Galaxy S25 Ultra Design Revealed + Google vs Samsung Heats Up

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody.
This is episode number nine ofthe Sammy Guru podcast.
My name is Jeff Springer.
With me is my co-host, torrey.
Torrey say hi, hey, how's itgoing?
And yeah, it's been aninteresting week.
It was Pixel launch week, andto say that there was some drama
surrounding Google's launch ofthe Pixel devices would be an
understatement.

(00:20):
We're going to get into thattoday, because here in the US, I
mean, the Pixel is really themain competition left for
Samsung, so I think it'sappropriate to spend some time
talking a little bit about it.
So we'll chat about that, butbefore we do, tori, how was the
week?
How was the teaching?
Are you exhausted yet?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
You know, we just got to like the main content.
We went over rigidtransformations and today we
talked about parallel andperpendicular lines.
So far I'm enjoying it.
The kids are soaking it up, I'mhaving a joy teaching, but in

(00:59):
waves I'm a little tired.
But overall, like I'm reallyenjoying the year, I'm in a
pretty good state.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
That's good news, I mean at least at the high school
you get to ease into thecontent a little more At the
university.
It's like the very first dayit's like it's time for us to
learn mathematics.
You know you take the role makesure people are there, tell
them about the syllabus.
That all takes 15 minutes Atthe high school.
You've got like a few dayswhere you can do that kind of
stuff Like here's the syllabus,here's the expectations, get

(01:26):
used to it et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Sometimes they want us to like wait like three weeks
before we like get into contentto ease the kids in.
I'm like what, no?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Three weeks is like.
I mean, it's not elementaryschool, I mean.
Jonathan's in like pre-kindergand they still got into content
this week.
I mean, they only took one weekto get into it.
So I mean, if they can get intocontent on the second week in
pre-kindergarten, I think thehigh schoolers can handle it.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh yeah, no for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Handle some content after one week Seems pretty fair
to me.
Yeah, overall my week is prettygood.
The Pixel stuff which we'll getto.
I've been making someimprovements around the office,
got a new label printer for themystery boxes.
S25 Ultra mystery box programis open now kind of in full
swing.
A lot of people already signedup.
We already got 250 peoplesigned up for those boxes.

(02:15):
We're still five months away,so hopefully a record-breaking
year for that.
We'll talk more about S25 Ultralater.
But if you want to go sign upfor mystery box free accessories
if you pre-order the phone,that'll be in January 2025, so
you've got a lot of time.
But why not do it now?
So you don't forget about it.
I bought these cool things here.
We got the new colored.

(02:36):
We just need a little color inthe frame.
We're going to improve thebackdrop a lot too.
I've got a lot of things in theworks.
I'm working on sourcing a signwith the Sammy Guru logo here
for the background and we mightrotate things a little bit
around, because right now wehave this black backdrop.
We might turn the table orsomething at some point and see
what looks the best.
But these add some new color.

(02:57):
You know red and blue.
It's a little bit better thanjust the white wall and the
black wall that we have behindus right now.
I think that's nice.
Yeah, just lots of improvementsto the office here working,
getting used to the schedule ofJonathan being in school,
because I now wake up about anhour and 20 minutes before I
used to, so I can take him toschool with my wife because he

(03:18):
wants me to go every morning.
Eventually he won't care, butright now I used to wake up
around like 8 o'clock and thencome to the office.
Now I wake up at 6.40.
I usually don't go to sleepuntil 2 o'clock because I work
on website stuff and YouTubestuff well into the night
Because our writer now on thewebsite, our full-time writer
he's in India, so he's working.
That's like the middle of hisworkday.

(03:40):
He has questions and stuff forme, so I'm not getting a lot of
sleep, but I think it's worth it.
Anything else going on with you.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Tori no, I mean heck, we're about to go see Aliens
tonight.
Movie news.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, that's right, me and Tori, you guys have
gotten used to that, we aremovie fans Tori has gotten me
back into the cinema because Ihad not been going since I had
kids, and now for the last fourweeks weeks I've been to the
movies.
We're going to see the newAlien Romulus movie tonight, so
that should be pretty fun.
And then in a couple weekswe're going to see a little
stand-up comedy, dusty Slay,over the Orpheum Theater, so

(04:12):
that should be a lot of fun.
Get a little bit of a breakafter a long work week which is
always nice.
Otherwise it's still super hothere in Phoenix.
So we're just, we're justwaiting till like october so we
can go back outside do outdooractivities.
No one's no one's doing a lotof outdoor stuff here, unless
you want to like pass out fromheat exhaustion yeah, just watch
the news.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
That's why you guys here is talking like you're, not
like we're.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
We're not talking about like going camping or
hiking.
You know people just don't dothat in phoenix during these
months, like the fall is thetime to do camping and hiking in
Arizona or the like, earlyspring or really the winter.
It's not even that cold hereyou can go hiking.
Outside you can go hikingoutside in December, it'd be
perfect.
So yeah, we'll talk more aboutlike doing that kind of stuff,
maybe when it gets closer,because I'm not going outdoors

(04:56):
until like October 1st, we'lljust go from one air conditioned
place to the next We'll stayinside the office in the house
and story air-conditioned place.
To the next We'll stay insidethe office in the house and
Story will stay inside theschool for work until you know.
My son's not even going outsidefor recess right now because
it's so hot.
They don't let the little kidsplay outside.
So let's get into the news forthe week.
Let me scroll back here.

(05:18):
As usual, busy news week forSamsung Tried to go through
everything that was covered, butof course I'll probably miss a
few things here.
Last week, right after thepodcast, there was a couple of
interesting hardware leaks.
The Galaxy S24 FE leak revealedsome specs and official renders

(05:39):
.
If you guys are waiting forthat phone, it's basically a
watered-down Galaxy S24, but itusually has better battery life
because it doesn't have as highresolution of a screen.
This one is going to have 120Hz refresh rate, 6.7-inch
display, 1900 nits peakbrightness, hdr10 Plus
certification and it's upgradedto Gorilla Glass Victus screen

(06:03):
protection on the front and theback.
Frame is still made of aluminum, which we kind of expect, not
titanium like on the full S24lineup and the chipset is not
the regular Exynos 2400.
It'll be the Exynos 2400E, whichis a slightly lower clocked CPU
.
This chipset here has theCortex X4 Prime Core and this

(06:25):
means that in this particularcase you should get nice power
efficiency so you might getbetter battery life out of this,
and of course it'll be cheaper.
The camera is not going to bequite as good as the S24.
Display won't be quite as good,but if you care about battery
life and you know, one UI isstill going to run like a champ
on this and it could be greatSome markets, including the US,

(06:48):
could get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4in the US for the S24 FE.
I don't think this will happen,so me putting it in the article
, that would be kind of weirdbecause the S25 is going to get
that.
So why would you put that chip?
in the lower version last year'slower version before you
released the new flagship Evenfor Samsung and some of the
weird things that they've donelately.

(07:08):
That would be quite strange.
I guess it could happen.
I mean I wouldn't put it pastthem.
I wouldn't put it past any ofthese companies to do weird
things because we've seen them,but I would find it very strange
if that happens.
So if you're looking for theS24 FE a lot of cool colors that
it looks like it's going tocome in there's some
pastel-looking colors that it'sgoing to launch in.

(07:29):
It's like a light blue, lightgreen, like a yellow, a silver
and then a black, which you geta black and silver.
But the pastel, the yellow, thegreen and the blue look like
Easter colors.
So if that's your jam, thecolors so if that's your jam,
the blue looks kind of cool.
I tend to like more vibrantcolors.
I wish Samsung and other OEMswould come out with a true red

(07:50):
phone.
Obviously I like red because Igot this red cover here.
I just ordered the Sony Xperia,their new flagship, and it has
red.
It's completely red.
I'll show that off next week.
It just came to my house todayso I haven't picked it up.
I wish Samsung would make atrue red, the one that they
released, the burgundy, yeah,yeah, yeah, the burgundy, or the

(08:12):
bronze or whatever they calledit.
True red would be nice.
I think there's not very manyphones out there like that these
days, and also like a true richemerald green color.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Samsung had that on the Galaxy.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
S6.
The Galaxy S6 and Emerald Greenwas one of my favorite looking
phones of all time, so I'dreally like to see them do that.
The Galaxy Tab S10 Plus getsgreenlit for launch.
So there are some leakssuggesting a long time ago maybe
like a month ago that the S10Plus might not actually be a

(08:43):
real device, and it appears thatthat's false.
Like they were not going torelease it, they were just going
to do the S10, the S10 Plusmight not actually be a real
device and it appears thatthat's false.
Like they were not going torelease it, they were just going
to do the S10 and the S10 Ultra.
So it got certified in Korea.
So it seems like the launchcycle will be Galaxy S10, s10
Plus and S10 Ultra, andSamsung's flagship tablet launch
is now going to change a littlebit for the cycle because the

(09:04):
S10 will arrive in October thisyear.
Supposedly they're going tohave an event in October where
they might release the tabletsand we talked about the Galaxy
XR, the headset, last week.
That might come in October.
Samsung doesn't usually hold afall launch anymore.
Usually it's January and July,so it would be a change to hold

(09:25):
something in the middle of thefall.
That's typically like Apple'sterritory.
They do fall stuff, so it'd beinteresting.
Usually they would launch thetablet with the next phone, to
the S25.
But maybe if they havesomething to talk about with the
headset, they might just say,okay, let's bring the tablets
out as well.
Now we don't expect there to beany real big design changes or

(09:45):
other amazing feature changeswhen it comes to the Galaxy S10
lineup.
We pretty much can expect thatthe S10 is going to bring pretty
similar specs to what's on theS9 in terms of display features.
Of course it's going to get newsoftware features with Galaxy
AI, but it's not going to getsome revolutionary design change

(10:05):
and such.
I know you don't really use atablet too much.
Dory, but some people like tohave a tablet.
I'd really like to see Samsungtry to change the dynamic within
Android and make more tabletsoptimized with specific apps,
because that's what gives theiPads quite a big advantage,

(10:25):
where Samsung doesn't have thatbecause Android apps are just
not optimized.
Maybe, if that happened, maybeit would get you a little more
excited about tablets.
But hey when we do get thetablet units in, maybe we'll let
Corey try one of them, one ofthe sizes.
I'll probably review the Ultraand then maybe he can review one
of the smaller ones.
I don't know if I'll get allthree, because it probably won't
be worth it, but maybe thesmallest one and then the

(10:47):
largest one we'll see.
Maybe you can find a use for itin your the s pen could be
useful for doing some math notesand stuff.
You could give it a try um,samsung recalls 1.1 million
electric stoves over firehazards.
When I saw this, this gave meback like some flashbacks to
like the Galaxy Note 7.
I'm like, uh-oh, samsung stuffis heating up again.

(11:07):
That's not good news.
So apparently the stoves wererecalled due to a fire safety
hazard with some unintentionalactivation of the front-mounted
knobs so they could activatewithout you actually intending
to do it, like just like in aghost activation, like uh-oh,
looks like your oven's on, sorry, yeah, and then your house just
burns down.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
you're like I never touched that knob crisp yeah, so
that's not.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I mean, it's not funny really, because it that it
didn't happen, uh, to anyonewhere, like I guess, anyone was
actually killed from this?
There were 40 injuries ofpeople and seven pets have died
from this.
So far total of 250 250 fires,according to the recall.
So if you have a Samsung stoveelectric stove check that out.
I mean, this was not mobilenews.

(11:53):
Obviously, this is not a phone,a tablet, a watch or anything,
but it's so important becauseobviously I don't want people to
get hurt if they have a Samsungstove.
And since we cover Samsung, Ifigured I told Samit to go ahead
and cover this because peoplemight, they might like to know
about this.
You know, it's pretty important.
I feel like it's worth talkingabout.
So that is something to takenote of if you have one of those

(12:15):
stoves.
The particular model numbersare in the link, so I'll put
them in the show notes if youwant to check if your phone if
your stove, if you're stilltalking about phones, this is a
mobile channel site, but if youhave a stove, that is included
in the recall.
Yeah, uh, galaxy ring worksflawlessly with any Android
phone, so we weren't sure aboutthis.

(12:36):
Of course, I have the galaxyring still here, still been
using it, still haven't gottenthe bigger size cause they're
backwards, so for now it's stillon my less than ideal wedding
band finger, but still trackingmy sleep for the most part
pretty well.
But we discovered Samsung and afew other online kind of users
who've been using it sincelaunch mentioned that you can

(12:58):
use this with any other Androidphone and still not lose out on
most of the useful features.
So you can use it with a Pixel,you can use it with a Pixel,
you can use it with a Motorola.
Someone used it with a RazerPlus versus the Z Fold 6.
And you can use pretty much allof these various features.
Now the one thing that I willsay is I've heard from people
that you cannot use the gestures, or at least they don't work.

(13:21):
I don't think you can use thegestures when it comes to the
other phones, like Motorola andPixel.
Sumit didn't touch on this onhere, so I will actually
investigate that.
I meant to do that this weekand write it up.
If anyone else has used thegestures on the Galaxy Ring with
a non-Samsung phone, let meknow, but I don't think the
pinch gestures to take a selfiework.

(13:41):
The AI features for the healthand then sleep tracking, of
course, all that stuff worksgreat because you can just
install the galaxy wearable app.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
But I think those gestures are specifically synced
, like with Samsung's hardware.
Certainly they won't work aswell if they did work, but I
should try this out because hedidn't mention this inside of
his article and that's somethingthat I should have kind of
investigated because to me itdoes not have the Galaxy Ring
and I do.
So I'll certainly look at thatand report back next week If
anyone listens to the show.

(14:10):
If you've used the Ring withanother phone non-Samsung, let
us know what you think.
A couple of important updatesSamsung Messages got a stability
boost with the latest update.
If you're still using SamsungMessages, as we talked about,
google Messages has now replacedit as the default.
However Superior, it is now thedefault.
But if you like SamsungMessages, there's updates.

(14:31):
Samsung is still developing it.
So a lot of people keep talkingabout, as we mentioned in a
previous podcast, samsungMessages is dead.
That's just not true.
Samsung Messages doesn't haveall the stuff that Google
Messages has in terms of RCSintegration and stability with
RCS and compatibility withvarious carriers.
But it's not dead.
They're still pushing updatesto it.
So it's not like you're notgoing to get security updates,

(14:54):
stability updates, and that'swhat this update is.
So I'll put that link below ifanyone wants to check for the
update.
The Galaxy Note 20 got theAugust security batch, so I
don't even know how many yearsold that is now, is that?

Speaker 2 (15:08):
four years old, I believe.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Four years old Galaxy Note 20.
Samsung continues to beprobably the best when it comes
to Android and keeping securitypatches up to date on their
Android phones.
Although I should say, let meactually go back here and look,
I'm pretty sure on the Galaxy ZFold 6, they really need to up
their game, because on the ZFold 6, the patch, the play

(15:32):
system update, is April and thesecurity patch is still June.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
So hey Samsung.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
I'm saying nice things about you guys, but this
is your brand new, mostexpensive flagship.
It still has the April PlaySystem update and it still has
the June security patch, so youguys should get on that.
But that's great that youupdated the Galaxy Note 20.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's four years old.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
How about updating your foldable that just came out
last month so I can get thelatest security patch?
I've actually been wonderingwhen that was going to happen.
Maybe they're going to waituntil the first One UI 6.1.1
update rolls out.
Maybe they have some featurefixes, maybe some new features
could be added, but they reallyshould just push that now,
because that's a long time.
It's quite behind for a newphone.
Samsung we have a couple ofstories here about the S25.

(16:21):
The first one that Sumit wroteis that Samsung is thinking
about rethinking their focus onGalaxy AI, which I know maybe
you'll be happy to hear, tori,because you've talked about how
you're getting a little fatiguedwith the whole AI craze.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
It's in every commercial.
Yeah, and as we talk about thePixel launch later.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
I don't know if you briefly kind of saw some Google
mentioned AI.
They said like a thousand timestheir whole theme of the event
was AI and Gemini, which istheir AI, and that's actually
going to be our app of the weektoday because it got a big
update even on Samsung phones.
So usually Samsung and Googleare partners.
So when Google pushes a bigupdate for the Pixels, they'll

(17:03):
also give it to Samsung, becauseof course, google knows that if
Samsung stops using Android,there is no Android, pixel and
Motorola and these othercompanies in the US that sell
phones.
They're like less than 2% oftotal phones sold.
So if Samsung were gone,android in the US would pretty
much cease to exist.
Everyone would just go buy aniPhone for the most part.
So we'll talk about that alittle bit later in the show.

(17:24):
But it seems like Samsung isnow deciding that they need to
do a little more innovation whenit comes to the Galaxy S25 and
the foldable lineup next year,because they feel like people
are getting a little fatiguedwith AI and a lot of other
companies are also catching up,because when they launched their
AI suite you know they werefirst Google really hadn't done

(17:44):
much with on-device AI for thePixel.
The iPhone hadn't had their AIApple Intelligence, which Apple
is rolling out next month withthe new iPhones That'll be
coming out in three weeks andnow they're kind of losing that
edge.
So pre-orders were down, I guess, year over year, 10% from last
year in terms of the fold lineup, which I kind of expected that

(18:07):
would be the case.
This is total pre-orders.
When the numbers came out inKorea I believe I think someone
from Sam Mobile they told me onTwitter oh look, the sales are
up in Korea like some percentage.
And I was like, yeah, that'sKorea, that's just one market.
I know it's and guess what?
That's just one market.
I know it's, and guess what?
it's their home market soeverybody in korea loves samsung

(18:28):
they love samsung even morethan we love samsung, and this
show is sammy and we're thegurus.
This is sammy guru and I lovesamsung, but korea, they love
samsung.
Samsung is like ingrained inthe fabric of korean dna, like
they're one of the most powerfulcompanies in the country.
They employ tons of people, infact you.
You might even go as so far asto say the korean economy

(18:50):
depends on samsung.
If samsung weren't there, thekorean economy would would not
be in great shape.
So you know, they are samsungenthusiasts, so of course the
sales were up.
Right, people are alwaysrushing out.
It's just like apple is in theus.
In months, you're going to seethese people camping out at the
Apple store.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
You're going to be like why are they?

Speaker 1 (19:08):
camping out for a different phone.
That's the same phone in adifferent color.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
They already have that phone.
It's just a different shade ofthe same color, just a different
color and in fact, Applereleased the new color.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
We'll talk about it a little bit at the end of the
show, I guess, because it's nota huge story and I don't really
care that much but they releasedthe new color or it leaked
today what the color is going tobe and it's not a good color.
But anyway, the overall salesit's been announced now are 10%
down year on year from 2023.
And so you know, this makespretty bad overall look for

(19:45):
Samsung that those sales aredown and so they need to do
something to kind of inject someinnovation.
And so they're going to try todo that with hardware.
We hope that they do it withcamera hardware, in addition to
some minor design changes.
That's what people want, man.
Yeah people want some trueinnovation and, I'm hoping,
maybe also some S Pen featuresthat we could see.

(20:06):
And that brings me to the nextthing that we got this week,
which is actually the biggeststory.
Ice Universe, our good buddy,finally provided us our first
official look at the Galaxy S25Ultra.
And this is it right here.
You saw it.
If you've been on Twitter, youhaven't been living under a rock
, you've probably seen it.

(20:26):
We posted a story about it.
I wrote the story because itwas breaking news and Sumit was,
you know.
I think he was off that daybecause it was Independence Day
in India actually this week.
So I gave him the day off, Iwrote this up and basically, if
you look at the design, itdoesn't look drastically
different from an S24 Ultra.
It's much more rounded, thoughin the corners.

(20:49):
It's like a hybrid of the Noteand the previous S lineup.
So basically it looks likeSamsung was like we don't want
to make the Note people madbecause they like the current
design, but we also want to givesome roundedness to the people
who used to like the old Sdesign.
So how can we make them bothhappy?
We'll keep it looking mostlyrectangular, but just slightly

(21:10):
round off the corners.
It's definitely not as round aslike an iPhone Pro, Not even
close.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
No, and it's still very much a Samsung yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
And it's still not nearly as round as even the
Galaxy S20 Ultra.
And the other good thing thatIce Universe put in his
official-looking render is the SPen.
So we can be sure a lot ofpeople are concerned.
They're like, could the S Pengo away on the Ultra?
And the answer is no, that'snot going to be.
We're going to have the S Pen.
So we kind of speculated thatalready, because why would
Samsung get rid of the S Pen onthe Ultra?

(21:42):
It's one of the mostdistinguishing features they
have.
Oh for sure, in terms of noother company has the S Pen, a
built-in S Pen, that's likeidentified.
That's brand identity.
They really would have noreason.
I would be shocked.
The only way I would see thatis if they broke the Note line
off separately again, which Idon't see right now, but they're
not going to get rid of the SPen somewhere in their lineup.

(22:05):
The other thing you can seefrom this that I think a lot of
people are excited about is wedo have super thin bezels that
are symmetrical.
So I know Tori maybe not youknow a lot of mobile fans obsess
over weird things.
If we look at a closer shot ofthis here on the site, you can

(22:27):
see the bezels are a lot thinnerthan they are in the S24 Ultra
and if you kind of look at it,the interesting thing about it
is that this phone, now thebezels are not different sizes
like the top and the bottom.
On past Samsung phones theyhave been different sizes at the
top and the bottom.
On past Samsung phones theyhave been, you know, different
sizes at the top and the bottom,and so this phone that's not

(22:49):
the case, which is one thingthat I think is, you know, going
to be very appealing.
You can actually see, here Iposted the image that compares
the two.
You can see how much thinnerthe bezels are and you guys,
I'll insert the image.
You should be looking at it nowwhen I do the edit.
So that's the great thing aboutvideo.
You can see it's much thinnerand then they're much more

(23:10):
symmetric.
So this should also make it alot more usable in the hand,
because that's going to reducethe overall width from the
screen to screen.
So this actually should be apretty nice usability
improvement.
The one thing that we don'treally see from this render is
he didn't show us the back of it, so we don't know what the new
camera module looks like.
We have no idea on the cameramodule.

(23:30):
It could be slightly redesigned.
Most people hinted it's notreally going to be a major
redesign for the camera module.
Yeah, I don't believe itBasically just going to have
those kind of same camera ringswe've seen since the S22 Ultra.
They just might be a littleslimmed down or they might have
some different contours to them.
Overall, I'm pretty happy withthis as long as the internal
upgrades are there, like if thecamera is improved supposedly.

(23:54):
I made a video this weektalking about everything we know
about the S25 Ultra.
The 3x zoom and the ultra-wideare going to get better, which
is good because they needlow-light improvements, and also
they are going to get better,which is good because they need
low-light improvements, and alsothey're going to make some
improvements to the processor.
They're going to get theSnapdragon 8 Gen 4.
I would really like to see somenew S Pen software features.
I know we're going to see newGalaxy Eye features.

(24:15):
I'm sure, even if they don'tfocus on that, that's still
going to be part of One UI 7.1.
But overall it looks prettyinteresting.
It's certainly still not themassive redesign maybe that some
people want, I know, but it is,you know, somewhat different
than last year and it'scertainly more different than
the iPhone 15 Pro Max versusiPhone 16 Pro Max.

(24:38):
At least they're trying to makesome improvements and if you
look at the comparison of theS25 UltraWinder versus the
iphone 16 pro max ice universeposted this as well it it is
obvious that samsung looks likethey're now going to be the
thinnest bezels in the flagshipgame.
Iphone has had that title for awhile.
But the other thing is samsungdoesn't have that terrible

(25:02):
looking dynamic island, massivecutout.
We've got that tiny littlecamera punch hole, which, which
I don't know Do you think thatlooks better?
Do?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
you think it looks better?
I think it looks better.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think it looks better and we're also still
expected to get.
We're basically going to getthe same functionality that
Apple has with the DynamicIsland, because we're going to
get new live activities in OneUI 7.0.
You can kind of flick up a gamescore if you're tracking a
football game, baseball game.
You're still going to get thatsame functionality with a
cleaner looking design.
I think overall it looks prettynice.

(25:31):
I'm pretty excited about it.
I think, that there's a lot ofopportunities for this to be a
big launch.
There's a lot of people who sayin the Samsung community you
should always buy an odd GalaxyS.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I saw that, the even one.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I saw that the other day, yeah the even ones tend to
have some issues.
Tori has a 22.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
This thing is rocking pretty solid.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Tori said it's still good.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
It's still good.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, I don't really know that this is like massively
true.
It's usually some nitpickingstuff.
The S24 Ultra does have thisissue with grainy display
because of the anti-reflectivecoating.
So I think Samsung will.
That was the first year theydid the anti-reflective coating
was the S24 Ultra.
I think Samsung will fix thatobviously next year.
So it probably is true that thelittle nitpicking issues get

(26:17):
ironed out year over yearbecause they iterate, but you
know I'm pretty excited about it.
I was thinking this week Iactually posted over on X as
well that.
But I'm pretty excited about it.
I was thinking this week Iactually posted over on X as
well that I'm thinking aboutdoing a meetup here in Phoenix
for Samsung fans the weekendbefore the S25 Ultra event.
So if you guys are in Arizonaand you would come, let us know

(26:41):
A lot of people over on Xalready chimed in.
Seems like a lot of people areinterested.
I don't know where we wouldhold it.
We're not going to hold it inthe Sammy Guru office.
It's too small.
I'd have to rent like some kindof space somewhere.
Yeah, like some kind of banquetspace like a hotel or something.
But I think it'd be fun.
We'd have some swag, we wouldhave some tutorials, we would

(27:01):
have some accessories, somevarious things that we would
talk about and do during theevent.
So it could be very interesting.
I apologize for the doorslamming people in the office
next to us.
Apparently, they must be livingfor the day.
So, unfortunately, you know, Istill have other people around
us in different offices where werecord the podcast.

(27:23):
I try to edit it out, but withthe door slamming it's always
hard.
People are probably like who'sslamming those doors?
But yeah it's hard to edit outdoor slamming exactly.
I'm trying to get better at it.
A couple of other key thingsbesides that.
Samit wrote up a tutorial onhow to disable the Gemini button
on your Galaxy phone.
You can now do that insideGoogle Messages, which is good,

(27:46):
because that's the defaultBefore.
Google was forcing you to havethe Gemini button in your face,
and Gemini is good.
We'll talk about it later inthe show, but you might not want
it there Maybe you don't wantto be forced to have it Same
with Bixby, I feel like I make awrong turn and boom Bixby.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
They really force it on you.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
He also wrote up another great tutorial on how to
enable on-device processing forGalaxy AI.
So if you are concerned aboutprivacy, you may want to enable
on-device processing whichdoesn't send your data to
Samsung's cloud to do the AIcommands, which is something
that people who are worriedabout privacy they would
probably want Circle to search,which is Google's feature that

(28:22):
they partnered with Samsung on,where you can circle something
on your screen and AI will kindof give you info about it.
That is now going to get a newfeature on Galaxy where you can
identify music.
So if you are basically, ifthere's a song that's playing in
a video, you can just circlethe screen around that and it

(28:42):
will ask you contextually do youwant to find this song in this
video?
That's a pretty cool feature.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
That's probably my favorite thing.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, that's pretty clutch right there Circle to
search on music.
That should be rolling out toPixels and Galaxies maybe in the
next few months.
They talked about this duringthe Pixel event and of course,
like I said, samsung gets a lotof the features that come to the
Pixels as well.
What else do we have?
Oh, so we're going to get tothat later.
The Pixel drama that was theother thing we covered.

(29:12):
Gemini Live arrives on Galaxyphones, so more Google news.
There's a lot of Google-Samsungpartnership news because this
was Google's event week.
Gemini Live arrives on Galaxyphones, which is basically a way
you can have conversationalkind of interaction with Gemini.
Instead of just having to ask aquestion, it replies.
You have to press the buttonagain or you have to say
something again.

(29:32):
You can just do a conversation,just like me and Tori are
talking.
Now I can be like Gemini whatdo you think about writing me a
job posting for a marketingintern?
It can say here's this I can belike I don't like the third
line, can you rewrite that?
And then it'll say this and sayokay, do you have any ideas
where I could post this onlineto get applicants?
And it'll do that.
You can go back and forth kindof conversationally.

(29:54):
Now the unfortunate thing istwo things you need the gemini
advanced plan to use this, whichis google's paid plan for
gemini.
I have it, so I've, I haveaccess to it, but also it's not
rolling out equally to allsamsung phones right now.
It's rolling out, but as usualit's a stage rollout, so you
might not have it.
I don't have it on the fold six.
I have it on the s24 ultra nowI just got it this morning on

(30:17):
there.
So, even though we wrote up thepost because Google says it's
rolling out, whenever you seethat on a blog or a website even
our website we're just tellingyou that Google says it's
rolling out, it's notnecessarily rolling out
everywhere, and so me put thisin the article it's not rolling
out on every single device, andI don't have it on my Fold 6 yet
.
So you may have to wait alittle while, even if you have

(30:38):
the paid plan, because you doneed Gemini Advanced to get the
paid plan.
Now I didn't pay for that planreally myself fully.
I got a Chromebook Plus thatcame with 18 months of free
Gemini Advanced, and if youorder the Pixel device, you're
getting Gemini Advanced for acertain amount of time for free
as well.
The last piece is Sumit puttogether an amazing guide.

(31:00):
We just talked about S25 Ultra.
If you want to know more aboutthat and you missed my video,
you should go watch my videofirst.
But then go check out hisarticle of everything we know
about the S25 Ultra.
This thing is amazing to cover.
It's about 3,000 words and hedid an amazing job.
I mean, just put the specstogether the camera specs, the
battery, every leak that we knowfrequently asked questions.

(31:24):
He's got everything in thisguide.
He will be updating it as weget more information.
This is going to be kind of yourgo-to source.
Bookmark it on the site,bookmark my post about it over
on X and come back anytime youwant an update on kind of like
what's going on with the S25Ultra X and come back anytime
you want an update on kind oflike what's going on with the
S25 Ultra.
You want to check in and see ifyou know.
Maybe this is a phone that youwant to buy.
We have the full guide thereand you can kind of check it out

(31:45):
.
So that's pretty much most ofthe news we covered this week.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Of course, there's always a few stories here and
there that we don't get to gothrough on the podcast, so check
out the website SammyGurucomfor all the stories we covered.
Any favorites this week?
Tori from the news segment here?
No, I really liked well twothings.
Because, in reflection, theSamsung stove just because I was
, like you know, a buddy of ours, he has, like Samsung
appliances, everything like thestove, the microwave, the fridge
and everything.
So I was very interested to seethat pop up.

(32:21):
But no, last night, when I waslooking through some of the
videos, I was really actuallykind of excited to look at the
S25 stuff that was coming out,because I feel like it's kind of
like a perfect blend betweenlike, at least to me, the happy
medium between Samsung andiPhone, at least to me, the
happy medium between Samsung andiPhone, and I am hearing a lot

(32:42):
more of my friends or peopletalk about transferring over to
Samsung.
So I feel like next year willbe a very good year for Samsung
to pull some people over and,just looking at the initial
renderings, I myself may have totrade this bad boy in.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
We're definitely going to have to get Tori S25.
Ultra, we'll help Tori get one,they'll give you good trade-in
value for the S22 Ultra, and soyou know we'll just business
expense.
Whatever the rest of it is, itwon't be a lot.
It'll be like $300 or $400 toprobably get it, because they
will give good credit for theS22 Ultra.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think a lot more people afterthree weeks from now will also

(33:22):
be more looking to jump toSamsung because Apple's about to
hold an event where theyrelease the same phone for like
the fourth year.
It looks exactly the same andnot only that, the upgrades
really aren't that massive.
I mean they're upgrading thecamera sensor again, which you
know.
That's an important thing toupgrade.
But where's the other value?
I mean the software.
They're going to have Appleintelligence, but all the other

(33:43):
OEMs already have that.
Galaxy Eye, in my opinion, isalready ahead of Apple
intelligence.
So if you're an AI fan, it'snot like you gain anything by
staying with Apple there, exceptmaybe chat GPT.
I wish Samsung could get chatGPT integration with Galaxy Eye.
That would be killer because Ithink it is the standard for
productivity-based generative AI.
But I think Galaxy Eye and thefun features, the phone features

(34:07):
, the camera features, evenrewriting email features that's
baked into the OS.
I think Samsung is doing verywell there, so it should be very
interesting Before we get on tothe next couple segments story.
You're using the motorola razorfrom last year because I gave it
to you.
How do you like the flippableform factor?
Tori got the motorola razor2023 for me because I had it as

(34:30):
a sitting my desk and I was likethere's no need for this to sit
here and just like hang out inthe drawer.
So I gave it to him and he'sbeen using that with his s22
Ultra kind of switching back andforth.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
What do you think?

Speaker 1 (34:40):
about the flip-able versus slab form factor.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
You know, it's actually pretty neat because at
least on that one and I know wetalked about it before in terms
of how noticeable the line is,Like you hardly ever notice the
line where it hinges.
But it's a very nice and sleekphone and what I appreciate a
lot about it is that you canactually do a lot of
functionality with, just likewhen it's in clamshell mode yeah

(35:08):
yeah, I mean I was texting, Iwas like siphoning through music
and stuff Like you can do a lotwithout actually having to open
the phone.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, and the Z Flip 6 is the same way too.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, it is.
What do you think of theMotorola software?

Speaker 1 (35:21):
I mean, I know this is a Samsung show, but how do
you think it compares to One UIin general?
You?

Speaker 2 (35:25):
can be honest.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Do you like the Motorola software?
Do you think feature-wise?
I?

Speaker 2 (35:30):
do, but for some reason I still like the
snappiness and the feel and thevibe of the Samsung versus the
Razr.
But I think again it's thatchange and again I've only ever
had like a slab phone, but Ithink it's just having that.

(35:52):
What is it?
The change of being able toflip and that innovativeness
that just draws me more towardsit, because we're definitely in
that age of like innovative andhaving something different, uh,
and so I think that what drivesme in, but I think I prefer the
samsung uh ui over the or theinterface over the motorola

(36:14):
razor you miss the s pen on thes22 ultra.
You know, actually you know Ireally didn't because I don't
know.
I just felt like at leastplease put in the comments if
anyone else also feels this way.
But it actually made me feellike I'm a little bit more like
productive and like on the go,because you can just do so much

(36:35):
from just from the clamshellmode, that like I feel like I'm
just as productive as I am likewhen I'm just using yeah, yeah,
and samsung added some coolstuff to the z flip six, where
you can do a lot more like quickresponses and stuff for text
messages, which should make ittheoretically even better using
like galaxy I on the z flip six.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
So you know, if tori likes the motorola theoretically
they have a good deal.
I could trade it in and get theFlip 6, and then he can talk
about that too a little bit.
It gives us more content andthen Tori gets to play with more
phones, which I'm sure hedoesn't mind.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
So Tori gets to get initiated into having multiple
phones.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
So have you thought about what I said in terms of
making one of them your workphone eventually, versus your
personal?

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, for sure, because I was thinking um
keeping this, uh, the s22, as mywork phone, but, uh, like on
the weekends uh, or just likepersonally, uh, having the razor
as as that phone, um, that'skind of just like my personal
it's because it's a littlesmaller yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a
little smaller, uh, less.
Yeah, yeah, it's a littlesmaller, less compact, and I

(37:39):
don't really wear like my jeansor my work pants that have like
a longer pocket on the weekend,so I definitely want something
that's a little bit smaller,because the wallet and keys I
mostly wear gym shorts on theweekend they take up a lot of
real estate in my pocket.
I don't have like a purse orone of those cool Nike bags.
Yeah, I don't have like a purseor one of those cool Nike bags.
Yeah, I didn't talk about it alot.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
But usually when we go somewhere with the kids
unless I'm taking, like mylittle shoulder bag, if we're
going somewhere where I know Ican't really take a lot of stuff
, or if I'm going to the gym, Itake the regular Galaxy S24,
because I know I don'tnecessarily need the camera and
so it's a lot smaller than theS24 Ultra or the Fold, and if I
don't want that bulk I just takethe regular S24.

(38:19):
That's what I use it for.
So I actually do use theregular Galaxy S usually.
That's why I usually buy oneeven though I don't know that
there's a lot of review value init, but I take it with me to
the gym or I take it somewherewhere I don't want that
bulkiness.
If I need the camera, I have tothink about how much do I care

(38:43):
about having the best picturesversus the less bulk, because
the S24 Ultra camera is a lotbetter than the regular S24.
But when I definitely need asmallish phone, it's nice to
have that, and of course theFlip takes it to the next level.
So then once I get the new Flipevery year, then I'm like oh, I
take the Flip with me as wellnow, because it's even smaller,
I can take that to the gym, andthen it has basically the same
camera as the S24 now.
So the Z Flip 6 has kind ofreplaced that for me too.
Like I usually take that when Ineed a small phone, All right.

(39:05):
So that's the news and a littlebit more about Tori's kind of
phone adventures, which we'llkeep checking in on that and see
if we get the Z Flip 6.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
It'll be a weekly occurrence.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, Tori gets the opportunity to kind of live the
life of having multiple phoneshere being part of Sammy Guru,
which is kind of fun.
It's fun in the beginning Forme, once you have like 30, it's
a lot of diminishing returns.
It becomes not as fun, becausethen it is a job.
I still enjoy it, but it's alsoa chore to set them up and do
all that stuff.
All right, so we're going toget into the next segment.

(39:36):
Before we do, though, let'stake a quick break to hear from
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All right, we're back.
So let's get into the secondthird of the show.

(41:04):
I guess this is where we usuallykind of talk about, like
current events, hardware oranything like that, and this
week we're going to focus on thePixel 9 event, everything that
Google talked about.
We talked about some of thisstuff briefly in the news
segment, but I saved a lot ofthe hardware stuff in
comparisons for this particularsegment.
So Google released four phonesat the event the regular Pixel 9

(41:27):
, the Pixel 9 Pro, the Pixel 9Pro XL, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Now why in the world the Pixel9 Pro Fold was called this, no
one knows, because there's onlybeen one Pixel Fold before.
It's the Pixel Fold 2.
And the funny thing is someoneleaked the box that they had

(41:48):
originally made.
So you know, the warehouses,like in China or wherever, have
the boxes, they get them early.
Google had originally made theboxes and said Pixel Fold 2.
So they obviously decided tochange this at the last minute,
I guess, to make all of themhave nines.
But this is not the the boxesand said pixel fold 2.
So they obviously decided tochange this at the last minute,
I guess, to make all of themhave nines.
But this is not the ninthgeneration fold, it's only the
second, so it doesn't make.
I don't know.
This is just a terrible likewho.
Who comes up with this?

(42:09):
people get paid, yeah people getpaid to make these poor
decisions, like you could pay memoney and I could do it better.
I would just be like well, thenumber that comes after 1 is 2,
so we should just call it thePixel 2 Fold.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
That's easy.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
But, anyway.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
They also released Pixel Watch 3, pixel Buds 2 Pro
and then a bunch of accessoriesfor those various devices.
So the interesting comparisonshere for us are basically the
Galaxy S24 Ultra versus thePixel 9 Pro XL.
That's a very interestingcomparison because of course,

(42:48):
those are the two big slab styleflagships and we wrote up a
full comparison article.
Sumit wrote it up over on thewebsite so you can check that
out.
Actually, I'll pull it up whilewe talk.
Essentially, there's a coupleof key things to know about the
differences between these phones.
First of all, the Galaxy devicehas, in my opinion, a nicer
display, more vibrant.

(43:10):
It's slightly brighter.
Google's phones do use thebasically same panels.
They use panels made by Samsung, but Samsung's a multi-billion
dollar company.
They have multiple divisions.
One of their divisions isSamsung Display and they sell
them to other people.
Apple uses Samsung Displays ontheir iPhone.
That's what a lot of Apple fansdon't understand.
Your iPhone is part Samsung,because Samsung makes the best

(43:34):
displays in the mobile industry.
Everyone buys them, but Samsung, of course, they save the best
ones for their own phonesbecause it's vertically
integrated.
Why would you sell your bestdisplays to yourself if you were
vertically integrated like that?
I will say, in terms of thedisplay, the Google displays
usually look pretty good.
They're the same size, they'reboth 6.8-inch displays, so they

(43:58):
have very similar resolutions.
The Galaxy S24.
So they have very similarresolutions.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is1440x3120.
The Pixel is 1344x2992.
So actually I was wrong.
So I'm reading some neat specshere.
The brightness I'm surprised bythis.
When I make a mistake, I admitit.
I thought when I read this thePixel had a lower brightness.
It actually got 400 nits more,3,000 nits versus 2,600.

(44:21):
So I'll have to do a quickcomparison outdoors in Arizona
when I get it.
Here's the thing I'll tell you,though.
Usually, when you compare aphone to a Samsung phone,
another phone, peak brightnessyou'll notice that while the
rating might be higher, thoseratings are usually like for

(44:45):
just a couple instances.
The samsung phones can usuallysustain a higher brightness for
a higher period of time and also, like that extra brightness
boost they give, it reallydepends on, like, the viewing
angle of the display, because asyou tilt it, the brightness and
the viewing angle kind ofinteract to determine how
visible the screen is outdoors.
Sam Samsung usually does a goodjob of mixing those on their
own phones.
Yeah, they do.
So I don't know, we'll see thenumber being higher doesn't mean

(45:05):
anything, but it is higher, soI'm just kind of going through
it.
The other thing you should keepin mind too is, if you are a
Samsung fan thinking aboutmoving over to the Pixel and I
did put this in this week'snewsletter, a couple of key
things to keep in mind thatyou're going to lose S Pen.
So if you use the S Pen, no SPen on the Pixel.
That's an obvious one.

(45:25):
But another thing that a lot ofpeople don't think about is a
lot of people use themultitasking features built into
One UI, like the pop-up view,the split-screen view, and they
think if they go to anotherAndroid phone, a lot of casual
users who maybe not areenthusiasts.
They don't realize that that'sOne UI stuff, that's not basic
Android stuff.
So if you go to a Pixel, you'renot going to get all those rich
multitasking features.

(45:46):
The Pixel has basic splitscreen, but it doesn't have all
the rich kind of stuff Samsunghas.
It doesn't have pop-up view andall that great stuff.
The multitasking is much worseon Pixel device and almost any
other Android device.
Samsung much worse on a Pixeldevice and almost any other
Android device.
Samsung is the top when itcomes to that.
You're also going to mix out onDeX mode.
So if you use your phone aslike a portable desktop with a
monitor, you can basically plugwe've talked about this before

(46:09):
plug in a keyboard and mouse.
You basically have a PC.
Don't get that on the Pixeleither.
So there's a lot of stuff thatyou're going to lose out on if
you move over to the Pixel XL,the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Now, performance-wise theyshould be pretty close.
Google does use their Tensorprocessor, though, so in terms
of gaming performance, typicallythey've not been on the same

(46:31):
level as what Samsung has withthe Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
So you might notice that youmight have more heating on the
Pixel with gaming kind of thesame games, that you might have
more heating on the Pixel withgaming kind of the same games
that you're playing on yourGalaxy.
That's worth keeping in mind.
What do you gain?
So I'm telling you all thesethings that are great about
Samsung.
Of course, this is a Sammy Thrupodcast, but I'm a fair
reviewer as well.

(46:52):
What do you gain by going tothe Pixel 9 Pro XL.
First of all, it has 16 gigs ofRAM, which?
First of all, it has 16 gigs ofRAM, which the Galaxy S25 Ultra
doesn't.
But we already know.
If that's something thatappeals to you, I don't know why
it would really appeal becauseit's not going to make much of a
difference in day-to-day.
We talked about this last week.
Day-to-day use is not going tobe a huge, like noticeable deal.
But if you care about thatnumber, the S25 Ultra is pretty

(47:17):
much confirmed now to have 16gigs of RAM.
Ice Universe pretty muchconfirmed that.
But here's another thing toothat a lot of people don't know.
I dug into this a little bit,talked to some people who
already have one.
I don't have a Pixel 9 Pro XLyet.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
We'll talk about why in just a?

Speaker 1 (47:27):
second, there's a good reason for that, but you
can't use all this RAM.
You can't.
It's actually reserved forGoogle's on-device AI processing
.
So they put 16 gigs of RAM onthe label, but it's really only
about 12 gigs of usable RAM.
So it's the fine print.
So if you read the fine printin their release about the

(47:50):
phones and some people who havethis phone that I know confirm
this for me, a couple of otherjournalists that I know it's
reserved like about 4 gigs isreserved for this on-device
Gemini processing.
So you've only got 12 gigs ofusable, so you don't really gain
anything.
Not to be like it's a pro, butwait, no, it's a con, but that
is kind of how it is.
It's kind of like a fake pro.

(48:10):
At the end of the day, what youdo get is the camera.
In my opinion and I know maybesome of our Samsung fans out
there may be disappointed by mesaying this the Pixel has been
ahead of the Galaxy camera thelast couple of years.
So because the Galaxy.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
That's like their selling point, right?
Yeah, because the Galaxy.
That's why it's called Pixel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because ofthe name, because of all the
pixels in a photo.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
But I mean, here's the thing Samsung is rumored to
make some big improvements withthe S25 Ultra.
I think when they push the nextbig update to the S24 Ultra,
they're going to iron out a lotof these camera issues.
That's why it's been delayed solong.
It's absolutely unacceptablethat it's taken six months to
fix issues on a $1,300 phonebecause the S24 Ultra launched

(48:54):
with a lot of zoom issues andlow light issues, so I don't
give Samsung a pass on that.
And the Pixel takes amazingphotos.
I will have one for review thatI bought my own money coming
next week and I'll do a fullcomparison of the cameras.
But you definitely gain anamazing camera.
That's potentially I don't haveit in hand yet, so I'm not

(49:14):
going to say for surepotentially better than the S24
Ultra.
For sure, potentially betterthan the S24 Ultra.
Now, in terms of software,though, back in the day people
used to always say oh well, ifyou get a Pixel, you get
smoother software, et cetera, etcetera.
I'm going to say that's nottrue anymore.
I know some of the people onTwitter will disagree and

(49:37):
they'll be like oh yeah, theanimations.
If you do the animations,you'll see they're a lot
smoother on Pixel than Samsung.
I just in day-to-day news,we've talked about this.
I don't notice, and this pastweek another person posted one
of those videos where they'relike just going through the apps
.
I don't get it, man.
I know people are like if youcan do this, then your
day-to-day performance will begreat.
But will it?

(49:57):
I mean, there's a lot of stuffthat goes into day-to-day
performance that has nothing todo with just flipping through a
bunch of random apps.
You're jumping in and out ofdifferent kinds of apps.
You're leaving your phonesitting for a while.
There's a lot of things that gointo it that aren't just like
can I flip through 30 appsquickly and it doesn't stutter?

(50:17):
And I don't notice that as aproblem and no one I've ever
talked to outside of tech hassaid you know, the reason that I
use an iPhone over Samsung isjust because the animations are
just so smooth.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
No one ever says that I've never had any iPhone user
be like I love the smoothanimations.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Maybe they do, but they don't notice it and
certainly no one who uses aSamsung phone casually as a
non-enthusiast has ever saidthat.
So I don't think they have anadvantage on software anymore.
And One UI has so much morecustomization with GoodLock,
with multitasking, with the SPen, even Galaxy AI.

(50:52):
We'll talk about Gemini a littlebit more in a minute, I think
has some features that arecompelling that are not there.
With Gemini, like sketchedimage, that's a fun feature,
even though it's not aproductivity feature.
I like that.
I've been using it for some ofmy content, for making
thumbnails and stuff.
If you could draw, it's evenbetter.
I can't draw, I'm a terribleartist.
But if you could draw, it'seven better because it does a

(51:17):
better job of figuring out whatyou're trying to draw and make
it into an image.
But even for me, who is aterrible, awful drawer, it does
a pretty decent job ofinterpreting and it's usable.
You can use it for a YouTubethumbnail and I like that
feature.
I think Google definitely hassoftware that their fans like,
but I think One UI is ahead Forme.
Personally, I would preferusing One UI over the Pixel
experience.
Right now, the price Google didsomething really stupid.

(51:42):
They released a 128 gigabytebase model.
Everyone needs more storagethan that.
People are like I don't, butyou really do, because your
phone comes with only 30gigabytes already used by the
system, so you've only got 98left or whatever.
And then if you take any kindof videos if you take 4K videos
a short 4K clip is like 3gigabytes.
So if you take any kind ofvideos, if you take 4K videos a
short 4K clip is like 3gigabytes.
So if you want to store somevideos on your phone I mean, I

(52:05):
know people are like, well, Icould upload it to the cloud
Then you've got to pay moneyevery month for cloud storage,
which is what Google wants,because guess who sold you some
cloud storage?
Google.
They're like hey.
I get the emails they're likehey, you ran out of storage on
your 128-gigabyte Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Would you like to pay $19.99 amonth for the 2-terabyte Google
One storage plan?

(52:25):
And then you'll be like, yeah,and then you'll just give them
an extra $240 because you'll beout of storage.
I think that's unacceptable.
But the phone does start herefor the Pixel 9 Pro XL at $1099.
But that is basically 128 gigsof storage, so it's not really
comparable.
So Meet wrote in the article$1299 for the S24 Ultra, but

(52:48):
that starts at $256.
So basically, if you comparethe two equal models, it's only
a $100 difference.
The Pixel's $100 cheaper forthe same storage.
That's not a big savings.
Basically, samsung discountsand stuff like the education
employee discounts you couldfind a discount and save that.
So you're not really getting abig edge there.

(53:08):
So those are my thoughts.
I mean we'll link the articlethere Pixel 9 Pro XL versus the
Galaxy S24 Ultra.
And then, of course, the S25Ultra is only five months away.
So you've got to think like, ifI'm a Samsung fan, do I really
want to go drop $1,100 on thePixel?
Just wait five months, becausethen I'm going to upgrade to the
next one, the other phone.

(53:30):
Oh, one other thing I wanted togive Google credit for, since I
did criticize them a little bitthere.
They did release a smallerversion of the XL called the
Pixel 9 Pro, which basically hasthe same features and a smaller
screen, and that's somethingSamsung should definitely do.
It's something Apple does.
Having a flagship that's thesame as your biggest one but is

(53:51):
smaller is a good thing, becausenot everybody wants a massive
phone.
I think that's a positive thing.
I obviously understand that forthe Ultra phones, for Samsung,
we probably can't get a smallerversion because the S Pen won't
fit in the small version butthey could make a compatible Pro
phone that's smaller, that haseverything the Ultra has, except

(54:12):
the S Pen.
And I think that's a possibility.
I've heard some people say thatSamsung could consider doing
that.
I've had a couple of people onTwitter who do Samsung hardware
leaks.
I think that'd be a really goodthing to do.
Now, the other comparison isthe Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which,
again, whatever it's the Pixel,I'm going to call it the Pixel

(54:32):
Fold 2, because that's what itis.
That, versus the Z Fold 6, isan interesting comparison.
Now, this one is a little moreinteresting for Google because
it has two things that I reallylike that I don't like about the
Z Fold 6.
You guys know Z Fold 6, twothings I don't like the narrow
cover display and the camerasare still ancient and they're

(54:57):
not as good as any otherflagship.
Google, one has a wider coverdisplay cameras are basically on
the same level as theirflagship slap phone.
So they did two things that arereally good but counterpoint to
that.
If you look at the front of thePixel 9 Pro Fold or Pixel Fold

(55:19):
2, as I call it, you'll noticethat the hinge on the front
protrudes really big out to theside.
It's very large and it lookskind of bad in my opinion.
So the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, pixelFold 2, definitely doesn't have
an aesthetic advantage.
Some people are saying it looksgreat.
I think that doesn't look sogreat when it's folded.

(55:40):
The usable screen real estateis great, but Samsung still has
the aesthetic look Plus, keep inmind when you open the phone.
I talked about this last week.
The Pixel is going to be moresquare, so vertical stuff like
Twitter, instagram, verticalscrolling, is not going to look
as good.
It's definitely better thanlast year because they made it a
little less square.
So I'll compare it because,again, I bought one.

(56:02):
This doesn't actually come outuntil early September, so I'll
have it and I'll do comparisons,but I do think there's some
compelling reasons here toconsider the Pixel 9 Pro Fold
over the Z Fold 6.
Do I think you should go out andbuy one over the Z Fold 6?
I don't know, because againthere's some things that you're
missing.
What are the things that youmiss?

(56:25):
S pin again, no s pin.
The multitasking software againand this is even bigger deal on
a foldable is terrible.
On pixel experience softwaresamsung's multitasking on the
fold is the best in the world.
There's no other phone companythat does it as well.
And when you have a foldable,that really matters, because
when I have my, have my Foldopen, I use the multitasking a
lot Three apps in variousdifferent size windows.
You can do a lot ofmultitasking because it's a

(56:45):
massive screen.
So it really depends on whatyou want your phone for and it
depends on what percentage ofthe time you use it closed
versus open.
If you're using it closed like80% of the time, then you may
want the Pixel 9 Pro Foldbecause that wider cover screen
might make a difference.
But if you're using it like50-50 or 60-40, then I kind of

(57:05):
lean towards the Z Fold 6.
Now the one thing that would getme and I'll do a comparison.
I don't want to make claimsbased off of just what we know
about it.
We know about the hardware.
The Z Fold 6 does have oldercamera hardware than the Pixel
Fold 2, but that doesn't mean onpaper that software processing

(57:26):
it'll necessarily bemind-blowingly better.
Experience and history tells methat the Pixel Fold 2 will have
a better camera than the Z Fold6, because I've used the Z Fold
6 and it's not amazing.
But again, is that necessarilya reason to go the direction of
the Pixel fold too?
It all comes down to how you useyour fault.
Do you use it open versusclosed?
What's the percent breakdown?

(57:46):
I think that's a big thing,like if you're thinking about a
foldable, you really have tothink about that.
That's the thing you shouldconsider more than anything.
What percentage of the time do Ithink I'll use the cover versus
the main display, and it's kindof hard to figure it out until
you actually use one, like Tori.
With the flip it's evendifferent because, like, it's a
little bit different experiencebecause obviously with the fold

(58:07):
you have different use casesversus the flip.
But that's also a good thing toask.
With the flip, how much of thetime am I going to do like on
the go stuff on the cover?
How much time am I going tounflip it?
It's easier to use the flipthough unflipped, so you don't
have to think about it as much.
This is very hard to use whileyou're walking, cause like if
you're doing this and you'rewalking like in the busy
downtown Phoenix streets you'regoing to walk in front of a

(58:28):
truck and like you're going tobe a goner Cause.
you can't, you can't payattention to the immersive
screen and also walk.
You really have to think aboutthat.
I will do a full comparison,but there's definitely some
things to consider if you'rethinking about jumping over.
The Pixel 9 base model is notas interesting.
It's probably going to be acompetitor for the base S24 or

(58:50):
the S24 FE when that phonereleases.
We talked about it earlier.
I didn't order one of those,but if people are really
interested, let me know I'llconsider it.
You can get a great deal onthat, though.
If you go to Best Buy, they'reactually giving you $800
trade-in for an iPhone 12.
You could buy an iPhone 12 oneBay for like $175.
So, essentially you could tradeit in and get the Pixel 9 base

(59:11):
for free after you buy theiPhone 12, like $175.
That's a pretty good deal.
So if you really want the base,pixel 9, the non-Pro, go and do
that.
I'll drop the link below if youguys want to check it out.
I made a quick post on X aboutthat as well, so let's talk
about the other interesting news.
I still want to talk aboutmaybe some of the device stuff

(59:31):
as well, but a lot of peoplehave been asking this week and
you might have seen it on X whydon't I have a review?

Speaker 2 (59:38):
unit of the Pixel 9 Pro.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
XL or the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Well, I have been a member ofone of Google's review programs.
I call it a review program.
There's some debate about thatas well what we should call it
but it's called Team Pixel andbasically they are a PR agency
called 1,000 Heads.
That's the PR agency.
They're based out of New Yorkand they are tasked PR agency

(01:00:01):
called a thousand heads.
That's the PR agency.
They're based out of New Yorkand they were tasked by Google.
Google hires them, so they paythem.
So Google is obviouslyresponsible because they hired
this company.
They're the ones paying them.
If I hire a marketing company todo promotion for Sammy guru or
my YouTube channel and they goout and say, for instance, a
bunch of crazy racist stuff, Iwould have to take
responsibility for that.
For instance, a bunch of crazyracist stuff, I would have to

(01:00:21):
take responsibility for that.
So, like you have to beresponsible for the people you
hire as a business, right?
Yes, I think we can agree.
I would be the one in troubleif they go out and market a
bunch of stuff under my brand,saying stuff that offends people
, I have to own that.
So the company called thousandheads.
Basically they send out asurvey every launch, just asking
for your shipping informationand some basic information, and
they say okay, we'll send youthe phone.
I've been a part of thisprogram since 2017, so basically

(01:00:45):
seven years, and the basicagreement up until now was you
just give us your address, youjust say that you'll disclose
that.
We gave you a free phone.
All you have to do is like, ifyou post something, hashtag gift
from google, hashtag team pixel, we have no requirements over
what you post.
You can criticize the phone,you can say whatever you want,

(01:01:06):
you can compare it to otherdevices.
They did not give you anyrequirements, in fact.
I'll drop the link below orI'll show a screenshot here from
x.
I posted the pamphlet they gaveus last year when they sent the
pixel 8 pro to everybody thatsays all your content should be
honest, fair, fair, unbiased, etcetera.
So this year the survey goes out.

(01:01:27):
I didn't get it, by the way.
I got kicked off the programbefore they even sent the survey
.
You'll understand why after Ifinish the rest of the story if
you haven't heard it.
So the survey goes outyesterday to all the different
influencers that were still inthe program.
They kicked off a bunch ofpeople, including me, and so
these people are filling out thesurvey.
They're just filling in theirnormal address info.

(01:01:49):
They're like okay, we have todisclose that we got the gift,
all the standard stuff.
And then they get to the verylast page before you submit the
form.
It's a Google form.
They just use a Google form toask for your info.
They get to the very last pagebefore you submit the form and
the page says the followingthing.
It says do you agree that ifyou feature content with the

(01:02:10):
phone, that you will not featureany other brands in place of or
above the pixel in any contentthat you post?
If you feature other brandsinstead of the pixel or you
promote other brands above thepixel, basically saying that
they are better, superior to thepixel, then google will need to

(01:02:31):
terminate the relationshipbetween the brand and the
creator.
Basically, you'll be kicked outof the program.
So, obviously, a bunch of peoplewho are part of team pixel who
are still on the list they didnot take kindly to this because
most of the people that are onthe Team Pixel list, contrary to
what you might have heard fromother people on Reddit, there's

(01:02:52):
a lot of discussion about thisand I'll talk more about it in a
second.
A lot of people were saying, oh, these are just influencers.
That is not true.
Most of the people on the TeamPixel list are reviewers on
YouTube with tech channels whotake their integrity fairly
seriously.
Just because you're not MKBHDor the Verge, you don't have 10
million 15 million subscribersdoesn't mean you don't have

(01:03:15):
integrity.
You can still have integrityand take your review seriously,
even as a smaller tomedium-sized channel, and I
certainly take the integrityhere very seriously.
Like, if I'm going to post areview, you know and label as a
review, it's going to beunbiased.
Not all the content I do isreview content.
Some of it is promoted contentand I disclose that.
But if it's going to be calleda review, I've always made

(01:03:36):
unbiased reviews.
If something's crap, I tell youit's crap, whether it's Samsung
or not.
In fact, there's quite a fewSamsung products over the years
that I've ripped as actualgarbage.
If you go back to like theGalaxy S5 launch that was
actually one of the firstlaunches I covered I said the
phone was trash, you shouldn'tbuy it, and if it's not a good
phone, I'll tell you not to gobuy the phone.

(01:03:56):
So a lot of people take this,you know, very seriously, and so
these guys who are upset aboutit, they screenshot it, the form
, and they posted it on X.
They said, hey, we thoughtpeople should know this is what
Google is requiring now to bepart of their Team Pixel program
.
And obviously it went viral.
So I wrote an article about itover on Sammy Guru.
I'll drop the link below.

(01:04:17):
You can check it out.
My article was called GoogleAllegedly Mandates Reviewers
Favor Pixel Over Samsung intheir reviews and so, yeah, it
doesn't look good.
So a lot of people have weighedin on this, including MKBHD,
even made a video and posted onX this morning with his opinion,
and while his opinion is useful, I think it's more useful to

(01:04:39):
get opinions from people like meor some of the other medium
creators who've been a part ofthe program.
Because here's the thing A lotof guys like MKBHD and some of
the big like tech writers whoare editors or like at XDA and
Android police, they're like yougot to understand team pixels,
all influencers.
So Google is just saying nowthat they don't want.
They're like they don't wantyou to, and this does happen.

(01:05:04):
They don't want you to postyour Pixel gift and then your
next Instagram reel, you'remaking a video with your iPhone,
because that's a bad look forthem, and I understand that, but
the thing is these guys don'tknow, because they're not part
of the program.
Most people in Team Pixel arenot beauty influencers.
That might have been the casewhen it started, and I've been
here since the beginning, since2017.
But over time, they kept addingmore and more tech channels, so

(01:05:25):
these were units they weresending and they knew that
people were going to reviewthese devices, and in the past
they've never had a problem withyou posting anything you have.
Now some people said they gotkicked out before this year for
posting negative reviews.
I that could be true.
I never did, though.

(01:05:46):
I posted some negative stuffabout the pixel.
I said the pixel six pro waslike an oven in your pocket,
because it overheated so muchbecause of the tensor processor.
I talked about the screen gap inthe pixel five a.
These are all phones they sentme for free and I I bashed a lot
of the things, the problemsthat were wrong with them,
Talked about tons of the bugs inthe early Pixel devices when
they did the redesign, and thenI also said positive things.

(01:06:08):
In fact, last year I said a lotof positive things.
I made a video about whatSamsung could learn from the
Pixel 8 Pro, because there was alot of positive things that
Google was doing, particularlywith the camera processing.
So I've been on both sides andso I just don't agree with the
fact that a lot of these biggerpeople are saying well, it's an
influencer program, it's alwaysbeen one, and that's what Google

(01:06:29):
is doing.
Well, no, they changed theoverall idea of the program.
Now I understand where MKBHD iscoming from.
He doesn't have to be on TeamPixel because he's a part of the
corporate reviews program.
There's a separate program thatGoogle has for big websites and
also like the major techreviewers on YouTube.
They don't have to be part ofTeam Pixel.
They get what's called acorporate review unit.

(01:06:51):
Those are loaners.
They don't get to keep them,and basically all they have to
sign is that they won't postbefore a certain date.
That's called an embargo, andso he doesn't have to deal with
Team Pixel.
He's never been a part of it.
Most of the big websites neverhave been a part of it, because
they get corporate units.
Hopefully, eventually, with ourwebsite becoming a legit media
publication, maybe we can getback on the media review list.

(01:07:13):
Maybe not, though, because Iwrote this article about them
mandating that reviewers beunbiased.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
They might not ever let me back, but I'll be
unbiased.
They might not ever let me back, but that's okay, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
I mean, I spent like four grand buying Pixel devices
with my own money so I couldbring you guys unbiased coverage
.
I don't mind spending the moneyto make a fair comparison, but I
think this is a very bad lookfor Google.
There's a lot of peopledefending them, basically saying
that you know, it's not thatbig of a deal and it's an
influencer program and Googlemight not have even signed off

(01:07:44):
on it because the PR company atThousand Heads they're the ones
responsible.
None of that is valid because,like I said earlier, if I hire
some marketing firm to promotemy business and they go out and
do dumb stuff in the name of mybusiness, well no one's going to
care.
That like, oh, I hired Tori'smarketing firm to promote Sammy

(01:08:06):
Guru and they went out there andbasically got my site canceled
by doing some crazy stuff.
They're not going to cancelTori's marketing firm, they're
going to cancel Sammy Guru.
And if I want to fix my brandimage, I have to take
responsibility and go back andsay, okay, I made a mistake, I
hired these people, I didn'treally pay attention to what
they were doing, I didn't signoff on something that I should

(01:08:28):
have because I should havelooked at it and yeah, that's my
mistake, so I don't know.
I mean, obviously I'm nevergetting a review in it from the
Team Pixel program again.
Probably not they didn't evensend me the survey because they
knew, as a guy who coversSamsung a lot, I was not going
to say that I wasn't going tofeature any other brands.
They're like this guy he'snever going to agree to that

(01:08:49):
because Samsung is his primaryfocus.
Of course he's going to want todo, and it's not that I would
bash the Pixel, but every year Itake the Pixel and I compare it
to Samsung.
And I tell you the good stuff,just like we just did on the
podcast.
And I tell you the good stuff,just like we just did on the
podcast, and I tell you the badstuff.
The Pixel has some advantages,but Samsung has a lot of
advantages too.
I'm not just going to say, oh,give from Google, pixel is the

(01:09:09):
best thing in the world, end ofstory, because then no one would
ever listen to me again becausethey'd be like this guy talks
about Samsung in every othervideo free phone and he said the
Pixel is the device everybodyneeds.
That would destroy mycredibility and my brand image
and it's not worth it.
That's not worth it for an$1,100 phone.
So we will have comparisons,but they're going to be a little

(01:09:31):
later than usual, becauseusually if I get the phone from
Google I get it early.
I'd have it already.
My Pixel 9 Pro XL will comenext week, which is the official
launch day, probably the 21st,and then the Fold doesn't come
until September 4th, so I'llhave to wait.
I won't get that early becauseI paid my own money for it.
Didn't really spend a lot ofmoney because they gave decent
trade-in value this year, whichsurprised me.
I traded in my Pixel 8 Pro andmy Pixel Fold from last year.

(01:09:54):
So I spent $4,000 up front, butI think after my trade-in and
my credit, I get back from beinga Google One member.
They give you 10% credit backfor being a Google One member,
which actually does make itsomewhat worth it.
If you buy Pixel devices, I'llprobably spend like maybe $1,400
to get all the new devices.
I got Pixel 9 Pro XL, pixelFold 2, pixel Watch 3, and the

(01:10:18):
Buds 2 Pro, the Pixel Buds 2 Pro.
So I have comparisons toeverything.
Let me know if there'ssomething specific you guys want
me to focus on.
I'm curious if you guys arethinking about jumping over to a
Pixel.
Maybe I'll let Tori play withit so you can give some thoughts
too, because I want Tori to beable to kind of experience
different phones so he can talkabout them on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
I always wanted to see what the Pixel was like.
I always see the commercialsand I'm like, ooh, I'm intrigued
.
But I still love the Samsung.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Tori can't be just out there buying 50 phones.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Nobody can do that.
Unless it's making you money itwouldn't make sense to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
I wouldn't do it either, unless we could make
money off of it and obviouslymake the money back.
But we'll get some of Tori'sthoughts on that on top of the
Razr, so it'll be fun for himtoo.
So that's pretty much what'sgoing on with the Pixel stuff.
I wanted to give you guys kindof some insight into that.
The event was very interesting.
The watch looks good they madea bigger version of it.
The Buds also look good, but Istill think the Buds 2 Pro from

(01:11:13):
Samsung might Buds sorry, theBuds 3 Pro from Samsung look
superior, but again, won't weighin until we get them.
We'll compare them and see,yeah, kind of where everything
is all right.
So we're going to get into theout of the week in q a.
Before we do, let's take aquick break here from the second
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All right, everybody, let's goahead and get into the last
third of the show.
Here.
We're going to go ahead and getinto the app of the week.

(01:12:40):
Well, basically two criteria Alot of people are like are they
always new apps?
The answer is no.
I either pick an app that Ithink people don't know about,
which is like last week we hadWavelet, which was a very
interesting new kind of app foraudio, keeping the same
headphone volume, something thatI've been using that I think
other people don't know about.
But the other way I choose themis if an update comes into an

(01:13:04):
app that's really big and so ithas new features.
Even if I know people are awareof the app, I want to talk
about it, to talk about some ofthat new stuff that rolled out,
and so that is this week's app.
It is Gemini, which is Google'sAI suite.
You can use it natively on yourGalaxy phone.
So, essentially, if you want touse Gemini, you have to go into
your Google Assistant settingsand say that you want to replace
Google Assistant with Gemini,and so Gemini actually replaces

(01:13:26):
Google Assistant on your phone,and then when you say OK, google
, it will activate Gemini, andso Gemini is its generative AI.
Like I talked about earlier,some big new features came out
this week with the Pixel Event,which is Gemini Live.
If you have Gemini Advanced, Istill don't have it on the Fold

(01:13:46):
6.
There's supposed to be a littlebutton down here in the bottom
right corner.
If you have Gemini Live, thenyou can press it and activate it
and then you'll haveconversational view, but it's
pretty useful In terms ofcomparison to like ChatG it's
it's hard to say, so here's the.
Here's what I would say about it.
I want to do a comparison ofall the different AI chat bots.

(01:14:08):
Tori won't watch it cause hehates AI, but I'm going to do it
on my YouTube channel at somepoint.
Some people do like it Chat,gpt, gemini um, the one that
Twitter has now, which is GrokApple intelligence galaxy AI.
Twitter has now, which is GrokApple Intelligence Galaxy AI.
But the thing about GeminiAdvanced is, if you're a Google
user which a lot of Android andSamsung users are, because
there's Google services if youuse Gmail, google Calendar, all

(01:14:30):
that kind of stuff, drive, thisintegrates with all your Google
services, so you can actuallykind of install extensions.
You have to allow thepermissions and stuff like that
inside here, but you can getlike Google Flights, google maps
, youtube, youtube music.

(01:14:51):
It can hook into all thesedifferent apps and so then the
ai assistant can actually useall of your data and info in
those apps to help you withthings.
So like it will actually havecontext for, like if you say,
okay, I need to make a dinnerreservation in my city and I
want to do Mexican food, it'llknow where your city is because
you have allowed location inMaps and then say a specific
time, it can help you do thosekind of things because it has
context, you know, for yourinformation and it kind of knows

(01:15:14):
restaurants that you prefer aswell.
So it could try to figure outlike say you know, make a
reservation at my favoriterestaurant because it knows
where you've been, because ithas Google Maps data.
It's always listening.
Yeah exactly so if you like thatsort of thing.
I mean, yeah, it's adouble-edged sword, but if
you're using Android, you'realready giving a lot of your
data to Google at the end of theday.
But you can manage a lot ofthat stuff in here, like your

(01:15:37):
public links.
You can allow it to have accessto what's on your screen or not
.
You can turn that stuff on oroff.
So if you want it to not knowmuch and not hook into the other
Google services, you can dothat.
So if you're worried about itprocessing stuff in the cloud,
you can basically make it such alittle dumber, but it's still

(01:15:58):
doing more on-device processing,like Galaxy Eye, like we talked
about earlier.
So I think if you're a Googleuser and you're deep in the
Google ecosystem and you don'tmind some of that stuff being
given to Google and shared inthe cloud, if you're not super
worried about those privacyconcerns, then that is something
that you should consider usingGemini Advanced for.
Otherwise it's not as good atwriting assistant.

(01:16:19):
Those kind of things likerewriting text is chat, gpt or
even, in my opinion, galaxy.
I write assist and of course,it doesn't really do anything
like sketched image with the spen.
So there's some stuff thatgalaxy I and chat, gpt are
better at.
That's the unfortunate thingright now.
It's like there's all thesedifferent assistants, but they
all have like differentstrengths, so like, if you want

(01:16:39):
to get the best out of all ofthem, then you really have to
use like all of the differentassistants that are out there.
So I would encourage you to tryit.
I don't know if I wouldencourage everyone to go out and
pay for Jim and I advanced only.
If you're a super Google userand you think that you don't
mind being hooked into all theservices, then it is very
convenient.
You can do some crazy coolthings with it, but still $20 a

(01:17:01):
month.
But you do get a lot of stuff.
On top, you get two terabytesof Google Drive storage.
So if you need the storage andyou just also want Gemini-
Advance, it's not a terrible wayto go.
It's nice for that because youget the whole package of Google
services.
Anyway, let us know if you guysuse Gemini Advance.
What AI assistants do you use?
Do you hate AI?
Do you agree with Tori?
Let us know.
We talk about it a lot becauseit's a hot topic right now in

(01:17:24):
the tech and mobile sector, butI figured people would like to
know about the new update, sinceit was Google Week and Google
and Samsung they're best friends.
Rick Osterloh from Googleactually released a message this
week saying that Samsung andGoogle's partnership is stronger
than ever.
So Google's partnership isstronger than ever.
So obviously they're still kindof best buddies.
Let's go ahead and get intothat Q&A.
Tori has a couple of Qs that wecan A.

(01:17:46):
What are the questions that yougot?
I think these are questionsfrom last week's podcast
comments.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
Yeah, yeah, so from Macrochipped.
We have perhaps a question fornext week, fellas.
But what was the year?
Or phone specifically?
Do you guys think Android hadfinally become a viable
alternative to the iPhone?

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
Well, I mean, I guess I'm going to answer this
question in two parts.
I think, for me personally, theDroid X, which I've talked
about before, motorola Droid X Ithink around that time which
was around the time of theiPhone 4, finally, android had
matured to where it had afeature set that was forming a
solid user base to compete withApple, particularly around the

(01:18:31):
world.
It probably didn't gain afoothold in the US, though, and,
like actually, obviously Applehas always been slightly ahead
in the US and Samsung has thentaken over the rest of the world
, the majority, but I thinkSamsung really caught up and
kind of got to, like, you know,a really big market share with
the galaxy s6.
That's where they went fromlike making plastic phones that

(01:18:52):
were cheap.
The galaxy s5, which I told youearlier, was one of the first
ones I reviewed on youtube and Iripped it to shreds because it
was really bad.
Uh, lots of things about itwere bad the heating, the design
.
There was almost very few goodthings about it, and the next
year they come out and it'scomplete redesign.
Like that's the biggest designchange in the history of the
Galaxy lineup.

(01:19:13):
They went from plastic, cheap,thick, to like this sleek thing
that was all glass and metal andhad just like a beautiful
camera change.
That was where the paradigmshifted, and I remember people
talking about just like what amassive moment it was for
Samsung, and I think it wasthat's where they became kind of
the brand, and I think that'sactually the year that put LG

(01:19:37):
and HTC and Motorola almost outof business in the Android
sector, cause after that, that,samsung just gained so much
market share that you slowly sawLG is like we can't compete,
htc is like we can't compete andthey just get absorbed into
different other companies.
Google's always been able torelease their Pixel phones and
their Nexus phones because theymake billions of dollars from

(01:19:58):
search.
They lose money on theirhardware.
They don't need to make moneyoff hardware, though.
They just do it to show peoplelike here's what we think
Android should look like.
It's really just like areference for Android.
It's not really to sell, likethey know.
They're not outselling Samsung.
They're not going to try, butthat's what I think.
Tori, what do you think?
What year can you remember likeseeing people having a lot of

(01:20:20):
Android or Samsung devices?

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Let's see.
I would probably say 2014 isprobably when I noticed.
For me I mostly just sawiPhones everywhere I looked,
because I had an iPhone 3originally, I think in 2013.
And by then I think the iPhone4 was ending.
Then I think the iPhone fourwas ending, going into the

(01:20:43):
iPhone five.
And I remember going into AT&Tand in prior to I just saw all
these commercials for Droid andlike the cool commercials and
stuff and so like.
When I sat down I was like hey,I kept seeing this commercial
for this HTC One phone, kind oflook at it, and I felt like that

(01:21:05):
was like a premium phonecompared to what I was seeing my
friends have with the iPhone,and so I was sucked into it.
But yeah, I immediately afterthat, you know, I saw Samsung
just kind of take off.
So when HTC was gone and Icouldn't get another HTC phone
when I was ready to upgrade Ithink it was a year or two later

(01:21:26):
the first thing that came to mymind was Samsung, because
everywhere I looked it was justSamsung, samsung, samsung, the
Galaxy, going on.
So I would say somewhere aroundlike 24.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
That's around the time the S6 came out.
That was like around those 24,2014, 2015.
It's really unfortunate for hccbecause they made two really
good phones the m7, the m8 butthat was also right when samsung
didn't release the s6 and justcrushed.
But it didn't help.
They followed it up with the m9.
It was not very good, hadheating issues, had some camera
issues, and then samsung justlike blasted everyone because

(01:21:59):
they just like took the camerato the next level.
Their build quality was premium.
They started doing the curvedglass, which had everyone
intrigued, and yeah, back thenthat was like a really premium,
like look that apple didn't have.
You know, they kind of broughtit in a way that they never had
before.
Okay, so that's our answerthere.
What's?
What was the other question?
Dory, you had one more, I think.
Yeah, we got a few more queuedup, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Um question dory had one more, I think.
Yeah, we got a few more queuedup, all right.
Um, let's see, if pixel comesout with better uh modem, then
samsung could have more problem.
So that was just a comment, Ithink.
Oh, here it is.
Uh, is there some features forthe buds 3 pro in ui 6.1.1,
which I don't have for the s24ultra yet?

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
oh so this is a question someone was asking Is
there a feature in 6.1.1 on thefoldables that implements with
the Buds 3 Pro that's notavailable in 6.1 on the S24
Ultra?
The answer is no.
They have all the same featuresif you use the wearable app.
I've used them both with the ZFold 6 and with the Buds 3 Pro,
with my foldable and with theS24 Ultra.
Absolutely no real changes thatI'm aware of in terms of audio

(01:23:05):
quality or feature set.
If you look through thewearable app, there's no real
changes there.
The update that came out to theBuds 3 Pro, which might have
been.
Was that the other question youhad?

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
Yes, and the other one was from Luan Buki.
What was the fix done on theBuds 3 Pro?
I also got mine early, beforethey went or before they were
put on hold.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
Are they offering any adapters for those they sent
out?
Oh, I think she's talking aboutthe issue with the hardware.
So two things the Buds 3 Progot an update, software update.
It was very small, like 8megabytes.
There were really no changesthere, they're just stability
and battery life fixes.
But the thing she's talkingabout is that they recalled them
and they stopped selling them,and the reason they did that was
because they noticed thesilicon tips were really easy to

(01:23:52):
tear as you were switching themout.
They haven't issued a statementyet, but I had asked a couple
of people around who've talkedto Samsung PR officially and
they are saying that eventuallythey're going to send people a
spare replacement set of eartips who got?
in on the first wave Now.
If you order them now, they'rejust supposed to be fixed Like
they're not as easy to rip.
But if you did get a pair inthe first wave I have a pair in

(01:24:13):
the first wave as well we shouldget an email.
Samsung is very slow with this.
It'll probably be like, whoknows, you might get an email
like Halloween.
They'll be like we're sendingyou a free pair of ear tips.
You're like, oh, that's nice.
So you know, if you ripped oneof them, you can always order
them yourself, or or wait anduse one of the bigger ones.
I think Samsung should also givepeople a small refund for the
inconvenience Cause it's kind ofannoying.

(01:24:33):
I've mentioned that to themlast year, the relaunch, when
there were some issues of peoplekind of getting orders late,
best Buy gave me a $25 gift cardfor getting my Galaxy Ring late
, which I thought was nice.
That was appreciated.
Samsung should do the samething because there was a lot of
people who got their stuff latefrom the full launch.
I always think brands should dothat when there is a problem,

(01:24:55):
so hopefully Samsung will takecare of people there All right.
So I think that's.
Is that everything for thequestions.
Yeah, I think that's prettymuch it for this show.
I made a big announcement overon X and, by the way, I
apologize for the door slamming.
I don't know what's going ontoday.
I'm thinking about Toru at somepoint we may have to consider
like can we do this on Saturday?

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Maybe we should think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
I don't know, would it work for you?
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, maybe we could justcome over here, like Saturday,
for a couple hours, becausethere won't be anyone here, yeah
, and then we can just recordthe podcast.
Maybe that won't really affectyou guys until September,
because I did announce over on Xwe are going to start live
streaming on September 13th.
So me and Tori will try tofigure out.
I don't know the doors.

(01:25:40):
I'll have to count the numberof door slams.
I think there's like 10 today.
So we may have to move thepodcast to Saturday and then we
won't have that.
But I'll decide on a schedule.
We'll live stream on YouTubethe entire thing.
So I'll have a chat.
You guys can come in and joinus if you like, kind of ask
questions in real time, becauseI think people will ask a lot

(01:26:01):
more questions if they can askthem right then and get answers.
That's always a better way togo about it.
And I'll also have some freeprizes and some trivia.
I've been wanting to do triviaso what's what?
basically what we'll basicallydo is like throughout the show
we'll talk about the news, we'lltalk about the different
segments that we normally do andat the very end, after we do
the q a, we'll have like two oror three trivia questions and

(01:26:22):
essentially it'll be stuff fromthe show.
So if you've been listening thewhole time, you can put it in
the chat.
Whoever's first, we will sendyou the prize.
So I'll have a couple ofphysical prizes, maybe some
cases or accessories, and thenwe'll have some app codes
probably as well some weeks, andI think it'll be really fun.
I know Droid Life used to dothis on their podcast.
I, I know Droid Life used to dothis on their podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
I totally stole the idea from them.

Speaker 1 (01:26:42):
So if Tim and Kellen listen to this.
Yeah, totally rip that off.
It's a great idea though, a wayto engage listeners and, I
think, give back to people whosupport the show, so I don't
think they'll mind too much.
Anyway, that being said, wewill see you guys next week, and
I want to remind you guys thisweek to make sure to not stop
expanding your galaxy.

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