What Samsung Will And Won’t Reveal At Unpacked

We map the real Unpacked landscape: what the S26 lineup brings, why the Ultra dominates, how One UI 8.5 sells the story, and which wearables are absolutely not showing. We also share preorder value tactics and a clear-eyed look at audio, laptops, and long shots.

• S26, S26 Plus, and Ultra focus with Snapdragon-heavy strategy
• Brighter displays, anti-reflective upgrades, refined contours
• 256 GB base storage for non-Ultra models
• Colorway rundown including cobalt violet and true white
• Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro with translucent case and flatter stems
• One UI 8.5 highlights: floating menus, contact cards, summaries
• Why Qi2 magnets lost to reverse charge and S Pen priorities
• Ring 2 and Watch Ultra 2 absence explained by certifications
• Galaxy Book 6 US launch odds and Tab S11 keyboard limbo
• Midrange releases via press instead of stage time
• Preorder playbook: cashback vs accessory bundles

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Follow Torrey on X:  https://x.com/T_Martin_23
Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com

Transcript

Setting The Stage For Unpacked

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back, everybody. This is episode number 55 of the Sammy Guru Podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me always, my co-host Tori. Tori, say hi. Yeah, how's it going? And uh we are now less than three weeks from the big day. Yeah, yeah. It feels like it's almost here. Almost here. And so today, I think we're gonna go, yeah, we're gonna do various topics, but we're gonna go a little deeper into what to expect from Unpack. We wrote a little article over on the Sammy Group website about what you should expect to see unveiled, and also more importantly, perhaps what you shouldn't expect to see, because you know, some people get their hopes up. Yeah, they do. And then when they get there, they're like, oh, that thing that I wanted to see is not there. Um, so we're gonna go through this little article and talk about what you should expect to see, what you shouldn't. I mean, obviously, everybody knows they're gonna expect to see the Galaxy S26 series. We've been talking about that for a long time, and we'll probably talk about it more today because that's just what we do. I mean, it's unpack season, so that's what we talk about, and there's always new stuff. There's some of the new renders came out. Eevee Leaks posted some renders of the white one. Um, some interesting things have come out, you know, that we can talk about there. But there's also a lot of other stuff that people are are hoping to see maybe unpacked. There's some things we expect to see, some things that maybe you should not, you might you might be hoping for, but they probably aren't very likely. So if you haven't been reading the rumors, we'll we'll talk about that. Uh, but Tori, how have you been this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

How are you? Uh hey man, overall is uh it's been pretty pretty good week. Um chalaxing. Um looking forward to the it feels like it's April or May. It's like 90 degrees out there. Like I'll say the the week before, it was still mostly like cool in like certain parts of the day, like for the most part. But like this week, it just like it feels like spring about to get into summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I gotta check my calendar already. What month is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

You know, and we just like that beat what year is it? I'm like, what month is it? I mean, it's uh it's already toasty. I mean, I know you wear the jacket. I didn't even need a jacket this morning. Yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, the monthly meeting at the school was outside, and I was like, we got up even at seven o'clock this morning, it's like 59 degrees. Yeah, I'm like, by the time we leave, it's gonna be 85, so I'm not putting on the jacket. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not putting on bands. I'm wearing I'm walking the air conditioner in my car now.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I'm like, what is going on, man? Yeah, I know. Same, man. I don't know, but how how are things been for you, man?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Oh, pretty good. I mean, obviously, it's a very busy season of the year for us uh doing like a million things and trying to make sure all the various shipments are on track to be here in time, which is a pain because I got all this different stuff. We got like another 50 boxes of of mystery box stuff that still has to come in in the next four weeks. But everything is on track. Everything's either been shipped or is about to be shipped, so we should be good. We've got enough inventory to do minimum 2,500, which is kind of what I'm forecasting. So assuming we get 2500 or less, all those will be shipped on the waves that we already announced. We get more than that, then they might be a little bit later, but they'll still get shipped by the end of March. So that's the plan. Um changing a lot of things on the website. I mean, we're making a lot of improvements. Uh, one thing, I don't know if you saw it. If you go to our editor's picks, well, first of all, we changed our popular post carousel to editors picks, but now we had a poll. We started some we started some new polls. We're changing the logo on Sammy Guru. I talked about this on the podcast a few weeks ago as well. But we put up a poll for our readers to help us vote and choose the new logo. Uh we had two options. We we have uh two, we always have a blue and uh white, you know, inverted colors. So these are the white versions, so option one and option two. Uh, and then there's also a corresponding blue version for each one. Uh, if you guys want to go vote, you can, but option one is overwhelmingly winning right now. Oh, really? So I think that's the one we're gonna end up going with. It is winning right now, 56 to 32. Oh wow. Uh, we left it up for a week. I mean, of course, you know, not everybody votes in these polls, but almost 100 votes, that's pretty good. I mean, that you get 100 people enough to care to help you make a decision. Uh, I was kind of leaning towards option one as well, just because it looks more similar to the current logo. Yeah. As you guys can probably see. Um, I don't know, which one do you like, Tori?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Just just for No, uh I think I like option one better. Yeah, it's just a little that nice color concept. It's got the little bubble around the SG logo, that's what I'm saying.

Site Growth, Logo Vote, And Team Shoutouts

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Which is similar to what we have now, but it updated the design of the phone. It looks recognizable still. You can tell, obviously, that it's the Sammy Guru brand, which I wanted. Uh, huge shout out to Josh, our writer, Josh Skinner, the man, the myth, the legend. Huge shout out to Josh for sticking with us too at Sammy Guru, because you know, all the people are out there trying to poach Josh because Josh is a superstar, but uh I appreciate you sticking with me, Josh. And uh he he brought his expertise. Uh he does a lot of things for us, not only writing articles, but also graphic design, you know, helps with some leak research, reviews, he's all everything. And this this redesign is beautiful. He's gonna create a bunch of assets. Uh, part of this change will also be, as I mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago, we're getting rid of the with Jeff Springer text in the banner logo. So now it will just say Sammy Guru and then have the logo to the left. The with Jeff Springer text will be deleted. And I kind of mentioned before while I did this, I did this mainly because we're a team now, and I don't want this to be all about me because I'm not even the one doing the majority of the work now. When the website started, I was the only guy, and also obviously I had a pretty large YouTube channel, people knew me from YouTube, so it made sense to put my name on the site to get people to follow me from YouTube to come check out what we were doing on the site. But SammyGuru is a big site now. We get yeah, we get 700 to a thousand to a million uh people reading the site every month. That's really solid. Um, very proud of that. We have eight total employees, part-time and full-time writers. Um, and then you as well. So actually, I guess nine people that kind of work for the site in some capacity. Uh, so I mean we've grown a lot. It's a pretty big, bigger brand now. Doesn't really need me to my name to prop it up. It's its own thing. People know Sammy Guru. I think we're pretty well trusted in Samsung and Android reporting. Um, obviously, we're still new, being you know, just around a year and a half old, but we've done some solid work, and I feel like it's time. I always planned, you know, people like, you know, why decided to do it now? A couple of people had asked me this on X. I always planned to remove my name from the site. It was just we needed to get to a level where people recognize Sami Guru as a brand, and it doesn't need my the authority people had from knowing me from doing YouTube videos on Samsung to pass that kind of you know legitimacy to the brand. Because when you start a brand, it's hard to get your brand to be recognized as a legitimate authority. And since people already knew me for what I did with Samsung coverage on YouTube, it kind of made sense. But I always plan to remove my name, so that will be gone, that will be done. Some other big changes, just you know, at the beginning of the show to talk about, because I've kind of talked about some of these, the forums are almost ready to go. Uh, we've been debugging them for a while. Um, and so the semi-group forums are coming. They might open before unpacked, even. I'm finally quality testing a few last things. Yeah. It's a lot of work to try to troubleshoot forums because I don't want to launch the forums and then we have a spam problem. We have to close them because there's too much spam. So I wanted to make sure there were safeguards in place uh for that, like IP checks and all that kind of stuff. All this stuff takes time. I wanted to make sure the navigation looked clean, that we had the right number of forums so there weren't too many forums because then there's not enough content in each forum, or there's too few forums, and then people have stuff that they want to post about, but there's no place to post it. Um and also I wanted to go through and do a bunch of test posts, make sure things look good, that people could have profile pictures and make sure that those work. There's a million things to test when you roll out a forum. And I didn't really want any obvious things to break. I mean, something will probably still break. Yeah. But it won't, it won't be one of the super obvious things, I hope. Um, and then along with the forums, we'll also be rolling out the rewards portal as well. So the rewards portal will finally be rolling out that's taking a whole year to do. I'm not 100% sure if that's gonna roll up before unpack, just because I don't know if I want to confuse people. Because if I put the rewards portal live right now, I haven't had enough time to tell people this is where you do your verification this year. And so I don't know if I want to confuse them or just do what we normally do, even though it's more work for me, because then people already know how to do the verification forms. Yeah, I almost think it's about the thing. I could launch the rewards and then just put the verification form link in there. So if people happen to lock into rewards, but it's kind of like if you you reduce extra friction. Obviously, for the fold launch, the rewards will be the place to do your verification because we will launch it in the next month. If it doesn't happen before Unpacked, it'll be in March. So people have like four four months to get used to like this is where we go now. Yeah. I wanted to educate people about that before we get to launch day because it's obviously coming up very quickly. I agree. Uh, and then the last Sami Guru kind of update. So we got the new logo, big change there. We've got the forums and the rewards, which are kind of be integrated. The forums will show up inside your rewards dashboard. So when you log into your Sami Guru account, you'll have a link. You can go into your forums, edit your profile, see all your favorite threads, and go and post and you know, talk to people about whatever Samsung stuff. And we'll have off-topic threads too, whatever you want to do. Uh, and then we're also uh starting a daily newsletter. I sent out the uh form via email this week to get people's preferences because I kind of have slacked on the newsletter the last six months, uh, and I really want to make sure we start doing that. Yeah. So we're gonna now have three different I finally segmented the newsletter list uh properly so that it can be done correctly. Um people are basically on the newsletter for three different reasons, and I never really had the list tagged so that I send them emails to the right people at the right times, which I wanted to figure out. It's kind of a thing that you have to sit down and do. It takes some work, but it's not really fun job, but I did it. Um I use kits automations. There's the newsletter that's gonna be daily, which will just be like a bullet point of our articles with a short summary. So if you just want a digest of quick Samsung news that tells you what you want to know about Samsung, if you're a huge fan, you want to read about that every day, you can get the daily newsletter. If you want to get uh the weekly newsletter, that's gonna be a more in-depth newsletter that will have not only just those quick hits, but have the biggest stories of the week. So we're not gonna have every story from the week because we do like 15 posts a week. Yeah, I know there's some. There's like 120 posts a week or so. Yeah. So the daily one will have every single post from the last 24 hours, which is like 15. Um, the weekly will have like biggest stories, some like deals, some random Samsung facts, uh, maybe some bonus like app codes. If you're one of the first people, we'll have some free app codes and wallpapers like we normally do. You can download. That'll be pretty similar to what we've done before with the newsletter. And then there'll also be a group of people who only want mystery box emails. Yeah. So I finally made a tag so that if you don't want the daily or weekly Samsung news, you just want that free mystery box when it comes to the launch. So some of you who just want the mystery box, and that's okay. We don't blame you. Hey, you're supporting us by doing the mystery box. We appreciate it. Even if you don't want to read the Samsung news necessarily every day, you just want to pop into Sammy Gru on on occasion. Yeah. No problem.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I mean, everyone wants to know what's inside the mystery box. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

We will send the mystery box newsletter only to you, just the newsletter. Um, uh that's gonna start on Monday, the daily newsletter. No, so we got tons of interesting stuff going on, slight logo change, not really a massive rebrand. This is not a rebrand. This is mainly just I want an opportunity to update the design language of the logo since it has a phone in it, and Samsung's phones have changed their design since we made the original logo.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And uh, looking at it like that, looks like a Samsung phone.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Exactly from the back. It looks like an S-line phone. Yep. Um, and Josh did a beautiful job. And then I wanted to remove my name because I had planned to do that anyway. So I figured, well, you know, I'm not making a new wooden sign here, though. That's gonna stay. But that's in my office, so no one has to see that but me. It's still gonna be Sammy Guru with Jeff Springer on my big wooden sign because I paid$500 for that sign, and I'm not gonna buy it.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

That's a nice sign.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I can't update the logo on that. I don't know if I can spend another$500.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

It's expensive.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

I don't have that kind of money. No, but it's still a very nice looking sign, you know, it'll remind me of the old logo, you know, when I first found it. It'll always be there as a reminder.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

What you should do is uh, I mean, you don't have an extra$500 now, but when you do, just start collecting like different things. Every time we iterate the logo, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that way we can see.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I mean, hopefully, my my my hope is that we're not gonna necessarily change the logo too often after this. I mean, if Samsung makes a radical, like if they start having a trapezoidal camera beret, yeah, then maybe I'll change it. But that seems unlikely in the next four or five years. So it's probably gonna be more like an every five year maybe like reconsideration. We're never gonna change our brand colors, we're never gonna change the general design aesthetic or the SG text. Yeah, but we might update it slightly here and there. I don't ever want to do a massive rebrand because obviously once you've already built up some credibility with people, it doesn't make sense to do a massive rebrand. Um, okay, so that's kind of just a bunch of Sami Gru updates because there's a lot of stuff going on, obviously, um, leading up to the launch. Um, let's talk about the everything Samsung's likely to announce and not announce at Unpacked. Here we go. Because in the article, um, which was written by Abnov, shout out to Abnov, who is our news editor. He he moved on up the chain, he got a promotion to editor. He's our daytime U.S. editor now, uh, another one of our full-time guys, and does a great job. He's actually gonna be attending Mobile World Congress for us, which is actually right after Unpacked. There's no way I could go to Unpacked and Mobile World Congress because Unpacked week, Samsung is gonna keep us in San Francisco until Friday, the 27th. Mobile World Congress starts on like the first of March in Barcelona, Spain. So I'm I'm not going from San Francisco to Barcelona in three days. A lot of people would say, oh, for most tech bloggers, that's light work. Well, I have kids, man, and I'm 40. I'm not doing that. It's crazy. Uh, I'll let somebody else do it. Omnov wanted to go, so I'm paying his way to go and cover the show for us. So he'll be in Barcelona. Um, so he wrote this up, but he wrote about the stuff that's going to be there. I figured we'll cover what he went over and then we'll talk about what's not gonna be there that some people are probably hoping for. So let's uh let's jump into it. Let's go with the obvious first because we've talked a lot about this the last few weeks. Obviously, the Galaxy S26 series will be announced. That's not a surprise to anybody. I have a drink here. Boom, I'm gonna leave that in because you know I like to keep it authentic.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's important to be on the what are you taking part of? Oh, this is some Diet Coke. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Tori got me some Diet Coke here and some funy's from Circle K. Oh, yeah, which we highly appreciate. Umions are a huge winner. They are. Um, so the S26 series, we got the S26, S26 Plus, S26 Ultra. Uh, we we spent a lot of time waxing poetic about the S26 Ultra, which honestly, in the end, has shaped up to be a very compelling upgrade. I said this last week. Yeah, you do. It's it is a compelling upgrade. I mean, it it really does have a lot of interesting things. The privacy display, the brightness on display is gonna be increased, 10-bit display now, better anti-reflective coating. Um, the rounded design is either here nor there, but as we talked about last week, it's not really as rounded as we originally thought. So I don't think that's gonna make I don't think that's gonna push anybody to buy it or not buy it, because I thought originally Samsung was gonna go like super hardcore iPhone style, but they didn't do that. If they had done that, that would have like alienated some buyers. Because some people don't some people don't like that. So I think they struck the right balance and and they went in the middle. Um and they're basically Samsung is basically planning to force, not force, but they're they're basically going all in on the S26 Ultra this year. The S2 the Ultra has always been the far and away most popular model, but rumor has it, Samsung is producing six times more um than that of the other models. So six times more ultras than the plus and the base model combined.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

I mean, it makes sense. I mean, that's usually like the top seller.

Forums, Rewards, And Newsletter Plans

SPEAKER_01 15:59

I mean, so basically they expect you know five-sixths of the valve of the total global purchases to be ultras. That's what is five six, it's been a lot. It's eighty-three percent, right? That's a lot, it's eighty-three point something percent. That's a lot of the total number of S26 units sold. Yeah. Um the S26 Ultra should snip ship with Snapdragon only. The S26 and S26 Plus may have Exynos 2600 in some regions, um, but we're not really expect to, you know, we're not really expected to see that in all regions. Uh some people are saying the S26 and S26 Plus could have the Exynos here in the US, which would certainly be very interesting. We said last week likely not to be a price hike, but likely way worse pre-order bonuses, yeah, benefits as before. So don't expect to get as high of trade-in. If you want to go back and listen to last week's podcast, I read down my predictions for everything that I think Samsung will do. And they are definitely underspending on this launch. I can tell you, from the perspective of being a guy who depends on their affiliate revenue, they're also not spending as much marketing dollars. Um so you might not see as much Samsung coverage from other tech outlets and creators because Samsung is not paying them as much to talk about it or incentivizing them to do it. They follow the money, so if the money's ain't there, now of course we're still gonna talk about it because we're Samsung blog, and uh obviously they're still paying commission on the pre-order sales, but they're not doing as many incentives as before. So I'm just saying leading up to Unpacked, if you notice that there aren't as many websites and creators hyping up the unpacked launch, then that would be the reason. So let's see, what else we got? Um the base model is supposed to start at 256 gigs of storage, uh, which would be an upgrade on the base model compared to past when it was at 128. Honestly, that is way overdue. Uh we should not have 128 gigs of storage base models in 2026 because we have all these massive file sizes, cameras are, you know, everything can shoot 4K or 8k even. We got massive photo sizes because the cameras have gotten better. Plus, you know, you're downloading AI generated videos from everywhere. You're like, hey, let me be a creator, I'll just generate everything with AI. And then who needs someone like Jeff to make real videos and we just make AI? AI. Um, AI this, AI that. You know what I mean? I think in the long run, honestly, though, aside from that, we can talk about it another day. I think that the uh advent of all this AI video on YouTube and TikTok is actually just gonna drive up the price for people like me to create sponsored videos because real human videos are now gonna become a premium because brands are gonna be paying people to make these AI generated videos, but having an actual creator behind that that will actually engage authentically with their audience could end up being actually something that brands end up paying more for uh if they have like sponsored content. That's just my personal opinion. Um, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is likely to come in black, white, silver shadows, sky blue, cobalt violet, and pink gold. Yeah, I want that cobalt violet. Yeah, cobalt violet looks nice. The white looks breathtakingly nice. Eevee League shared some pictures of that today.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

I mean, all those pick uh all those colors look very crisp.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, this is more of a true white, which we last saw with the Note 10. So if you guys think back to your Note 10, uh it's a while ago, I know, but that's closer to that. Um, the blue does look a little more looks a little more blue than whatever that blue was that was on the S25 Edge. The S25 Edge was like a white blue. It didn't really look that blue. This one really looks like a true baby blue. So, you know, I could see if you like blue, you might like that one. I I personally I always get two devices for myself for testing purposes. I keep one that I run the bait on, one with my stable, usually. I'm probably leaning towards violet and white. That's my current lean. Um, Nicole is likely to get pink gold, so I can have three colors. Yeah, she likes purple, but she said she would say, you know, she'll take one for the team. Yeah. She said, hey, if my husband's gonna buy me a brand new phone every year, I'll take pink gold instead of purple just for the team. You know, and that's what I like about my wife. She's a ride or die, you know. She's like, I like purple, but I'll take the pink.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Now, do you feel like we're gonna run into this instance of where we had we got the jade green, but then when you shine it in light, it was more like white. Oh, you mean with the with what color? Uh no, like uh for the 2025, we got the jade green. But you mean like the purple? I don't think so. Uh well no, more so for like the blue. The blue, it's possible.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I mean, in renders, it always looks darker. Yeah. Honestly, the S25 edge blue also look kind of like this, too. So that is a little skeptical. Of all the colors that could potentially be deceiving in the renders, the blue is definitely the most likely. Yeah. We still haven't seen a render of the pink gold. So we have no idea what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I'm picturing if they're saying cobalt purple, that's gonna be a dark purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be a dark purple. All the renders we've seen from EVP. I think it's gonna be like a normal purple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

I think the cobalt purple is gonna look good. Yeah. And from what we've seen, the white actually looks like a pure white. Yeah. Instead of like the off-white or linen color light that they had with the S23 and the S24 or whatever. People kind of don't seem to like those. So Samsung went back to the true white, which I actually do like better myself. So I don't know what my first daily driver will be and which one I'll save for the beta. I might rock purple. That seems to be the hero color. Or I could be a rebel and go white, you know, because I really want the hero color. I'm the guru. Can I go with what the popular crowd is doing? Or do I have to be different? I'm not sure. Um, but you'll notice that titanium uh is missing from the names on purpose, as we talked about before, because it seems like Samsung uh pulled one of their favorite tricks, which is copying what Apple does, and they decided to remove titanium from the phones because Apple did it with the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Macs. So, like, hey, get that titanium iPhone. Out of here, which also probably was because titanium is more expensive, and with all the rising costs from the memory and storage and all that stuff driving up the prices. And we already heard TM Row is like, you guys got to make sure that price is the same. Uh, that probably contributed to as well. So they probably decided titanium, you know, there's a lot of other prices we can't control for because the memory stuff is going whoop, way out. You know, they're like, let's let's just control the price or we can. So that's S26 series. Obviously, everybody knows that. No surprise. Uh, you know, when you're when you're a blog like we are, you got to get some clicks, and so you got to optimize your articles for Google's search engine. So you got to write about stuff people are searching for. People are searching by the S26. So that's why it's in the article. Yes, we know everybody already knows that it unpacked the S26 will be there. Obviously, that's the star of the show. Uh, but the second star of the show, which we've also talked about a little bit last week. This is what I'm mostly excited about. Which Tori's excited about, and I know a lot of people are actually excited about. Uh, and we found out this week, if you take a look at these renders, that the Buds 4 and Buds4 Pro are going to have this translucent case, see-through case, uh, which is a massive redesign of the case from the Buds Uh 3 Pro. Obviously, the case shape is completely different. Yeah, it is. Um, for anybody who knows nothing, the brand nothing, these look like the nothing buds. It looks like Samsung said, Hey, you know what? Can I copy your homework? Don't worry, I'll change a few things. Can I copy your homework? You know, they didn't actually change a few things, though, is the problem. So the nothing buds, I actually reviewed these on my channel, by the way. The nothing buds three, um, they have a translucent case. And there was also some rumors, although I don't know how substantial these rumors are. Here they are. Nothing ear three. I reviewed these on my channel on YouTube. They have a translucent case and a translucent design, and inside the case, they actually have a speakerphone that's built into the case. So that if you want to take calls with better clarity, you want a better microphone because the mic, obviously, in true wireless earbuds, is not that strong. So if you need that stronger quality, you can just talk directly into the case, press a button, it has a talk button, and you'll get really good mic quality. And if you want to check it out, I actually did a test comparing the microphone in the buds to the microphone in the case when I did this review on my personal channel, and it's actually impressive. I mean, these are 150 bucks and they're really good. So if that rumor, I don't I mean, I don't think there's any substantial traction behind this rumor yet. But some people were saying maybe Samsung will then also put a speakerphone in the case. I don't see one though on these renders. Yeah, no, I don't see one. So I don't think that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

I mean the renders do look very nice.

What To Expect: Galaxy S26 Line

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Uh that would obviously be very good. I think it would be nice if that could happen. But yeah, why is it saying content is protected when I click on this? That's weird. Figure that out later. The website, my website should not be doing that. It's not protected. Anyway, the Buds 4 and the Buds 4 Pro are very exciting. Um, the Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro both had great audio quality. Um, and basically you're gonna get a huge visual overhaul here. You've got the stem design is still there, yeah, but it's more of a flat stem now, which looks less AirPods-like, which I like. So they kind of went their own direction. Um, they ditched the ear tips all together and the get on the Buds 4, and the Buds 4 Pro has silicon tips uh that sensibly, you know, are really comfortable. That's what I like about silicon tips. Um, both of them look similar, but the charging cases are slightly different. Uh the Buds4 case has a two-tone look with a dark green exterior, while the Buds 4 Pro has an all-white case. However, that's just the renders that we were describing in the article. I we've already heard that the Buds 4 Pro will both also come in like a black slash gray, a white slash silver, and then also the rose gold, which will probably match that, or pink gold that will match the pink gold on the S26 Ultra. That's how I convinced Nicole that she should get the pink gold S26 Ultra. I was like, because then you can get your Buds4 Pro that'll match the foam. And she's like, you know, well, if I have to.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Well, yeah, yeah. You know. She's like, if it's free, you know? If it's free, if it's free, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Why not? You know. Why not? Um, and then of course, the final thing that Samsung is likely to talk about a lot at Unpacked. And by the way, last week I said if they release 108.5 stable for any other phones before Unpacked, I would shave my head live on YouTube. That has still not happened. So my hair is still safe. Yeah, it is. Uh, and we've only got 19 days left to go, 18 days until Unpack, because they need to do it by the 24th if that's gonna happen. So my hair is not really that nervous, honestly. I'll be honest with you. I'm minimally nervous. They haven't even released the fourth beta, which they still said is coming. Oh, yeah. So it doesn't think your hair is safe for now. It doesn't seem very likely, I'll be honest. I wouldn't have put that on the line if I really thought that was possible. Um anyway, Samsung's gonna talk about 1U8.5 and they're gonna sell you on the features of 1U8.5. Obviously, that is the reason why they're not gonna release it to other phones before the event because they want you to see the cool features and be like, oh, you can buy that phone. I should buy the S26 Ultra right now. It's already up for pre-order, so I can get those features. A lot of average people will see that. Not everybody listens to this podcast, not everybody reads our website. They don't know that they're gonna get it in like five weeks anyway on their S25. So they might see that and they might buy. Um, 18.5 has been leaking heavily over the past few months. Um, we've covered pretty much everything about 18.5. The most interesting features of 188.5 basically here um are a bunch of smaller tweaks. They added those floating menus, which kind of looks like iOS, but they did it in a way that still looks classy. Um, they've added some more functionality to the now bar and the now brief, which we talked about. That's nice. They added these fresh new contact cards, which I think I have 18.5 on my S25 Ultra. They added these fresh new contact cards that are in your favorite. So you got these nice cards at the top here. Oh, yeah, I like that. Which look cool. Uh, and then of course, they also for the S26, not on here yet, because this is actually going to be on the S26 probably only, we would imagine the privacy display will be built in the software and have that privacy display menu. Um that's a really good upgrade. Oh, and also notification summaries that should still arrive. That has yet to go live in the beta. Remember, we talked about notification summaries way back when the first beta came out. They were in there, but they weren't working yet. So you could turn it on, it would be like, look, notification summaries, but they wouldn't do anything, wouldn't summarize them. That's probably gonna be revealed with the S26 Ultra as well. So there's actually a few cool surprises. If you've been running S, you know, the 8.5 beta on your S25 Ultra or S25, you will get some cool, interesting, you know, changes when you buy your S26. Because you know, everybody listening to this podcast is probably gonna buy an S26. I'm just I'm just making that assumption. And when you do buy your S26, make sure that you don't forget to sign up over our at Lalo for SMS Blast on the website at the pre-order tab or on our newsletter so you get all those mystery box notifications. We'll send you our link, which goes directly to Samsung, it's an affiliate link. We get a commission, and what do we do with that commission? Unlike all the other blogs and creators out there who just keep it and deposit it directly in their bank account. I take a percentage of that and I reinvest it into purchasing cool accessories and paying shipping to ship you a box full of accessories for your new phone. And there's nobody else doing that. Nobody, no one else, everybody else, you're gonna click their link, they're gonna say, Thank you, I'll take that money and deposit it directly into my account. Every other creator, every other blog. They don't give you anything in return for using their link. And also, I want to address this because it's come up in the past and it is a good question. Um, a lot of people say, Oh, well, what about Rack 10, cash back, and all that stuff? Should I do that instead of the mystery box? Well, you could, because you can't do both. If you use Rackitens link, you can't use our link because they're mutually exclusive. If you click our link and then Rack A 10's, well, they get the commission, so then we can't ship you a mystery box because that's how we pay for the shipping and all that stuff. Yep. But here's the reality Rackiten only offers 3% cash back right now on Samsung. So if you're trading in a phone, your order is only likely to be$800 to$1,000. You're only getting$25 to$30 back because they don't do it after tax, it's before tax. Our mystery box is worth way more retail value than$30 this year. Our mystery box is worth$65 to$70. You've got a GAN 65 watt fast charger. Those are$25 or$30 on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

And it is fast.

Colors, Design Tweaks, And Production Mix

SPEAKER_01 30:33

You've got a quality drop protection TPU shock absorption style case for your phone. That's about$15 to$20 on Amazon. So already you're looking at$45 to$50 of value. Timber glass screen protector, another$10. And then you get the cleaning kit, which we put together ourselves. I won't even put a value in that. I don't even put a value in that. You've got the charging adapter kit, which is like another$10 on Amazon, the phone stand, which is like another$10 on Amazon. And now this year you also got the USB C earbuds, which is like another$10 on Amazon. So you get everything that Samsung used to put in the box plus more. Samsung didn't used to give you a phone stand in the box. No, no. They gave you the charger, they gave you the butt, the earbuds, they didn't give you a phone stand, they didn't give you a full cleaning kit, they didn't give you a charging adapter kit. No, no, no. They didn't give you a temper glass screen protector. You're getting all that stuff. It's probably closer to like 70 bucks if you bought all this stuff at retail. No, if you would rather just have the 30 bucks, of course, you can do that. But we tried up our game so that we do compete with Racket 10. And I've got a lot of surprises planned for future launches. So, you know, make sure you stay tuned. If the S26 Ultra is not your thing, we will be coming hard for the Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8 as well. Um but yeah, make sure you sign up. All the links are in the show notes as always, and you can always find it at sammigrew.com slash preorder. Um, but let's talk quickly about I'm gonna I always like to do a little teaser. We haven't taken a break in a while, so we're first gonna talk about one thing that you should not expect. Then we'll come back and talk about a few more because I want to keep you on the edge of your seat. Like what else should we not expect? So I'll talk about the one thing that's a little, you know, could is bumming me out. Oh actually, wait. Wait a second. Stop, reverse that. Okay. You know, there used to be a TV show. Where did they say that? Stop, reverse that. Who said that? Reverse that. Yeah, I don't know. Oh no, no, Zach Morris. Remember when he used to pause. Oh, yeah, for C Mill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Timeout. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is it is timeout. Timeout. One more thing that is a wild card. So this is one that's like could be announced, kind of already is announced, but the US sales could be announced. I kind of don't think they will, though, because I think they usually just put it up as like a press release. The Galaxy Book 6 Pro and Galaxy Book 6 Ultra were shown off at CS. I have a hands-on article on the website, got to play with them. They released in Korea on January 27th, so they're already out. Yep. But they're not in the US. They usually don't come here until March. Since Unpacked got pushed back like six weeks this year, theoretically, they could take the event, take a few minutes in the event, and say, oh, by the way, in addition to S26 Ultra, Buds 4, Buds 4 Pro, we also are launching today in the US our book 6 Pro and Book 6 Ultra, and here's the US pricing and availability. I'll give that, I'll give that a 60-40 chance. I kind of feel like that might happen. Usually it doesn't because Unpacked is not this late. Usually it's in January, like right after CES, and it's not time for the US to get the computers yet. But I kind of feel like I kind of lean towards 6040. If I was betting on this on Call Shi, I I I would I would bet on it. You know, don't do that because it's really bad. You don't get addicted to it, lose all your money. Yeah. But uh if I had to, if if someone said, Jeff, would you bet on that on Call Shi if it was your money you were losing and not someone else's, I would probably be willing to bet a little bit of money, not a lot. 6040. I think 60% chance it does happen. Yeah, that one's definitely not like an out there, like definitely not gonna happen kind of deal. Yeah. So I promise one that you that won't happen. So let me give you that, and then we'll go to the brick. Because I that one was kind of a maybe. I forgot about that one. So one that definitely isn't going to happen, zero chance, zero percent, no way, no how gonna occur is the Galaxy Ring 2. There's no chance there's no chance the Galaxy Ring 2 maybe in July is showing up. July is possible. We have seen no regulatory filings. Yeah, no. That thing has to get a lot of regulatory filings because it's got a lot of different health sensors. It hasn't even gone through the FCC because we monitor all those. Obviously, our writers and editors, we monitor those all the time to try to bring you guys the latest info about Samsung products that are coming out. There's been no evidence of that, you know, getting ready to release. So there's 0% chance. I'm kind of bummed about that because of course I've been excited about it. Um, you know, I'm hoping they'll bring that Samsung pay, hoping they bring some new gestures where I can maybe twirl my finger and it'll post a tweet to me for me. You know, maybe it has maybe it pairs to my watch, and when I twirl my finger, it pulls up a post and I can speak the post in my watch and then it'll post the tweet for me. That'd be some next level. That'd be actually really good. Yeah. I don't think that's gonna happen because Elon Musk makes he makes the X API very difficult to work with. I was just trying to deal with that earlier today because I was trying to figure out how we could post our articles to X by first having Chat GPT summarize the article so it could write like a little summary. So we just don't just post the link. Because Elon Musk actually punishes you if you just post their link. Really? Yeah, yeah. If you post a link, he doesn't like that because he doesn't want people to leave the platform. So what you're supposed to do to get optimal engagement is post a summary of your content and then post a reply to that with a link in the replies. So then people will see it. So I was trying to figure out a way to automate this, but the X API makes it very difficult to do anything and it's very expensive if you want to do it. I believe it. I was like, man, I'm just gonna have to give up. So the Galaxy Ring 2 is definitely not coming. If you're waiting on that, uh July, I I still feel like July, I don't even honestly, I feel like we should have seen something by now if it was gonna come in July, too. So maybe I'm kinda next July. I'm kind of 4060 on this one. Like it would make sense for it to come in July because that's two years since the first one came out. Samsung doesn't usually wait three years for product cycle upgrades. So I feel like that kind of makes me lean towards yes. But also, I feel like we should have seen something come out about the regulatory like filings because it's got to start going through all those approvals if it's gonna release in July. Now's the time that would start. So if we don't see something in the next like month and a half, I'm gonna have to lean towards no. But yeah. Anyway, there are definitely a few others that people have asked me about that I think are pretty hard nose, and then one that potentially could be like is actually a legitimate dark horse. Very a very dark horse. As dark as horses can get. And with that, we're gonna go to the break because before I can tell you about that, we have to hear from the sponsor of today's podcast. This episode of the Sammy Guru Podcast is brought to you by our partners at US Mobile. U.S. Mobile has wireless service on all three of the major carriers in the United States. You can get service on their Darkstar, their warp, and lightspeed networks, and you can even switch between those on your plan at any time that you like. They have various different promos running right now, including their yearly promotions. They have a 30-day free trial if you bring your number to US Mobile, as well as three months of service for$45, which is$15 a month on their unlimited starter plan. And you can do that with porting your number in or getting a new number with US Mobile as well. They have some really amazing deals, and the fact that you can actually switch between the three major US carriers is quite a great deal for a prepaid carrier and something that I really like about US Mobile. If you guys are looking for a great new wireless service, check out our friends at US Mobile. We appreciate them for sponsoring this episode of the Sammy Guru Podcast. All right, everybody, we're back. And uh now we're talking about a few more things here that uh are probably not coming unpacked. But uh, I'll start with one that is also definitely not coming, and that's the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. I know a lot of people are waiting for that. Tori loves his Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. He's got it right here, displayed on his wrist so beautifully. Um, and it's a nice piece. But unfortunately, that one also has not gone through the FCC or any of the other regulatory filing. So just like the Ring 2, it has all kinds of health sensors. It's got to go through a bunch of regulatory stuff before it can get approved. None of that's happened. So there's a 0% chance that they're gonna walk out there and show that off. And also, Tori made an astute observation when we were talking about in the break. So, Tori, you want to tell them what you what you were telling me?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Uh yeah, like um we're talking about like so for the foldable launch, like, you know, it just wouldn't make sense to like uh put the put the ring and all that, like along with the S launch, because like really those foldable phones are like really out of the price. Like, like if you're just looking at the fold, that's kind of out of the price range for um probably many of the average consumers. And so um, you gotta have something that that's gonna kind of rope in some people who may have already got a phone during the uh February launch.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

You want them to watch that live stream.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Oh, yeah, yeah, you do. And so I there's nothing better than looking forward to getting the watch, I think, in in the July. So you know, they have to have some some stuff that is also going to entice just some regular people uh to go in to be able to still buy stuff because you know they still want to make money.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Samsung doesn't want to lose contact with your wallet for a whole year. Yeah, I know that they're like we can't have we can't lose contact from January to January, February to February. Yeah, no. We gotta at least have like a little hit in the middle. Yep. So we give them a little wearable, something they compare to the phone that they bought in the winter. Yep. Say, hey, you guys want a little ring, you want a little watch? Yep. Maybe get both, yeah, spend a lot of money, go ahead and just spend like a thousand bucks, you know, yeah, get two wearables. Yeah, get blinked out because they both work super well together, they have a great ecosystem. So go ahead and just give us a thousand dollars and we'll give you an ecosystem. So yeah, I think Tori's right. That's why the fold and the flip typically have stuff launching with them because they kind of need that extra thing to get interest. Um in fact, two years ago, they they launched the Buds 3 Pro with the Flip as well, because that was another extra thing that the Fold and the Flip with the Fold 6, that's when the Buds 3 Pro came out. Uh, they're like, hey, let's launch that, launch it up, get it going. And uh yeah, really solid, really solid uh headphones as well, though, that they launched the Fold 6 and the Flip 6.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Just about anyone I talk to. Uh someone told me actually uh the other night in my college class, they were telling me that they have the Buds 3 Pro, and they said that they have never heard music before until they put the Buds in. Whoa, that's quite a compliment.

One UI 8.5 Features And Strategy

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, it is a very compliment. Yeah, they are very good. I mean, for the price category, it's kind of hard to find another pair of buds that are as good with your Android phone. I mean, of course, the AirPods Pro are also good, but they're like optimized to work with Apple and the there's with headphones, I'm gonna go off an audio tangent. Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff that makes it important. Like if you have a Samsung phone, it's better to use Samsung buds or buds that support those codecs because audio codecs are not supported the same across every pair of buds. Interesting. I did not know that. Yeah, that we can talk about that. We might do a deep dive on like something like that one day, just show or just talk about like audio or something. But yeah, that's one of the things a lot of people don't realize is like the codecs that work with Android phones or you know, a specific manufacturer, they might not be work with Apple and the AirPods, though the Apple codecs that they have an Apple music, like their spatial music and all that. If you have non-AirPods headphones, of course they lock it into their ecosystem or beats, of course, because Apple owns beats. You can't experience their spatial audio stuff that they have an Apple Music that's specially tuned using their codecs. So there is something to be said for like, you know, people always ask me, like, if I could I should I get AirPods and use it with my Samsung? Not really. I mean, there are lots of other manufacturers aside from Samsung who make earbuds that have those high-res APTX codecs and stuff that will work but great with your Samsung. So you don't have to buy Samsung. If Samsung makes a good option, but there are other, but some of those other ones that have those codecs, a lot of them are more expensive headphones, like my Bang and Olson's and my Bowers and Wilkins, they both have all pretty much all those Android codecs you need. Um, but they're also a little more expensive. Yeah. The Bang and Olson headphones, I will tell you, they are insane. I don't recommend anybody spend that kind of money on headphones, but I'm glad that I did. The Bang and Olson over-ear headphones. I mean, you truly have not listened to music until you hear those. How much are they? They are now, I think,$2,500. When I bought them, it was before the tariffs. They were only$1,750. Uh, I got them for a cool$750 discount when they first came out like a year and a half ago. Uh, they're insane. They also have, I don't have these yet. I I've considered getting them, but you know, I just gotta think about how much my wife will kill me if she sees it on our bank statement. They have a$1,500 pair of earbuds as well, in your earbuds. The Flossie Carter reviewed them. They're supposedly next level good. But I have a pair of uh Bowers and Wilkins PI eights that are very good. They're already very expensive earbuds, too. I think they're like four or five hundred. They are very good too. I I don't know that I really need a fifteen hundred dollar pair of earbuds. Plus, do I really want to get murdered? She's like, What is this? And I'll be like, I bought a fifteen hundred dollar pair of earbuds. And she'd be like, Don't you get a bunch of earbuds for free? That's what Nicole always says. Whenever I buy something tech item, she's like, Couldn't you have gotten that for free or something similar? And I'm like, But it's not the same thing. Well, you do make a valid point. But it's not the same. I could have gotten something comparably good for free, so I probably shouldn't buy it. I'm thinking it'd be the same. But it's not quite the same. Yeah. Um, but so that's a fun tangent. We could talk about that. I like all that codec stuff. Tori learned something. It's always good to learn something. I didn't know. I like to educate the average consumers on the show as well who listen, who are not necessarily, you know, massive fans. We have like over 600 people listening to us now, which is kind of crazy. I mean, that's cool, man. I would love to get to a weekly thousand, a thousand uh average weekly listeners, but I mean 600 is is really good. You can't be mad about 600. Ain't nothing wrong with 600. Nope. Um, so what I say, though, I said the watch Ultra 2. That was one thing I I said is definitely not coming. Uh let's talk about a thing that potentially could come, but it's not necessarily very likely, but it is possible because it has been certified and technically it's already been discussed and unveiled. And that is the Galaxy XR glasses. Okay. Not the V, not the XR headset, but the Android XR glasses that Google and Samsung are working on together. Technically, they have been shown off. Google showed off a demo with how Google Maps is going to work, some notification stuff. And they have been certified by like the FCC and stuff. So technically, Samsung pulled a big surprise, and somehow they had the packaging ready and no leakers got access to it, all these very unlikely things. They could pull like uh, you know, Steve Jobs one more thing, where he kept it completely secretive, and he's like, one more thing today. We're announcing the iPad. And everyone goes, an iPad. I've never seen an iPhone that looks like a pad. What is it? You know, I have to get it now. I mean, that was cool when Steve Jobs did that, I will say. You know, Steve Jobs, he did really make it so that I mean, he did, you know, he threatened to like murder people who leak stuff. So, you know, when you threaten to when you threaten to murder your employees if they leak stuff, that works pretty well. Uh yeah. I always say if you go out and tell your employees, hey, if you leak this to someone for money or for any other reason, we will get a hitman to find you and he will kill you, like Liam Neeson. Yeah. I don't know who you are. We will get leaked. I don't I don't know what you want, but I will find you and I will kill you. Yeah. And that's what he told his employees. That does work. And he's a very particular set of skills. Yes. That's what he would tell, you know, Steve Jobs told his employee, we will find a guy who has a very particular set of skills, and he will find you, and he will kill you. So that I mean that prevents leaks pretty well. Yeah, no. Now, Tim Cook, Tim Cook obviously is not a find we can kill you kind of guy. He's like, you know, if you leak some stuff, we'll have to file some litigation against you. And that just doesn't work quite as well. Because people are like, litigation, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah, and I really become all day, any day.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

They're like, hey, I'm already broke, so what are you gonna sue me for? I know. I can sell the leaks for$10,000. I'm gonna sell that and spend, I'm gonna sell it for$10,000. I'm gonna spend it on cracking hookers. By the time you sue me, I won't have the$10,000.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

I'll be back broke the game.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

What are you gonna lit? What are you gonna litigate for? I mean, what are you gonna do? I mean, spend 30 days in jail? What do I care? You know, I'm already born. Yeah, no, the the the cocaine hookers will be worth it. And so, you know, it could. You know, I have to start putting an X rating on this podcast now, you know. Oh god, no. You know, they're gonna be like, uh X-rated. Um no. What was I even saying? The Android XR glasses. Yes, and we're just going off the rails on this podcast the last few weeks. We love it though. Um, the Android XR glasses, technically they should come, could they could come. I wouldn't say should. Um I'll I'll give it a 10% chance. It's it's like possible. Like the last two, the last two are zero percent because they haven't been certified. Yeah, yeah. You can't sell something that hasn't been certified by the FCC and these other agencies. So that's impossible. But this has been, it's been tested, it's been shown off. It seems very unlikely though, because Samsung stuff seems to leak all the time now. So I feel like if the XRR glasses were coming, EV leaks, and everybody would have already shown us the packaging, yeah, like they have for the the S26 Ultra. I don't think Samsung's that good at keeping a secret. It'd be really cool. Hey, if I'm at Unpacked and they unveil that, I mean, I I will I would be surprised and I would be impressed, but I just somehow don't see it happening. I don't see it either. Uh another thing that's definitely not coming, Galaxy Tab S12. The S11 just released like five months ago. Um what could come though, and I forgot to mention this earlier, it's not really that big of a deal, is Samsung announced when they released the Tabus 11, which was like forever ago, it was like four months. They told us in our press briefing with them online, and they told all the other press that the Galaxy Tabus 11 and S11 Ultra were going to get a pro keyboard. And they actually showed us a silhouette of it in the media briefing, and it kind of looked like a ripoff of the iPad, the iPad Pro's pro keyboard.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

And they said, Oh yeah, I remember.

Mystery Box Value And Preorder Playbook

SPEAKER_01 48:51

I remember I remember like the floating design. And they said they said, uh yeah, it's coming. And I was like, and all the media people were at the question part of the the briefing were like, when's it coming? And they're like, you know, sometime in Q1. And we were like, Man, the tablet's releasing in like what was it, like August or September, October? I was like, that's gonna be like half a year later. Like, do you expect someone to spend$1,500 for the top-end Tab S11 Ultra and they don't even have a decent keyboard? Yeah, right. And like, so a lot of people, if you go on Reddit and the Galaxy Red subreddit, a lot of people who own the Tab S11, and me included, because I have one over there on the table, are kind of pissed that they still don't have they haven't released this yet. Yeah, like because the people who bought this, they're like, man, I spent a ton of money and the promise that it would eventually be released. And those people probably thought like Q1 meant like around CES. And yeah, that was like over a month ago now.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

This would be the time.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Yeah, they thought like January 1st, maybe. Yeah, but I can tell you from being in this business for a long time, in the business of like reading marketing speak, Q1 never means January 1st. It usually means like March 30th.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Really?

SPEAKER_01 49:55

You know, when people say Q1, it's because they don't want to tell you a specific date. So they really mean we're just gonna punt this till the end of Q1. So it usually means like the end of March. People don't say fair enough. You know, if people are gonna release something in Q1, they don't say if they're gonna release it in January, they don't say Q1 because it would sound better to say, Oh, our keyboard is coming January 15th.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, it will be like, oh, well now you know I can they're excited, they're ready to spend that money.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Yeah, and like now we can go buy it on January 15th, and they would be there to buy it on January 15th.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Video game will do that all the time too. They're like, oh yeah, release it in Q1, Q2. Oh, okay, maybe beginning of the year, and then it's like, oh, the game doesn't come out.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Well, in video games, it's worse because they keep getting delayed.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

They're like, it'll come out in Q1 of 2026. You know, Rockstar has confirmed that Grant of Thato 6 will be we've heard that we've heard that before.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

In the video game industry, it's like it's coming out in Q1 of 2026, and then like the middle of Q1 2026, like, uh, actually, it's coming out in Q4 of 2028. Yeah. Sorry guys, you got a little delayed. Yeah, it's actually gonna be coming out two and a half years later. So if you guys were waiting, don't make any plans to stand in line at GameStop. Yeah, because not you're gonna have to go through the day off just telling your keyboard. You're gonna have to go through all four seasons three times to wait in line for this game if you stand now. Yeah. So don't get too comfortable out there. Um, so yeah, TabS 12, definitely not coming, but the keyboard, hey, that would be nice. Maybe they should launch that keyboard. Although, if I were Samsung, I wouldn't mention that at the event because that makes you look like a complete idiot that you did took six months to release a keyboard. You don't put that in an event and be like, look at our beautiful keyboard that looks like we ripped it off from Apple. And it took six additional months to launch. That's not really something you want to put in your big hero event. So I wouldn't, if they do it, I wouldn't rip bank on seeing that in the actual uh show. That'll be a press release on the website. They'll be like, by the way, Tab S12 keyboard is now available. People like us will have to go and find that information and then bring it to the readers so they know they can buy it. Samsung's not even gonna tell you, probably. Yeah, Dags, I want to slam the door. They're done working for the day.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Yeah, I know. It's time to clock out, Tori. They said I know doesn't mean sometimes you gotta clock out. I I'm gonna head out. Like, I I'm gonna head out. I'm gonna head out.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Uh I think that's mostly trying to think. Anything else? Anything else you can think of? I think that's about it. Oh, yeah, I think so too. Samsung is supposed to release the Galaxy A57 as well. And a lot of people were saying it's gonna be this month. I don't think that's coming at Unpacked. I actually think that's gonna get released in the next few weeks here before Unpacked. Really? You think so? Yeah. Because that's not really a really sexy release. Like they're not gonna announce that at an unpacked event. That's a mid-range, yeah, lower tier phone. That's usually what they just say, hey, it's up, and then they send a press release to people like us again, and we just write an article about it, and that's how people find out that it's available is by reading about it on a website. Um because Samsung just puts it in their press releases and they put it on their news page, which people don't usually read, the Samsung press release page unless you're press and then you know all the blogs write about it. Um so that's probably coming, but probably not an unpacked. It's probably coming this month. Um I don't think there's anything else to expect from Samsung right now until after that. After that, it's gonna be probably for the unpacked event in July, which is likely to be, you know, fold eight, flip eight. We've heard about this wide foldable that's supposed to be like a pixel fold competitor. It's gonna be like a squarish fold. Samsung thinks they need to do a square fold. I think they're only doing that because Apple is rumored to go with the square aspect ratio. I think it's stupid because it they already have the fold category locked down. Why do you have to do give in to peer pressure? Yeah. The square fold is not as good as the fold seven form factor or the trifold form factor. You already have two better form factors. Why do you need to do something just because Apple's doing that? No, I don't know. I mean, I guess it could be okay, but that's supposed to be coming. And then I think do think the Watch Ultra 2 and the Ring 2 are like I'll give them better than 50% chance to be at the July event. Um, the ring two, I'm less sure about. Watch Ultra 2, I'd say almost for sure is gonna come. Because I don't think Samsung would go more than two years without updating their biggest flagship watch.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

And I think people do want a second.

Laptops As A Wildcard

SPEAKER_01 54:11

I mean, me personally, I I want to because also Apple updates, you know, as we said, they like to do what Apple does, and Apple doesn't go Apple doesn't go more than two years without updating their Ultra Watch, so I don't think Samsung will do that either. So I think in the next few months we'll start seeing regulatory approvals for the Ultra 2. Okay. Will we see it for the Ring 2 as well? I don't know. Um, it would be really cool if Samsung would release a new smart tag at some point, but we haven't heard any rumors about that. Um in terms of non-mobile stuff, if you guys are big Samsung like TV fans or like you know, other you know, other stuff that's not um mobile, all that CES stuff that we talked about a few you know like a lot of months ago, that stuff will probably start being available to buy also in March, because that's usually when they launch their new TVs. So you'll be able to get all those new TVs if you want to buy you know that micro RGB one that's 130 inches, you can go. Yeah, I was gonna say you can go buy it for like$115,000. Where are you gonna put it? You know, you'll be able to wire Samsung$115,000 and buy that. Um the oh, the two interesting ones are the new like Wi-Fi speakers, those will probably be out. Okay, and then the new freestyle projector, which we talked about. That would actually be very interesting because now it uses AI, and if you project it on a wall that has texture, it actually removes the texture so you can see a plain picture, which is crazy. So if we project it on my wall here that has all these bumps, the picture would actually look like it has no bumps, which it does the AI optimization, which is actually crazy. Um, when that comes out, if you don't buy it, just try to see a demo of it or something at Best Buy. It's pretty insane. Not everybody wants a projector, people just like regular TVs, which is fine, but it is a pretty cool technical it's a pretty good use of AI, honestly. Um I think that's it for that rundown. I think that's it. Uh, a couple other stories I want to talk about. One very interesting story. A guy from Reddit heard this earlier. This is a good one. This guy on Reddit claims that his Galaxy uh phone, his gallery, uh, which he was letting Galaxy AI optimize his gallery. He said that uh it created a brand new album because it will auto-sort your photos, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said that it created a brand new album for his photos labeled he's he's uh speaks Spanish. I forgot what country he's in, uh, titled Photos de Idiota. Photos of the idiot. Oh, gosh. And it put all the selfies of himself in there. Oh, so the Galaxy AI the Galaxy AI is saying that he's an idiot. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

I don't know, that's gonna smooth over well.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Yeah, so this is the thread right here on on Reddit. I'll read what he said here. Um he said Samsung's AI created an album with photos of me and named it idiot photos. No. Um someone, yeah, I think um someone in the replies to that said, you have yourself named as idiot in your gallery settings, don't you? That would be funny. But I think I actually, when I read this earlier, I think I actually agree with this. Um, Galaxy I, I remember, is only trained on certain languages intensively, like English, mostly in Korean. So it may not really be that good at doing context in Spanish. So it may have been trying to go for silly photos or wacky photos and literally translated into Spanish, that may be something like idiot photo, you know, oh yeah, instead of wacky or silly, because roughly translated, that word doesn't exist exactly in Spanish. True. And because it's not trained as much natively in Spanish, maybe that's what happened. Okay, either way, it's super funny, and I'm sure Samsung's gonna get some negative backlash because this story blew up. Um it blew up quite a bit on the socials, and so you know they're gonna have to do a little they're gonna have to do a little damage control on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, photos of the idiot. Um, what else we got? Oh, the uh Galaxy Z Flip 7 got a special Olympic edition, which Samsung always does.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true to do.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Yeah, Samsung always does this. Um, and it's pretty cool. It is a uh why is it not letting me saying the card? What's wrong with that? I've got to look into that. Must be something on our end. Um, the wallpapers are now available for download. We wrote a little article where you can download the full res wallpaper if you would like to do that. Um and it does look really nice. No, it looks really I have quite a few of their Olympic phones. You would say, well, Jeff, you're not an Olymp, you're not an Olympian. Well, you didn't know I won the hundred meters four years ago. No, I'm just kidding. Um what happens is Samsung gives these out only to Olympic athletes, but you know, unfortunately, a lot of the Olympic athletes in various places are not paid a lot of money. So they realize that like people want these and they don't want them because they probably use an iPhone.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Yeah.

Hard Nos: Ring 2 And Watch Ultra 2

SPEAKER_01 59:02

They're like, we don't give a crap about Samsung. They go on eBay and sell them for quite a bit of money. Um in the beginning, usually they do sell for relatively high prices, but then eventually, like three or four months after the Olympics, when like you know, the Saloon skier from Jamaica, who is a bronze medalist, is selling his, they really sell for not much more than a regular flip seven. So what I do is I swoop in and buy one when they go down to around that price. Because someone will tonight's the opening ceremony. Yeah. Someone's gonna go back to the Olympic Village and list theirs on eBay today. 100%, yeah. They're gonna be like, I don't want this, they'll list it for 5,000 and I'll probably sell. It'll be the first one. But then the price will steadily go until it's basically the same price as a Z Flip 7 you could just buy from Samsung. Yeah. So if you really want one of these, they aren't limited. But I would say at least at least half of the Olympians sell them. Now it'll be competing with me because I'm gonna buy one. Yeah, I almost always buy one of these. I have all the Olympic edition ones, I think, so far. I don't use them, I just collect those because they're kind of fun to collect. But uh, you know, you can get one. I would say probably be able to get one for like$1,100. Okay, which is like the retail price of a Z Flip 7. Now no one pays that for a Z Flip 7 retail because Samsung always has discounts and trade-ins, but the actual retail price, if you bought it without a discount or trade-in, of like a regular old Z Flip 7 color that Samsung makes is$10.99. Yeah. So you could basically get this for the same price, but it's a special edition. It's gold and blue, it's got the Olympic logo on the back. I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

It looks like a really nice piece.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

You can tell people that you know, you know, that you're an Olympic athlete. Yep. I mean, you know, I know a lot of Olympic athletes. One of my one of my best friends is actually one of the greatest Olympians of all time. I won't say too much about that, Tori, but you know. The people who know, they know. Yeah, no, like the people over at the if you know, they know. The people over at the Omega boutique in Scottsdale, they know. Oh, yeah, no, they know. Because you know, I talked to them about it. They were trying to charge me$55 for a link for my watch. And I said, I said, whoa, you you you don't know who my best friend is. I know. And they said, Oh, sir. They sent me here. They said, Oh, sir, we'll take care of your link. It's on the house. Then they also gave me some water, uh, you know, some fancy spring water. Oh, yeah. Uh, and then they gave me some chocolates for free. And they sent me on my way. And I said, Yeah, you know, we appreciate that. We understand it happens. Look at the renders of the white, though. I know, how beautiful the white is actually pretty good. I mean, this is what they call, you know, in Colombia. In Columbia, cocaine white. Yeah. That's what they call it. This is that pure, pure white. No, no, it actually looks really good. This is the purest stuff you can buy right here. You know, so now that we're promoting not promoting drug use, I'm just promoting potentially buying this white S25 S26 Ultra.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Um it's a nice piece.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

Oh, and here is the 360-degree look at the purple. Oh, this right, the video is removed. Samsung made EV Leaks take it down. He sent a little takedown request to them. Oh, Samsung's releasing their first ever Ultra uh robot vac. They usually don't make ultra robot vaccines, they just make like some base models or some pro models. But they're going ultra. This one can climb steps. Ooh, yeah, that one actually looks really good. Just like some of the other ones I've reviewed. I've been reviewing quite a few of these on my personal channel. These robot vacuums are getting really advanced. Some of them now can like lift up and actually climb your steps. So if you have a two-story house like I do, now you don't have to have a robot vacuum on the bottom and the top floor. You can just have one and it'll climb, which is really nice. Trying to see what other stories there are. Oh, the Z Fold 7, there was a crazy deal at Best Buy. It's probably gone now. But the Z Fold 7 was available for$7.99 at Best Buy as an open box. Excellent. Excellent open box deal. That's a steal. That's insane. That's no, that's a steal. That's like 30% of the retail price or something. Like close to. It's like 40% of the retail price. Yeah, it's 60% off. And in my experience, Best Buy's open box excellent items are typically in very good condition. They usually are telling you the truth. They're usually in pretty good shape. So I mean, I highly doubt there's any more of those because it was yesterday, but they are very interesting, you know what I mean? Um, what else we got? Oh, the other thing, which we talked about a few times with the S26 series, it's now apparently been uh confirmed that the S26 Ultra does not have the Q2 magnets built in. So no Q2 magnets built in. Um apparently Samsung did some cost-benefit analysis.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

We talked about this in the beginning, which I understand, but it would be really nice if we had it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

We we heard the we heard some of the reasons that potentially could weigh against it. And from what we've heard from our sources and from other uh media outlets, it seems like Samsung weighed this and they came down to the two things we talked about in the podcast, you know, so many months ago, like eight months ago when we first started talking about rumors for the SMY6 Ultra. Basically, if they put the magnets in there, they couldn't do reverse wireless charging, and they may have had to get rid of the S Pen. Oh, yeah, no, never mind. So that was an odd starter. They're like, that's two key features we don't want to get rid of. Although, who knows, maybe next year they're like, we're killing the S Pin anyway. So let's put the magnets in there. Let's just put the magnets on in. I hopefully not, though. Um, but yeah, that's why they didn't do that. Um, this story was interesting. We talked about this earlier. Uh could it have anything to do with the fact that Samsung just doesn't obviously pay attention to their tablets? Uh global tablet shipments went up in 2025, but Samsung's tablet shipments went down in Q4 2025. Um, and that actually included the beginning of that wave of Tab S11 sales. Could it be because people are like, hey, you didn't give us a real keyboard case? Yeah, so me no buy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

People want a keyboard case. I mean, like, yeah, the tablet feature is fine, but a lot of people want to be able to kind of have like a dual system, especially like you know, if you're buying a tablet when you're looking at it from uh the like our everyday user perspective. Like, some people kind of, I mean, obviously it's not a full power laptop, but some people want that versatility to be able to have a tablet that's also like a laptop.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

Absolutely. Oh, the Galaxy S26 series is going to generate AI images in one second, thanks to Edge Fusion. Samsung teamed up with Noda to power Galaxy S26 AI image generation, according to Sidali, um, an AI solution company to bring Edge Fusion to the Galaxy S26 series. So apparently, um, using the Xynos 2600, it could be able to generate uh AI images 512 by 512 in one second. So that means you can generate even more AI slop to post on Facebook and Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Yeah, yeah, you can.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

You'll just be slopping it up everywhere. You'd be like, hey, anybody want some more of this slop? I'm serving it up all day, every day. I got slop for you. You get slop. Slop, you get slop, everybody gets slop. It's like Oprah. Everybody gets some slop, guys. Um what else? The resale value between iPhones and galaxies continues to widen. Well, that's because people are mostly idiots and just won't pay anything for an iPhone.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

I I know.

Buds 4 Design, Audio, And Case Talk

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

It's bad. I don't think that really has anything to do with Samsung, unfortunately. No. I think it has everything to do with people just being kind of idiots. Oh, yeah, no, we're gonna go. Apparently, the wide fold is gonna come globally, which doesn't surprise me since they want to compete with Apple, but um, you know, whatever, whatever. Um what else we got? Anything else interesting? Ooh, Galaxy S27 Ultra. We already got, you know, it's never too early to talk about the S27 Ultra. The S26 Ultra hasn't even come out yet. It's still three weeks away. It's a perfect time to talk about what could be on the S27 Ultra. Oh, yeah. That's when you want to talk about it. Uh, it could feature polar ID facial recognition. So it works within the selfie punch hole camera. Uh-huh. Uh, and basically this would replace the iris scanner, which they got rid of starting with the S10 series, um, to have the edge-to-edge display. So they made the iris scanner was too big to fit inside the current punch hole. You know, Samsung was like, we like a nice tight hole, you know, smallest hole possible. And so they said we have to have it so we can keep the phones nice and slim, you know. Yep. And so, according to a phone futurist, Samsung was developing Polar ID in collaboration with MetalLens, which could debut in the SME 7 Ultra. It uses polarized light instead of traditional 2D photography or 3D depth mapping to identify a user's face. And it focuses on how human skin reflects and scatters near infrared light. So this sounds like a really interesting inverse problem, which I used to work on in my previous life of being a math researcher when I used to do uh PDs and inverse problems. Uh, so that sounds like that's what they're doing is they're basically gathering data, light data from a certain couple regions around the face, and then they're using that to reconstruct what the face should look like. And they're basically guessing to within a high degree of confidence, uh, what if it's the actual person's face. So you get a very low false positive, and it's also a lot faster than the previous IRS scanner and face ID. This could potentially be a lot faster than even Apple's face ID. The question is, would it be quite as accurate? I don't know. We'll have to see, I have to see how good their algorithm is. It's all about the algorithm underlying that does all the computation. You know, every math is everywhere, guys. Even in this job, I can't escape it. It's just everywhere. Um, yeah. So, you know, never too early to start thinking about your S27 Ultra. Uh, if I had to say, you know, what was my what's my wish list for the S27 Ultra? You know, it mainly only has one thing on it. How about you idiots upgrade the main camera for real?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

You know, that's my yeah, I say camera. Um what else I want? Keep the S Pen.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

Um yeah, it's sad that that is considered an upgrade, which like, please don't delete the S Pin. Yeah, no. At this point, people are like, ah, we don't really care about any upgrades because an Ultra, just don't delete the S Pen.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:04

Yeah, and maybe the Polar ID would be a very good idea. The polar ID does sound cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

But I that one isn't really on my radar because I hadn't even thought about that yet. But I I would say definitely, in fact, if I could say, not only keep the S Pen, how about you guys figure out a way to get the digitizer-free uh S-Pen worked out and then bring the Bluetooth back to the S Pen.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, that's my other thing. Can we just get the Bluetooth back? Why don't we bring the Bluetooth back? That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

Why don't we make Bluetooth great again? Yeah, you know what I mean? Let's make Bluetooth great again. Yes. Um, I would say Bluetooth S-Pen, upgrade the main camera sensor for real, like a new sensor, not smaller aperture, not software am and ash, none of that garbled, you know. We put some uh supersonic processing power, superman style with infrared beam algorithms. I don't care about it in the algorithms. I want a real hardware upgrade to the camera sensor next year. Yeah, let's upgrade the main camera. Let's put either a slightly larger battery or silicon carbide batteries. But as we talked about, I talked about uh Sammy Gru. We wrote an article about this earlier this year, and today it was confirmed by MKBHD. People say we're not our we're not journalists. We're out here doing work that MKBHD hadn't even thought of yet. Yep. Hell he probably got the idea for his video from reading our article. It's possible. He did a video today talking about why a lot of phone manufacturers are hesitant to use silicon carbide batteries because they have issues with swelling and longevity, which we actually did some physics research and wrote a nice piece about that months before MKBHT. So you can check that out and check out MKB's video. You know, I like MKBHT. Shout out to him. I did get a chance to meet him, The Unpacked, in July. Um, they stop stealing article ideas though, from any videos, though, that make millions of dollars. I'm just kidding. Um, but seriously, that's true. Samsung probably is not using silicon carbide yet because they are worried that potentially they could have another Note 7 fiasco where their stuff might go and blow up some airplane stuff. You know what I mean? I do remember. You don't want people being like, I was in charge being like, hey, is that is that a Samsung phone? You can't get on the plane. Yeah, I know. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

That's not a good time. No, yeah at all. No, not no not at all. I actually forgot all about that. That was actually when I first started all over the news.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:26

That was actually when I first started dating Nicole long distance, and then I did have to get on a flight, and I was like, huh? I was like, I I don't think I could take this phone with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

Yeah, I took I left it at the house. Oh, you did? Oh, you did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

I even though I wanted to take it because it just came out. Uh I visited her towards the end of the summer, but I had the note had just released, and they were just talking about the fact that they might recall it. But I just took my Galaxy, whatever it was, S10 or whatever phone I had from the previous S launch, and I used that. But still, when I got on the phone, they were on the plane, they were like, Is that a Samsung phone? I'm like, Yeah, it's not the Note 7 though.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:00

Yeah, it's not the Note 7.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:01

I'm Note 7 free right now. Yeah. But really, I had an extra Note 7 tucked in my pocket. Oh, okay. I'm just kidding. Um, but that might be why Samsung's not going silicon carbide. Sure. But it would be nice to have a slightly larger battery if they don't go silicon carbide. Main camera upgrade, slightly larger battery. Keep that S- Pen, bring back the Bluetooth. I mean, the polar ID thing would be cool. Um, I mean, there's really not like a lot of crazy. Oh, one thing I would love is probably never gonna happen is to bring back the IR blaster. I love the IR blaster.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

We'll see IR blaster.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

The IR blaster you used to have on Samsung phones and a lot of other phones, it's the little infrared radio thing at the top uh that lets you change like TVs with your change TVs with your uh phone. So what I used to do is when I was at a doctor's office, you can pair it to any TV. You should have put in the code. So if they have something on I didn't want to watch, just pair it up. And then it was like ESPN. And I was like, hey, we're watching Sports Center now. I was like, you guys had on the telenovela, not feeling that. How about a little sports center? Wouldn't be such a bad idea while I wait here. And they're like, wait, how did that happen? And they turn it back and then I turn it back, and then they turn it back and I turn it back. And they're like, ah, this thing is broken. Yeah, we'll just leave it off. And then you're like, hee hee hee. And then I just turn it back on. It's back on ESPN, and they're like, who is that? They're like, it must be ghosts. Ghosts are scary. I'm a ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost. They're like, the ghosts want to watch ESPN. Yeah, they're baseball fans. Yeah. So then they're just like leave it alone because they didn't want to upset the ghost, and then I can watch my baseball while I wait for my appointment, which was great. But they took it out. I don't even, I guess, race-based reasons, probably. And I think certification reasons, it costs more because it has a radio. Yeah. All the Chinese phones still have it though. So that's why when I do go to the doctor's office, I take my Xiaomi phone or my Oppo phone and I'm changing the channel. Yeah, you are. And they're like, dang, man, these ghosts are back. Yeah. Samsung can't end the they can't end the ghosts. No, they can't. I'll just buy a Chinese phone and do it. You know, diehard 27. Ghosts with a vengeance. And I think that's mostly the show. We did a good job that we prove you unpacked fully. Yeah, we did. Not just what to expect. It's getting hotter, it's getting hotter. Not just what to expect, but what not to expect. Because you don't want to break your heart. Valentine's Day is right around the corner. Yeah, it is. You don't want to be expecting to get a brand new Galaxy Ring 2 or watch Ultra 2, and then you watch the event and it's not there. So I just went ahead and set realistic expectations, me and Tori did today so that you don't get your hopes up. Yeah. Because it can always be disappointing, you know, when you have feelings for a product and then that product doesn't show up. And so, you know, with that though, Tori is going to his thing next week, so we'll probably have the podcast a little bit later when he gets back. Oh, yeah. Um which means I will wish everybody happy Valentine's Day. You know?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:50

Yeah, happy Valentine's because we won't be back with Valentine's Day if you celebrate. Or Valentine's Day, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:56

And no matter what you do, though, on Valentine's Day, just make sure that until we see you again, you just keep expanding your galaxy.