Inside Samsung’s Crazy Galaxy S26 Ultra Launch Plans - Every Leak and Rumor

We dive deep into the S26 Ultra leaks with plain talk on what’s real, what’s risky, and what actually helps day to day. Then we give honest Galaxy XR impressions: setup pains, comfort limits, great software, and why value still favors Quest for most people.

• site outages and schedule reset
• case sizing risks and shifting S26 dimensions
• lineup uncertainty and possible leaker misdirection
• design changes with rounded corners and pill camera island
• display efficiency, anti-reflection, and privacy screen upgrades
• selfie punch‑hole trade‑offs and bezel concerns
• S Pen staying, Bluetooth still unclear
• camera stagnation, wider aperture rumors, minimal zoom gains
• chipset split, cooling boost, universal 16 GB RAM
• 60 W charging, dual NFC, fingerprint refinements
• colors, price pressure, late Jan vs Feb timing
• who should upgrade and who should wait
• Galaxy XR comfort, prescription inserts, apps, use cases
• XR vs Quest value and long-term outlook

This episode of the Sammy Guru Podcast is brought to you by our partners at US Mobile.

S26 Ultra Mystery Box Sign up: https://laylo.com/springer/8g0gnSvT
Video Podcast on Youtube: https://bit.ly/3yBw3Ro

Follow Jeff on X (Twitter): https://x.com/jspring86az
Follow Torrey on X:  https://x.com/T_Martin_23
Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com

Transcript

We’re Back & Why The Site Crashed

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode number 48 of the Sammy Guru Podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me as always, my co-host Tori. Tori, say hi. Yeah, how's it going? And holy cow, we're back for a podcast. Yeah. Can you believe it? Some people thought that we potentially could have be deceased, but we're not. We're back. No, we are a live kicking. Some people were hoping, probably.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Those guys. Some are out there in the deep dark. Yeah. Deep dark internet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Some of our the enemies of Samiguru. But anyway, we're back. Uh it's been a few interesting weeks. Those of you who uh read the site daily might have noticed that our site was crashing pretty hard a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Or maybe they couldn't read it.

Mystery Boxes And S26 Case Dilemmas

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Maybe you didn't you didn't notice because the site was crashing pretty hard. And um, because of that, we had to I had to take a little break because I had to work on the back end of the site a little bit and make sure everything is kind of, you know, the way it needs to be for the site. And so for that reason, we and some other stuff. I had a few doctors' appointments, but we're trying to get back on the regular schedule. We're not giving up on the podcast. No matter what, we're always gonna come back. So we're here. We're gonna have a long one today because Tori's here on Veterans Day. I am to teach, so here a little early. Got a little more time to talk. And Jesus, there's been a lot of crazy stuff going on with the S26 series. We're gonna spend a lot of time probably talking about that today. But before we do, Tori, how have you been? How's life doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Uh I'll say overall, things are going uh pretty good. Just uh yeah, getting through the getting through the teaching O's and just making our way to uh winter break. Um, but then that just kick starts the whole mystery box.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh, it does factor. The mystery boxes will be kicked right into gear. And speaking of which, we're gonna talk about that today. I mean, people have been asking me, you know, like, are the mystery boxes in limbo? Because we're as we're gonna get into the specs and the dimensions of the S26, they keep morphing. It's like a shape shifter. Yeah, it keeps getting taller, wider, skinnier, thicker, thinner. So I'm scared to pull the trigger because as usual, I'm gonna be ordering thousands of cases with my money, with the business's money. Uh I need to make sure that when those cases come, they actually fit the phone. Otherwise, I just flushed several thousands of dollars down the toilet.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, because throw the throw them away. I mean, no, no phone would fit that.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah. And when when there's no leakers that are really agreeing on the dimensions, that scares me a little bit because it's like, well, do these random companies that I buy the cases from, do they know the dimensions? Because a lot of these leakers are usually pretty trustworthy if they don't know, and they have sources that are inside Samsung, most of you know, like ICE and some of these other guys inside Samsung Mobile. Did Samsung provide the updated specs to these case brands? I don't know. And if they didn't, then I'm taking a big risk. So we'll talk more about that. But there's a lot of questions as to what the dimensions are of these phones and which models will even be released. Because originally we thought there was gonna be four models, and that doesn't seem to be true anymore. And and now it's like what I don't I'm starting to think that maybe Samsung trolled some of the leakers by putting out different info. We can talk about that a little bit later. We're gonna basically go through our entire S26 Ultra, everything you need to know guide uh and kind of just go through each section because Samit updated it and there's a lot to talk about. Um just preview the rest of the show. I've got Galaxy XR thoughts for you guys today. A lot of those, because I've finally got to use it. People ask, like, Jeff, you had the XR, how come you haven't had anything to say about it? Well, I wear prescription glasses, and I haven't been able to use it until like two or three days ago because on launch day, which I think was almost three weeks ago, yet tomorrow, on Wednesday, it'll be three weeks that it came out for pre-order. Well, it wasn't pre-order, just direct sale. I got the XR two days after I ordered it because it wasn't even a pre-order. They started selling it and shipping it the same day. But then I had to let sit on my shelf in my office and collect dust for two weeks because the lenses, Samsung ordered them through iBuy Direct, which is like a third-party lens provider. They didn't fulfill them themselves, which pisses me off for one thing. They got a third party and they didn't even get a third party that was local to the various countries. My lenses ship from China, so they had to clear customs and they got stuck in customs, and then it took a long time. They had to clear customs and that took forever because you know, of all the stuff going on in the world these days, I didn't get them until like this past Friday. And so I was able to use it over the weekend. But I have some thoughts about that. Uh otherwise, you know, my life's been pretty good. Super busy as always. You know, my smaller son's almost two now, so he's starting to like really do stuff and get into stuff. He's like, trying to see what's going on around here. Yeah. He's like, what are he's like, what are they not telling me about what all these buttons and various devices we have in this house do? He's like, what have they not told me? And also the bottom of it. And also, you know, he's getting to the age where he's trying to get in Jonathan's stuff, and Jonathan's like, uh, I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, I know.

Lineup Confusion And Possible Leaker Misdirection

SPEAKER_00 4:55

He's like, I like you, but not enough that I want you over here messing up my dinosaur habitat that I built, or I don't want you getting in my Pokemon card collection. Yeah. You know, he like he wants to touch everything Jonathan has on his room, like his display dinos, his graded Pokemon cards that he has, his coloring pages of dinos, dinos and Pokemon. He wants to scribble on the ones that Jonathan has nicely colored in the lines, and Jonathan's like, I'm not having we color in the lines here. He's like, not up in here.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

You know, he he's gonna he's gonna call it a family meeting with you and Nicole saying, Hey, look, we gotta figure this out. We gotta figure it out, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

He's like, we can't have this guy just coloring, scribbling all over my beautifully colored pages, or knocking over my dinos or my graded cards in my room on display. Yeah, he's not down with that. No, so I've been dealing with that. I'm getting ready to go to CS in January, of course. Um I'm praying that somehow Samsung decides not to open reservations in while I'm at CS. We'll talk about that because the release date, just like everything else with the S26, has also morphed around. Oh it was originally early January, then it was gonna be later. Now it may be January again. It's like what's going on. Um, anything else interesting with you, Tori? We're gonna maybe see now you see me, now you don't this week.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Um because now you see us and now you don't.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, now you see us, now you now you don't. Um no, no, no. I mean, uh honestly, it's just been uh uh pretty chill. Um, you know, I've just been um working through uh Pokemon, One Piece trading card games, um, you know, just uh getting back onto the competitive scene, you know, because you you gotta have a hobby outside of you know, like your work and stuff. And so or in my case, you gotta have like seven.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yes. You gotta have a hobby, or my Tori too. Tori likes to collect stuff. Yeah, I do. That's why Tori and I get along so well. You know, you gotta have a hobby or five to get through the rest of your life. You know, six, but who's kind of you can't just work all the time. Yeah, no, you can't. You've got to have something that you spend all the money you earn working on.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Essentially, yes, all the money.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

You can't just save that money. You gotta spend it on something.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Saving who?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

And so for me, you know, I collect Pokemon cards, sports cards, fountain pens, field notes, and tech stuff. Yeah. Tori's got the One Piece, the Pokemon. What else do you collect some other stuff too? What else do you think?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Uh oh, uh I've been getting back into Legos, I've been collecting a lot of Legos.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Oh, Jonathan would like to hear about that. He likes to love the Legos too now.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, yeah, especially the like like you know, like the big$200 plus sets. Um, those are always pretty important. I still gotta build uh the Simpsons Krusty Burger. I bought that set over the summer. I gotta build that one. I just finished the uh ballrog um Lego booking set. Um so yeah, no, I've been I've been trying to get back into Legos, but now I need to get back into the movies. I I feel like I've you know I haven't been to I don't think I've been to the movies since we went.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one for Aziz. That was a good movie, though. It liked it. It was Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogan, Aziz is like a good mixture. Yeah, it was. I never thought I'd see those three guys in the same movie.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

It's kind of a weird. Keanu Reeves was really good. Uh, you know, because uh Aziz and Sari's comedy is uh was always a hit or miss for me. But I really liked it in that movie. Seth Rogan was they all kind of play off each other, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Keanu Reeves was just hilarious.

Design Shifts: Size, Corners, Camera Island

SPEAKER_00 8:18

He's hilarious because when he did he usually doesn't do comedy, but when he does, he's got the deadpan delivery. Yeah, he does. You know, yeah, very like funny, but not trying to be funny. Yeah. So yeah, we'll check that movie out this week, kind of see what happens there. Um, otherwise, I guess let's jump into the Samsung stuff because it's gonna be a wild ride. So I've got the site open, and if you're listening to the podcast, you should definitely go and read this if you're considering S26 Ultra at all. Uh if you don't know, you probably know if you listen to this podcast, but our editor-in-chief at Sammy Guru Some Meat, he updates this guide like once a week with all the new leaks. It's about 6,000 words long right now, and that's still that's still over two months from the launch date. So that's crazy. And um we're gonna just go section by section. So, first of all, uh the S26 Ultra design and hardware, the code name of it is Miracle. I don't know if you knew that. Samsung always has internal code names for their stuff. Um it's supposed to be just 7.9 millimeters thick, and uh this is actually the thickness of potentially the you know, uh it's a lot thinner than the S25 Ultra. So it's about 0.3 millimeters thinner. It's not much lighter because the S25 Ultra is 218 grams. This would be 217 grams. Um which, you know, the thinness, 0.3 millimeters is a decent amount to shave off the thickness. So if you found I mean, honestly, I don't find the S25 Ultra to be a thick or heavy phone. What do you think, Tori? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

No, no, no, not at all. Actually, I I um even like when I hold mines like without the case, um, it feels pretty light, honestly, in my hand. Uh it and it just feels really nice um uh overall. You know, it doesn't have that, you know, that over length or or like that overweight. Um obviously with me having the UAG case on, like it does feel like there's like a good weight to it. But when I take the case off, it's actually pretty light to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Now they're also rumored, and this is the thing we saw yesterday that could be interesting. Um, this is what I was talking about earlier with me being nervous about the case dimensions. Um they may also increase the height and the width. So 163.6 millimeters tall, 78.1 millimeters wide, which is roughly compared to the S25? That's about a millimeter taller than the S25 Ultra and about a half millimeter wider.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

So that could I don't know if I like that because I always I I already find it sometimes a little bit of a hard reach. I I'm right-handed, so it is to me, it's already kind of a reach to reach as high as the phone is now.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

You know, I mean the bezels are gonna get decreased a little bit, which we'll talk about soon, but it's still probably gonna be a little bit taller to reach the full UI. Yeah. Um, just because of that height. And you know, like I said, these don't sound like big numbers on the spec sheet, but a half a millimeter when you when you increase the height and the width, and you decrease the thinnet, the thickness by a third point three millimeters, those all add up to making the phone feel substantially different than the previous model. So it is gonna be different. And then, of course, the other big change that we've discussed a few times, this seems like it's basically confirmed because almost every leaker has said this, it's gonna have more rounded corners. So this is like the end of the note style, you know, squared off corner. Basically, this is now gonna be all rounded, it's gonna look just like an iPhone essentially, in terms of you know, in terms of how round it is, it's gonna look like the iPhone 17 Pro Max. What do you think about that, Tori?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Uh oof, uh, and I wouldn't need to have the iPhone back in in my hand for comparison. But I mean, I I just took my S25 uh out of the case, and um honestly, like I was a little skeptical like at first, you know, coming from the S22, which was in my opinion, still very note style um to this phone.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Um the S22 was basically a note because that was the first year that they axed the note and integrated the S Pen into the S.

Display Upgrades And Anti-Glare Gains

SPEAKER_01 12:31

No, I do remember that. Yep. Uh I I actually I really do like the the overall presentation of the S25 in terms of like the the design and just like how it feels. Um, I think this is a perfect size, in my opinion. Yeah, I don't really have a problem with the size. I mean I would not be I would not be upset if they kept this size and then just added bells and whistles to the S26.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Instead, they're just doing the opposite, they're just changing the size for no reason and adding no bells or whistles.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Yeah, I know. Like, and can we just get a better camera?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

We're gonna talk about that in a second. Okay, people are mad about it that people want to talk about that. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Um, but yeah, no, I I I I wouldn't really change the size. I I I actually really do like this size. I I think it fits really well in the hand. Um, I think it has a really good thinness for it still being called an ultra. Um, but yeah, I you know, come on now.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

It fits so good in the hand, ladies. You know the procedures, as Flossie Carter would say. Um and it does. It does feel good in the hand. Uh-huh, it really does. Um so talking, let's let's talk about since we're talking about the build and design, let's talk a little bit about the camera, not not necessarily the hardware, but the design. Samsung is gonna finally change the rear camera housing design. We're not gonna have the floating island design, which means these are like individual islands. Yeah, it's gonna be one integrated like pill shape. So this is all gonna be like connected. So is it kind of like the pixel? It's gonna be kind of like this, but it's gonna be a long, it's gonna be long like this, but all connected like the pixel. Yeah. Um, and so you know, you've seen the renders that Android headlines had. We looked at them once before. It's gonna look like this, yeah. Kind of connected for the three main cameras there. Um, I don't know. I mean I don't know. I I I I don't mind it. Uh I mean it still looks distinctly Samsung.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah, yeah, I agree, because the color will still be there, I'm assuming. Yeah.

Selfie Hole, Bezels, And Privacy Screen

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Um I don't really like the lenses on the S25 Ultra, they look cheap. This big black plastic piece around the outside. The S24 Ultra looked better. It had metal, the real metal on the outside of the lenses. Um I'm not a big fan of these cheap lens covers, so I don't know. I think the camera island uh pill-shaped thing is fine. Doesn't look bad to me. Um it's gonna have a raised up bump. Um and of course, that's gonna be, you know, you know, that that's gonna be obviously it's gonna all cameras have a bump. The S25 Ultra doesn't have as big of one, but all smartphone cameras have some kind of bump that makes it wobble on the table, which is fine. Um the device reportedly gets camera upgrades, and the upgraded sensors do not completely fit within the 7.99 millimeter profile. That's why camera bumps exist. You want to make a thin phone, but you can't put all the hardware in the thin chassis, so you gotta have a big bump. And I do like big bumps, and I cannot lie, you know. That's what I'm saying. Um anyway, it could be very sizable. It looks like the thickness of the base and lenses is around 4.5 millimeters, which is double the thickness of the S25 Ultra. So think about taking this and doubling it. So the bump is gonna go out to around here, Tori. That's where it's gonna go. Maybe take my pinky finger, the size of the bump will be roughly out to there. Okay, which is about where it goes on the pixel. Yeah, same as a bigger one. So that's what you're gonna be that's what you're gonna be expecting. Um talking about some upgrades, so far we've told you just a lot of bad news. I mean, well, not bad news, maybe just mediocre news that they're not really doing anything, but just changing some dimensions slightly, and maybe you might not like that if you don't like rounded corners. Uh, we are gonna get third gen Gorilla Armor Glass on the front, which should be awesome. It's gonna retain the titanium frame, which is great, because I was really hoping they wouldn't try to copy Apple and put the aluminum frame because that sucks really bad on the iPhone 17. I hate it. So I guess they're not gonna do that. Um, that gives you a lot of durability. The titanium is great. The third gen gorilla armor glass not only boasts toughness, but also enhance anti-reflective protection. So, guess what? The champion of anti-reflexivity, and this thing is insane, like it doesn't have reflections at all, even under my studio lights, is gonna be even more anti-reflective with the S26 Ultra, which is awesome. Um, that means fewer distracting reflections in bright environments. Um, they've also re-engineered the internal cooling system with a 15% larger vapor changer to handle uh load from the processor and Galaxy I workloads. Now, we'll talk about later in this roundup, we a lot of processor controversy for the SMY6 Ultra, and we love a good processor controversy at Sam McGu. Xynos 2600 versus Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. According to some early benchmarks of the 8 Elite Gen 5, including some I've done myself, because I own two phones that have this processor. I own the Vivo X300 Pro and the Oppo Find X9 Pro. I imported them both. It runs a little hot. It's a little toasty. If you're in a pinch and you're out and about and you need to make some breakfast, just get some games going on there. You could fry up an egg on the back of your phone. No problem. Just fry it up, scramble it up right there. So we'll talk about that. You might need that larger vapor chamber because the processor, depending on which region you're in, could be a little toasty. Um let's talk about the display a little bit. So 6.9 inch dynamic OLED 2x display. The overall panel looks similar to the 25 Ultra. It's gonna get major internal changes, including a few surprising ones. The big change comes from the color filter or encapsulation depolarizer layer. It replaces the traditional polarizer with a color filter and introduces a black pixel definition layer in place of the standard one. So, what does that mean in layman's terms? It means the display can transmit more light, which offers higher brightness and richer color accuracy, even at the high brightness with improved efficiency. So there's three things you're gonna get from this polarizer. You're gonna get brighter peak brightness, better color reproduction at those high brightnesses. Because keep in mind, usually when you have a really high brightness, your color gets blown out. Yeah. So like if you're watching something and if you have high brightness in general on your display, if it's not HDR content, that color is not gonna look accurately reproduced. But with this polarizer, you're gonna get color accuracy at high brightness, and it's not gonna drain as much battery life. That's a huge upgrade. What do you think about that, Tori?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah, like um, I mean, I actually actually think I actually like that. I mean, we like higher brightnesses.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, we live in Arizona, so we like it when it's bright.

S Pen Status, Features We Might Lose

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, yeah, because like uh sometimes like you just have a you know, you just have a hard time in that in that summer glare on like when you're like outside trying to look at stuff, especially if you're if you're like at a baseball game or especially a spring training game. That's where mostly it's beating down on you. Yeah, yeah, because there's less coverage at as it is at the Chase Field. Uh I always have a hard time looking at my phone when I'm at the Chase Field, you know, it's nice because it's indoors.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

But no spring training ones, especially if you get the laid-in tickets, you're sitting out in the sun. You're on that hill.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah, you are big, and you're like, kids are rolling down the hill as you're trying to look at something on your phone. Yeah, no. That's what the kids like to do. They get to the top of the hill and they roll down. Yeah, roll down. Like that looks dangerous, you know. Yes. Where are these kids' parents? I know. But I'm sure it's fun for the kids. I'm sure it is, yeah. But Nicole will kill Jonathan and Nathaniel if they try that. So I suggest if they're listening. If my kids are listening to the podcast, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try it. Yeah, no. Um that's great. Higher brightness, better color reproduction, which is very important for that's not gonna be important for everybody, but for someone like me who's a creator who's editing photos or something or videos on the go, maybe that is important because you might need to do some work on the go and you're getting better color accuracy even at high brightnesses, so you can see your work outdoors and still do your work that requires that color accuracy if you're editing footage or photos. Uh, and improve battery efficiency is always great because everyone wants better battery life. Yeah. And obviously, that's like the key. Usually, when you ramp up the brightness, you're gonna ramp down your battery life. And so now that's gonna improve the efficiency. Um, this also is gonna allow Samsung to make the panel thinner, which also will lower some power consumption. And it also will upgrade to the M14 OLED panels, which themselves have better power efficiency and brightness.

Camera Reality: Specs, Aperture, Zoom Letdowns

SPEAKER_01 21:10

So I think this is some I think this is a very good step in the right direction. Yeah, the internal for consumers, I this is like one of the top things that uh consumers are looking for. Or I would say the average consumer, especially with a brand new phone right out of the box, like you're gonna eat that up. Yeah, you're gonna want battery life.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Battery life is big, and improving power consumption on your display, that's like the biggest thing that will drain your battery, is your display, obviously, especially if you use it outdoors. And uh this will solve that issue, at least for a lot of people. Um, if you pair all this with the anti-reflective properties of the third gen Gorilla Glass armor that I talked about earlier, um it should give you a huge boost in terms of like readability outdoors because the anti-glare is there plus the brightness boost and all that stuff we just talked about with the color accuracy. Um, however, uh, even though we heard they originally might shrink the bezels, it seems like they may not. And they may actually increase the punch hole size, which degrades the visual appeal of the screen. So people are pissed about this. I'll show you a picture, Tori. Yep. Here it is. Look at that big giant punch hole. This is S26 versus S25. Look at those chunkier bezels, a little chonky chonky.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, no, I don't know how I feel about that. I like the S25.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

The S25 looks a little more visually appealing, a little sexier. Less bezels, smaller hole punch out. You know, we like a we like a small hole, of course, in this industry. Cameras. I'm talking about the cameras to it. Camera, cameras. Of course, of course. We prefer of course we prefer the smallest hole possible. It's the most visually appealing on the selfie camera. Uh so, but of course, like everything in life, you do have trade-offs. You get a bigger hole, you also get some upgraded features. The selfie camera may be improved, which we'll talk about later in the camera section. The bigger hole might be to get improved performance from that camera on the front. No. Um, we also talked about this one before, another huge upgrade coming to the display, the AI magic flex screen, which will give us the new flex magic pixel technology, that privacy filter that will automatically make it so that people can't see what's on your screen. You remember that feature we talked about a few weeks ago? Basically, you turn it on, and immediately, if people are trying to look at your screen, it'll be black. They won't be able to see it. So it'll turn the pixels off from certain viewing angles. That's absolutely a monstrous feature. I think we've talked about that many times.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

A lot of people like really want that, especially with like online banking and stuff like that being now like so prevalent and on the go, like just to have like that you know, ability so that way like people aren't able to just look at your screen like in public and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

And you know, it's one that can market a lot, like we talked about before. This is something if you put it in commercial, people are gonna be impressed with that. Oh, yeah, for sure. They're gonna be like, that's pretty sweet. Um, the S Pen is sticking around another year. Uh the heavens, thank though. Shh, I know it for the S27 Ultra, but we can you know, we will take what we can get. We'll take it this year. Um, Bluetooth, though, is still likely to be missing. There's been some back and forth about that, but no reliable leaks have really shown that Bluetooth could come back. It'd be nice, but it's nice to have the S pin back at least. Um in the future, it's possible they may make it optional so it won't be built in anymore. We're starting with the S27. I think that would stink kind of. I hope that doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah, I mean that again, like is one of the and I I was actually thinking about this, it was last week, but like one of the things again, like I talked about this before on the podcast, but what really brought me to Samsung was just like how cool the gimmicks were like in in comparison to Apple, um like just basically sending out the same phone just about every year. Like, I looked towards Samsung and I was like, man, like they got the S Pen, they got the curved edges, like it's like that meme of the guy holding up the sweater, the shirt, and he got the same shirt on from last year.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

It's like look at my iPhone 17, and I'm wearing my iPhone 16.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

And yeah, Samsung is kind of doing the same thing, you know, which we don't like.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

I know. Every I mean, just about every year, you know, we're kind of looking at, or especially as we started doing the podcast, I just started seeing more and more of like, okay, we're kind of turning into Apple. I know obviously, so they're gonna sell phones, they're going to you know, make buckets of money. Um, but I would say like the fan people, like you want to keep the fans. Keep the fans. We love the fans. That's what we're here for, it's him and guru.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

We're here for the fans. Keep the fans. We like to give the fans what they want. Yep. All right, so now let's turn our attention to the big section, the camera. Everyone wants to know about the camera. What camera upgrades are you getting? Well, basically ones is issued almost like no camera upgrades. There's a couple. Um, the main sensor, 200 megapixels, same sensor as the S25, the ISO cell HB2, which was actually introduced, you guessed it, three years ago with the S23 Ultra. Three-year-old sensor on a phone that's probably going to cost$1,400. That's insane. Um, for a change though, Samsung may offer wider aperture with rumors of an F1.4 wide aperture. Uh, the S25 Ultra has the 1.7. Um, for those of you guys who don't know a bunch about aperture cameras in general, the aperture allows the phone to let in more, the camera to let in more light. The smaller the aperture number, the wider it can get, which I know is kind of anti-intuitive. You think the bigger the number, the wider it gets, but now it's the smaller the number, the more light that it can let in, the wider it gets. Um, so it capture 47% more light if they make it f1.4, yeah. Um, which produces clearer images and low light conditions with less noise, more accurate colors. There's also chatter about variable aperture, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. This would be a huge opportunity for Samsung. I really wish they would bring virtual aperture because that then allows you to really have basically like you know, like the Sony camera I use for my videos. Yeah. That basically allows you to change your aperture range at will, which you can do on a fancy, you know, real camera, but not really on most smartphones. That would really be big, but it doesn't like that's gonna happen. Um they may offer virtual aperture for portrait shots, including uh DSLR simulation. That's only for portrait though, which would still be cool. Um, and that could eventually trickle down to the S25 Ultra because that might be a software thing. Okay. So it's not really changing the hardware. So they'd just be simulating this in software. So they'll be like, hey, we'll just release it in the software, and then maybe six months later, after those all those idiots bought the S26 Ultra, we'll give it to the people who have the S25 Ultra. They're like, hey, we couldn't convince you to buy one. Now we'll give you that feature.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

So, you know, that's not helping me sell any mystery boxes, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

No, none at all. None at all.

Release Timing Whiplash And Market Strategy

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Uh, meanwhile, there could be some internal changes for the camera lenses. Uh, Samsung reportedly replaced the current thin cover films with inkjet printed coat inkjet printed coatings. The coatings are slimmer and could reduce the overall thickness of the camera module while still minimizing flare and ghosting. This would allow them to have a sleeker design without sacrificing image quality. Um, there's a rumor that we might have no zoom upgrades, which would be very bad. Yeah. Um, there's been contrasting reports. This is one place where there's still a lot of, like I told you, there's a lot of uncertainty. This time last year with the S25 Ultra, we knew like everything. Everything was guaranteed. Like you could take it to the bank, a cash, a check, you knew all the specs. There's been some back.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

I just want to ask you about that. I was kind of thinking, what's what's so different this time? I mean, we're in November. We are getting into the mid. Like, why is there a lot of people?

SPEAKER_00 28:54

We're getting ready to just celebrate the Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Have you seen this before?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Uh, I have seen years where there weren't full spec sheets at this time, but those were typically years where Samsung, for some reason, had delayed the device, so maybe they were less far in the production schedule. We'll take a second to talk about this because we're gonna fend the first half of the show on the on this one article. Yeah, this is a long article, and that's fine because this is a big topic, and then the second half we'll talk hardware. Um, but um, I really don't know what's going on this time. In the in the past, obviously, Samsung has delayed some launches. Back, you know, five, six years ago, they would sometimes launch phones in March or even in April. In that case, then you wouldn't have a full picture by November because the launch would be four or five months away. Yeah, but this time it's very weird. And since we haven't really talked about it yet, it's at the very end of the article, but we can mention this now. There's been conflicting reports of the release date. So that could maybe be why we haven't seen the full picture. Originally, we were told earlier this month by some reliable sources that Samsung had decided to postpone. The launch of the S26 series till February 25th, which would be an entire month later than they released the S25. The S25 was launched at an event on January 22nd. Tori was here. The Sammy Guru website crashed and Jeff was like running around. He's like, where's the website? It's dead. We're going out of business. It's a going out of business sale. Um well we didn't go out of business, thankfully. But um, yeah, so they've they've done it before. So and then to then like two days ago, we heard from Cho Sun, which is a Korean outlet who has very big ties to Samsung and confirmed by Ice Universe that now the launch is back to late January, yeah, which is the usual time frame. So did they originally delay it and then they decided to not delay it? And maybe that's why everyone hasn't got all the info out? Or are they really just either one not sure themselves about the lineup? That's what I'm kind of feeling. Two, are they putting out fake leaks to different outlets? Because they can easily do that. That that's been racking my brain. I mean, I are they putting it out. Maybe they're tired of all these leakers, man, because they were tired of people getting their hands on the early software builds, and they kind of have really put effort into shutting that down now. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, because I'm it's a mystery.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Uh in even like with the lineup, I mean to go from like yeah, we haven't really talked about that because we've been focusing on the ultra, but originally there was an S26 Edge, and now that's gone. Yeah, we're back to potentially three models, it looks like S26, S26 Plus, S26 Ultra.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah, and that could be a knee-jerk reaction looking at uh what happened to Apple's.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Um yeah, and originally people were saying, Oh, well, Apple is not going to cancel the iPhone Air 2 and they're gonna do it. And then yesterday, 9 to 5 Mac, who covers Apple only, they said that Apple has now discontinued the iPhone Air 2 plans. They've they've pulled plans to have a second generation of that. That's how bad these thin phones do.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah, so it's crazy. I I I really did thought, like I really did think that's where we were going. Because you know, the pendulum has swung so far to where we have thick phones and we have the foldables, and just looking at the sales for the Fault 7, but maybe then is an end for these uh for the bar phones. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Maybe people don't want then.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Well, I mean, but too, if you're buying a foldable, you probably want innovation. Um, you know, so you're thinking of thinking of it like that, where versus the bar phones. Um, these are like your average everyday people who are purchasing, you know, these phones.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

I like my phones like I like my women. Thick. You know what I mean, Tori? Thick. You know what I'm saying? Not uh THIC. Not too thick. T A I C. Not with a K.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, yeah, no. Dot the K.

Colors, Pricing, And Who Should Upgrade

SPEAKER_00 32:47

None of that thin stuff around here, you know? Yeah, too easy to break. The phones. Anyway, um, back to the specs. But yeah, I agree with you. It's it's kind of strange that no one I I don't know what I don't know what's going on. Samsung doesn't know what's going on, they're leaking out fake information. No one knows about it. They changed their own plans like six times. I honestly we can't tell you because people always get angry at like media websites like us. They're like, well, why don't you know? Well, we just report what we hear from various sources. Yeah, you've got to remember, like, when you're a media outlet, you you get information from sources and you share that with the public. Yeah, that's how the media works anywhere. Like, we try to discern what we think is reasonable and what isn't, and we try to give you insight on that and say this sounds like it fits with the past, but we don't know. It's just like if someone gives a tip to something like the Washington Post, they try to research that tip and make sure that it's verifiable. And maybe that they get a tip, and then that tip turns out to be wrong because the plans change from whatever they were reporting on. That happens to all media outlets. Like we just report what we get tips on and we give you the full story. We try to tell you what we think is credible, but Samsung is an internal business. We are not Samsung, so you can't hold us to like, oh, well, that thing you reported turned out to be false. Well, okay, maybe Samsung changes their plans. We're sharing with you what their plans are up to the moment. And when something changes, 100%, we report that. That's why we have this guide. So every week we share with you moment by moment what's changing. This is for the fans that want to know, like at this moment, where Samsung's head is at with the lineup. Um the no zoom upgrade is very disappointing. So originally there was supposed to be a 3x zoom upgrade, and right now there's like two different claims. The first one was that they would replace the 10 megapixel 1 over 3.52 inch sensor with a higher resolution 12 megapixel unit. It seems that that may not actually be an upgrade because they're still only going to utilize 10 megapixels of it with binning. So there's no real resolution boost from the 3x zoom. So those of you who don't understand a lot about photography, just think of it this way, right? Let's say you buy a dozen eggs, but but you only use 10 of those eggs, well, then you didn't really get any value from the other two eggs you bought. So they're gonna use a 12 megapixel sensor, but they're gonna bend that. You're only gonna get use 10 megapixel view of that, of the pixels, so you're not really getting a resolution increase for the 3x photos. Which what what kind of sense I don't even understand this rumor? I don't even understand it, but a lot of various reputable sources have repeated this. So I don't want to say it's not possible.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Sounds like less shooting yourself in the foot. It's just like really weird.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Like, why would you do that? Um top of this, the new sensor is actually smaller than the outgoing one, it's one over three point nine four inches uh in optical format against the one over three point five inches in optical size. Um, while Samsung is still having an F2.4 aperture, the smaller sensor uh with practically unchanged resolution is probably not going to do a damn thing to help the image quality. So none of this is good news. Um, there was also rumors of a 12-megapixel 1 over 2.55 sensor, but that doesn't seem to be like very likely at this point. A few people repeated this, but Ice Universe has repeatedly shut this down. Um, some of our sources at Sami Guru were originally saying this, but it looks like maybe this was the plan, and then it might have changed. Like I said earlier, things change. Uh Samsung decided, hey, you know what? We can squeeze some more value out of these people without giving them really any upgrades to the 3X unit. Um the 5X Zoom is also not getting an upgrade. Uh they may once again widen the aperture to f2.9 from f3.4, but that's not really a sensor change. It's really just going to be a little bit more light and maybe help with a little bit of software processing. Samsung is really losing to all these Chinese companies with the Zoom battle. Man, the Oppo Fine X9 Pro and the ZFO X300 Pro, they're so good on the cameras, man. I I I I even don't even want to use my Samsung camera anymore, which is sad because obviously I love one UI, but Samsung is embarrassing themselves on the camera front. Oh no, 100%. Okay, so I've told you all the bad news, which is basically every camera on the back side is bad news because nothing, none of it's getting upgraded. Let's talk about the selfie camera, which is getting a meaningful upgrade. Nice. Um, it looks like that Samsung will equip the phone with a new 12 megapixel sensor. The resolution's not going to be changed, but it does have new hardware. So you can have new image, you know, better image quality, field of view. That's why that bigger hole, we talked about small hole, big hole, small hole, big hole. The big hole is gonna give you a better field of view on that front, even though it's not gonna look as nice on the display. Um, there were some early rumors they were talking about an under-display selfie camera, but that's not gonna happen this year.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

And I'll say honestly, for the average consumer, you should be glad about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like after like a few hours of use, you're gonna forget the little camera holes you've been doing.

Sponsor Message: US Mobile

SPEAKER_00 37:54

I mean, I'm gonna tell you right now, uh, they put that on the foldables for a few years. You know, the underslay selfie camera looks like sh- I mean, poop. It's uh it's not good. You don't want it. Uh it's not ready for prime time. In like five to ten years, they might be good enough where you could use them and they still give you good image quality. Yeah. But if you like to take even occasional selfies, trust me, you do not want to underdisplay selfie camera right now. It looks good, the aesthetic of the phone, but the camera quality, if you ever take even a single selfie, you're gonna wish that you never had an undersplay selfie camera. It's terrible. Um, so that's not gonna happen. Um, so basically, to summarize overall, Samsung is just screwing everybody on the camera. Massive. They said, hey, how about we just screw you and take your money? I was like, hey, if you're gonna screw me like that, you gotta at least buy me dinner first. And they're like, we can't.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah, and I think at some point it's gonna come up and catch up with them of the lack of them upgrading the camera. Um, that is probably one of the few arguments I do get from my Apple uh Apple uh counterparts love the camera on Apple. Uh have a hard time with it on Samsung. And again, I grew up thinking Samsung was like the king of all cameras. Yeah. A little disappointed.

Galaxy XR: Setup Pains And First Impressions

SPEAKER_00 39:12

It's just insane, man. And the crazy thing is, not only does Sony make new sensors that are going on these Chinese comment phones, Samsung also has brand new sensors, uh, like their in-house 200 megapixel ISO cell HP B continuous zoom camera, which is made by the Samsung camera division that offers 3x to 7x continuous optical zoom. And they're not gonna put that in the phone. That's their flagship. It's insane. Like you could actually compete and actually go above and beyond what the Chinese companies offer using tech that your own company makes in another division, and it might just raise the price a little bit more. Well, then just pass the price on to consumers. If you need to make that extra few dollars, I'll pay$1,500 instead of$1,400 to get an actual upgrade.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

If I could get a 3x, 7x optical zoom, continuous optical zoom sensor, I'm paying another hundred. I don't care, but they're just gonna screw everybody over.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

And then uh, you know, uh, what I would like to see as I'm kind of thinking about this, uh maybe like a future podcast, um, you know, little discussion, but has the competition in Android became too stale for Samsung?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

I think that's absolutely you're 100% odd to the reason why Samsung doesn't innovate anymore because they don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah. Because when I was uh like back in the note and stuff, I remember like you had the um one uh HTC, you have HTC uh Motorola. Yeah, Motorola. Uh it was all these options. It all had tons of US companies, yeah, and they all had cool things about them, and they all had some market share.

Comfort, Eye Strain, Apps, And Use Cases

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah, Samsung wasn't the only one with US market share. Now it's just Samsung. If you want to buy an Android phone in the US, you essentially only have two options it's Samsung or Google. And if you look at the market share between the two of them, Samsung 95%, Google 5%. So essentially, if you buy an Android phone in the US, you're buying a Samsung. There's very little people who don't buy a Samsung if they want Android. So Samsung looks at that and they're like, Well, I mean, who's really taking our market share? Why would we spend more money on parts and meaningful upgrades when people just buy it because they don't have a choice? Yeah, they don't have a choice. The people who are up for an upgrade this year, they're not gonna buy anything else if they want an Android. So if we just give them a nice, we give them a cool color, maybe you know, slim the phone down a little, slap a new color on it, new camera module, raise the price by 100 bucks, call it a day. Bag it and tag it. Bag it and tag it. And that's what they're doing. And we don't like that. Um, they are gonna uh debut the APV codec advanced professional video to rival Apple's ProRes. But again, this is basically just a software thing, and while it is a big thing for creators like myself, for the average person, this is not really an upgrade. I'm just being honest. I I love it. And people are enthusiasts, camera enthusiasts will love it. But the average person doesn't need an upgrade for APV because they're not shooting professional video. Tori's never gonna use this. Nope, never. He's never gonna know. Never. It's great that it's in there, but it's a software feature. Essentially, it's not a hardware upgrade, and it's not gonna be passed on to the average consumer in terms of useful features that they actually are going to see on a daily basis. That's the problem. Nope, I agree. Uh, talking about the processor, there's essentially a lot of controversy here as well. Originally, there was a lot of rumors by one of our own writers, Fidel, and he has a source called Beta over on X, a guy, Spigo, I forgot his whole X handle, I'll drop it below. They were criticizing Ice Universe and saying that ICE was wrong about the fact that Exynos wasn't going to debut on all the Galaxy phones. Apparently, Samsung originally had some plans for this, but now they've reversed those plans, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is going to be on the S26 Ultra in a lot of regions, most regions. Um, where the Exynos 2600 might be on the base model and the plus uh in most regions in the US. I mean, most regions outside the US. Qualcomm is probably going to be in all of them here in the US because the Snapdragon is just a big deal here. Um there's a lot of reasons why it would make sense. Um it really, it really would make a lot of sense if Samsung used their own Exynos processors because they would be able to do what Apple does. They'd be able to tune the software, the hardware, the efficiency, and the camera performance all based on their processor. And in fact, our freelance writer Fidel wrote an article yesterday or two days ago about why Exynos is essential for Samsung's success. And I do think in the long run that might be the case. There's actually been rumors that with the S27 Ultra, they might move to Exynos only. Um, I don't know, Tori, I'm just thinking from a general consumer perspective, because obviously there's a lot of things that are really technical about the processor discussion. But do you think Snapdragon has a lot of name recognition in the US? Like, do average consumers, if if you go to a Verizon store Best Buy and the salesperson says, Oh, this has got the newest Snapdragon chip, do you think that moves the needle? Do people you know see that, you know, hear that, and feel like that makes it more trustworthy? Versus if you go there and they're telling you about this new Samsung phone, they're like, it's got the Exynos 2600. You know, is there more name recognition for Snapdragon versus Exynos? So do you think people notice or care?

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Uh, I would say like the average consumer, they wouldn't know what the heck you're probably even talking about. They'll just be like, oh, okay, yeah, I know that sounds really cool. Um, but I would say as just an average, like, you know, like back when I was in college and you know, you're telling me about your videos, um, then I saw like, you know, a few others, like Flossie Carter, you know, that's when I started to see his and stuff like that. I would say like the general average tech, you know, because you still got tech lovers, tech lovers, but they don't have enough money to obviously buy every single you know cellular device that comes out. Um, so I would say tech lovers uh or enthusiasts, but again, are just essentially the average consumer. Um, I think when they hear Snapdragon, because that's what you mostly hear, um, like I think most people would assume that they're getting a pretty good product. Yeah, yeah. Um, versus like Exynos. Uh just people don't know what that is. I only know unless you're hardcore Samsung fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless you're hardcore, that's what you do every single time on the internet and your free timers look up your process. Sami Guru.com. Yeah, yeah, Sami Guru. Which, hey, we do want you on there. Do that go over there. Yeah, get on there. Um, but no, I I would I would say the average consumer, no, they they would not know what the heck you're talking about. They would just say, oh man, that just sounds great. Go ahead and sign me up, uh, help me, you know, set up my phone. But I would say the average consumer who probably doesn't, again, doesn't have like a whole lot of money to buy a phone every year. If they hear Snapdragon, I think they're gonna say, Yes, I'm getting a pretty good uh product. But don't forget to spend your time over at Sammy Guru.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yes, yes, and check out some of those great Black Friday deals roundups we have over there. Yep. Hit those links. Yeah, get those links buy some gifts. We got great gifts for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Yes, Black Friday, guys. It's not it's not that far away. It's not that far away. It's only a couple weeks away.

XR Vs Quest: Value And The Road Ahead

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, we already planning, we already got the sales, we got previews up there for Samsung's best deals. Now, is it only on Friday or or are we retailers? We're weak. It's like Black November. Yeah, yeah. That's what essentially turning to. It's basically like they're like, you know, Black History Month's in February. Yeah. But we've also got Black November, but that's about sales and we'll celebrate the history of people buying things. We got Black February and Black November now. Yeah. It's the whole month. Yeah. Like it's essentially. It's just Halloween's over. People are like, the Black Friday sales are starting. I'm like, what? I haven't even went through my kids' candy yet. You guys are already starting the Black Friday sales. I haven't even checked the candy for any dangerous items. Um for Jonathan is really is really funny because we keep going to the stores and they got all the Christmas stuff out. And Jonathan's like, why did they have the Christmas stuff out? The next holiday is Thanksgiving. He's like, We're not skipping Thanksgiving. Oh man. And I'm like, I'm with you, Jonathan. Um I don't think we should skip Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Really? I'm the opposite. You're one of those. You're like 2031st is done. Uh-oh. It's Christmas. Uh oh. I'm already singing Last Christmas by Wham. Uh-oh. On November 1st. Uh-oh. I just I blow straight past uh Thanksgiving. Uh-oh. Tori and Jonathan are gonna have some fights when we open some Pokemon cards this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Don't be like, we're not skipping the Thanksgiving holiday. So we had to put up a blow-up turkey, like one of those blowups. Oh, no, my god. Because we usually put the Thanksgiving ones up. I mean the Christmas ones. He's like, we can't put the Christmas ones up yet. He's like, let's get a turkey.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

What? We went to Walmart two weeks before Halloween. Half of the Halloween section was up, and the other half was Christmas. It's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Like you gotta get those sales. So go over there and get some deals. Yeah, yeah. Sammy Guru.com. Check out the deals tag.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, and when would that be starting on the Sammy Guru website?

Closing Thoughts & What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 48:09

We already have uh actually Abnob just wrote the soundbar deals posted. Oh, excellent. So he's previewing all the ones that will be live. That way you can go ahead and like bookmark it, come back if you want to buy a sound bar. And we'll do a guide for each one. We'll have like one for TVs, phones, tablets, and then like miscellaneous stuff like the Galaxy XR. We'll have one for watches, nice and all the watch deals if you want to buy a new watch. We'll probably put the Galaxy Ring in there as well. Um, lots of really cool stuff. Um, what about 16 gigs of RAM? Is that going to be standard on the S25 Ultra? Well, it seems like that is going to happen. We're finally going to get 16 gigs of RAM on all the various models. You don't have to buy the one terabyte to get 16 gigs of RAM. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, that should have been done years ago. No, I agree. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's that would be nice. I would love to see that because in the past you've had to buy one terabyte for that. Yeah, that gives you a little more headroom. Uh, the entire lineup's also gonna get upgraded LD LP DDR5X RAM uh and UFS 4.0 storage. There's also rumors of an upgrade to UFS 4.1 storage, but that doesn't seem like it's going to materialize. Um, we talked about the larger vapor chamber. Also rumored to get the newest version of NFC, um, a secondary NFC antenna at the top, which will allow you to basically tap to pay, you know, with different orientations. Because sometimes you know you tap and it doesn't work. So if they put another NFC antenna at the top, usually when you tap, it will work. You won't have to like put your phone in a weird, awkward position. It'll work a lot better. Nice. So that could happen. That'd be a really cool one. I mean, that's a nice feature. We may also get a fingerprint sensor upgrade. Uh, the ultrasonic model may improve that, which means you would see fewer failures. But honestly, man, like this is another area where they're upgrading stuff that doesn't even need an upgrade. Yeah, I this fingerprint sensor I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've had a failed login. In I've used this phone for almost 10 months now. Like, probably twice in 10 months. I've probably unlocked this phone, no joke, with all the work I probably unlocked this phone 200,000 times, and maybe it failed to recognize my print twice. Two times out of 200,000. That doesn't sound like a bigger mind. Like that's you know, like why are we upgrading stuff? I mean, I get it, you can upgrade it, but why don't we upgrade the stuff that actually needs an upgrade? The fingerprint sensor does not really is not really in if you ask someone like what is the problem with your S25 Ultra, they would not say the fingerprint sensor. Um the 5,000 milliamp hour battery looks like it's gonna stay put. Um, it doesn't look like they're gonna upgrade. Some people said for a while it would get 5,400 milliamp hours. I don't think that's happening. However, we are getting a charging upgrade to 60 watts. Oh my gosh, it's mind-blowing. 45 watts to 60 watts when the Chinese phones can charge at 120 watts, but hey, you know, it is what it is, it is what it is, but hey, we're gonna have it than not have it. You know, it'll be an S shower and shave phone. You can S shower and shave. You know, sometimes you need to. You come in, take an S, take a shower, take a shave, and then you start out the door. You gotta charge your phone. Um, we also still have mixed reports about the G2 support. Some people are saying the magnets will be built in, some people are saying not because Samsung wants to keep the reverse wireless charging. I personally would prefer, I don't know, actually. I don't I don't mind either way because I don't mind buying a case that has the G2 in built in. But also I get all my cases for free, so I shouldn't really be the one to pass judgment. Most people probably don't want to buy a$60 case to have to unlock the G2.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yeah, because most people get their cases from like Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

And it's like, yeah, you know, you don't have to buy a$60 case that has the G2 built in. You'd rather just be in the phone. But you also lose the reverse charging, so I don't know. But I don't really use reverse charging that much, to be honest, even though it's a cool feature um to have. Um what about price, colors, and release date? Well, like we already talked about, the release could be moved to either February 25th or January 29th. I'm really praying that if it launches in January, it launches on the 28th and not the 21st. It'll be on a Wednesday. It always is. If it's on the 21st, Jeff's CES is gonna be ruined again. Yeah, because I'm gonna have to work on Samsung stuff and not enjoy the show. And I know, cry me a river, I get paid to do tech stuff that everybody else would probably love to do, so I'm not really gonna complain about it. But it sucks because I don't get to enjoy any of the show. I never really to go see stuff and you know do stuff. I'm just working the whole entire trip because we have the Samsung reservations on top of whatever other stuff I'm covering at CS. I have no time to even breathe. Um, and my wife will just be sitting in the room and going to the spa, which again, cry for her. She doesn't care. She's fine. She's fine sitting by herself and going to the spa. It's the one week out of the year her mom watches the kids and she gets some time to herself. Yeah, yeah. So I'm pretty sure she won't mind not seeing my face for a few days, but you know, it is what it is. Um, official colors have not yet leaked, but a couple of renders have surfaced in the orange color that the S uh iPhone 17 has. I don't believe this is an official color, though. It turns out to be fake. That was generated by AI. There was also a red colorway that appeared in a render by Android Authority or Android Headlines and on leaks. This color looks sexy. I would love that red color. It's a nice burgundy. Do you like that burgundy there, Dory? I would purchase that burgundy.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Is it a little bit better than the burgundy from the S22? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

You know what I mean? This is burgundy. I would love that. I'd be like, I'd I'd scoop up the burgundy. You know what colors? I'll tell you what colors I'd like to see. If it was me, I'm gonna do three regular and three exclusive, because that's what they usually do. Yeah, right? Something like that. Four regular, three exclusive. Obviously, one of them has to be black. I'm gonna do black. I'm gonna do true black, true white. Oh, okay. I like that. A silver with a mirror finish. I'm going mirror finish, like they used to do back in the day, like with the aura glow, but just pure mirror finish. Yeah. Right? For the because it's a regular one. So black, matte black, matte white, silver with the mirror finish, then a titanium, but with a matte finish. So like a darker gray, but with matte. Those would be my basic colors. Then for the Samsung.com exclusives, I'll do three. I'll do the burgundy right there. I'll do an aura glow because that would mirror the mirror finish. You have two different ones that have glossy, like mirror-like finishes. One is the special color. I really want that to bring back the colour. Then I would do emerald green for the third exclusive color, like that on the S26.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Not this J Green.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

No, not the green that looks like it's gray. I know, and it's still. I'll take a dark rich emerald green, like from the S26 edge. So I'm gonna go black, matte black, matte white, mirror silver, matte gray, the matte burgundy color, the aura glow mirror finish, and emerald green. What about you? If you had seven colors, what are you picking? What are you rocking with? Let's see.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

So I definitely went black, and then we've got to have a white. Um, I would really like some type of glow, like aura glow, like just a fun color. Um, like just unique. Uh I that maybe like a maybe like a dark uh navy blue color. Navy blue would be nice. Um trying to think uh I do like the burgundy, but I um I don't think they should do orange. No, I don't know. I think we should skip.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

I mean, to be fair, Samsung has released a bunch of orange phones, so they wouldn't be copying Apple.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Well, yeah, coming off of from iPhone having their flat color, I I thought was mostly orange. It was, yeah, that was the one in all the marketing material.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

Um it's called the hero color.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Hero for the marketing image, yeah. Um I I like the the gray, but let's do like a maybe like um maybe like a gun metal color. Gun metal, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like that one. Um and and maybe like a again, like a navy blue. Um what else would I do? Um I don't think we need a green. No, you're not rocking with a green? Well, just because we we we air quote. Hey, I didn't really like that. Another one I thought of too actually was a purple. Uh I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Uh dark purple would be nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've only ever released a purple phone before on the FE series. They've never done it in the main flagship lineup. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure someone will probably try to correct me. But I'm pretty sure I can't remember in the history of the S Line, I don't think there's ever been a purple S line flagship. Uh ever.

unknown 56:54

No.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Um there's like uh what about yellow? How do you feel?

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Like they did have a yellow with the Galaxy S6 E. Was it a dark or a lighter yellow? It was like a banana yellow. Banana. It's crazy. But yeah, I could do a yellow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could do a yellow, I could even do a return of the gold on the main S line because they they haven't had gold on the ultra in a while. Yes. They had gold on the plus. I actually had gold on the S24 Plus last year. Like a yellow gold, but they haven't had gold on the S20 on the ultra line. So I could go for gold.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

I I I I could I could go for gold. I like gold. Um and then uh for the black though, what would you want like a matte black?

SPEAKER_00 57:32

I want map black jet black. I would love to have a Samsung's never done a jet black, but I learned my lesson back when Apple did one for the iPhone. I think it was the seven or eight. Jet black scratches really bad. Really? Yeah. If you if you even if you use a case, like when you take it out of the case, it's kind of scratches on it because the case itself will scratch the jet black finish. I think that's why Samsung doesn't do it. Um, but I would love to see a jet black and a matte black. You know, yeah. If it's up to me, you know, I say expand the colors and make 20 of them, but I understand that as a business at scale, making 20 different colors and three different storages per skew, that means 60 skews, and that's a lot. Yeah, no. Even for a company like Samsung, you're cutting into your profits because you're just making too many skews. That doesn't optimize your supply chain very well.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

So yeah, no, I like that. And um, you know, uh maybe not this year, but maybe the following, maybe like a maybe like a pink.

SPEAKER_00 58:23

Yeah, for the ladies. Yeah, yeah. They've done pink before, the S24 Plus had a uh ultra had a light pink. They could go for a little darker. Like I would like to see some more saturated colors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like the SW5 Ultra, the the tone, the the theme was like everything is like a shade of gray. This is like green, gray. You have black, gray, white, gray, silver gray. Everything was a shade of gray.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah, because when you turn to the side, you see the green. But when you look at it, straight on, it looks silver or gray. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, it looks very silver. You can't really tell to the side.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

You can only tell the difference between the side and the back if you put it at an angle. Otherwise, it looks the same. Yeah, it does. So um, what about the price? Well, bad news about the price, too, probably going up at least$100 thanks to our you know, worldwide tariffs and various other things that are happening. And also the supposed upgrades that they're bringing, which, as you guys have heard over the last hour, what upgrades are they?

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Yeah, right. There's hardly any. There's not really very many.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

What are they bringing? Um, of course, it's going to run 1UI 8.5, which that looks like fantastic software. Probably next week we'll dive into 1U8.5 more fully, although in the second half of the show, we'll talk about it briefly. I want to talk about some Galley X CXR. Um, but last thing to say as we wrap up the S26 Ultra rundown, don't forget if you do want to buy an S26 Ultra and get minimal upgrades for$100 more. Um and uh get one, you could be the first person to get 18.5, that's something. But if you do that, what you definitely want to do, because you're already paying$100 a More to Samsung is make sure that you sign up for the mystery box program at Sammy Grube because we have more bonuses than ever. I've gone crazy this year. Like an idiot. I don't know why, because it's costing me way more money, but I'm doing it. 65 watt charger in every box. Everybody's getting a 65 watt charger. Everybody's getting USB-C wired earbuds. You're getting a case. You're getting a screen protector. You're getting a desktop phone stand to watch media at your desk or when you travel. You're getting a cleaning kit. All of that stuff. Plus some candy randomly inserted, some Sammy Gru stickers randomly inserted. And the chance to get Google Play Amazon gift cards, one in every 10 boxes, and the chance to win a silver or golden ticket, one in every 200 boxes to get free buds, free Galaxy Watch, or free Galaxy Ring. The best mystery box program ever. Every box, the average retail value, is going to be over$65 per box this time. So if you had to buy all these items yourself at retail on Amazon, you pay at minimum for the worst box you could get$65. And at best, you get a golden ticket. Well, you just got a box that's worth over potentially$700 if you get a Galaxy Watch Ultra plus all the other stuff. There's no reason to not do it because we cover all the shipping costs, we pay for all the items, you pay nothing additional, you order through Samsung like you normally would. You get all the same trade-in credits that you would normally get, you get all the same education discounts you would normally get, any workplace discounts you get, all the bonuses Samsung offers through their site by just going through our affiliate link, you get the mystery box in addition to that. No inconvenience to you, no extra charge. And we take care of all the other stuff. It's a win-win for everybody in this industry. So make sure you check out the mystery box. We went through the S26 Ultra. I mean, honestly, I'm being cynical about it. I don't know why because it's losing me money trying to convince people not to buy the phone. But I honestly, if you're we always go back to talking about who should buy it, if you are someone that's sitting there with the S23 or S24 Ultra, this is a fairly compelling upgrade for a lot of reasons. If you have an S25 Ultra, I wouldn't upgrade to this phone, honestly. I mean, I haven't seen anything that would make me want to. But if you're sitting there with S24 Ultra even, this is a compelling upgrade. Particularly, some people like the rounded corners. If you like the rounded corners, you're getting faster charging, you're getting a much improved display, you're getting the flex magic pixel technology. You are going to get one UI 8.5 first, you're going to get seven years of software updates, so you're upgrading your total software update life span. Um, you're getting a faster processor, and you know, getting all those bonuses from us in the mystery box. So if you're sitting with an S23, S24 Ultra, probably is compelling. It's just a shame though that Samsung is making it not exciting for the people who have last year's phone. Because years ago it was like even if you had last year's phone, buying the next phone was exciting because there was a there was still a lot of stuff to look forward to.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

And now it's like, well, I have to basically say, if you have last year's phone, don't get a mystery box because I don't know if you should buy it. Um people will anyway, because the super fans are gonna buy it anyway. I don't have to convince them. They're gonna buy it, they're gonna get their mystery box, and so that's great. We appreciate those guys. I'm talking to the people who are on the fence, it's probably not worth it, worth it, unless it's your hobby to go S25 Ultra to S26 Ultra. But it probably is if you're on the S23 Ultra. And for the S24 Ultra, I would say I would strongly consider it. Potentially, if your battery life isn't doing so well, or if you want that faster charging, you want those display upgrades, you know, we'll see what happens. Anyway, we're gonna take a quick break, come back, talk some Galaxy XR, a few other pieces of news, because there is some new other news around here. Tori and I gotta get up and stretch. We've been here for a while here. Keep it going. All right, and uh wait, oh wait, we gotta pay some bills too. So before we do stretch, we gotta hear from 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. We're back in, and uh typically, you know, in between the podcast uh sections, Tori and I just kind of hang out here and do nothing. This time, we had quite the adventure. You know, yeah, we did. We uh I got a resin printer, 3D resin printer from AliExpress as part of their mega sale. I did a video on it on my personal channel, uh, and I didn't realize that it was a resin, I thought it was a filament 3D printer. Resin printer, very, very messy. Tori helped me clean up the resin that was in the vat so I could move this one back to my house. And uh you gotta be careful. Clean it with alcohol. You know, you don't want to get that on your skin. The fumes are crazy. Yeah, we went outside, we got tore up by the mosquitoes. Crazy. I don't I don't know, man. I think I'm gonna sell this one. Maybe I'll list it on Facebook Marketplace and say, hey, someone come pick it up from here at the office. 100 bucks. It's like a$300 printer. Yeah. You get a deal. I'm gonna I'll buy a filament one because I do want one. I don't know. Let me know what you guys think. If anybody has a 3D printer, if you have a resin one, let me know how you deal with the cleanup because it's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

Yeah, no, that's crazy. I would not want to own a resin one. Just give me a filament.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Yeah. Just filament it up, you know, nice and clean. No problems at all. Very easy. Anyway, I figured since we just did that, let's talk about Galaxy XR before we get out of here. And then uh tomorrow, I mean not tomorrow, next week, we'll maybe go over the other S26 devices and some of the other news that's pending. I really want to talk about the S26 Ultra because there's so much news that's come out. But let's also quickly talk about the uh Galaxy XR because I've had it. I've used it. First of all, what is it like? It's very disappointing that if you have glasses that you have to pay$2,000 for the XR and then pay another$99 for the prescription inserts from a third party. Samsung doesn't even fulfill it themselves, that are then shipped from China, and then they get Helduck in customs, and you can't even use the XR for almost three weeks. That's very funny. That's the first thing I'll say. Very which I already mentioned earlier, but it's it is very important, it's worth reiterating that point. I'm not a big fan of that. It kind of makes me angry. Um the other thing is um that I do like the device. I will I will say I like it a lot more than I thought, but I also still have concerns that we've talked about on the podcast. So, first of all, it is more comfortable than the Vision Pro from Apple, it's not as heavy, it's a lot lighter. Um but again, if you're someone who one either wears glasses, those inserts take up some space. Or if you have a big head, or if you have both like me, it can be a little tight of a fit. And so for me, the forehead pad isn't really comfortable, even the slim one. They have a slim one and a thick pad for the forehead. I really can't use either of them comfortably, so I have to remove the forehead pad entirely, which unfortunately then doesn't feel that comfortable on the forehead part. Yeah, it's kind of like pressing into my forehead, that part, you know, it's not padded. Um and so I I can wear it, but I also, if you have a prescription, even if you get, you know, the inserts to match your prescription exactly, which I did, um it's it only supports prescriptions up to a certain uh optical deficiency in each eye. So if you have a certain prescription, you might not be able to even get them to match your prescription exactly, in which case Samsung says you shouldn't even get the XR at all. That's the case with like the meta display glasses too. Yeah. Um, but thankfully I was able to get the prescription that matches mine exactly. But it's gonna take some getting used to, just like any new pair of glasses. Like if you you know if you wear prescription glasses or contacts, if you get a new prescription or you get a new pair of glasses, it takes you a few weeks to like get acclimated. Like I just got these new pair with the slightly my prescription wasn't even that different much different from three years ago, but I just got a new frames, and and you know, the new frames take some time to get adjusted to them. Yeah, even if the prescription strength, that's also the case with the XR. So, like it's going if you wear a prescription, it's probably gonna strain your eyes a little bit in the beginning, but I don't think it's really bad, terrible for your eyes, any worse than it is for the it's obviously probably not the best for anyone's eyes, even for the average person who doesn't wear a prescription. But it does cost some eye strain, I've noticed. So I've been wearing it for about 30 minutes to an hour at a time. That's kind of the maximum amount I can stand. I've played some games, the NFL game is super fun. You can actually be a quarterback or a linebacker and you can actually make motions like of hitting someone. Oh, that's cool, feel it. Like playing that's really fun. Playing some of the first person, like, you know, explore exploration games is fun. The YouTube videos that have the immersive VR experience is really fun. So they have like this videos, they suggest to you when you first put it on and you open the YouTube app, like it suggests that you go on these like tours of various countries and cities. Like I went on a tour of Seoul, Korea. Cool, and the guy you're like standing there with the guy, and he's like, hey, follow me. And like you actually feel like you're really walking like on the street in Seoul, Korea, and the resolution is really good. It does feel really realistic, and you can turn around and see everything and what's going on. They have that for a bunch of cities, and that's really fun. Um, and the UI is really good. It's very much like one UI. It's basically Android. You can, you know, essentially get all your usual Android apps, Google Photos, YouTube, Gmail, uh, install any app that you can install on your phone can also be installed in the VR. So I can like have my Slack. I can be talking to the guys from Sami Guru while I'm watching a YouTube video on like a 15-foot screen. Um, there are some restrictions though. Like Samsung doesn't allow you to and Google don't allow you to put screens a certain distance away. I think it's because of some of these like issues I said with with eye straining and like some of the eye tracking. We wrote an article about that at Sami Guru too. A couple of other people have mentioned it. But overall, I think it's really good. But I I still have my concerns that we talked about before, which was this is an$1,800 device, and for$1,800, most people are gonna be like, well, I need to be able to get some kind of productivity out of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:31

And how I mean, I like I said, I can open Slack, I can open Asada and Gmail and do those things, but because for me, like I don't want to wear it for more than an hour, I'm not gonna wear this for eight-hour work day. This isn't gonna replace my laptop. Yeah, no. Um, I do have one more thing I want to try, which I haven't done yet. You can install and edit a video on there. So I'm gonna try to edit one of my YouTube videos in the XR and see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:59

Um, I think that'd be really cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

That'll be fun. And I will do a video on this. It took me a while to even get to use it, so I haven't been able to make any content about the XR yet. Battery life is okay, but I mean you have the battery pack, so you know you can plug that in, then you're tethered to the wall. In that sense, it's kind of similar to Apple's situation. But I think it's obviously much better, it's half the price. Features are pretty similar. If you use Android and you use a Galaxy phone, you're gonna love it. You can get all your stuff from your phone, it can be mirrored to the Galaxy XR, and it works seamlessly with the other Galaxy devices. So if you get a notification on your phone, your tablet, you know, you can automatically get that stuff on your Galaxy XR so you don't miss anything. That way you don't feel like you have to reach for your phone. Um they could probably find a better way to do the setup because sometimes when you need to do multi-factor authentication in the beginning, everything isn't linked, and you do need to grab your phone and like look at it through the V. So you can put in the code. Yeah, and that's kind of annoying. So I didn't really like that part. They could probably find a way to streamline that setup. Maybe once you sign into your Samsung account, your Google account, everything else gets linked automatically somehow for the XR to just do one-time sign in, which I know is tricky with today's security. But I mean, I like the experience. I think the software is really good. I still don't think for certain people it's gonna be comfortable enough though to obviously be a productivity device. So it's still like a niche. Like I do this for fun. Maybe mainly the games, like it's it's for the gaming, it's for you know, it's for the games, it's for watching watching videos on the huge XR screen while also being able to do something else and have those windows and like pinch them, pinch them around and throw them around like your Jarvis, you know, with Jarvis or whatever. That's the coolest part. But it's just not comfortable enough for me to want to use it all day, every day. And if they got there, I think the only way that's gonna happen is they have to be able to distill this power down into the glasses form factor. That's gonna take a long time because right now the meta display glasses don't do anywhere near what the Galaxy XR or Vision Pro do in terms of gaming or any of that. They just give you notifications and like they can give you directions and you can answer social notifications, but you can't like play full games in XR, you can't install the same apps you can on Android. So, you know, if they could put this much power in a pair of like natural ray bands like the meta display, then I think that would be a game changer. Yeah, but I think that's still a long way from being reality. You need much more powerful processors that are more efficient, that can fit into those small frames. There's a lot of things that have to happen. You know, that's not happening in the next five years. So, you know, would I buy it in my early impressions after using it for three days? I've worn it for at least an hour. One day I wore it for two hours, that was a little uncomfortable. Um, I tried to work in it, I couldn't do it all day yesterday. But I would say, you know, if you're a Samsung fan and you love gaming on your Android phone already and you want more immersive gaming, or if you're someone who really likes to travel, I do think that like the the all the there's a lot of them, like experience these countries in in XR. That's kind of fun. Like, if you don't have if you're not a millionaire and you can't go to all these places right now, you can explore a lot of really cool stuff without having to go there. And it really does feel like you're actually seeing a lot of those things. Like, I toured a lot of famous tourist attractions in Korea on that that one video, and it felt cool. So that's another good reason. Gaming, stuff like that. Watching just regular YouTube videos is really cool too. It's not as I would say for most people it's not gonna be as relaxing of experience as watching your big screen TV, but it is cool that you can have all these massive windows for different things and just pinch and throw them everywhere. Yeah, right. The gestures are very intuitive too, like all the pinch gestures. I've had no problems with those failing or anything. The eye tracking has been very good. Uh, overall, the prescription insert setup was very easy once I got them. It just took 16 days. But the calibration and everything, that was all spot on. You just basically you put them in and then you look, you hold up the QR code from the package that came in and you look at that with the headset on, and it automatically pairs them and then calibrates for your prescription and everything. That's kind of cool. So very simple way to set up. I don't know, Tori. Anything? Any questions about XR otherwise?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

Or no, honestly, I think you kind of set everything. Uh, I I still feel like this is a very niche um product. Um, again, kind of falling along the lines of like how I still see a lot of VR headsets and target unbought and um heavily in stock. Um, you know, I think again, for people to pay that much, you got to be getting a little bit more out of the uh out of it, I think. Um, so I don't know, maybe I think in about five years, as technology increases, like I think we'll start to see VR headsets become more of a prevalent thing. But yeah, I mean, from from what you decide like described, I uh I don't know if it's like an immediate buy.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:01

Definitely has to be a Samsung enthusiast who wants to kind of take their experience to be like I think the problem is that like you know, if people ask, you know, a lot of people ask me, you know, I didn't have it set up yet because I have the lenses. People ask, you know, like what does this offer that I can't get with the Meto uh XR, you know, whatever they call the quest, right? For 400 bucks because that's like 25% of the cost. Yeah. Well, I mean, there is a couple things, right? So I I guess I'll answer that really quick before we go. You don't get full Android on the MetaQuest, that's already a huge advantage because all your Gmail and Samsung stuff is integrated. That's big. You know, Facebook's ecosystem is great, but it's not Android. Android has everything. Yeah. So you can install literally any app you want. So like the advantage of being able to have Slack or Plex or YouTube natively on there running Android, that's pretty big. Um, but also the power to it's more powerful in terms of the gaming, the resolution is more powerful. Uh, I think the eye tracking is a little better because I've tried the MetaQuest before as well. Other people's, I don't own one, but the eye tracking is a little better. Um overall, I think in general it's a more premium product. But in terms of like what use case do you get that the quest can't offer you? I don't really have an answer outside of like, yeah, you can install more apps, but are you really going to use it long enough on your head to make that really valuable? The answer to that's probably no.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

Yeah. Like I'd say, like, probably at best if I I never use a VR headset, but like I would say maybe about like an hour.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

Yeah, that's why I said like an hour is like how long that's how long I'm willing to wear it like comfortably. After an hour, I'm like, I don't know. I'd rather just if I'm doing media, I'm like, I'd rather just watch TV. And if I'm working, I'd like I'd rather just open my laptop and use my dual display setup at home or the office. Yeah. So I'm like, I I really would prefer those experiences. So there's still some things, but I mean, it's certainly there's some really value useful things. I think the price, just like I said, for the average person who's interested, but trying to decide on one, they're most of them are going to go to the quest because the difference in the difference in$1,200 to$1,400 is a lot of money for the average person. No, it is. And when you can't come you can't give them a reason, like what use case, what features do I gain that really matter to me, you can say, oh, well, it's got more power, you can play games with a little better resolution, a little better, you know, more realism. You got Android, but if I'm not gonna use productivity, if I'm not gonna use every single Android app, and I just want games and I just want to have fun, I just want to watch some videos, well, the quest can already do all of that. And if for most people, it's not gonna make a huge difference. That's my opinion. My opinion for XR is long term, it has to be in the glasses form factor, but with more power than we currently have. That'll be what will have a chance to really challenge phones as like the go-to device. I think that's still 10 plus years away minimum because we're definitely not in the place where we can fit this kind of power into a pair of Ray Bans. Yeah. And that'll continue to evolve just like phones did. Anyway, because we had our 3D printer fiasco, we're gonna kick it. We still gotta give you guys an hour and a half or so. And you guys really wanted the S26 Ultra deep dive. I think a lot of people have been asking me to get into my thoughts about all the controversy going on with that. So we did that. We dove deep. And uh next week we'll be back, hopefully, Lord willing. The Lord hopefully will be willing. And, you know, as I always say, Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we'll be back here next week. And until then, make sure to keep expanding your galaxy.