yeah, and he's been really nice. It's in the mid 80s now, in the middle of the day. It's in the like 60s and 70s in the morning and the evening, which is a huge departure from a hundred plus all hours of the day, which is what you have for June, July, August, and September. Basically, it never goes below 100 in Phoenix in those four months. And even in the even if you get up in the morning like to jog, it's still gonna be at least a hundred for the most part. Um, so that's nice, you know. We got Halloween coming up. Yeah. Uh we went to an event at Jonathan's school, it was like a little carnival thing on Friday. They all that was crazy the stuff they had. They had like all kinds of it basically looked like the fair, man. They had all these different like fair, legitimate fair rides. Like they had like a mini like Ferris wheel, they had like carousel. It's crazy. And they had food trucks. Yeah, all the food was free too. Whoa. Get as much food as you want. I mean, they really they said one entree per person, but who listened to that? Yeah, I know. I'm guessing probably nobody. Um, and then yeah, Halloween's coming up, and then for before you know it'll be the holidays. Yeah. Um, and boy, do we have a lot of Samsung news this week. So let's jump into it. So this podcast is not three hours long. Yeah. Um we've been talking about the Galaxy S26 series, you know, probably since we came back. We came back in August, you know, uh started doing the podcast again regularly here with the audio. Uh and we've been talking about the series. And originally, if you remember, Tori, it was gonna be the S26 Pro, the Edge, and the Ultra. Yeah. And like that was what we knew. That's what the leaks said, that's what all the people said who know things. And over time, it's become more confusing because as the leaks have come out about the Pro, there was really nothing pro about any of the stuff. Like it didn't look like the camera was pro. It looked like all the same stuff from just the regular base model. Yeah. So the question was, why weren't they gonna call it a base model? And then we saw those weird renders of the Edge where it had that big giant camera hump like the iPhone 17 Pro Max that I have right here, and everybody hated that. And when the renders came out, everyone online who was a Samsung fan was crapping on that and they didn't like it. We didn't like it when we looked at it either. We weren't really fans of it.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Nah.

S26 Edge Canceled And Why It Failed

SPEAKER_00 5:01

And um, so as times went on, we heard, I think last time we were on the podcast, we talked about the fact that the S26 Plus was now back in play. We saw some leaks that suggested from some various uh filings and also benchmarks that show the S26 Plus could be being tested. So we thought last time we recorded the podcast, which was almost two weeks ago now, so we took a week off, we saw that we could have the Pro, which was gonna be the same size as the old base model, but it would now be called the S26 Pro. The Plus, which would presumably be the same size as the S25 Plus, which has been around for a long time. The Edge, which would be the successor to the S25 Edge, which would have that weird camera hump. And then the Ultra. The Ultra is the most stable of all. We've we've known a lot about the Ultra. Yeah. The Ultra has the most leaks. It's most of the stuff about the Ultra is set in stone, and I don't think anything there has changed. Well, this week we got massive shakeup because all these uh papers in Korea, uh, these analysts on X who are inside leakers, and also one of our own sources. We have a source, we're we're we're big enough to have sources now at Sammy Group. We got sources. Yeah, we do. And uh our source also confirmed Samsung has canceled the S26 Edge. It will not exist. There will not be an S26 Edge. It's gone.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Could it maybe be in reaction to the air?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, let's talk about yeah. So the reason that the Korean papers gave, and also our source and sources from other media outlets, is that Samsung saw the terrible sales of their own S25 Edge, which they said were terrible. Although we've talked about in the podcast many times, I think there's a dual factor in play with the Samsung S25 Edge sales being terrible. It's not just because people didn't want slim phones. That might be true. That probably is true. But I think I think for the most part, with the slim phones, it's a tough sell because the battery life isn't so good. But also, Samsung released it in a weird time outside of their usual cycle. Yeah, so I don't think you can just point at the S25 Edge and say, oh, well, these sales were bad. We should stop selling the slim phones. But it was it was more than just that. They had bad sales. They saw negative consumer sentiment reaction to the edge. And I saw that when we posted about it when when I made a review video of it when we did the live stream to kind of hype the launch. People were like, Why are they making this? No one asked for it. All the enthusiasts were crapping on it because they didn't they didn't see a point for it. And I understand it because it's thin, the performance is less because it's the thermals are not as good because there's less space. Yeah, battery life is worse, there's less camera performance because you can't fit as many camera sensors in there. No, for but then Samsung also saw, in addition to the bad sales of the S25 Edge, their own negative consumer sentiment reaction to that launch. They also then saw what happened with Apple last month. Yeah, the air came out, and you know, Apple fans will buy anything, yeah, pretty much. But it turns out, from all the sources from the Apple media, tech media, people are not buying the air. No, they don't want it. Um, and this uh also is something I've seen as well. Cause as many of you follow me know, I've you know, we've talked about the podcast, I split my own channel back into a general tech channel where we've moved the Samsung stuff over to the Sammy Gruber channel. I've been doing more Apple stuff on my personal channel, and so I've been reading a lot of comments from more Apple fans because you know they've been watching my stuff since I've been creating some Apple stuff now.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah.

Ultra-Only Strategy And Naming Debate

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Um, I I've been doing videos on the iPhone Air and 17 Pro Max. Yeah, people just don't like this the air. There's like, why would I buy this when the 17 Pro Max has better battery life, more cameras, better performance for gaming? It's not gonna get hot. I don't have to worry about it dying at 5 p.m. Yeah, and those are all legitimate reasons. I made a video just now, which I'll actually be posting tomorrow. That's what I edited before Tori got here. I got here early today. My 17 Pro Max versus Air comparison, breaking down like who is each phone for. And in my opinion, just like I said for the Edge, the Edge is only for you if you're like the super light user and you don't ever care about intense gaming. So like you're not gonna play any Forza, like super hardcore graphic racing game or Call of Duty, you're not gonna play that, or even like Pokemon Go. Because the thing is, if you're playing Pokemon Go, you're probably gonna be off of Wi-Fi a lot because you're going out walking around catching Pokemon. And Pokemon GO, people don't realize people are like, oh, well, Jeff, why do you talk about because I talked about it in my video, and a lot of time when I talk about gaming, I talk about Pokemon Go because performance and gaming and battery life go hand in hand. And even though Pokemon Go is not like the most intense in terms of like graphics and high frames per second, like Call of Duty or Forza, you still have to be aware because it eats a lot of battery because you're not going to be in Wi-Fi and you're going out, you're using your GPS, you've got location on, because you have to have it on to play the game. Yeah, it's tracking your steps, it's using all those sensors, and you're using 5G. So Pokemon Go actually can test the battery life of your phone and its sustained performance. Because when you pay Pokemon Go, if your phone doesn't have good thermals, like if it's thin, like the edge or the air, it's gonna heat up a lot more because you got a lot of stuff going on when you play Pokemon Go. Yeah, it's really using that modem for the 5G, your chick location, all those sensors, right? Because it traps your steps in order to determine when you can open another egg and all that stuff. Yeah, so yeah, when I play Pokemon Go on the air versus the Pro Max, uh, it like heats up something. The air gets hot. It's it when it's off Wi-Fi, the iPhone Air is not just warm, it is hot. Like if you don't have a case on, it's uncomfortable to hold. So I think Samsung saw all this, and they're like, Well, Apple fans, they buy anything and they're not buying it. So, you know, how are we gonna get our audience, which consists of more enthusiasts? Yeah, not just casual people consumers like Apple. Should we really invest in continual development? And I guess the internal hardware team in charge of that, they said, no, cut our losses. They'd already pretty much fully developed it. So this is like a huge shock. Because like they the edges, I mean, the phones were supposed to release in three months.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

A phone is fully developed, like probably six months close to before it, you know, relaunches. Because around like right now, in the next month or so, is when they're gonna go into mass production in those factories in Vietnam and stuff and get boxed up so they can go on pallets and be ready to be distributed to carriers and Best Buy and to the Samsung store and all that stuff. So I don't know, Tori, what do you think? Everyone was kind of shocked about this, but I mean on one hand I am, but one hand I'm not. What what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

You know, uh honestly, uh uh in reflection as like a general average consumer of electronic products. Um I kind of think what is probably more happening now is uh when you look at uh well to kind of answer your first thing that you mentioned, uh for like the slims and also just for foldables, um, yeah, when you look back last year when they released the edge, I mean, there still wasn't a lot of detailed information even at the launch of the normal launch in January. They didn't really mention the teaser at the end that showed the profile, but they said nothing about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing at all. And so when you look at it from just a consumer um lens, well, people just spent thousands of dollars on these devices in January, and now you want me to turn around and spend some more money, or even considered it, yeah, yeah, yeah, or even consider it. I mean, I I think it was just poor launch timing. I would like to see the edge be like that fourth entry phone in that lineup, but a caveat to that, I think, and we talked about this before on the show. Um, now that we are at that level of, hey, if I go into ATT, T-Mobile, Verizon, um I can get an ultra or a fold and just pay it off like over time. And I think we've all kind of gotten conditioned to, yeah, like let's like why am I buying the lower trim models when I can just get the ultra in it or the pro and it just does everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It's only seven dollars more a month, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Samsung’s Camera Crisis And Rivals

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Right. And so, you know, I think it really kind of begs the question too, you know, because like we we we've known, like you said, that the ultras coming, but the lower trimps has been a lot of speculation. But like, do we even still need the lower trims? Like, you know, is there enough push now from consumers? You know, because before it's like, man, I don't have enough money to get the ultra, let me just get like the lower trim. But you know, there's more of a I I see more of the population moving towards that of just buying the ultra or the pro versions of their phones, and you know, uh the older generation, like some of them like don't want all the bells and whistles, so they want uh you know, a lower trim phone, but um, you know, are we just at that point where do we still need the lower trim phones?

SPEAKER_00 14:12

A lot of people have some people have asked that question. A lot of industry people, media people too. I mean, should we just move to an S26 Ultra and an S26 Ultra Mini, or just an S26 Ultra and S26 Ultra Max, like Apple does? Like they're the same phone, one's just bigger and one's smaller if you don't want the big size. Yeah. I'm actually in favor of that. Me, me too, actually. Even though people would be pissed and I think they would do that, they would be pissed. Well, they would be pissed and they would they would lambast Samsung if they called it S26 Ultra, S26 Ultra Max, because they would say they're just copying Apple's naming scheme.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Oh, yeah, uh fair.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

But but I mean the idea though. But there are questions around this when it comes to the Ultra. For instance, one of the big problems with the Ultra right now, which might not be a prop next year, as we've talked about, but right now the Ultra has the S Pen. If you make it smaller, you might not be able to fit the S Pin in there with the battery because of the internals. So just making a S26 Ultra smaller and a bigger one, at least with the S Pins, maybe that's Samsung's plan. Maybe we don't know. Maybe next year they're gonna plan to remove the S Pen, and the reason they're planning to do that is they're gonna give us some parity where we just have a smaller ultra and a bigger one, and otherwise they have all the same features, just maybe a slightly smaller battery and display. Because that's what Apple does. Yeah. But of course, with the S Pen, that's not really possible. Yeah. Because I don't think you can fit in there. I don't think you can fit an S Pen. It's let's say you want to do like Apple, it's 6.1 to 6.3 inches for the smaller Ultra. I don't think you can fit an S Pin in there then, because there's not enough room to fit the battery, the mother processor, everything else, the SOC, all that stuff's not gonna fit and also give you good thermal performance. Yeah. Um, so that might not be an option. So what what we're hearing now, let's let's just set the stage and we can talk about what we think should be done. What we're hearing now is that it's gonna be there's been two rumors. One rumor is that it's still called S26 Pro, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra, which I think would be incredibly confusing. One, because the S26 Pro has nothing pro about it, not the sex image.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Um, and then the other rumor is that our friends at Sam Mobile are good friends at Sam Mobile. We love the guys at Sam Mobile. They had the exclusive source of theirs that says the Galaxy S26 is just gonna be called the Galaxy S26 base, not S26 Pro. Which makes a lot more like which makes a lot more sense. So I hope Sam Mobile's source is right. I haven't heard that from our source yet, but like it's gonna be called pro. But you know, Sam Mobile, you know, they they have a track record in the industry. I I believe them. I think that makes more sense too. Um because there's nothing pro so far about the camera system.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

You can make people real mad if you call it pro and it has nothing changed from last year, yeah. Particularly since another thing that we've heard this past week is the base S26 for Pro, whatever you want to call it, and the Plus are not getting any camera upgrades except maybe the aperture on the main, but nothing else is changing. We know the Ultra is getting a few, not getting a new sensor, but getting a camera upgrade to the case. So it's basically gonna be some new colors, yeah. And maybe uh we don't even know if the the base or the pro and the plus are gonna get the charging upgrade because we know the ultra is getting the 60 watt charging. Oh, yeah, which people will love that. And the so far the ultra is getting a decent number of upgrades. It's gonna have that privacy display that we talked about, the magic pixel, which you know stops people from viewing your content from the side of you. Uh the auto dimming, 60 watt charging. It's getting some camera upgrades, not the new sensor everybody wants, and I still think that's ridiculous. Samsung, you know, I'm gonna keep hammering them like everybody else. Their camera needs an upgrade. They have a camera crisis. Samsung has a camera crisis right now. Yeah, we have to be honest. No, they've really I've reviewed some started reviewing some of these Chinese phones too from my main channel. I did the 17 Pro Max from Xiaomi, which yeah, they directly rip off Apple because they don't sell in the US, so they can get away with it, and Apple can't sue them because they're in China only. So yeah, they rip them off. But their camera's way better than Samsung's. I got the Vivo X300 Pro that's coming, it's supposed to come tomorrow to me. I ordered that camera. I've seen samples from other other influencers and media who've gotten it. It's like five to ten times better than Samsung for the main primary sensor. This is getting to where it's becoming embarrassing. Like the Galaxy phones do everything well at this point except the camera. And that's embarrassing for a company who ten years ago people would say, Oh, Samsung's software isn't that good, but their camera way better than that iPhone's camera. Yeah, you probably remember like back in the early days of when you had a Samsung, like if you go back to like the first point that you had a Samsung, what was your first Samsung? Uh the Note 8?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

That was like a time where Samsung had the best cameras.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah, sometimes the notes were watching your videos and stuff, like in comparison uh of other YouTubers who are saying how great that camera was. And I was like, okay, wow, I'm thinking, I'm thinking I'm I spent my money well on the stuff.

Launch Timing: January, February, Or March

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And I'm embarrassed nowadays because I always carry two phones and I use my galaxy for everything, like my daily work and productivity. I use my fold seven for that. Obviously, it has the folding form factor, which is great. But even when I have my fold seven and I need to take a photo, I always reach in my other pocket and pull out the iPhone or the Pixel or the Xiaomi or whatever other Chinese phone I'm reviewing for my personal channel. I don't reach for the Galaxy phone for my camera anymore, really. I use it if I have to. It's like an if I have to kind of situation because Samsung's pictures are too soft. They have a lot of they have a lot of issues. Um, they have, you know, they're blurrier on edges, they don't have great dynamic range in low light, they struggle. Um now, can you get great photos out of Samsung? Sure, if you use expert raw and you set it into pro mode and you do a lot of stuff, but no average person's doing that. So for the all intents and purposes, and I don't even want to do that when I just need to take a photo of my kids.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Yeah, this is an idea.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

I don't want to have to I don't have to put the phone on a tripod, set it to expert raw, tune all the settings and exposure. That's what I do when I'm in the studio making videos for my channel, which is what I do for a living. But when you're taking a photo in the moment, you don't have 15 minutes to dial in the settings. I have 15 minutes to dial in the settings when I'm in here doing my job. But that's because this is my that's my job. And that 15 minutes is part of the preparation. But when your kid is playing a t-ball game and he hits the ball, like you didn't have time. Like, let me dial in the settings. Well, the game is over by that point. Yeah, it's up. Like, why why even take there's no point taking a photo or video at that point. So Samsung has a point-and-shoot out-of-the-box camera crisis. You know, I want to be clear that it's not a camera crisis overall because you can get good photos, but you need to do a lot of work. Whereas with the iPhone, the Xiaomi, the Vivo, the Pixel, even, I don't need to do a damn thing. I just pull it in my pocket, I set up the shot in standard mode, maybe change my exposure a little bit if I want, but nothing crazy. Take a photo and I'm good. Less than five seconds of tinkering. I don't need to change like seven settings and download a separate app in expert raw and shooting computational raw in order to see good photos.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Now, like, do you like is there just no incentive for Samsung to change? Or that's what everyone said.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

I mean, it seems like Tim Rowe just keeps basically his attitude is because he's a businessman, he's like, if people keep buying the phones with the old sensors and that makes us a much bigger profit margin because those are a lot cheaper to buy, then I'm I'm just not gonna change them until people stop buying the phones. So he's basically like, until we see a year-over-year decline or a year over year like steady sales, not increased, then I'm not gonna do it. And unfortunately, every year the S-line sales just keep increasing. The S25 Ultra sold way better than the S24 Ultra. So it's like, unfortunately, at some point, people are gonna have to stop buying or upgrading, or he's never gonna change anything, it would seem.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Obviously, we've talked about Samsung makes some of the best camera sensors in the world. Their camera division, they could easily, it's not like they don't know where to look to find a good camera. It's right there. The Vivo, the college coming from inside the Vivo X000, the Vivo X300 Pro that I have coming tomorrow, it has Samsung's latest camera sensor in it. And Samsung's phone's not gonna have it. I mean, that's insane. You've got this Chinese company that's putting your best sensor out there and getting jaw-dropping photos, meanwhile, your camera out of the box is his soft, over-sharpened, not good dynamic range, just a lot of problems. And I think as Samsung fans, we've got to be giving Samsung that feedback, which a lot of people on X, you know, and places do, but as Sami Guru, we're gonna try to keep pushing that forward as well because it is embarrassing in that sense. Now, One UI is the best it's ever been. It's like Samsung's completely flipped from 10 years ago, like I said before. Their software used to suck, and their cameras and hardware were great. Now their cameras and their hardware are like middling, middle of the road, and their software is like next level. It's better than anyone else's software. Like, no, I don't think any other Android manufacturer can compete with Samsung on software at all.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Yeah.

Colors, Leaks, And Community Reactions

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Not even Google now. Because the Pixel experience, while it's smooth, it has no features. One UI has all the polish, all the features, and now it's smooth as butter. So of course I'm still gonna use my Galaxy phone for mostly everything, but I'm just embarrassed that I end up pulling up another manufacturer's camera when I need to take photos of my kids. But at the end of the day, you know, I get good photos of my kids and I take trash photos, so I'll do what I have to do. Yeah, I love Samsung, but they need to they need to bring their game up a little bit when it comes to that. So last thing, I knew I knew I was gonna talk the whole first part of the show about this, but and we have because this is a big news. Um the last thing about this is now there's a rumor that came out late this past week that uh this one I don't really believe, so we'll talk about why. Um there's a rumor that now because of the S26 edge being axed and Samsung having to try to tune the bass slash pro and the plus and figuring out how the lineup's gonna look and getting all the materials and stuff together, um, that the launch is gonna be delayed from January to March. Two-month delay. Uh, I do not believe this rumor. It's not from a very long either. Yeah, I don't believe this rumor. It's not from a very reliable source. Um I forgot who, but it's not a source that we really trust too much, and not a source that I've seen have a strong track record with Samsung. Uh I will say, do I think that it's possible that the launch could be delayed? Absolutely, but do I think they're gonna delay it two months? I I don't see that happening. Um because Samsung one, the ultra is the most important phone of all. And in fact, last year the ultra accounted for like 80% of the overall sales of the S line, I believe. So are you really gonna delay the whole launch for two phones that only make up 20% of your sales? Or do you want to get the ultra out there at the beginning of the year when people are used to it so they buy and upgrade? Of course. That makes more sense. For all intents and purposes, the development of the ultra hasn't been delayed in any way. It's still been full steam ahead, even though they were trying to figure out what to do with the other models in the lineup. Whether or not they wanted to keep the edge or whatever, keep you know, bringing the plus back. The ultra doesn't have any delays. So I feel like there's two things that could happen. One of them is they release the ultra on time at the middle of January, second or third week, and then they delay the base and the plus or the pro and the plus, whatever they call it, a few months. I think that's for pretty unlikely too, because that'd be weird.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I I don't think that would be a lot.

Galaxy XR Event, Price Leak, And Perks

SPEAKER_00 25:51

That would be super weird. Or the other thing that I think is way more likely is they push the launch back a couple of weeks, not a couple of months. Yeah, no. I think it's much more likely that if there is a delay, the S launch gets pushed back to the early part of February, not to early mid-March. That's too late because then there's other things coming out, and then that also gets close to the foldable launch. Then you only have three and a half or four months between the S and the fold, and Samsung doesn't want that. They want the maximum distance, that's why they're six months apart. Yeah, they want the maximum distance between those two so that they don't cannibalize the sales, try to keep those two groups. I mean, there's some people who are crazy who buy both, like me and other enthusiasts, but not everybody does, and so they won't they want to keep those separate for that reason. So I don't know, Tori, what do you think? I I think it's way more likely that if there's a delay, and there could be because they have to reshuffle the entry level, you know, the mid-models of the lineup. Uh, I think maybe February 5th through the 10th.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

I was thinking the same thing because if you push it to March, you're gonna kind of run into the same thing, like you know, like with like the edge sales from this past year. Like I think they they want to try to keep it in January in January, or at least like that first part of February. If they push it too close to the foldable, well then, all right. Well, I got this more money now. All right, and also too, you have tax returns coming out as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

So you definitely have tax returns coming out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

You know, and so like you want to you want to catch those people be being able to spend that money at the right time for that device, and then uh hopefully not cannibalize the sales for they said, let me get me some of those Samsung phones with my tax returns.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Yeah, let me get those tax returns.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Hey, again, it's only seven more dollars for eighty eighty-four months.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

They say, Hey, and I got this big tax return right here. What's seven dollars a month to a baller like me? Yeah, because I'm balling, shot calling. I got the 20-inch blades on my emballer. Anyway, I'm really excited actually if they do move it back February, because guess what that means for Jeff? I always go to CS at the beginning of January, and Samsung always opens the reservations for the S lineup during CS. And so my life is a living hell because I have to balance trying to do all of our promotion for the mystery boxes and all the reservation signups to get ready, and still trying to do my CES coverage and attend the show and all the media stuff there. If they push it back a few weeks, guess what that means for me? For once, I get to go to Vegas and actually enjoy my CES trip for the first time since I've gone full, you know, full time doing this. The last two years has been an absolute living nightmare for me when I went to CES in 2024 and 2025 because the reservations were open while I was there. So I was doing, you know, that's one of our biggest revenue earners of the year. And so I can't really spend as much time covering CES stuff, which would also be fun and I would enjoy for my personal channel, yeah, but I just haven't been able to. So now maybe my trip's already booked, I already got my badge booked and I've signed up for CS. I'm ready to go. I mean, it's gonna be a lot of fun either way, but it would just be nice to not have to deal with the launch stuff. Maybe have the reservations come the week after CS if it gets pushed back to February. That would be fine with me. I'm okay with it. Samsung, take your time. Don't take too much time. We don't want a March launch, but but just you know, just take a week, yeah, two weeks, push it back to like February 5th through the 10th, you know, make those reservations, start maybe middle of January, make sure Jeff's able to drive safely back from Vegas, have a couple days to kind of get set up, think through things, make sure I got my dual screen action here inside of the office. Don't have to be working from my laptop and iPad in a hotel room, and I'll be ready to go for that launch. But yeah, that's pretty much the big news from the week. The S26 launch shakeup is uh is real. The ultra apparently has not been affected at all from what we've heard. Everything else there is still full steam ahead, looks good. Um, there was also this shoddy rumor, funny rumor that we covered because I I thought that maybe I still think this could be a possibility. It has nothing to do with Apple, but there was someone who Made a image and posted on Reddit of the S26 Ultra, the renders, but in a bright orange, cosmic orange colorway. Okay. And so they were like, Samsung's set to copy Apple with the cosmic orange colorway.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, I don't believe it.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

And it was an AI generated image. Someone used Nano Banana for Jim and I from Google to generate it. We saw the watermark at the end. We posted about it because I still think there's a chance they could release an orange phone. Samsung's released like 10 orange phones before. I think people are always quick to say that someone's copying something because that thing just came out. But I have, if you go in my office on my desk, an orange S24 Ultra, which came out two years ago. Yeah. And they made a bunch of orange phones before that. So it's not like Samsung's copying anyone.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

I want the Aura glow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

I want Oracle. Give me a function. Aura glow or Emerald Green from the S6 Edge. I would love to see those two come back. Yeah. If they brought both of those back, I don't even care what the specs are. No, I'm just kidding. I still care what the specs are.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

But I mean, I'm I want some cool. I mean, like, that was like the cool thing. Like when I switched to Samsung, I was like, man, like they're just doing some cool stuff. They got the they got the S pen, cool colors in the notes. Um, like like like on both spectrums, like they're like some vibrant colors, some dark colors, like all within like the same like release. Like, you know, I just gave people options and it just made it just made it really exciting to get a Samsung phone.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

All of our options are still options. You never know. It could happen though. We're gonna see happen. Hopefully they I think they'll bring some good colors. Usually the online exclusives are pretty good. Yeah. This last year they were a little disappointing. So hopefully they'll bring it back. I know the Jade Green. The Jade Green's a little disappointing.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Because we look at it as kind of white.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah, it's more like jade white, jade silver. Silver with a imperceptible hint of jade. Yeah. When I heard Jade Green, I thought it was gonna be closer to that emerald last year when we just talked it on the podcast, and uh it was not. It's very disappointing. Unfortunately. Um, okay, before we get to the break, let's talk about one other huge piece of news. Let's get this one out of the way. In the second half, uh, we're still gonna talk a little more news, and I have one piece of hardware in the house. I was thinking about skipping this phone, but I ended up getting it. It's the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Oh, I decided to pick up the old Pixel 10 Pro fold. Um, Google really didn't put in a lot of effort effort to make this phone much newer than last year's, but there are some nice things about it. So I'll talk about it. I've only had it for two days, but I'll have a full review of this on my personal channel, so you guys subscribe over there. But the other big piece of Samsung news is the Galaxy XR reservations are already open. They opened last week.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Were you able to get back in and do a demo?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

For the you mean the meta Ray Ban glasses? Oh, yeah. I have it scheduled. I have it scheduled. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

You have to go out to Gilbert, though, right?

One UI 8.5 Tweaks And Cloud Changes

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, yeah. I have to go to the Williamsville Road Best Buy. It's scheduled. I had to schedule one for like October 30th because they were all sold out. Uh-huh. I'm still gonna get those. But the Galaxy XR I'll be ordering on day one. And the launch day, reservations are open now. You can get a hundred dollars Samsung credit. Uh, and the launch day for that is Tuesday, just two days away. So we'll be posting this tomorrow. It'll be one day away. Uh Samsung is holding an online only event, so they did not invite media. It's being held in Korea. Uh, it's at 10 p.m. Eastern time in the US, so if you want to watch it here, you're on the East Coast, you're gonna have to be up late. In Arizona, it's only 7 p.m. Yeah. So I'll be able to tune in as my kids are kind of getting ready to go to bed and check it out. Um but yeah, the Galaxy XR. It is releasing. And uh, I have an exclusive for you guys here that I'm gonna share with you because we're gonna find out today if Samsung actually listens to the Sammy Guru podcast or not by whether or not I get in trouble for saying this. I have exclusive on the price. I I know the price. Because we've been talking about the price, right?$2,000 is a lot of money. The price is$1,799.99. Okay. I'm definitely not supposed to share that right now, but we're gonna share it anyway. It's a day early. And I figure, like, hey, it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

And since this isn't really that big of a launch, it's not like the phone launch. I'm gonna give you guys an exclusive for listening 34 minutes and 12 seconds into the podcast. Yeah. So if you want one tomorrow, you better get ready to spend 1800 plus tax in your bank account. And I have some good news for you too. Today, actually, when Tori and I finish this podcast, I'm gonna post on Samiguru. We have an offer for you guys who are gonna buy. Can't do a full mystery box because there's really not as many items as we put in for the phone. Like, what am I gonna do for a VR? But there are gonna be like third-party cases and some accessories for it. And also, of course, you'll want to download some content for it from the Play Store that's actually XR optimized. And I'm gonna talk about that in a second. We actually know some of the things that are coming. I'm gonna be giving away$50 Amazon gift card plus a$25 play credit to anybody who purchases through our link. Um so it won't be as many products as the mystery box. Um, the mystery box probably still has a little more value just because there's so many different things I can put in there.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Uh, this isn't really like a few value. Yeah, you can't put a case of screen protectors.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, you can't put a case screen protector charger in there for the VR because I don't know if Samsung's actually gonna put a case in the package. I haven't seen the packaging yet. But I figure, hey, everybody could use some Amazon credit and play card to get yourself some accessories. So if you want, it's gonna be over on the Sammy Guru mystery box pre-order page. Uh it's gonna be, you know, I'm not gonna promote it as much as the mystery box for the phones because it's a last-minute launch. You know, with these smaller ones, I kind of just decide to do something last minute to give back to our readers, listeners, and viewers. So you guys can get in on that if you're going to pre-order. Now we did see um a couple of things came up. Google Photos added a spatial magic uh button uh ahead of the Galaxy XR, which basically lets you convert your photos and Google Photos optimized for XR so you can like basically look like you're in the photo. You'll be able to like spin around. That's kind of cool. So like you can revisit your photos. So that's gonna be available. That's already actually popped up here ahead of the launch. Uh, and then they also we saw some listings on the Play Store uh that popped up that showed some other things that'll be coming to Galaxy XR. I gotta find it really quickly. There was a few things that popped up where you could see the different apps. There was a leak from the Play Store. Here it is. Play Store apps and games. So here's the ones that are available. You're gonna see available it was Workaholic David, who posted this over on X, and there's a few titles that we have there. You've got immersive media, you've got uh NFL game here, you've also got uh a couple of other types of games that are gonna be launching. Let me see if I can click in and see. Uh Chiswick XR Vacation Simulator is one of the games that's listed. And what else do we got? Asteroid 30 Ninjas and NFL Pro Era. It looks like NFL Pro Era will let you play like you're actually in the NFL game, I guess. That's what it looks like. So some of these games are obviously going to be paid, so that's why we're giving away that$25 Google Play credit. Because if you do buy it and you get that free credit from us, you'll be able to buy yourself a game or something, some apps that are optimized for your XR. Now, of course, I'll have a full review of this. I haven't actually decided if I'm going to put this on my main channel or the Sammy Guru channel, because it's going to actually go on either channel since it's a general tech thing, but it's also Samsung. I may do something with this on both channels. It's a big release because it's a brand new category for Samsung. So I really want to dive kind of deep into this product. It's also a new category for me. It'll be the first XR device I've ever owned. So I really want to dive into it and kind of see what's possible. Um, what do we think about that price though? So going back to that,$1800. I think that's not bad. I mean, yeah, if you think about it, it's half the price of Apple's Vision Bro.

Android Auto Cutoff And Qi2 Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Yeah, no, I don't think it's that bad. Uh again, I I don't see the average consumers going out and just up and buying this, like maybe as a Christmas present, you know. So maybe expensive still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Still very expensive. Uh, you're not getting it through like a carrier per se. So, you know, there's no um where you can per se. Yeah, yeah, yeah, per se. So like you can't just uh, you know, like put a little bit down and then own it. So uh it's definitely gonna be someone who like just really wants to have it for the novelty. Um, so I I am a little interested to see how many or what the sales would look like uh for this device, uh especially given that still, you know, VRs themselves. Um I I don't see a lot of people even owning them. I don't even know many people who own VR headsets.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah, even like the ones from Meta, which are a lot more they're a lot more affordable.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Yeah, but even then I I I I never see those get bought up at Walmart or Target or anything. So uh you know it'd be interesting for this market. Um so yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

We'll see. Yeah, so I don't know when they're actually gonna ship. That if actually I don't know that information at all. The only thing I really know is the price. And hey, if anyone from Samsung's listening and uh you have a problem with it, you can email me jeff at samigrew.com. We'll edit it out, maybe. I don't know. Um, no, we will if they have a problem with it, but they probably won't. Um, so you guys now have a little more info about that if you're interested. I think it's gonna be a fun product. It's a new product. I'll have a lot of content on that. I'm really excited about it since obviously I review phones mostly. And I've also been enjoying branching out on my personal channel, reviewing all kinds of stuff. I've been reviewing tablets, I've reviewed some smart home stuff, I reviewed some smartwatches from a brand that wasn't Samsung, a rugged smartwatch company called Cospit, and that's live on my channel right now, too. So very exciting. Uh so in the second half, we will dig into a little more news because there's some news that we're not just S26 and Galaxy XR. Those were the two big stories, but we do have some more 1UI8.5 news, um, some more news about exciting things that are on the horizon for Samsung in terms of the Trifold. Is the Trifold still coming this year? Yeah, you know, we're always excited about the Trifold. Um, talk a little more about the Galaxy Ring incident with that whole swelling thing. The guy posted an update about that. So we'll talk a little more about that. Um, and then also about uh what Samsung's gonna be doing for their holiday sales this year, because they do have some holiday sales coming up. It's almost time for the shopping season.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yeah, it it is. Shopping season's almost upon us.

Trifold Timing And Limited Supply

SPEAKER_00 40:30

And the good news about that is you know, the shopping season, what you need in order to buy things is money. And we also need money here to pay our employees and also to buy some nice things for our kids for Christmas, and so that means that we need to throw it to the sponsor of today's podcast. This episode of the Sammy Guru Podcast is brought to you by our partners at US Mobile. U.S. Mobile has wireless service on all three of the major carriers in the United States. You can get service on their Darkstar, their warp, and lightspeed 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. 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 Sammy Guru Podcast. All right, guys, we're back, and uh we're gonna talk a little bit about 1UI 8.5 first because there's a new build that came out, 1UI 8.5. You know, we're rocking the test builds here at Sami Guru. We're always living on the bleeding edge of Samsung software. And I installed that build and it's got some interesting new stuff in it. Um, Samsung has added two new animated wallpapers to the lock screen. One of them is a basketball wallpaper. Yeah. It's kind of like a little basketball bouncing on the court, and then the other one is like a stairs-looking wallpaper, it's kind of interesting. Uh, and then they also added a new visual effect to the media player on the home screen. Now, when you change your song, the album art kind of fades in and fades out. It like fades out to the old album art and the other one fades in slowly. Oh, and looks really nice. So it's a nice little animation, little tweak there uh for the now bar. Uh, we still haven't really seen anything else about the notification summaries under the hood. That was in that first test build, and there really hasn't been any new news about that. So Samsung may not make that live until the S26 series because they might try to make that an exclusive. Yeah, right. What if they made that S26 feature? People will be really mad about that. I can see that happening though. Um, because since they don't have very many new hardware things like we talked about earlier in the S26 and the S26 Plus, you gotta sell people on those software exclusives. Yeah, you do. You're like, hey guys, do you have a new camera? No, we don't have that. Do you have faster charging this year? No, we don't have that. Do you have uh maybe that magic pixel tech that's on the ultra? No, that's only on the ultra. You gotta spend more money for that. Yeah, no. But do you have notification summaries? Oh yeah, we got that. Oh, yeah. If you want that, all you gotta do is upgrade your S25 Plus to an S26 Plus, and you can get notification summaries. You're like, but can't you just put that in the S25 Plus? I mean, the process are still very, very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah, no. I I just bought it like a few months ago.

Watch UI Improvements And Bezel Talk

SPEAKER_00 43:37

They're like, they're like, uh, last year's processor is just not fast enough for notification summaries. Sorry. It doesn't have the computational AI, the AI power of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. You gotta buy that new phone for that. Um, so yeah, not evidence of that. They've made some slight changes to some other things, like uh the status bar icons are a little bolder. They continue to add some nice blur elements. I mean, overall, one Ui 8.5 is looking like a much bigger upgrade than 1UI8, and it seems like that's gonna be the case every year now. Like the S line is always gonna get the bigger upgrade. So like it seems like the main release that goes from like 8 to 9, 9 to 10, that's not that's gonna be the smaller upgrade because that's gonna be the upgrade that they do with the foldables, and that's gonna coincide with Google's Android release, so that's gonna be smaller, and then the bigger one will be the S line. Um, but this build doesn't bring any huge changes user facing aside from the ones I just mentioned, which is really weird because it was a 2.2 gigabyte OTA update from the previous test build. Yeah. So quite large considering there was not many changes. I wonder if something under the hood was uh going on. Um the guys at Samiguru told me to check to see if routines can now be set with shortcuts. I'm gonna try that because I haven't tried that yet. That could be. Maybe that's one of the things they changed. Because we did hear for a while that um they were planning to introduce shortcuts to routines, so we're gonna check that out for sure. Um another piece of news. If you have an older phone, really old phone, you will not be able to use Android Auto anymore soon. So if you want to use Android Auto, you better get ready to spend some money. Um Android Auto is dropping supports for phones running Android 8 or older. So if you have, I mean, that's really old. So if you have a phone that's last update was Android 8, which would probably be like a nine to 10-year-old phone, but there's some old people who do have a nine to 10-year-old phone out there. I know there are. It's not people are like, so people listening are like, there's no one who has that. No, there are people who have nine to ten-year-old phones that they've probably cracked a million times and they've taped back the display and it still works. Um, but if you're one of those people and you want to use Android Auto, then you're not going to be able to, because Google is dropping support for that. It now requires Android 9, which was codenamed Pi, because Google used to give these dessert names, which they kind of stopped in the last few years, uh, or newer to install and get updates. So if your phone's still running 8.0 or 8.1, version 15.4 of Android Auto will be the last one you can download. So you'll still be able to use Android Auto, uh, but only version 15.4, you won't be able to get any new updates. So as new features come, which also include security patches and stability patches, if your phone is running Android 8 or 8.1 or older, you'll no longer be able to enjoy all of those great features. Yeah. Which is disappointing. No one likes that. I think we speak for everyone to say, but you know, the thing is, if you have a 10-year-old phone, it's probably time to upgrade. Oh, yeah. And you're also not getting security patches anymore at the software level, at the update level for your OS, which is bad because that means you're vulnerable to a lot of things. So if you have the phone, just go buy a new one and then you can use Android Auto. You know, I hate to tell people just bet money, but that's the solution here. No, it is. Um, it looks like Samsung also, one thing that we saw in OneUI 8.5 that uh is apparently going to um something that we're going to what's I gonna say? Something that we're going to see with 1U8.5 is Samsung is getting rid of the OneDrive integration, um, which I think is is very interesting. Uh they've had OneDrive integrated with gallery and photos and stuff so you can sync your stuff to OneDrive. They're now gonna go back to the old solution, which was they had their own cloud server hosted for Samsung where you could host all your stuff on their cloud. Now you should still be able to get, I think you can move your stuff easily to OneDrive or Google Drive, but it's not gonna be directly in gallery or files. Um and it looks like guess what? Um Samsung might offer paid tiers of their own cloud subscription. So uh you'll be able to get up to a certain amount for free. Um and then you will have to pay. It looks like they have a plan for 49 gigabytes and one for 199 gigabytes, which will probably be 50 and 200. I doubt they'll leave it 49 to 199 would be weird. Yeah, doesn't say exactly what the price would be here, um, but I would assume it's gonna be kind of similar. We also saw in the latest build um that the N1U8.5 that the OneDrive sync will end, and they actually gave a date. It's April 2026. So apparently these new Samsung Cloud tiers will probably come available in April 2026, which basically makes sense because if the phones launch in January or February, you want to give people a couple months to kind of transition, and then you know, now you gotta pay, like hit you with the bill, like the bills do.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

I'm telling you, these subscriptions, man.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

They get you, man, every time. Yeah, they're like, Would you like to subscribe? And I'm like, no, thank you. No, they're like, Would you like to subscribe? I'm like, no, thank you. Would you like to subscribe? No, thank you. Well, we're gonna take away while you're standing there. They're like, Well, we're gonna take away some features until you have to subscribe. They're like, if you don't want to subscribe, we asked you nicely many times. Now we're gonna take away some of your standard features so you can give us three dollars a month. Yeah, I'm like, well, that's not nice. I don't appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

And then next thing you know, about three months later, it'll be four dollars a month. It's very rare. And so on and so forth.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold Hands-On And Concerns

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Also, for fans of software updates, staying up to date, we have a new writer at Temiguru, Mohammed Khatri, who's given us tips for a long time. And uh he's now doing a weekly software roundup where he will do all of the updates that have rolled out in a given week for one year eight, and then he'll do eight dot five once that comes out. Yeah. So that roundup is actually very popular so far. So check that out. I'll put it in the show notes as well. Um, what else? The trifold. So the trifold is on track for release. We originally heard that it was going to release this month. I'm not so sure that that's going to happen. Uh, we don't really have a exact date. We heard it was gonna release this month. I don't know if that's gonna occur. I think it's gonna be in November at this point. Because one, I don't think they're gonna want to take away from the XR release by doing the trifold right away. Yeah, no, even if it is the region specific, that's too close to put two new products together, especially since they're both like new categories, like that's a different new category foldable. This is a new category product altogether. You want to give it a chance to breathe a little bit, especially you know, if you have like hardcore Samsung fans, you don't want to be like, hey Jeff, you want to spend$1,800 a day,$3,000 tomorrow? And I'm like, uh, you at least give me a month before I have to spend the other$3,000.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Like$1,800 a day,$3,000 tomorrow doesn't sound so good. No, like$1,800 a day,$3,000 five weeks from now, it's a little bit better. Give me some time to earn that extra$3,000. I gotta make some more content and you know, do some more work here at the office, and maybe I can afford it.

SPEAKER_02 50:18

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Um, so that's probably gonna come in November. Um, but it is still being developed. We've seen a lot of firmware builds, so it's definitely on track for release this year. Looks like it's gonna come to the US too, probably officially. It's just gonna be very, I can tell you if you want one and you have the money, I mean, I'm not saying it just so you order through our link, but you better order through some link on launch day because there are not gonna be a lot of these. We've seen they're very, very short supply. So the launch of this is gonna be very limited because Samsung doesn't seem to think many people are gonna buy them the first go around. Um, so they're not making expensive. Yeah, they're not they're not making very many. Yeah, so if you want one in any region, I think Korea will have the most supply, but if you want one in any region, you should buy it the first day it comes out for sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Um and uh the something else I wanted to bring up. Um I I had to be like a few days ago, but I noticed I was trying to um I haven't done it in a while because they took away the rotating bezel on my watch ultra, you know, obviously. But um I noticed that uh when you used to be able to hold and then just kind of move your finger around and kind of imitate it like you were rotating rotating a bezel on the top, uh, you don't have that anymore. It's just the slide. But the slide feels a lot more responsive now.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

It doesn't have a digital bezel anymore on one UI uh eight watch.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Uh I mean I so I so I I can do that, but like it used to show like where I was at, like as not like so I can still feel it, like you know, if I go to rotate, but it doesn't have like the the dots along the top. Like I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yeah, I don't know if we've wrote about that. Let me have to write about that.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

But I mean the the slider feels a lot more responsive using one new eight watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, then we're doing it. It looks like they actually um because like they they put it more of like a like a peel bubble. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

A lot of people were unless people were split on that design, the pill shape, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was leaked more. I mean, but it it kind of cleaned it up. I mean, because like at first, like right out of the box, you just had so many things that like uh am I really using it? Um, but like now I I do feel like it's kind of cleaned up a little bit more. Um, and I and now you have like a picture of like where you're at along the top as you're kind of navigating through the watch. I do like that. It's a nice feature. I actually really like that.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

So you're liking the one you eight watch story?

SPEAKER_01 52:39

Yeah, I mean, I I've liked it, and I still get like just every week, I get about two or three compliments of like, man, that is a cool looking watch. And I tell you, watch is balling. I know, yeah, you gotta come over.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

And they're like, you gotta come over to the Samsung side if you want that. Um, they don't have that at Apple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Yeah, no, no, no. But uh I'm kind of interested too. Um, you know, now that because I I know they did bring back the buzzle on this most recent release, but um, do you feel like the ultra will ever get the road? You know, I know will there be a new version at some point where they do get a routine bezel? But I'm also like, I mean, I was a little disappointed when it wasn't initially on, but I mean, I actually don't mind it now.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

Like, like I don't have I don't know that the ultra will because the classic is kind of close in size, yeah. And it just I don't know that it would make sense for them to put it on that one as well. But uh, you know, at the end of the day, I I think because they're so close in size, I doubt it. Because also that would add more thickness to the ultra as well. The ultra would be, you know, quite a bit thicker if you put the rotating bezel because it adds an extra layer. It's already thick. Yeah, um, the classic is a little bit smaller in this total size in terms of the bezel size. Um, so it makes it a little bit easier to put that rotating crown on top. Yeah. And since they're the same shape now as well, you at least have some differentiation by leaving the rotating on the classic for people who want that.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

So it really does make you feel like the classic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Assuming that they don't get rid of one of them and combine them in two, you know, it's certainly possible Samsung could eventually get rid of the classic and just call that the ultra and they can merge them. Uh, just you have their base model and the ultra. Yeah. Which could happen if they want to simplify their lineup, but um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Assuming they don't do that though, I don't think they will necessarily and kind of in thus of uh we we talked about this last week, I believe, but like in in the week before, with like having ultra phones, like you know, they're a lot more thick and bulkier and stuff like that, like you know, but like we're getting that high performance that we really want, and so obviously we need to have some sacrifices. So I mean, now with it being what however long, what over a year now and a few months of owning uh the watch, you know, I I really don't feel like the ultra needs the bezel. So I know a lot a lot of times before I was like champion for it, but I I don't think he really needs it.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Tori's like he doesn't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah, no, not not with this new update. I I really I really feel like the new update.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Tori's loving the one UI 8 watch, which actually rolled out to some older models recently. Uh your Galaxy Watch 7, 6 now are receiving that as well. So it's not just the 8, 8 classic, the Ultra, the older ones are getting it as well. So you guys can, if you have an older watch, you can go out and download that, enjoy that new smoothness, those pill-shaped UI elements and all that cool stuff, which is very exciting. Um, those are also included in our week weekly roundups we're gonna do is the watches and the tablets, so you guys can stay up to date if you're waiting for a big update on your device. Um Samsung, you know, obviously the Qi2 thing is interesting because I'm actually curious. We earlier when we talked about the Galaxy S26 series, we didn't really talk about whether or not Qi2 is gonna be built into the device. It seems like it is. Although I I don't I'm not sure. It seems like because remember last year, G2, we thought it was gonna be in the device, but then they're like, no, it's just G2 compatible with a case. Yeah. So you can't just slap your phone on a Qi2 charger, you can't just put a wallet on the back of your phone, you gotta put a case on first. Um so it seems like it might come to the S26 series. Um, but another company, which is nothing, do you know about the company Nothing, Tori?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Uh do they make the nothing phone?

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Yeah. Okay. Nothing is something. Something is nothing. Um well, nothing said something about Q2 charging. And uh this could be one of the reasons why Samsung is a little hesitant to jump fully on board. Nothing said about why they're not getting on the Q2 bandwagon, legal red tape, industry politics, and a whole flood of nonsense for any brand wanting to optimal magnetic alignment without licensing Apple's design. The only alternative is to develop a completely new magnetic system. Nothing engineers even estimated that it could cost roughly ten million dollars. So, first of all, let's be clear. For Samsung,$10 million is nothing. That's basically very little money. Probably like$100 to me. It's very little money. They won't think about that. But do they necessarily want to do that? Again, TM Rowe is very budget conscious. Does he want to do something like that if he doesn't have to? Do the people really need Cheeto in the phone? And also, I mean, Che2 is an open standard. Let's keep that first of all. I think nothing is talking more about the certifications and everything when they talk about illegal red tape. So maybe Samsung as well didn't want to go through all of those last year, and maybe they didn't have time, and so maybe that's why it's gonna be in the S26 series. The money is not really a the$10 million is not a reason. For nothing, that's a lot of money. They're a tiny company compared to Samsung, right? I mean, their annual revenue is like a hundredth of a percent of Samsung's revenue. Samsung is like the tenth largest uh company in the entire world in terms of total revenues, massive company that competes with Google, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Amazon, all those big giant companies. So the money, ten million dollars, not a ton of money, so I don't think that's the reason. But a lot of it, legal red tape and politics and stuff with the G2 standard, getting all that stuff certified, um, and all the things you have to adhere to. Maybe Samsung didn't want to build uh to get that G2 certification. You have to satisfy a lot of things. Maybe they didn't want to have to worry about that when they were also designing the phone. Because a lot of times Samsung is like, well, we don't want to have to worry about your standards, we're doing our stuff, and but then you can't get the G2 certification. Because the people who the wireless charging authority, the ones who certify stuff for G2, no, they have that kind of that kind of stuff uh pinned down where you have to have very specific requirements that are met. So it should be very interesting. Um we we don't know though, because remember, we also heard if they get rid of G2, if they keep if they get Q2 in the phone, they may have to get rid of uh the reverse wireless charging. Because remember with the Pixel, the Pixel, Google put in the G2 in the phone, so now you can charge it with stuff in a case, but now you don't have your reverse wireless charge anymore. You can't charge up your headphones or your watch. So I don't know if Samsung will uh necessarily see the benefit of it if they also have to move one of their features they've had for a long time. They were basically the first smartphone manufacturer in the US anyway to do reverse wireless charging. So they really want to get rid of that. So we'll see how that plays out. That'll be an interesting thing to see as well. Um, what's gonna happen with uh the S26 on that in that way. Um it seems like uh the Google Keep app is finally getting a feature I've wanted for a long time. I finally stopped using Google Keep as my main task tracker. I now use Notion, which is one of my favorite apps for everything I use for work. Notion just is the best. I love Google Keep, but for a long time they had one big problem uh Google Keep was not integrated with Google Tasks. So if you made a Google Keep list, you couldn't set a reminder to do something from there in Google Tasks, which is kind of stupid because if I have a to do list, I may also want to set a reminder to remind me to. Do that and then check that off as my task, you know, my tasks I've done. And they finally did that. So after I stopped using it, they're like, hey, let's give that feature that Jeff always wanted. Let's do it now. Now that he's not using it anymore, now is the perfect time to do it. Um, well, let's talk about Pixel 10 Pro Fold to end the day. And um, before I talk about my impressions, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold was the first phone ever to explode during Jerry Rig Everything's durability test on YouTube. It exploded in his hand. He does the fold and test and all that. You've seen Zach, I assume. And he went to do the Ben test. Yeah. Battery exploded. Jeez. Did you explain fire? Oh, yeah, sure. Be careful though, it might explode. No, I'm just kidding. No, it doesn't combine spot. Look, it see you can see here in our image and our thumbnail. See how the phone looks after it exploded? Yeah. There it is. Blew up. Charred. All layers of the battery were charred.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

You know, uh, and and difference, like I don't know how much I like that extra. Yeah, people hate that. The extra hinge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

It's like you got a hinge within your hinge, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

But like the feel of it feels nice and premium.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Yeah, I like Flossie Carter said it feels so good in the hands. Ladies, you know the procedures. Yeah. That's what he says.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Yeah, overall, but and then as you open it up, um, okay. Uh I I like how it looks on the inner. Um, it looks really nice. Uh looks premium. Yeah, that extra bezel, you know, with around um very premium. Nice feel as you close uh along the hinge. Yeah, just unlike that extra piece of um hinge that you have there. Um, you know, I think obviously Samsung just really does a great feels like kind of like an extra piece of skin on your neck, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it likes to have that turkey neck hanging down. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

No. Um, but I I mean overall though, like I feels premium. Yeah, no, it feels premium.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Uh I think heavier and thicker though than the SD Fold 7.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. Thicker and heavier. Like the fold seven just feels like a cloud. Feels like a regular. Not when you know you have a foldable. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I don't know, too, like, because I I mean, kind of looking at the camera. Um it's bigger. Yeah, yeah, way bigger. I I feel like my lovely lady lumps uh down on that front part. My lovely lady lumps. Check it out. Check it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I can tell you, I've had it for two days. Um, I wasn't gonna skip it originally, but I just love the phone hobby so much, even when I'm spending my own money, because you know, that's why I do this. I do this for the people, and um yeah, it's it's it's very thick and heavy, in my opinion. It's it's very noticeable that you're using a foldable in this case when you have it in your hand and when you have it in your pocket because it's sagging down your pockets as you're walking. I'm like, oh no, my underwear is showing because these things are pulling my pants down. Yeah, not good. It feels very heavy. It is very heavy, it's like a brick, man. Um, yeah, and I'm not being hyperbolic. If you if you've used this next to a fold seven, you'll notice. I mean, this really feels like you have a foldable and it feels like you have a miniature tablet. Yeah, um, but it is really well built. The camera is better than I won't say better, it's it's on par with the Z Fold 7. Uh let me not say that yet, because I'll do a full comparison of them. I haven't used it enough to say it, but it's very good. The camera's very good. Um, another thing that I don't like about this thing is the aspect ratio still, when you open it, it's too square compared to the Z Fold 7. Yeah, where you know this stretches your content horizontally, which you know, it looks okay if you're like viewing a website. Oh, I'm I'm not on the Wi-Fi here because I didn't sign in. Like I said, I just got this one. I've only used it at home. Uh, but if you're watching a movie or something, it's got like those nasty black bars. You have to like turn it the other way to get it to look decent. Um, and and I don't really like that. Google didn't really change a lot of the things about it. And one of the things Jerry Rig Everything or Zach, that's his name. His name's not Jerry, his name's Zach from Jerry Rig Everything. Um, he said is that they didn't get rid of these antenna lines along here, and that's actually where the Pixel 9 Profold snapped last year in his blur durability test. So he's like, Why did you guys not try to improve something when you knew this was a problem? I guess they just didn't care, so that's still a weak point. I mean, obviously, you're not gonna do what he did to it in daily use, and I don't think it's really gonna be a huge problem in terms of durability, but it does make it probably less durable than the Z Fold 7. Um, they do have this hinge now, though, that uses a different design than any other foldable. Um, and it does feel good, but I will say uh it doesn't feel I mean, I think the Z Fold 7 feels just as good or better. It doesn't, I guess, use as many parts as the Z Fold 7 hinge, but it's it still doesn't feel you can try you can try folding and unfolding. It still feels good, but it doesn't feel like crazy better or smoother than me than the Z Fold 7. The Z Fold 7 feels smooth too. Uh I know you unfolded and folded the Z Fold 7 when I first had it too.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like it's a nice, like especially when you're closing it. Uh, it feels really nice. You you hear that. You definitely get that clock, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

Um you do get more of that than you get from the fold seven. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean the biggest concerns I have are, you know, even if the camera, let's say the camera is a little better. I don't know if it is, it's at least close. But if it's even it's a little better, is it really worth getting a slight camera performance increase when you're gonna have this massive brick? And it's definitely, you know, I I think the form factor, in my personal opinion, when it's unfolded, is not as good. It's a trade-off, right? I think when it's folded, it's wider on the front, which is better for a lot of people. But when it's unfolded, the form factor is very strange. Um, so it's short and wide instead of being tall and more narrow on the front display. And I think Samsung hit the sweet spot with the Z Fold 7 where the front display is like just wide enough that it doesn't bother me to use it, but not so wide that when you open it, it's gonna have a really weird like square form factor, which I don't want.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

Question, where is the camera on the I I see it here for here, but like what about for the fold? What do you mean? Is it also off to the side to the camera? What do you mean? Like uh is there an inner camera for the Z fold? Oh, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. But is it also like in the corners? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wrap-Up, Holiday Pace, And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

They didn't do the under display. This is one of the complaints about the V Fold 7, too. Remember, they did that with the special edition? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they had that big, you know, like little thing. That also will show up. But with this one, the problem uh with the Z Fold special edition was that it'll show up when you're watching media, but with this one, because it's square, you have black bars up here anyway, so you won't notice it interrupting your media unless you go full screen. But you know, but it's still very strange form factor. It's not as nice for, you know, in my opinion, reading content and like doing stuff, multitasking. Also, the software is not, in my opinion, Google software is not as good for multitasking as Samsung, um, just in like the pop-up windows and all that stuff. But I'm gonna do a full comparison of these and review on my channel of the Pixel 10 Pro fold. It does have a nice build quality, it's just very heavy, in my opinion. Yeah, and it really depends like if you're okay with getting a wider cover screen to get a weird aspect ratio on the inside. If that doesn't bother you, then maybe it's okay. But my first impressions are it looks good, it feels good in terms of build quality. I mean, I don't think anyone really has to worry about Jerry rig everything test because you're not going to do that to it. Yeah, right. I think that's a non-starter for daily use. The camera seems really good so far. Like Tori said, this extra stuff over here by the hinge, there's still extra stuff that doesn't need to be there. Like, why is that there? Yeah, that's good. That's very doesn't look doesn't look great. Um so I'll talk more about it once I have more to say, but those are my initial thoughts on it. Anyway, I think that's mostly what I have this week. Uh next week I will have the Vivo X300 Pro, so I'll talk about that a little bit in the hardware segment. I don't know if I'll have the Galaxy XR yet. It depends on how quickly Samsung ships it. I guess we'll see. That'll probably be two podcasts away because I'd imagine I won't have it by next week, but we'll talk about it. We'll probably get a lot of crazy S26 leaks still, because I the Samsung has no idea what they're doing, so there's no way we have no any idea what they're doing. So I guess we'll just have to find out when they decide what they're doing. We'll probably get more leaks and we'll know what they're doing, and we'll keep bringing you that info. The mystery boxes are open for the S26, and that's not changing. Um, thank God I didn't order S26 edge cases yet, because that would have been a disaster. I would have lost all that money. Yeah, I only ordered ultra cases because I purposely knew Samsung was I it didn't seem like they had decided. So I only ordered the cases that I knew the design was final and it was actually going to release. That's what you call intelligence. I'm super smart when it comes to that. Not gonna flush thousands of dollars down the train when I don't even know if the phone will release. But we will have the whatever design, whatever models they release, they will all have mystery boxes, and I'll have those cases here in time. The ultra cases will be here soon because I already ordered them. But the other ones, whenever Samsung finalizes their plans, I'll order them and we'll have those as well. Anyway, uh lots of cool stuff coming up. Trifold, XR. Uh the industry events are mostly done for the year. There's a couple more Chinese launches. Oppo launched their phone, I'll probably look at that too. Apple's done, you know, Samsung's kind of done, except for the Trifold for the year until we get to the S launch. Everyone's kind of winding down because everyone releases their products before the holidays. Yeah. So the products are already out, so you can go and buy them. So all the phones for the year are kind of on on the shelves. There's not a whole lot of new products that are coming out just because they want everyone to be able to buy the stuff that's already launched. So kind of get ready for that holiday season. But a lot of fun stuff. Uh had a lot of fun, Tori. Anything else to add? Uh no, but too. Uh this week, remember to keep expanding your galaxy.