SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
SammyGuru with Jeff Springer
One UI 8.5 Beta is Upon Us + Galaxy Trifold Is On The Way!
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We put eyes on Samsung’s near future: a bold trifold that turns your phone into a 10-inch tablet, a smarter One UI 8.5 packed with useful AI, and the real reasons chips, prices, and product lines are shifting. The throughline is utility—features that actually change daily use win.
• filmed with auto-framing camera to demo features live
• fluffy icon pack giveaway with bonus Galaxy Buds 3 Pro
• One UI 8.5 AI summaries in My Files and Now Nudges
• redesigned Clock, Calendar, Samsung Internet, Calculator
• Exynos 2600 yield, Snapdragon share, regional chips
• Galaxy Z Trifold specs, durability choice, native DeX
• pricing trade-offs vs buying a slab and tablet
• Flip FE pricing misstep and foldable strategy
• Crucial quits consumer RAM for AI demand
• Circle to Search scam detection for texts
• XR headset comfort vs AR glasses portability
• CES plans, First Look event, trifold global details
• Mystery Box perks and sign-up updates
Enter the giveaway: 10 Fluffy Icon Pack codes, and one winner also gets Galaxy Buds 3 Pro
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
Video Setup And 50th Milestone
SPEAKER_02Welcome back, everybody. This is episode number 50 of the Stanley Group Podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me is always my co-host Tori. Tori, say hi. Hey, how's it going? And there he is. Hey, how's it going? Yes, Tori. And uh today we've got a little bit of a unique setup. Today we're for the 50th episode, we're doing something a little different. First of all, we got video, which we haven't had in a while. Hi there. And we're also recording with the Insta360 Wave and Wavelength bundle that they sent me in for review. Uh for review on my personal channel soon. So you guys will see the camera will switch back and forth between me and Tori as we talk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, as I'm even noticing that it's tracking what we're saying.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it also attracts and transcribes what you're saying on the camera itself, which is a really cool feature. Uh, and it does a really good job of dealing with the exposure and like frames your face. You guys could probably notice that if you're watching the video version. Uh, the only thing is I do have the light kind of bright over here, so I'm gonna adjust that real quick. Let me adjust the lighting on this side a little bit so it's not so crazy bright in the background. And that way you guys will be able to kind of see a little bit better. Let me take a look and see if that looks properly exposed. It's still a little bright, but it's not too bad, I don't think. Now I think that's probably a little better. I don't know what do you think, Tori? No, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I think the line looks looks good, looks crisp. Pretty crispy, yeah. Pretty crispy. Pretty crispy.
SPEAKER_02So uh, of course, it's gonna be a little tricky because I'm used to looking at the computer over the street. Yeah, same. Yeah, I gotta look at the gear. I need to actually look at the S360 camera so that it'll actually uh one track our faces a little better because if we're looking at it, it's gonna do a better job. We also could have a special guest joining us. We should. I don't know what time he'll be here. Colin, of course, tech out, who did a bunch of uh live stream episodes with us earlier this year. He's back working full-time now uh at a car dealership, uh, but he's gonna join us for some full-time you know podcast again. He's supposedly gonna be back full-time. Uh, those of you who watch the Sammy Guru YouTube channel may know that Colin is back making videos for us over on the Sammy Guru YouTube channel. So we will have eventually um Colin joining the Sammy Guru team in a bigger way. And I don't know, but he I he says he's gonna come back into the podcast with us as a third co-host. Now we still will be doing the pre-recorded, so I just joined, I just had more fun doing it. So it won't be live, but it'll be the three of us talking instead of just two of us talking, which could be a lot of fun. I will tell you though, this lighting is really getting on my nerves. And uh I'm gonna I'm gonna switch back to the regular lights. I turned it off so I could get some footage of the Insta360 itself, uh, since it's recording us here and also recording the audio. But now I think this is just looks a little bit cleaner because it's not so bright in the background. That's kind of what I use when I'm filming for my YouTube channel, the studio lights. Um, but usually I'm not I'm usually not filming this way and this way, which is you know kind of awkward. Usually I'm only filming one direction. So everybody's watching the video, you guys are the only ones who are gonna see this because the audio version, I'm gonna cut out all this garbage. So who knows? Maybe I'll cut it out of the video version too. But no, I'll probably leave it. You know, we'll we'll probably leave in some we gotta leave in some outtakes. Yeah, yeah. Um, we got a lot of stuff to talk about today, though. Tori and I are gonna kick it off before Colin gets here. He said he gets off work or should be done around I think 7 p.m. Eastern. It's 6 48 Eastern right now. So uh I'll actually get the Slack up as well. So uh as he gets ready to come in, uh Colin can make his appearance here, and uh I'll be able to give him the link to it. He already has the stream yard login, so he should probably be okay. Tori, how was your week? We always started off that way, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh let's see. Uh overall, I think week was um pretty great. Like we're trying to make it to the end of the semester, man. It's just it's a marathon. That's fair. Um, but yeah, no, uh, and I'm really hoping that because we got a seat back on. Oh, yeah, for sure. Uh, we gotta get some uh Zootopia 2 action going on. Oh, we do. Yeah, we need to see that this weekend, and you still want to see it this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm down. Did you see the first one? You watched it. I finally watched the first one on uh Disney Plus, and uh, so now I'm ready to watch some Zootopia 2. Awesome. Yeah, sounds great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm excited about it. I I love Zootopia, it's a great uh Rick movie, even though you know it's technically a kid's movie. Technically, you know, but there's yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's some problems.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
New Gear, Auto-Framing, And Lighting Tweaks
SPEAKER_02Like the DMV, you know, the kids don't know anything about the DMV, so you know it's the DMV is pretty cool, and I think that's pretty enjoyable. Um I can tell the camera does switch a lot when we're both talking, but that's okay. I mean, once one of us is kind of going in on a topic, it should be good. Yeah, I think it's too bothersome. We'll see how it is when I edit it, but overall I like it because otherwise you need two cameras essentially. You need two cameras to accomplish this video with a video podcast, because you need one on what the first person and one on the second person, and then switch back between them and editing. Whereas with this one with the wave and the wave link, I don't have to worry about that because it will switch. I mean, it might not, when we're both talking, might not know exactly who to switch to, yeah, but it will switch when there's one person who's talking about a specific subject, which is great. I've had a pretty good week. Um yeah, I'm starting to book all my stuff for CES. I've actually got four different Samsung media, like dinners and parties to talk to at CS. I'll go in for Samsung Media, like the overall general one, Samsung Mobile, Samsung TV, and then Samsung Semiconductor, which are the ones that make the processors. Uh, as we talked about on you know the show like last time, actually. Um, Samsung has all these different divisions and they're all separate divisions, you know what I mean? So they all host like different get togethers. And since we cover a little bit of everything at Sami Guru, they've all kind of invited me to come to the various parts. So those very first couple days uh at CES, I will be attending a bunch of different Samsung stuff. We'll have tons of coverage. Samsung is doing a first look event uh on the fourth, which is Media Day, that's Sunday. And uh on that first look event, they're expected to talk about their device experience of vision going forward. And then also, in addition to that, uh they'll be potentially unveiling the trifold for the global launch, which could potentially be big news. Uh, I've got a lot of news about the trifold. We'll talk about that today. The trifold did officially launch in Korea, and as you guys probably could guess, yours truly has already purchased one and it will be coming to me. So I'll talk about that a little bit later in the show. But I figured I kick off today with some giveaway news. Everybody likes a little giveaway. There we do. We just kicked off a giveaway today at Samiguru. We teamed up with Android Tools4U, who's one of the largest icon pack developers over on the Play Store. He created a new icon pack called Fluffy Icon Pack. It's actually going viral. And uh, I will show you the uh I'll show you the icon pack here on the Play Store. Try here, Tori. In fact, I see this is the great thing about doing this, is we can actually share our screen as well, right? We can share our screen, which is amazing. Um, we can share our screen and not the whole screen. I just meant the window. Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down. You gotta keep it, keep it kind of chill. It's it it heard Tori laughing. It's like snapped over there. It's like, hey, how are you? No, I want to share not this window, not the entire screen, just a window. Show all windows. No, I don't want to share the entire screen. Share screen allow to share a window. This window. There we go. There you go. So you guys should be able to see this window, hopefully. Uh this window is the is it is it working? I don't think it's working. Oh, we share this window. Here we go. So here you can see it now. The one UI fluffy icon pack, which has actually been going viral across X and other places. It's got like this furry texture on the icons. What do you think about that, Tori? No, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it also comes with some a widget pack. Um, a widget pack as well. Here's the widgets. What do you think about those widgets?
SPEAKER_01Ooh, very fluffy. Yeah, no, uh those are kind of like shag carpeting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're shag carpeting kind of deal that you can theme your home screen. Anyway, they went very popular. Just came out with it the other day. It's already got a couple thousand downloads. They kind of went viral on social media, and so um, we're giving away uh these icon packs as well as a pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, courtesy of myself and Sammy Guru. So 10 people will win a code for the icon pack, and then one lucky person out of those 10 uh will also win Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. So, you know, sounds like a sweet deal. Yeah, pretty good, pretty good. I I think people, you know, enjoy these icons if they they win them, and uh they're certainly unique. Um, I don't know if they're the icons I will run all the time, but I'll try them. I'll try them. I'm more of a standard groovy icon kind of guy, but yeah, we can I certainly will give them a try and kind of see kind of see how that goes. Um, so that giveaway is going on. What else do we have? And actually, I don't I don't know why I took away the share window thing, because I can obviously share the stories that we're talking about too now. We're gonna be getting used to it today, so everyone's just gonna have to be like a little patient with us, but it'll be great once we get used to it because now you guys can actually see if you're watching the video part what the heck it is we're talking about as we go through these stories, which is certainly certainly a nice thing to be able to do.
SPEAKER_01Very much, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um we'll go down. There's a couple of things that are that are kind of worth talking about. First one's not even a Samsung story, but I feel like it's such a huge story that we should talk about it.
SPEAKER_01I actually talked to you about that uh earlier because I I saw it on um Facebook all day today. I mean, this is like what they're gonna own like potentially the rights to Potter, Harry Potter, and and all the good stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So Netflix is buying Warner Brothers and HBO in a massive$80 billion media deal, which basically puts Netflix in charge of all of the biggest media properties outside of Disney. Yeah, it's basically just Disney and Netflix. Anything that's not owned by Disney is basically now owned by Netflix. So essentially what that means for you is you can expect your Netflix and Disney Plus subscription prices to double, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01And I bet you they're still gonna make you keep those separate apps from the subscriptions. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, crazy.
SPEAKER_02If they do add it to their own apps, you definitely can expect your subscription to double or triple. Yeah. So if they pull all that stuff that's in the other apps into Netflix, then you can certainly expect them to raise the price at least two times. Your Netflix is gonna go from like 20 a month to 40 a month for sure.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure.
Show Format, Guest Plans, And Banter
SPEAKER_02Because it's gonna like triple the amount of content they have. Because obviously, Warner Brothers they own a ton of stuff. You know, Warner Brothers and HBO, that's that's a lot of content in their library. So, I mean, this is obviously relevant to Samsung users because you know, if you use a Samsung Galaxy phone, or I mean heck, Samsung is the largest maker of television, smart TVs. If you have a smart TV, it's preloaded with all these apps, and so you probably pay for some of them. And if you do pay for them, well, they're about to get a lot more expensive.
SPEAKER_01At least it would seem you were already complaining about the Hulu, how much it was going up. Uh, but now, like with Netflix, I mean, oh my god. Um, I mean, like, we'll see. I mean, but yeah, I I immediately thought when I saw this, there's gonna be two giants, Disney and Netflix.
SPEAKER_02And it's never good when you only have two. No, just think about what's happened now that we only have Google, I mean Samsung and Apple. What's happened is they've both stopped making, you know, better products and not competing as much. So we end up being we're at the top. We end up being the losers. All they do is just raise the prices. Uh, and then you know, the consumers are the ones who don't win when stuff like that occurs. So that's definitely part of the problem. And I definitely think that that's that's potentially going to be a concern for you know in consumers with this with this particular deal. Um, what else? I'm kind of just going through the current stories and see if there's anything from today. Oh, there's a ton of 1UI 8.5 news. Um, 1U8.5, the beta is expected to come out next week, by the way. So for those of you waiting on the beta, um 8.5 will be arriving. There's tons of new features that we've been spotting in these test builds. One of those is that my files is going to introduce a couple of new features. And if you look here, these were originally found by Android Authority. It may alert you to clear the clutter when you're most likely to blame your phone for low storage. So whenever you uh have low storage on your phone and there's a lot of things that you could clear out, it'll tell you to clear away that clutter. I don't really like these notifications as a power user, but I can see why it's helpful for people who are not, you know, power users. Yeah, it's not something, I mean, when I use um Xiaomi and these Chinese phones, they also have this kind of feature, but it they get kind of annoying. Like they clear your some of your junk files and you're not using. It could also help you summarize documents, uh, which would automatically give you a short summary if you open PDF or text files, which will allow you to get an overview of the document directly from the file browser without opening it. Um, that one I think can be pretty useful. Obviously, is using generative AI to do the summary just like everything else. But I don't know, Tori, what do you think about these two features? Particularly curious. I mean, I'm curious what you think about both, but particularly this feature about the low storage alerts. Um, do you think that's a beneficial feature for the average person?
SPEAKER_01Um I'll see because like uh, you know, I I even get those like alerts with like, you know, there's apps that are probably put down for deep sleep, you know, to improve um, you know, proficiency uh and whatnot. Um, but I don't know. I I feel like I feel like a lot of people, I feel like you're gonna get two camps. You're gonna need people who are gonna like it, and you're gonna have some people who probably could care less. Uh, and then you're probably gonna have some people who are like, man, I actually kind of needed this for help. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh for me, me personally, uh, I think I would I would like it because I feel like I do keep a lot of stuff on my phone. Keep a lot of junk in your trunk. Oh, oh yeah, no, I'm one of those people that I keep I have notifications from like five days ago. So just look on my phone. But it's just because me as a busy person, I'm so you know, I'm so busy, and you know, I I'm just looking for important stuff.
SPEAKER_02So I do feel like sometimes when I pick up Nicole's phone, she got notifications from like two weeks ago. Like, what is going on around you? How can you possibly use your phone in such a manner? But I understand a lot of people do. Um, what about the other feature? The text and PDF summaries using generative AI. I mean, I feel like for the longer documents, this could be useful for me just because I obviously signed a lot of contracts and and non-disclosure agreements being in YouTube and and media business. I guess a lot of stuff from Samsung and other brands where I have to sign it. And sometimes I don't want to have to go through and read all the terms and conditions of the contracts and stuff I'm signing. I mean, I want to read it, but I I want to know what it says, but I don't have time to read it. Yeah. So for me, that could obviously be very useful if it's like here's what this NDA says, and here's the date that this you know embargo lifts, or here's what this contract says. You, you know, what are the restrictions? Like a lot of times when I sign YouTube context, they try to slip in exclusivity deals where it's like you can't review anything in the same product category within 30 days. And so like that would be useful to know. Um, but what do you think? For just average people, how many people will we?
Week Check-In And Movie Talk
SPEAKER_01Well, I I think the average they're gonna want it. I I see that we're we're we're getting more and more towards um trying to integrate AI to just kind of make certain tasks a lot easier, and so I feel like this is another avenue that I I do think what people overall is gonna want. Like for me personally, uh I like to like read every little nook and cranny or something, but I do know the vast majority of people really do want to be able to utilize AI to summarize stuff because like again, we we all have like these really busy lifestyles, uh, and like there's just so much information going on. And so, yeah, if AI could just pick up that task of like reading very long PDF files and just kind of summarizing it for me, like, or for most people, like I feel like people are gonna be head over heels for it. Uh, and that's if it is, you know, giving a well enough summarized story. Yeah, if it's good, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because if it's trash, people are gonna be at pitchforks and flames. Um but I I think overall, like that I think that that top one is actually what people are gonna read.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that one can be very useful. I mean, definitely for professionals like me, who anybody who signs a lot of contracts or agreements, it's definitely gonna be a very useful feature. But even if you just download the occasional PDF for work, it might still be good if you need to recall something. You don't want to have to read that whole PDF, you don't want to open it, even if you knew what it said, but you don't want to remember what it said, you forgot something. Could be a very useful feature. So those are a couple of useful My Files features. There's quite a few I think we'll end up going through today uh in the end that will be, you know, people will be interested in. Um let's let I guess let's talk about this. I want to get to the trifold, so I might go to that next because I really want to talk about that, and then we can always come back to a bunch of these other uh stories, which we're gonna talk about everything. There's actually a lot of news this week. Um26, S26 Plus may skip Exynos 2600 in the global markets. So there's a lot of exynos stuff going on. You know, Tori, exynoses is Samsung's own success. And there's always this debate about are they gonna switch to all exynoses for the S series? Are they gonna stick with the Qualcomm Snapdragon? I feel like they're just not gonna keep with the Snapdragon. And every year, every year it's every year it's like, well, in the US, it it would seem that that's usually the case. But every year there's a news story that's like, oh, they're going all in on the exynos. And this year it really does seem like they're hyping up. In fact, the other day, Samsung released a teaser. Um, let me actually see. Can I go let me see if I can go to my YouTube? Let me just see if I can find this teaser really quickly. I don't know if Samsung's like flag our video and take it down, but I think we could probably show this. We are media, you know.
SPEAKER_03So here's the teaser from Samsung. The next access teaser.
SPEAKER_01They've been explaining their galaxies here.
Giveaway Launch And Fluffy Icon Pack
SPEAKER_02A couple things about that. At the end, it starts playing over the horizon, which is the default ringtone that Samsung makes a new version of uh every year for the get new galaxy phone. So a lot of people are thinking. That that hinted at the S26 and S26 Plus might get X2600 globally. Um, and there's been a lot of debate about this. Uh, we actually wrote a story where um some cream outlet was saying that Samsung didn't want to sell the X and O, uh Samsung semiconductor didn't want to sell it to Samsung mobile because of profit reasons. But we actually got a statement. The the main PR guy in the US for Samsung semiconductor reached out to me and said that's not true. Um and actually said, disputed that statement. He actually reached it directly. We posted a disclaimer about that. He reached out me via X, a very nice guy, who was actually the one who invited me to CS's their semiconductor get together at CS. So now there's this uh Korean outlet, IT Home, citing Korean firm CTT Research, revealed something interesting, according to which Samsung will ship Xynos 2600 and the S26 and S26 Plus, only in South Korea now, not anywhere else. Originally it was going to be potentially in Europe and other markets, and maybe only the US would be Snapdragon. Now it looks like South Korea could be the only place that gets Exynos. Um, so I I don't really know. I mean the thing is the yield is only 50% right now in Exynos, which means they're throwing away half of the things that come off of the, you know, that come out of the fab. Um they might not be able to produce enough chips. I think that could be the reason. So me commenting on this here. Um I mean, Samsung reportedly has a deal also with Qualcomm that says 75% of Galaxy S phones have to run on Snapdragon processors, right? Oh, yeah. So that deal probably means at least the ultra everywhere has to have Snapdragon. Because the Ultra is basically 75% of all the phones. So if they put it in this in the Ultra everywhere, that would almost take care of them. Yeah, for sure. But at a 50% yield, they might not even be able to make enough to sell the S26 and S26 Plus with Exynos in other regions because Europe and stuff is gonna take for sure. You're gonna need a higher yield. So the question is is this an issue with the performance of the Exynos 2600? Or is this just a combination of Samsung doesn't have very good yield on these chips, and also they have to abide by their agreement with Qualcomm. I think it's probably the latter. I don't think it means the Xynos 2600 is bad. And unfortunately, this means that my life is going to get more expensive for the S26 launch because I'm gonna need to buy an Exynos 2600 and import it so we can do some benchmarks and see how it prepare, you know, performs compared to the Snapdragon variant. Um, I actually have a lot of optimism that the Xynos 2600 might live up to the hype this time. And I think we should all hope. You know, we wrote an article about this. One of our writers, uh Fidel, he wrote an article about this saying that Exynos really would benefit Samsung mobile if Samsung Semiconductor would do large-scale business with them. Because if they you know had their own chip, that's what Apple has. Apple has their own hardware inside their phones. You optimize the hardware and the software together, that's what makes magic happen. You know, for sure. So I feel like as Samsung fans, we should hope, even though people are scared because past Exynos processors were bad and they weren't efficient and they ran hot. We should hope that maybe they can figure it out. Because if they do, we might get a better mobile experience, which I think would be better for all of us, right? That's what we all want. We all want that improved mobile experience. Um, so yeah, I don't know. You guys would like us to know what you think about Exynos um in general, Exynos 2600. Do you want to see this actually, you know, in in there or or not? Do you want to see it in there? Would you like to see it in the ultra? Seems like no one really wants it in the ultra. I I I I wouldn't mind having an ultra with the Exynos 2600 in it. Um, obviously, I'll regret saying that if it ends up running hot. Yeah, I know. But you know, I I will import one, um, probably an S26 or S26 Plus, and we'll we'll dive into some benchmarks and kind of see what happens. Yeah, um, before so I'm gonna keep that spot right there. We're talking about this. Let's let's let's briefly jump over to what Jeff really wants to talk about here at the beginning of the show for a minute, which is the trifold. So let me talk about this. Let me pull up the trifold stuff because we uh covered a lot of trifold news because basically it launched this week and we wrote tons of articles about it. Um, I don't know how many wrote. We probably wrote like 15, 20 articles. Let me scroll back to the beginning of this. Look at all these articles these guys wrote this week. Okay, here it is. Here's where it came out. Galaxy Z Trifold is official in Korea with a 10-inch inner display, 5,600 milliamp hour battery, and 45 watt charging. Look at this gorgeous piece of technology, it's absolutely fantastic. So basically, the phone has a fold seven, I actually have a fold seven right here, has a fold seven like screen on the outer, but then when you unfold it, it doesn't just fold into a small tablet, you know, like this, it unfolds into a big tablet like the Galaxy Tab S11. Now, one thing that you have to be aware of, unlike the Huawei trifold, which is the Chinese company, a Chinese company that makes one, you cannot unfold the Galaxy trifold into a small tablet. It only has two sizes cover screen, the small one, and then the big tablet. So Samsung did that on purpose because the way this unfolds is it unfolds so that this fold folds over here, this fold folds over here, and then in the middle you've got that outer screen. You flip it over, and there it is. Um, when it actually does the trifold. That means that the inner screen is always protected because it's folding inward, that's where the big screen is. Yeah, instead of with Huawei, the outer screen, the big screen is actually flexing out, which leaves it exposed. Oh, yeah. So I feel like Samsung made the right choice, even though a lot of people are saying, well, this doesn't give you as much versatility, and and that is true, but it does protect the inner screen, which of course the inner screen, just like on the fold seven, is gonna be kind of soft because it's gonna be that flexible, you know, that POL kind of material that flexes. It's not regular glass, so you need to protect it. Um big battery, 5600 milliamp hours, 45 watt charging, the first ever on a foldable, comes 16 gigs of RAM, 512 or 1 terabyte of storage, 200 megapixel, 12 megapixel, 10 megapixel 3x telephoto on the back, front camera, 10 megapixel inner and 10 megapixel cover. Uh will come with one UI 8 out of the box, no one UI 8.5 for those of you guys who were thinking you're gonna get that. And uh it does have IP48 water resistance. A lot of people didn't think it would have any water resistance rating. And now here's the crazy thing when I was reading this spec sheet, you gotta check this out right here. Zoom in on this number right here. Look at this 12.9 millimeters folded. So if you look at that, that's only 0.3 millimeters more than the Z Fold 6 from last year, which only folds once. Yeah, so they somehow made a trifold that's basically the same thickness as a Z Fold 6.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
One UI 8.5 Teases And My Files AI
SPEAKER_02Now, yeah, of course, it's not as thin as the Z Fold 7 because they made this a lot thinner this year than the fold six. And this looks sexy, but it's not gonna be this thin. But it also has it also trifolds and folds out to a 10-inch tablet. So um being as thin as the Z Fold 6 is insane. Um, and only weighs 309 grams, which given is heavy for a phone, yeah, considering, you know, you're usually talking 220 to 240 for even large, you know, phones like you know, iPhone 17 Pro Max S25 Ultra, um, those super size, you know, slap phones, but it's also a 10-inch tablet. I mean, come on now. You get you're you're doing an extra 60 to 70 grams, but you're also getting a 10-inch tablet in your pocket, which is just insane. Um, the Galaxy C Trifold debuts in South Korea on September 12th. It's the only place you can buy it at launch, just as we had hypothesized and we reported for months.$2,500 US equivalent in South Korean currency. Um, the US price will probably be$3,000, we're guessing when it launches, or$27.99 minimum. Uh Samsung has also confirmed availability in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and China and Taiwan, with additional markets expected to fall. So, first of all, the question that everybody has been asking me this week did I purchase this phone? And the answer is yes, I did. I already purchased one through the South Korean importer that I've used many times uh over the history of you know covering Samsung. I bought it through them. They sell on eBay, but they sold me one before they eBay. How much did I pay? Which is what I want to know.$3,400 US. Um a very reasonable price, in my opinion. They listed them on eBay for$5,000. So I paid only$3,400, which I think is a pretty good price. I think it will still cost pretty close to$3,000 when it launches in the US. And keep in mind, if you buy it through the US launch, you're gonna have to pay tax. I didn't pay any additional tax because I bought it directly from them. So that's gonna add another$300 on top. So if it's$3,000, you're basically gonna pay what I paid anyway. So I really didn't pay that much. Now, if I had to pay$5k, which is what they've listed him on eBay for, I don't know. That would be tough. I'd have to think about it more. But$3,400 is probably a good deal. When will I have it? Probably the guy said he'll start shipping it about two days after the Korean launch, which would be December 14th. Uh, this is the same person, uh, retailer I bought the Z Fold Special Edition last year. Last year, when he shipped it, it took four business days to get to me. So somewhere around December 20th, maybe or so, I should have it. Um, of course, assuming right in time for Christmas. Yes, right in time. That's my that's my Christmas present to myself. And of course, even though I'm planning to take a little bit of a break from videos over the holidays, I will make a video on this. There's no doubt about that. Um this will be fun. This will be a fun video to make anyway. That's what the people want. And I'm excited about it, yeah. And also, when it's unfolded into the tablet, it's 3.9 millimeters thin when the tablet is fully when it's unfolded into the 10-inch tap. This is insane. I mean, honestly.
SPEAKER_01What do you think about the story? Uh I mean, if you were to tell me a while back, like right when they first uh revealed the fold, uh, I was like, okay, this is an innovation, obviously, very expensive, very luxury. Um, and right at the point where I was thinking, okay, man, like they released a great phone with the fold seven. They then just up the innovation, which I love because one of the main things I love about Samsung is that they are innovative. And I really now I feel like this is even more of a luxury phone than when they first introduced the fold. And so uh I do expect that sticker price to be up there.
SPEAKER_02You know what I always say, Tori? Innovating ain't easy, but it's necessary.
SPEAKER_01It is necessary. That's what I say about pimping and innovating. Yeah, no, I uh I definitely think that price is gonna be up there, but uh I think Samsung has had a lot of success getting to where they got to right now with the full seven. So I do think we're gonna see a lot of what we see on the full seven in terms of like the capabilities uh and how it runs being mirrored to on the on the trifold. And I think this is like they can go nothing but up from here.
SPEAKER_02I mean, but here's the thing you know, seeing this makes me obviously very happy, but it also reinforces again what we talked about last week is where the hell is the innovation on the slab phones, man? Yeah, oh yeah, that's if you can build a trifold that's 3.9 millimeters when it's fully unfolded into a 10-inch tablet, has 45 watt charging, has IP48 water resistance, and it's basically just as thin as a Z Fold 6 when it's all folded up. Why the hell can't you give us new camera sensors on the S26 Ultra? Why can't you give us uh 75 watt or 100 watt charging on the S26 Ultra? Why can't you give us, you know, a plethora of other hardware upgrades that we've discussed over the last couple weeks on the S26 and the S26 Plus? It's like we see the innovation, but it also at the same time is frustrating. Like this company obviously has the ability to do special things, but they're reserving the ability to do those things uh for the people who are willing to jump on the early adopter bandwagon and willing to pay an S-ton of money to get the you know bleeding edge.
SPEAKER_01And then Samsung's gonna is probably like, we gave you the edge, and you guys said no.
Exynos 2600 vs Snapdragon Outlook
SPEAKER_02But but it's not really was that really the bleeding innovation. They didn't give us what they wanted, they gave us what they wanted to steal from Apple to turn in the market share. That was Apple and Samsung's fault. No one told them to make those phones, really. Yeah, no one. And you can actually see my edge and my iPhone Air back there collecting dust because I didn't use them. Because the thing is, I like the edge as a phone, but the battery life isn't as good as my other phones, and the S25 Ultra isn't heavy, and neither is the fold. So, like none of these phones are really that heavy or thick, and they have better cameras, and the fold has a lot of utility that I can't get with an S25 edge because it unfolds into a small problem. You know, like why? I mean, I like the edge, and it is great to have it light, but at the end of the day, the battery life, the performance, the S pin, the fact that I can unfold the fold seven, all of these things add up to important differences and like usability differences where I don't want to pick up the edge, even though it is lighter, because it's not like, oh, my arm just hurts so bad when I pick up the S25 Ultra. I don't say that. Like, if I was, then I would be like, okay, I jump on that bandwagon. Um, quickly, let's go through some of the other stories we covered on the trifold because there was a lot of them. I just want to scrub through them. We're not gonna spend the whole show on it, but there's a couple of key things that we talked about. The trifold does warn you if you try to fold it the wrong way, because of course you can snap it, which makes sense. And if you snap your$3,000 phone, you'd be pretty pissed. I know I would. The Galaxy G Troll Trifold also runs decks natively on the phone. First time ever for a Samsung phone. You do not need an external display, just like a Samsung tablet, you press a button and you're using Dex right away, desktop experience. So you could connect a portable keyboard and a mouse, basically take your phone with you, set that stuff up, and you're ready to go. You're rocking out, rocking out with your blank out and hanging out with your out. You know what I mean? Um, this mode is missing flex mode, not available on the trifold. So flex mode, which exists on the fold seven, and I'll show remind you what it is, Tori, since you've never used a foldable. Basically, um if you have like an app like the camera on the Z Fold 7, if you bend it up, it splits into two interfaces, the bottom and the top. See that? So it can give you like the interface can adapt and the flip can do that too. Um, that does not work on the trifold because with three screens, it's more difficult. Samsung said they are working on it and they will try to implement it on future iterations, but it is not there on the trifold. Um, the Z5 Geekbench looks very, very crispy. Of course, you know I'll test that when I get it. Hopefully, I'm gonna be the first, you know, non-seated YouTuber. Oh, yeah. Because Samsung didn't send me one of these. And hey, what the hell, man? They sent them to all these other people. I just you know, take some time out to complain. Yeah, right. Because Samsung has been irking me a little bit lately. We cover Samsung 24-7. They didn't send me the press release for the trifold either early, which makes me very upset. Be honest with you. When I'm upset, I'll tell you. We cover Samsung all the time. 20 articles a day, nothing but Samsung news. I don't cover Apple, we don't cover OnePlus, Google, we don't cover any of that stuff. Samsung. It's all the time. It's the name of the site. So, you know, send me a phone or send me the press release at the very least. Um, an analyst is saying that he thinks the fold eight might sell a little bit and the try to have me sell less because of the trifold. Well, no, no duh. I mean, I don't need to be an analyst to tell you that. The user manual leaked online, not too crazy. And then home up is now ready for the trifold. So when I get my new trifold, I'll be able to use home up and redesign my home screen with that awesome module from Goodlock, change my gestures and everything. It's kind of crazy they got it ready for the trifold by launch because usually when a new form factor launches like that, they don't have it ready. Um, so you can expect us to probably talk about this on our last podcast of the year, whatever the last one is we do before the end of 2026, because I should have my trifold by then, and we'll spend like, you know, I'm sure we'll spend 45 minutes to an hour just talking about it, diving into all the performance, and I can tell you about the cameras and all that kind of stuff. But I feel pretty happy with the price I was able to get it for. You know, I think that was a really good price. Yeah, I was hoping not to pay 5k, and I didn't, so that's good because I'm not sure I would have bought it for 5k. So you guys might not have been able to watch content from me. Um, here is a story about 1U8.5. The designs of the S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra leaked uh in a 1U8.5 test build, but we already knew what they look like a long time ago. And the spoiler alert, they look exactly like what we've known they look like for like five months. You know, if it was like, oh my gosh, they got a triangular camera array on the back, then I would spend more time on this story, but they look exactly like they do. The M also is here in these code name stands for Miracle. That is the code name for the S26 series, which why the hell is the code name Miracle? It's it's a miracle that we can keep selling the same old crap to you guys every year and you keep buying it every single year. That's why they called it that. Someone at the board meter is like someone at the inside naming for the S26 like 18 months ago is like, uh, anybody have any ideas for the internal code name? And some guys got like, we should call it a miracle because it's a miracle we can keep selling this crap to people and they pay the same price every year. TM Row is laughing, he's laughing all the way to the bank with our money. So next year, you know, they'll probably have some other code name that insinuates it's it's really impressive upgrades, and it's actually nothing. Literally just the same things. But I mean, hey, the one thing that will be good on your S26 that you can look forward to if you spend all the extra money is 188.5 because it does look amazing. Some more 18.5 features that came out. Samsung calendar reminder adopting 188.5's unified floating UI. So you now have those floating UI elements inside the calendar, which look really good. Look at the floating bar at the bottom here. The calendar calendar looks really nice here. 188.5. You got all your calendar various UIs, your multi-calendar. They've redesigned it. Really looks beautiful. Actually, it looks a little bit closer uh with this new UI and 1U8.5 to Google Calendar to me. Actually, they're bringing some of the cards in line. So it's yeah, actually. It looks a little more Google Calendar, and then also a hybrid with some of that you know elements that they have for the floating design. But that one, you know, reminder and calendar both getting upgrades there. 1U8.5 is is honestly looking like the main reason that you should purchase an S25 six Ultra. But the thing is, that's not even really a reason to buy one because well, you could just wait. You could just wait and and buy yourself, you could just wait, not buy one, and you'll get the update on your other phone as well on your S25. It just might take two months because Stampson's trying to encourage you to buy one. Um Stamson released his updates for wallet, galaxy buds, and expert raw. So there is a huge new update for expert raw. If you are an expert raw user, um, we haven't really tested the extent of this update, but it looks like it does improve a lot of the uh various performance issues, particularly with low light, that expert raws have. We actually have one of our writers, Fidel, and his buddy W over on X. They are really into testing camera stuff. So they're running through this, doing a bunch of tests, and they're gonna let us know if in fact those issues in Lowlight are fixed. I assume they were. It's a huge update, it's actually half a game. If you don't use expert raw, by the way, Tori, you should if they fixed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This basically lets you take computational raw photos on your Galaxy phone, which essentially lets you get better detail in like low light scenarios and better dynamic range. You can use it as just like your main camera, you know, phone, you know, photo taking app. You don't have to like use it just part of the time. You use it all the time. I use it as my main camera app. Uh at least I did before they broke some things in one of the previous updates. Um what else? Oh, Samsung Internet got some big overhauls, big design overhauls for 108.5. But this APK is also available for 1008 users if you want to download it. Um, it's probably going to be the version that actually launches on 108.5. You've got redesigned button layouts, menus with more blur. Uh, the homepage is also customizable. And you can now finally uh use the wallpaper right here as your background custom wallpaper from your gallery. And you've got a pill-shaped tab layout. These lap tab layouts have been redesigned a little bit. So it looks like this will be the 8.5 version, but uh if you wanted to download the APK, you you could do that. Just make sure you understand, understand the risk. Oh, yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Because like you told me about it before, but you're like, yes, make sure you understand.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and also Google is opening up a little bit because remember, they were originally going to block side loading in the next version of Android, but a lot of people have pushed back against that, and they're basically modifying it so it's a little bit easier to sideload things. They were gonna shut it down almost entirely, and a lot of power users were pretty upset about that, to say the very least, because on Android we love to sideload things. Um, just tons of apps got updated. Clock app got updated, looks completely different. It's a lot nicer, you know, if we have the video because we can actually show the differences. Oh, yeah. That's the one thing I do like about the video, and that's why, even though we're not doing the lives anymore, I really do like the idea of having the video for the pre-recording. Oh, yeah. Because then if someone's listening to the audio part, like in their car, but then they hear us talking about something and they want to see what we're talking about, yeah. They can then go to the show notes on their desktop, find the video version, and just go over there and they can see what we're talking about, which is nice. You know, you might want to listen to the audio version a lot, but then they can always go back and see what we're talking about. I try to be descriptive when we're talking about stuff too, because if you are listening to audio only, they tell you what's going on. So the 188.5 clock app doesn't just change the color scheme, it abandons the flat layout in favor of a more elegant layered interface. Um, both light and mark modes now have rich gradients, depth effects, and more polished visuals. So you can actually see here, down here, look at it. Look at all those gradient colors and very nice gradients. Blurred's got the floating tablet. The clocks are staggered. He's got some different clock styles. The alarms now have the morning and night. You can have if you have dual alarms. Um, it's really nice looking, honestly. Um, this screenshot in particular. Now, this isn't Chinese because Ice Universe shared this, and that's where he is. This shows you like a countdown to your alarm. Like you can see, like uh this also lets you adjust the time on the world clock. Oh very nice, man. I like that. Let's very nice. I think Colin is very ready. Colin might be ready here. Colin up in here. Colin's saying Colin's saying that he's about to be up in this. Colin's about to be here. We're ready. Let's see, let's get it. Let's see if he's coming in. Um but okay. Let me go. Oh, wait. Oh no, there it is. Okay. I was like, what the heck? Okay. So this is the new clock design from 18.5. It looks pretty nice, I have to say. Whenever Colin shows up, you know, we'll greet him appropriately. Um, what else do we have here? Um I'm trying to see. There's a couple other big stories, but I'm trying to go through. We haven't really done a news rundown in a while. Sometimes you need a news rundown. Oh, the calculator is getting a redesign as well. And I don't think we talked about this feature in our last. Oh no, we did talk about it. Because you we I asked you what you thought about the noun nudges. We talked about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now nudges is apparently going to come to the calculator. Uh, and as a math tutorial, I know you like a good calculator.
SPEAKER_01I do, yeah. That's what I primarily use, is like when false. You use the Samsung calculator? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm quick if the calculators are too far away. I just live out when I'm going to.
Galaxy Z Trifold Specs, Design, Price
SPEAKER_02So now when you tap any of the buttons, it gives you a soft glowing aura. So like when you tap a button, it's gonna give you a little glow around the button, uh, which is kind of nice. You know, see right here, actually. Sorry, that's the wrong one. This one gives you a little glow around the button when you tap it. Yeah, and then actually gradient. It probably looks a little gradient in their life. Um, and then it also gives you more of a vibration feedback. Yeah, and then also with this new UI, um, you've got a few keys organized, and the scientific key layout has been redesigned a little bit to be in the bottom corner. They've made a little nicer, a little more visual. Um, and the nudges feature is now coming to the calculator. So when you open the app, it now suggests numbers and formulas that you've recently used or copied so you can directly insert them instead of typing them again. So I figured that would be very useful because I saw this and I thought about you for you. Like if you were teaching, let's say I know you don't teach it, but like Nicole used to teach financial algebra, like you're using the compound interest formula all the time. So every time you open it, like it's gonna have it there. You can just rip it and grip it, you know, well, you did this would be pretty useful for you, though, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no, no, it will, especially right now when we're going through a quadratic formula. You know, you gotta remember that quadratic formula.
SPEAKER_02So here's like an example. Like, let's say that you know, like you averaged some numbers earlier, and maybe you needed to use it again for another calculation. Yeah, if you typed a list, it'll suggest that same list, even if you don't still have it on the calculator. That would be actually very helpful, even if it's not on the clipboard, it's still suggested to you in the noun nudges. Yeah, uh honestly, this is kind of a surprising feature. I never really thought about now nudges being used for the calculator. That's actually the last thing I would have thought about now nudges being used for, but I mean, hey, it's not a bad idea. I suppose you can certainly use it. Um, let me see if I can send Colin an invite. Because you know, Colin's always up in here. He wants to he wants to get in here and tell the people what he's thinking about Samsung. I know he does. Um, what else? So, oh, the Galaxy Ultra Watch 2 is ready for uh 2026 launch tour. I know you're gonna be excited about that. Oh, yeah, because you love your Galaxy Watch Ultra. Oh, I do, I do. And so I know my favorite. So I know Tori's definitely gonna be copying the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. Oh, for sure. Um and so Samsung's working on it. It looks like it is referred to as the Galaxy Watch 9 Ultra eternally, because this isn't the ninth series. Um, the eight classic just came out. Um, there's no other information though from this leak other than the fact that they are putting on a development. Uh, I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to think. Like, so I thought since I saw this earlier this week, uh, when we posted it, I was thinking like maybe we could talk on the podcast what would you like to see in a Galaxy Watch Ultra 2? Because I can't really think of particularly from you know my perspective as a tech influencer, reviewer, etc., what could Samsung put in a Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 that would really be like knock out of the park compelling? What do you think? Rotating bezel, the rotating bezel, actually. Yeah, you're right. Actually, I didn't think about that. They could have the rotating bezel on the ultra as well as the classic. I mean, I don't know though that I'm really convinced they would actually do that because that kind of cannibalizes them the reason for people to buy the classic. I know, I know. If you're gonna sell the rotating bezel in the ultra, then you might as well not have the classic at all. Yeah, if you're gonna have both, you need to distinguish them somehow. And since the classic is almost as big as the ultra, what's the really the distinguishing factor? It's the rotating bezel.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, I think like another thing, maybe um, so uh it's you because honestly, I really kind of it's Colin. What's up, Colin?
SPEAKER_00Hey, what's up?
SPEAKER_01What's up? Welcome, welcome back, man.
SPEAKER_00Been a minute, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It has been a minute, it's been a huge minute, yeah, yeah, yeah. The biggest of minutes.
SPEAKER_02Can you hear us okay? Is it yeah?
SPEAKER_03Yep, right here.
SPEAKER_02I'm used I'm using the Insta360 wave and wavelength, which I'm reviewing for my personal channel, um, to do it. It auto switches the camera, and also we're using the speakerphone on it as the audio source, and also the mic. Does the mic sound pretty good? Because I'm actually recording it locally, but I we haven't able to I haven't listened to it yet. Does it sound good?
SPEAKER_00It's a little uh a little bit like tinny almost, I would say. But I I mean it sounds like you're on a phone, like on the phone basically.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, that's probably because we're using the omnidirectional mode instead of using, I don't actually know if for some reason it wouldn't let me change the one to supercardioid. I'll have to take a look and see later, but we're using the omnidirectional mode right now.
SPEAKER_00It is zooming in and out when you talk though. I notice that. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's the wave link is definitely the wave link is definitely working and doing what it's supposed to be doing. Um I just don't know why it won't let me use the supercardioid mode instead of the omnidirectional. But as long as it sounds good and there's not too much crazy echo, you can hear us and that's good. I'm using the uh I mean the Boya.
SPEAKER_00They sent me this a while ago for review.
SPEAKER_02I mean, everything's being recorded locally. I'm doing the local recording on StreamYard too, so it's not like whatever you're hearing right now won't necessarily be the final recorded version since it'll be yeah, since it'll be saved locally. So we'll see how it sounds, I guess, when we actually record it. How you been, Colin? Trifold, some one UI 8.5 stuff.
SPEAKER_00How much is that trifold gonna be costing?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's 2500 equivalent in Korea, current Korean currency. Uh I I bought one from an importer for 3400.
SPEAKER_00You think the uh you think when it comes up?
SPEAKER_02The same importer is selling it for 5,000 on eBay. So they sold it to me early before putting it on eBay because I bought a lot of stuff from them over the last 12 years, but they're listed on eBay for$5,000. I don't know if anyone's actually paid that, but that's what he has it listed at. He's taking offers. I think he sold, I remember looking at the accepted offers. I think he sold a few around 4,000. So, you know. But I think it probably costs about$27.99 or so to$3,000 in the US, probably. Probably more like$3,000. Probably more like three, probably$29.99. Yeah, just because of all the yeah, no, you can't get it.
SPEAKER_00It's a pretty penny, but I mean I don't know. It's a lot, I just feel like it's a lot for like having used you know a lot of folds here over the past few years, just to get one extra little fold, you're going up to three grand, but you're not really you know, I was looking at it, I was like, yeah, it'd be nice to have the large screen, but when I have my fold, I never I never unfold it. Like once the once the honeymoon phase is over, I find myself just using the in the outer screen, and you know, then I'm like, this isn't worth it anymore.
SPEAKER_01Well, so then like, is it kind of going back to like what you're saying, Jeff? Like, you know, because we kind of lost the innovation with the slab phones. Like, are we essentially just gonna revert back to slabs anyway?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think everyone is still using a slab. Samsung is just assuming no one, you know, assuming everyone wants a fold, but everyone is still really using slabs, they're just not making slab phones have any innovation. I mean, the fold market is growing, but the vast majority of people are not buying foldables. I can tell you from the mystery box numbers alone, it's it's like five to one people are buying slab phones over over the foldables. Like it's not it's not it's not a lot of people buying them, but I mean, I think the real utility of this is if you're someone who wants the phone plus a large tablet all in one package, because the fold seven isn't really a tablet when it's unfolded, it's it's a it's like an e-reader style, or and and also the form factor isn't really the same as a tablet. Um, it is what it is, but it's not really a tablet. Whereas the trifold is really like a tab s11 ultra.
SPEAKER_00What's the inside? What's the inside screen?
SPEAKER_0210 inches.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so it's it's almost like having a regular phone.
SPEAKER_02It's basically like having a flagship phone plus a tab s11 ultra, but still you could buy an S25 Ultra and a tab S11 Ultra for a hundred dollars less.
SPEAKER_00Isn't the ultra like 14 inches?
SPEAKER_02Oh, sorry, I mean a tab s11, not 11 Ultra.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I saw some.
SPEAKER_02If you bought a S25 Ultra plus Tab S11, it would still be a thousand less than than buying the trifold.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I saw somebody that had uh like you know uh portrait, and it was like on an iPad, if you use it like that, you know.
SPEAKER_02Basically, yeah, yeah, it is, especially like the regular size, because the iPad Pro is 11 inches, so it's pretty close. Yeah, um, I mean the Tab S11 is a little bit smaller than the iPad Pro, but um, I mean I can certainly see the the appeal of it, it's just very expensive, it's too expensive for the average person to buy it.
SPEAKER_01And and what I'm what I'm hoping with the trifold, and as we kind of keep going further and further into the foldable space, I mean, because I I really feel like the I really do feel like average consumers want to get in on this, but like there's really no comfortable entry point into it, obviously with uh you know, besides the flip, but I I think a lot of people just looking at how many commercials and stuff they had for just the full seven, I mean people average people do want to get into it, but I mean like it's just a very price point, uh hefty, pretty much it's an expensive thing to try out. It is no 100%. So I'm kind of hoping that as we get more into like the trifolds, if that is successful, we can hopefully try to see there's a better entry point for just the regular fold uh somewhere in the future.
SPEAKER_02And I think Samsung is a little scared too about the the budget side of it because if you guys have seen the numbers for the Z Flip FE this year, they are all they sold none of them. The Z Flip 7 FE has basically sold no units. Um and I thought that phone would sell well. So I don't I don't know that Samsung is gonna, unfortunately, I know I love what Tori's saying. People want a more affordable. I don't know if Samsung's gonna do it because they thought people wanted a more affordable flip and they did it and it sold like I didn't even want the the full, like because I I don't I didn't really ever see the flips like well.
SPEAKER_01I thought the ladies might buy a more affordable flip, but I guess yeah, no, but like I I feel like the the most people the more or most of the people that I know who own Samsung are of the male uh population, and and I feel like yeah, like that's another entry point. No hate to our female listeners, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We have like five or six of them, so we appreciate you guys. Yeah, we do.
SPEAKER_01But um, but no, I I mean in uh my two of my co-workers actually do have the latest uh or flip seven, uh, and they love it.
SPEAKER_05Um, but on the flip side of that, over here.
Trifold Use Cases And Value Debate
SPEAKER_01I know, but I mean, like this let this latest cycle. I mean, because like I feel like initially, uh, what what was it a year or two ago, they they were doing all these commercials for the flip, but like this last past year, like they went all in on the fold. Well, it was the sexiest smaller. Yeah, and there was it really is. I heck, I even want to want every time we went to the movies, you saw it, Hulu. I saw it, like just about everywhere I looked, I saw a fold, and that and I I feel like people do want the fold because I think inherently we still want a slab style phone, and I think we're kind of getting the best of both worlds, and so I I think if they were to make up an entry point for the fold, it would sell. I don't think it was sell for the flip, but I do think if they made one for the fold, uh, and there were some bonuses like that they can get through carriers.
SPEAKER_02And here's the other thing, Dorian uh along with what you're saying, here's the other thing, what I think the flip, the price difference between the FE and the regular one isn't big enough to make people want to buy a cheaper one because it's only like 200 bucks, basically, between the flip seven FE and the flip seven. So it's like, if I'm only gonna spend$200 more, that's only like$4 more a month on a payment plan. So people are like, why the hell would I get a crappier version for that much money? Because most people are buying on payment plans. Whereas with the fold, it might work with the fold because the fold seven is$2K. So if you make a fold eight FE and it's$500 less than the regular fold eight, well,$500 is a big difference for$200, right? 500, like that's a that's a bigger number. So then people are even gonna see, like on a payment plan, you know, over two years, that's an extra$20 a month. So people are gonna be like, oh,$60 a month or$80 a month. They might decide then that they want to, you know, get the cheaper version.
SPEAKER_01But uh actually, and we talked about this before on the podcast side as I said a few episodes ago. The naming is important. I think when you say like F E and stuff, like people don't because again, no one knows what that means. These are yeah, but on top of that, this is hard-earned money that you're asking people to pay for probably years in advance, you know, because obviously payment plans. Um, but like they want something premium. So, like, so like so. If I was gonna buy one, I I want something as close as possible to like the real deal. If I am just trying to get an entry point, if not trying to get something that can compete with like the premium product of it. So, like, I I I don't think FEs are going to get people over the hill. I think it it needs to actually be like um like one little step down from the premium one, is is what's gonna get people the real deal of Andrew Holyfield.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what's the flip seven run?
SPEAKER_02No, the what? Yeah, well, I mean it started at 1099, and I think the flip FE was at$7.99, but there was deals almost right away where you could get the flip seven at least at$9.99 or free storage upgrades. So, I mean, effectively the difference is about$200. The actual retail price difference is like$300, but I mean practically there isn't much of a difference, you know, probably$200 difference between them.
SPEAKER_00The the flip seven, the$256 right now is I mean, the normal price was$1,100, it's on sale for$899. And I was looking the other day, and I mean the FU is like on sale for$849. It's only$50,000.
SPEAKER_02There's a$50 difference. Like, yeah, I'm not I'm not doing that. No one's no one's buying a crappier phone for$50 because again, if you did get it on a payment plan at that rate, if you paid it on like no interest on a credit card, it's essentially like two or three dollars extra a month on those payments. Oh, yeah, for sure. Why would I want to sacrifice the camera, uh, the huge giant bezel on the front cover screen? The flip seven just looks and that's also the problem is that they didn't just make a standalone budget version, they basically took the Z Flip 6 and just changed the name to the Z Flip 7 FE. And so it was really a one-year-old phone, and people can easily see that. Yeah, so you know, people don't like that because they're like, well, I'm doing a two year old device, you know. We'll get a little upset about that. But like, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_01And I I would even argue this is me, but I think perfect time to roll that. I know they tried this with the edge and they didn't really feel a lot of success, but I do think people do want to get. Of totals, but I think they should release if they're gonna do like a pri or like something like that, they should do it like around March or April because people I think the average consumers are more likely to spend their tax refund on stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Like that's why the S20 S26s will sell so well, even though they're absolute not upgrades at all. Yeah, I know because people will be like, ah, well, you know, it's a new color, but you know, I got all this tax money, I'll just buy one. Yeah, yeah, I'll just buy one. But I do think they need to they need to do it. That's a good point. Maybe they should swap the fold and the S release schedule because then people will be like, Oh, I definitely can spend my tax refund on a three thousand dollar trifold. Why not? Yeah, like do my kids really need to eat now, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was just looking, I was looking on Best Buy because they had more accurate prices than like third-party sellers on Amazon. Right now, the the Flip 7 FE is$859, and the Flip 7 is$8.99. Regular price on the the 7 is$1,100 and regular price on the Yeah, I think Samsung is giving up on selling the F.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I don't know what they did with the pricing, or they just basically you can't, yeah, you can't basically resell last year's phone uh as an injury-level model, and then there's no price difference between the new version. That's why it's sold poorly. Samsung gives up a lot on products when they are responsible for pricing them poorly or you know not entering them in the market in the right spot. The same thing with the S25 Edge. They blame the market and everything, you know, for that, but they released it at a terrible time. They didn't give any motivation for why anyone should buy it. Plus, they didn't do any market research. No one really wanted that Slim Phone. Yeah, obviously, Apple didn't either because no one wants the iPhone Air. So, I mean, I don't know what's going with that. This is insane, by the way. This story right here, we gotta talk about this because this is actually a bolster to Samsung's memory business. Micron is completely getting rid of Crucial as a business, uh, their consumer uh memory business to focus on selling to AI companies, which is just insane to me. Like Crucial is the company that sells budget like RAM and stuff, or people want to build their own PCs. Yeah, they made an announcement yesterday that they're gonna stop selling RAM to individuals because Micron, the company that owns them, wants to sell everything to AI companies and focus on selling to industry because it makes more money. No, man, it's taking a look from the people. They basically said, sorry, you guys want some RAM? Well, you'll have to ask ChatGPT what it's like to use this RAM because ChatGPT is gonna be the one using it in all those servers. So that's where it's gone. You can talk to ChatGPT about how much it enjoys having that RAM. Um, but yeah, this is a big deal for Samsung because, of course, that leaves Samsung as one of the only memory businesses left after out there that's really selling to consumers. Basically, you have two brands left that are selling stuff to consumers. You've got Samsung, and then you've also got Corsair. Those are the only two people, you know, companies left that are really selling that directly to consumers. Now that Crucial is not. Um, so this could be a big bolster to Samsung's you know consumer memory business. Of course, assuming that Samsung doesn't decide to do the same thing, I highly doubt they will since their business is very dependent on the end consumer because they have a lot of divisions that depend upon people buying consumer products like appliances, TVs, and phones and all that stuff. I don't think they will, but what do you think about this, Colin? It's kind of crazy. I I definitely didn't I didn't see this coming.
SPEAKER_01AI is coming.
SPEAKER_02I mean I did see I definitely have seen AI coming, but I didn't think I didn't think that Crucial would cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00Just because of that.
SPEAKER_02What'd you say?
SPEAKER_00Just because yeah, just because of that.
SPEAKER_02Wipe out that wait, did you freeze call?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm sorry. I was reading that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you were reading it. Oh, you're reading that. Yeah, I was like, wait a minute. Oh, okay, yeah. You were reading, were you reading the article?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
Fold FE, Flip Sales, And Pricing Reality
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So basically they're just getting rid of it entirely because they want to sell to these AI companies because they spend more money, which you know, I guess as a business that makes sense, but you're screwing over consumers that have left you for a long time. Uh oh, they've supported you for a long time. And what happens if the AI bubble pops? Are the consumers gonna want to buy your RAM again? Probably not, because you you piss them off, you just ruin your goodwill for people who bought your RAM for years. So I don't know. This is obviously gonna help Samsung in a lot of ways. So, what else we got? That was a big story. I mean, that's actually a pretty big story in terms of the business side of Samsung, which we don't talk about enough on the podcast. We'll just talk about more because the business side is sometimes fun. This is the other story, which me and Tori were talking about earlier. Um, this story that um Samsung has an internal standoff as the chip division prioritizes profits over the S26. There was a report um that the device experience division recently rejected, or sorry, the semiconductor division rejected the mobile experiences request for a contract of more than a year to secure mobile DRAM. Instead, the semiconductor division offered a three-month agreement on a quarterly basis. Uh, even after senior MX executives engage in extended supply terms, the smartphone unit secured DRAM supply only through the fourth quarter of this year. Um, and so this could lead to price volatility, potentially an increase in the S26 price. However, we got a statement from the head of PR for the US for Samsung semiconductor, who actually DMed me directly on X and gave us this statement. Recent reports that Samsung's DS division has rejected certain customer requests are baseless and not true. We're in close communication with global customers to address industry needs. Um, so basically, their head of PR in the US is saying that this is a not true report by the Korean media. Um, how much we believe this, I don't know. I mean, obviously, we know that Samsung's internal business units operate separately, and so mobile and semiconductor are not, you know, they're not expected necessarily to help each other out every at every turn. Um but you know, it's it's definitely possible that you know semiconductor wants to make the most money, even if it's at the cost of doing some things that might benefit the mobile division and the S26 sales. So we'll see. We talked about earlier, Colin, before you got here, it looks like the Xnose 2600 may not be in very many S26 units after all. Originally, you know, like every year, people were saying that they might be in a lot of units, but Samsung has a low yield rate on those processors right now, it's 50%. And also, because of their contract with Snapdragon to have 75% of the Galaxy S series contain Snapdragon processors, uh, they may not be able to roll out the Exynos 2600 in a wide, wide way. Well what do you think about Exynos versus Snapdragon?
SPEAKER_00Um the only experience I've had was with my uh Tab S10 Ultra.
SPEAKER_02But I don't I mean I don't really wait the TabS 10 Ultra, it has it has media attacking.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, I don't I don't I haven't used Exynos then.
SPEAKER_02You never used Exynos? Exynos was back, was in the S20 which call was it the S21 Ultra? Was it wasn't it? I think so, wasn't it? I don't know. Uh let's see. I I shouldn't know this. You are the guru. Well you know, sometimes when you're tired, it's the end of the week.
SPEAKER_00No, it was um it was the Snapdragon 888 for the US.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it was? Okay. Well I I meant no, I meant I meant in other markets. The US I don't think it's had for a long time. Um the last Xnose was the Xynos 2400, uh, which powered, yeah. I was talking about the Ultra though. There was an Ultra. The Ultra, when was the last I think it was I think it was the S22 Ultra, right? I think the X22 Ultra had Exynos, it had Exynos globally, right?
SPEAKER_00No, that was the eight gen 2.
SPEAKER_02No, it used the Xynos 2200 globally. Um, in the US, it uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It was Exynos was in other markets. So the Exynos Ultra. There were there were markets.
SPEAKER_00This says Europe and some other regions, it says America, China, and other global markets as the 8 Gen 1.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. We've never had it in the US, I don't believe, uh, recently.
SPEAKER_00The only one I know of right now is the uh flip.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they tested it. They specifically told us when we went to the Unpack when I was in the media event that they were testing how Exynos would be received in the US in a flagship product. That's why they put it in the Flip 7. Yeah, um, for all intents and purposes, I still have a Flip 7. I use it on occasion. It runs very well. I don't run as a daily driver, but it does run very well. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of benefits to Samsung putting Exynos in all of its flagship phones. Tori and I talked about it earlier. Obviously, if they put Exynos processors in their phones, they can optimize the hardware and software just like Apple does, which maybe that would obviously be a big deal. But it remains to be seen how much that's gonna happen. Every year it's like they're gonna put Exynos in everything, and that just doesn't end up doesn't end up happening.
SPEAKER_00Um while you're while you're on that page right there, the uh the beta 8.5.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, are we are we expecting beta?
SPEAKER_02The beta is supposed to come out on Monday, that's what everyone's saying. Probably Sunday night here in the US. This is the whole change log. So you can already start preparing. So if you want to make some videos for us at Sammy Guru, I'll probably make I'll probably make a few too because there should be a lot to tackle. I'll probably try to jump back in and work on the beta stuff. Um, I'll try to install it as soon as I can. Yeah, yeah. You guys can find the full change log. It leaks. Um, we're gonna go over the if the it comes out next week. We'll talk about that a lot on the podcast next week, I'm 100% sure. So uh I won't spend a lot of time on it this show, but to say that it is coming. So if you want to get it, make sure you have the members app, make sure you have an unlocked phone or T-Mobile in the US, um, and be ready to download it. Probably Sunday, late Sunday night in the U.S. If any history is any indication, you'll be able to download it. There's a lot of cool features. I mean, well, 8.5, I have it on my international S25 Ultra, been running it for a while on the test builds, and it's very smooth. It's a very, very smooth experience. I don't think the beta needs to be very long, but it probably will be because they're not going to push out stable 8.5 until after the S26 launch. Yeah, because they're not letting you get it on your S25 before the S26 comes out. Oh no, you can forget that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can't. It ain't happening, it's already been forgotten.
SPEAKER_02Oh, hey, look at this article's the meat road. Samsung seems like they're done with the flip FE and the signs are everywhere. No, there we go. There we go. Well, we see we already knew that.
SPEAKER_01We we talked about it earlier. Um, see, I'm telling you, full sales are growing, flip sales are fun. Like, people, I don't I don't think people want the flip.
SPEAKER_02I mean, oh look, it got rid of it. I didn't even I should read this. This is my own website. They've taken it off the Samsung online store in the US. Well, that definitely that adds up. Yeah, no, for sure. That definitely adds up. Great, great reporting here by some me. And so this was his article basically talking about the potential for a fold eight fe, which we were talking about earlier. Um, and right now there are two models of the fold eight slated, but it's unclear as to whether or not it's truly truly going to be an FE budget model, or if it could be a fold eight and a fold eight ultra, which would obviously be a lot more fun for enthusiasts. Yeah, we we don't want an FE, we want an ultra, but uh we'll have to wait and see what materializes. There's not a lot else we know about that yet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just think the whole flip thing. I haven't even seen other companies like do flip that much. Like, I think flip had its time back in the 2000s. Like, I I think I think we want fold.
Crucial Exits Consumer RAM, AI Shift
SPEAKER_02I mean, Apple was originally thinking about making the flip fold foldable type first, but then they switched to making a book style. So it seems pretty obvious that there's been a change of sentiment about kind of what is the preferred type of foldable. And I guess you know, it seems like maybe you're right, the full book style has become more you know in vogue, so to speak. Cessois. Anyway, um, this right here, circle to search, this is an awesome feature. Now has scam detection. You're gonna like this story. So basically, now with Google Circle to search, which you know you can like press at the bottom of your nav bar and your SMT5 Ultra, circle some stuff. If you get a text message and you want to know if it's a scam, you can just use circle search and it'll tell you if it's likely a scam or not based on past text messages. Then Google a scam. So basically, you can see right here, if you circle it, it says this message is likely a scam, promises of guaranteed high returns. I mean, I think we could have figured this out anyway, but some old people wouldn't. High returns 200% monthly with little to no risk are major red flags. Do not provide personal information, invest money, or click any links associated with this message. So I think this is mainly you know, targeted at helping like older people because scams tend to they tend to, you know, target older people who don't really know or they've lost some cognitive ability or they don't know much about technology. You know, obviously, if I read a text message and someone's like, oh, you're gonna make 200% a month interest, just invest five dollars now and it'll be 10 million dollars in 2027. I'll be like, that seems legit. So, but I mean some people might not know that. And obviously, if people use this, because of the way AI works, it will get better at determining if something's a scam, and it should be able to detect more subtle scams over time. So, what do you think, Tori? This is a pretty you think average people like this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I I I would definitely like this, and I I think um obviously more with is as is getting harder and harder to discern between what is a scam and what is not, uh, especially as they come in in all different types of forms. I think with the text, this would be a good way to kind of combat that. You know, I really like that. What do you think, Colin?
SPEAKER_02Do you like it?
SPEAKER_00I do. I like the um I I've been using it on my 25 Ultra, obviously, not that one, but um I like to just, you know, like if I'm looking at something, I can just because I went to my iPhone and like I missed that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, circle search is pretty awesome. The series version is not as good.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't need it's hard to do the you know, like the screenshot.
SPEAKER_02You can take the screenshot and then you gotta like yeah, it's a lot of multi-step uh and it's still not as good as Google's AI and like actually doing things or the research or examining your screenshot, in my experience. So yeah, yeah, I definitely prefer.
SPEAKER_00I think it was I think it was on here we did that thing where you where we did the screenshot and you could have it read the list and put it into like a note, like a recipe.
Internal Samsung Supply Rumors Addressed
SPEAKER_02Yep, that's right. Um, what else we got? A few more things. We're getting to the end of the week here. A lot of it is trifled stuff, which we talked about. Oh, Google announced an Android XR event where we could see Samsung Smart Glasses. It's December 8th, it's Monday, 10 a.m. Pacific time. So we'll be tuning into that. I'm covering that Sammy Groove. If you guys want to stay on the site, while some summary of that, um, you can also watch it. It's it's right here, it's embedded. You can check out the YouTube video. Just click on that on launch day, come back to this article, I'll put it in the show notes. Uh, it could be uh announcement of Samsung's XR glasses, which is gonna piss me off because, like, why did I buy the XR headset? Because I really wanted to see the glasses. I really wanted the glasses, not the headset. Uh, actually, I've been reviewing for my person for my personal channel, I've been reviewing the Rocket Max 2 uh AR glasses, which I kind of like quite a bit. They also run Android. Um, and while they're not officially Android XR, um, I do actually like using them more than the Galaxy XR because the Galaxy XR is is heavy, man, on my head. And I just XR headset about that now that you've had a longer time. Yeah, I've used it now for several hours and days, and it's just not as enjoyable to use for long periods of time. So it especially if you want to use it to watch movies, like it's not very comfortable, especially if for someone like me, you have to have those inserts in there as well because I can't wear my glasses. Um, the forehead cushions sometimes don't fit because I also have a big head. If you got lens inserts and a big head, well, it's gonna be uncomfortable. Um, whereas the glasses, the glasses just they're they're a little bigger, but they're like regular sunglasses. You'll see them in a second, Tori, because I was gonna have you help me shoot a quick clip of those because I gotta shoot some b-roll for the channel. But I've been enjoying them because my main use case for like XR, VR, whatever is entertainment. And with the rocket glasses, I can watch my YouTube videos and my Netflix on a big screen, which is the main thing I want. And I can also have my Methodic app in case you know my wife is like get your ass in here because I need some help with the kids while I'm sitting there watching videos. Like, I want to have that up so I don't get in trouble, and I also want to have my browser in case I want to look something up, you know, while I'm watching my videos. But those are like the main screens I need in my AR, I'm not gonna be like editing a spreadsheet or you know, putting together an entire notion database or editing articles for Sammy Guru or videos in my VR and XR. So like the glasses to me just make a lot more sense. And even though the rocket glasses, the UI isn't quite as polished as Android XR on the Sam on the Galaxy XR. I imagine that the glasses experience Samsung brings will be more polished and then also have all those benefits of the form factor. Yeah, because I actually like, like I said, for comfortability and the fact that I'm usually using them for entertainment. I prefer the rocket glasses to the Galaxy XR, and it's cheaper. I don't remember the exact price, but I I have to look it up because I'm making a video on. I think it's like 700 bucks for the rocket glasses plus like the little station you plug it into. That's like more than half the cost of the Galaxy XR. It's like what 40%. So I imagine Samsung's glasses will be around the same price, around like 800, 900. And for half the price, I'd rather have the glasses versus the headset. I don't know. What do you think, uh, Colin Tori?
SPEAKER_00Whoever wants to like the glasses, you can use you can use a little more uh you know, the headset you kind of gotta be like at home sitting down, but the glasses you can kind of just wear them out and about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, they're more portable too. So, like these glasses has a nice carrying case, just like your sunglasses, you could take it to the airport and you could rock those out. Like, I'm not gonna take my Galaxy XR and use it while I'm sitting at the terminal waiting for flight, because it's pretty much like it's got a big giant carrying case and stuff, not like a glasses case, like it's much, much more portable. Throw that in your backpack. Rock out, you could even rock out these rocket ones on the plane because there's they're just fit in the sunglass case. So if Samsung does that and the UI is more polished than the rocket ones, that's my only complaint. It's not terrible, but it could be a little more polished. If it's a little more polished, I think Samsung could have a winner. What do you think, Tori? About XR glasses versus that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, no. Um, I think more for like longevity and durability, kind of like what Conan was saying. If you're gonna do the headset, you gotta be at home. And then again, I still feel like it's a very niche kind of product, uh, versus like the glasses. Uh, I mean, they're very integratable and just like what you're naturally is doing on a day-to-day basis. And again, it's a little bit more comfortable versus like, yeah, people who have to wear the prescription lens and the like they don't really have that oh, and sorry, go ahead. One more thing I want to say.
Circle To Search Adds Scam Detection
SPEAKER_02Guess what else the rocket glasses have built in? Well, you don't need to get inserts because they have myopia adjustment right there, they have a little wheel that will actually adjust the glasses to your prescription. So I don't need lens inserts or any kind of special lenses out of out of the box, you just turn the wheel and I can see perfectly. I can adjust it directly to my prescription. That was actually one of the reasons why when they reached out to me, I was like, Yeah, I definitely want to review these because I didn't know that any AR glasses or any XR people were doing this. If Samsung could do that, that would make it even more exciting. Because the one thing about the Galaxy XR that really pissed me off and took away the hype is I bought it and then I had to wait three weeks to use it. Because I ordered, I ordered the inserts for the prescription, and those came three weeks after my XR actually arrived. So it's just sitting in the box, and I by the time it comes, like I'm not really hyped about it anymore because it's three weeks later. Uh, and then it's not that comfortable to wear. So having the adjustment for prescriptions for myopia, um, if you're nearsighted, that's huge. I think a lot of people who wear glasses and contact lenses will be more likely to buy a pair of glasses. And I think that's actually the killer feature on these ones that I'm reviewing because I've not seen, I haven't seen even Meta. They don't have that in theirs. Seems like that should be something that should come standard um if you want to sell more of these glasses. There's a lot of people who wear contacts or prescription glasses. It's not like it's not a small number of people, it's like I don't remember what the number is like 35, 40 million people in the US. So you're taking away like 15% of the US population or inconveniencing them if you don't have this built in. So I don't know. I feel like it could be a good one. Anyway, I'm excited about that. So maybe Samsung will have their smart glasses out and we can take a look at those. I'm a little more excited for those than the XR. I'll be honest with you guys. Some people were asking me, am I gonna keep my XR headset? Uh, I'm working on a review of it for Samy Guru, and then I'm I may sell it. I don't know that I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna be honest, like I have every Samsung product, but how often am I really gonna reference that for Sami Guru stuff? Probably not that much. And it's just gonna sit in my office in the studio or at home and collect dust because I'm not gonna use it um with the glasses. I obviously would use them all the time because it is great for watching movies. Like, I love watching movies in the in AR, but not when it's uncomfortable. We talked about this earlier. I will be attending this Samsung's first look event at CES. They're gonna talk about all their new device experience. Plus, this is probably going to be um the first unveiling um of the trifold in global markets. So they might reveal the US pricing to all of us media people on Sunday night before CS. January 4th is media night. So um that will be going on. I will be there covering that uh in person. Um Samsung's developing a new camera sensor, and they filed for a Deep Pix trademark across multiple regions. Um, Deep Pix is a CMOS image sensor, which confirms it's related to camera hardware. Now the question is will this be in the S26 series? Definitely not. Um, will it be in the fold 8 series? Uh I guess it could, but that's very unlikely as well. Um, it's probably going to be S27 or later, but Ice Universe has said that the S27 is even going to get a main camera upgrade. So this could be an S28 sensor deal. What do you think about that, Colin? Samsung has not upgraded the main sensor in the S series for four years now. Doesn't that piss you off?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I mean it's the same for the the the folds, too, isn't it? They've been behind on that.
SPEAKER_02Well, the fold just got the 200 megapixel upgrade this year, so they did at least upgrade the upgrade the camera. Um, they didn't really upgrade it to a sensor that's new to Samsung, they just put the S25 Ultra sensor in there, but yeah, that was a better sensor than what was in the uh Fold 6 for sure. But yeah, I mean they're just turning out the same camera stuff every year to cut costs. Um, if they really develop a new sensor, CMO sensor, put that in the S28, that could be massive. Um, Sony's you know been working with sensors of their own that are down to one over 1.12 inches, this 200 megapixel sensor, which is gonna blow the current sensor that Samsung has on the S26 Ultra out of the water. It's really embarrassing. I mean, the camera situation, Samsung is just embarrassing. There's nothing else you can say. Uh, all the Chinese phones that I have I've reviewed lately, the Vivo X300 Pro, the Oppo Fine X9 Pro, which actually that one I didn't get from China, that's the global model. Their cameras blow the S25 Ultra out of the water. It's it's sad. Samsung needs to start focusing on camera just as much as the software because 108.5 is doing well, but you also need some some camera hardware as well. Um I don't know. Colin, are you gonna get a trifold? You're gonna purchase a trifold.
SPEAKER_00Uh my my bank account says no. No.
SPEAKER_02No, the way your the way your bank account is set up. Yeah. See the way the bank account's set up.
SPEAKER_00Unfortunately, not uh allowing that to happen.
SPEAKER_02What about the Buds Four though? Do you like the design of these? Tori and I talked about it last week. We didn't get your thoughts, but I kind of like the new flat stem design of the Buds Four.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it looks interesting.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm not I'm not one to care how they look, I it's more of a fit thing for me.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, yeah, it really doesn't matter how the tips feel for sure. I mean, they look pretty comfortable though. And then you I'd prefer the pros like on the inside of the stem, then you say something about it. Yeah, yeah. It looks like this is like a hybrid of the old buds with the Buds 3 Pro. So like they got the stems still, but it looks like they redesigned the tips so the tips are a little fatter and like they go in here a little better. Yeah, so that could be a win because I thought the old buds, like oh, I thought the old buds were like great. The fit was great, and I loved the yeah, the fits.
SPEAKER_01But the audio wasn't as good as the buds three pro but I like the stem, and actually, at first I I initially didn't like the stems on the Bud 3, but now I really do like it. But I think the fit is not as good as this could be a best of both worlds from like Miley Siries, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's the best of both worlds, take a ticket slow, rock out the show.
XR Headset vs AR Glasses Comfort
SPEAKER_02We'll be here all week. Yes, then come back and we will be doing we'll be doing Hannah Montana covers all week for you guys. So we'll probably next week seeing a party in the USA the next time. Yeah, I mean we might have to start charging because people are people are gonna want to hear this. But it's a sweet, sweet cash. If you guys listen to the podcast for now, you'll get it for free. Yes, and eventually we both start charging premium content. Oh, and the Z trifold does not support the S Pen. We didn't talk about that earlier. But you do configured that you do get a charger in the box, though. That's huge. I will take a charger in a box. But you know where else if you're buying an S26 device, you know where else you could get a charger in the box from the Sammy Guru mystery box program. And so if you just mosey over here to the pre-order program page, you scroll down, you'll see right here the S26 Ultra page. You'll go ahead and just click on that big blue button, it'll pop up with our sign-up thing. We've embedded it into the website now. Put in your number, put in your email address. On launch day, you're gonna get a link to purchase through our affiliate link. You're gonna get a free case, screen protector, cleaning kit, desktop phone stand, USB-C wired earbuds, what? And for the first time ever, a 65-watt charger in the box. Um, how did I pull it off? I don't know. It's magic. Um, and if Samsung doesn't get their crap together on their budget for the marketing, I might highly regret it because I already bought all these products, but you can manage regardless because I already bought them, so we're gonna give them out. So whether I take a loss or not, my loss could be your game. Sign up. And actually, this says February. It's wrong. I need to update this because we originally thought it would be changed to February. This is January 2026. We got a little FAQs here for the mystery box now, too. We clean this page up so it shows all the products that we've offered gifts for and the current status. We've also got you know any updates down here. We've also got a nice little FAQ that you can expand. So if you don't know much about the mystery box program, you can learn about the mystery box program. Where do we ship? How many boxes can you claim? Eligibility, pay any fees or shipping costs. Can you choose your bonus if you win one of the tickets? What's guaranteed in the mystery boxes? What I just told you. It's all there. Clean up this page, it looks a lot nicer, and you can also sign up directly on the page. And we have this really cool thing where it zooms in on the look at that. Very cool animation. No, I like it. Um, I spent about$3,000 to get those guys to build that. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't it was only like it was only like$150. It wasn't that much.
SPEAKER_00It's fiber.
SPEAKER_02Um, but we're really happy about it. Um, so and also we've made the side lock faster. If anyone's noticed, um, I've been working with our dev team. We now have an in-house dev team running our server. The article pages load like instantaneously. They used to load super slowly, but now, you know, as soon as you click for the most part, you're getting that content, that sweet, sweet content that you won't want will be delivered, including the newsletter. And of course, you can find our podcast, the audio version, uploaded every day, I mean every week, right here. Anyway, I think that's probably what I've had. Colin, is there anything else you want to talk about? Because you got here late. We've been doing like an hour and 35 minutes.
SPEAKER_00Trying to think.
SPEAKER_02Any other Samsung topics or just life or tech comics? I should invite that though, because Colin, you know, he he'll talk about life and tech comics all day.
SPEAKER_00So we're gonna talk about here, uh, what's been going on uh um oh, we're giving away this one UI fluffy icon pack too.
SPEAKER_02Have you seen the fluffy icons? We're doing a giveaway with Android tools at Samiguru. People love these on X now. I don't know if they're my style, but people are like really it went viral over on X. So we're giving away 10 icon pack codes. Um, and also I'm giving away a Bud 3 Pro, three Bud 3 Pro to one winner of the icon packs.
SPEAKER_00So oh uh life. Um, what happened to the cases you're making?
SPEAKER_02Uh that kind of went down the crabber because no one bought them. And I just have too many things going on. And since Sammy Grew is actually profitable and my YouTube channel is profitable, and the cases were losing money, um, I haven't got rid of it fully because I still paid for Shopify for a few years. So if you buy one, you can still get one. But I kind of stopped marketing it and putting new effort into it because just wasn't making money. And I've got too many other projects that do make money. That's just a fact. I wish everything that you do in business could make be profitable, but some things are gonna be losers. Yeah, not just industry. Luckily, I've got a lot of winners, but that one was a loser. Uh probably lost like I probably lost like four or five K setting up the website, getting the inventory, and working with Book to make the designs and all that, but that's okay. That's fine. Um, if you don't take any risks, you never make any money. So if I had never done the mystery box program, I never would have been able to go full-time and do this for a living. I'd still be working in at uh GCU, teaching statistics for a living. Yeah. So uh anyway, Colin, are you gonna be joining us full time now on? If you can make it at least halfway through, or yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00Colin is also gonna be making uh I alternate like Friday I can upload earlier next week.
SPEAKER_02So oh, that's good. You can join us for most of the show.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so Fridays, and then I'll try to upload on Saturday the audio and the video. Uh the audio mango before the video, if I have to edit anything, but I don't know how much editing I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna just flow up there, throw it up there. Who cares? You guys can see the outtakes. Unless, of course, I drop the F-bomb or something crazy, you know. But we try not to do that around here. Um, we'll say no. No, no F bombs, you know. I say no F-bombs, you have to calm down. Keep it chill. 100% chill. Anyway, an hour and 40 minutes, pretty long show. We'll end it there. Colin's doing videos at Sammy Guru, so go check out his videos. He did two this week. He's gonna make some more this weekend, I guess. And then I'll probably make we'll probably make both make a bunch of videos next week for the 8.5 beta. You know, I've been I've been missing making Samsung videos, although I am making that sweet, sweet money doing those reviews over on my personal channels. You gotta fund, you gotta fund the mystery boxes and other stuff. Because uh, you know, I don't know if anybody knows, but Samsung, they're a little iffy on, you know, Colin knows what I'm talking about when it comes to their marketing budgets and various reliability. You gotta have some other income strains in this industry. Tori knows what I'm talking about. Anyway, um you gotta have a few income streams in this industry. In this industry, all right, Colin. Well, thanks for joining us. Uh hope everyone enjoyed the video version. It's been a while since we did the video version. Um, seven months. And now we're back. I like doing the pre-recorded, but I still like doing the video because I can show you guys what we're talking about in the various stories, and it's nice to be able to see screenshots and renders and all that stuff if you want to. Um, if you listen to the audio, you can always come and check it out in the show notes. And don't forget this week, keep expanding your galaxy.