0:03

This is the Mobile Tech podcast

0:05

brought to you by World

0:07

Podcasts.com Now here's your host,

0:09

Tank Girl, Miriam Joire. Brought

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to you by Magna. Hi and

0:14

welcome to the Mobile Tech

0:16

podcast. I'm your host, Miram

0:18

Joire, and today is Thursday,

0:20

April 10th, 2025. And I've

0:22

got Stephen Jenkins here of

0:24

Magna. Hi, Stephen, how are

0:26

you? Hi, Miriam. Thanks for having

0:28

me on the show. Good to

0:31

be here. Thanks. Well, thanks for

0:33

coming on. Folks, this is my

0:35

first guest of the week. I

0:37

have Austin Evans joining me later

0:39

on for the news and reviews.

0:41

So stay tuned for that. Stephen

0:43

Magna is a big part of

0:45

the automotive industry. And I'm

0:47

really glad to have you on. You

0:50

recently announced a partnership with Envideo. And

0:52

I want to speak with you about

0:54

that, but first of all, give us

0:56

a bit of context of what you

0:59

do at Magna, where Magna is in

1:01

the industry as a supplier to OEMs,

1:03

to car manufacturers. Give us a bit

1:06

of an intro and a quick idea

1:08

of where you stand in the

1:10

entire software world of software-defined vehicles.

1:13

Absolutely. So Magna is quite a

1:15

large company, one of the top

1:17

five, when it comes to contribution

1:20

to the automotive industry as a

1:22

tier one. doing everything from

1:24

metal bending to software to

1:26

domain controls and so on. And of

1:28

course my role is more towards the

1:31

ADAS piece, more towards the software piece

1:33

as well. We've been doing this

1:35

for a long time as a

1:37

group of people that have been

1:39

bought up or merged towards different

1:41

constellations and we have a lot of

1:43

experience in the area. It's one of

1:45

the areas where we're expanding and reaching

1:47

out and we're growing and it's also

1:49

an area inside of magna that is

1:51

having a lot of focus. That's fantastic.

1:54

So how did this invidia partnership

1:56

come about? And can you tell

1:58

us more about it? Obviously. you

2:00

know, in the industry, there's a lot

2:02

of players in the supplier field. Everyone

2:04

is trying to get on board the

2:06

software defined vehicle thing, which, you know,

2:08

makes sense. Obviously, it's pretty critical, right?

2:10

But, you know, everybody's got a slightly

2:12

different approach. I've seen some companies kind

2:14

of dip their toes, some of them

2:16

are going full head-on, but as a

2:18

supply, you're in a very unique position.

2:20

So please tell me a little bit

2:22

more about this invidia partnership, how it

2:24

came to be, what it, what it,

2:26

what it entails. pretty large, as you

2:28

said, there's a lot of different suppliers,

2:31

there's a lot of different choices, which

2:33

is good. I mean, you go back

2:35

a few years, there wasn't as many

2:37

choices, there is a lot of different

2:39

choices now. And there's different solutions for

2:41

different problems as well. We should never

2:43

think that different problems should be solved

2:45

by the same solution every time either.

2:47

So in video for us, is a

2:49

good way to get into the kind

2:51

of the high end domain, the mid

2:53

end domain, and making sure that we

2:55

actually have to stretch in this kind

2:57

of area as well. Envideo has been

2:59

for a very long time thinking about

3:01

platform level solutions so like the software

3:03

they do is really compatible across different

3:05

domains different types of technology different types

3:08

of approaches towards the consumer and of

3:10

course they have a huge tool chain

3:12

support as well because of that they

3:14

have the all the backend things that

3:16

data training and they have all the

3:18

all the even you know into factories

3:20

and so on as well and then

3:22

of course the software play for for

3:24

eight us as well so for us

3:26

it's a really good place to really

3:28

expand and it's also a good win-win

3:30

because magma has a lot of experience

3:32

with sensors and vehicles and all the

3:34

things around that and invidia has all

3:36

these tools and all the ability to

3:38

get it out very complementary and of

3:40

course invidia is pushing the boundaries of

3:43

what's possible as well they've been doing

3:45

that as I said not just in

3:47

automotive but pretty much everywhere. So it's

3:49

a really good place to be. So

3:51

it doesn't mean that we're only going

3:53

to be working with them, but it's

3:55

a very good place for us to

3:57

be expanding our understanding and working together

3:59

on. something we think is a very

4:01

good win-win. My audience is very familiar

4:03

with them, more than they are with

4:05

Magna, so that makes sense. You know,

4:07

the new switch to the Nintendo game

4:09

console came out last week. It's powered

4:12

by a custom Envideo chip. And as

4:14

you said, I think Envideo has a

4:16

lot of legs too, like you know

4:18

that you can grow with them. together

4:20

for numerous years coming up for ADAS

4:22

solutions for software divine vehicles. So is

4:24

this a partnership primarily around ADAS then

4:26

or is it are you looking at

4:28

expanding towards you know infotainment in-car? Like

4:30

that's the thing that's been happening right?

4:33

The industry has been kind

4:35

of consolidating very vertically in terms

4:37

of software for each individual

4:39

manufacturer and as a supplier

4:41

that's obviously a challenge so Is this

4:43

right now more focused on EDAs only? Or

4:45

are you hoping to kind of like have

4:48

that kind of you know propagate into the

4:50

other parts? Yeah, definitely. I mean the partnerships

4:52

we try to form are not just specifically

4:54

for, of course you start off with something

4:56

because you want to get, you know, you

4:58

don't want to go spread yourself too thin

5:00

in the beginning, but It's not even limited

5:02

to the vehicle, there's a lot of things

5:04

outside of the vehicle that Nividi are doing

5:06

as well, so I mean the potentially is

5:08

even bigger than that with omniverse and all

5:10

of the other types of things that they're

5:12

doing within Nvedi as well. But we want

5:14

to start somewhere and we're starting with ADAS

5:16

because ADAS is something that they're doing within

5:18

Nvedi as well. But we want to start somewhere and we're starting

5:21

with ADAS because we're getting, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting, we're

5:23

getting as the domains, we're getting, we're getting as the, we're getting as the,

5:25

we're getting as the, we're getting as the, as the, as a, as

5:27

a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as

5:29

a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as

5:31

a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as you say,

5:33

there's a lot of overlap. Understood. Tell

5:36

us a little bit more in terms

5:38

of what other areas Magna Electronics such

5:40

as with and touches on. You don't

5:43

have to necessarily name the partners because

5:45

I know there are agreements there that's

5:47

a little difficult, but give us an

5:49

idea of what areas, obviously cockpits a

5:52

big deal these days, and then you

5:54

know, the whole kind of stack of,

5:56

you know, basically how you control these,

5:59

these zones. in microcontrollers or other computers

6:01

these days, everything is consolidated into fewer

6:03

and fewer computers? Is this something you're

6:05

trying to offer as a solution to

6:07

your partners as well? Or is this

6:09

something that right now is more in

6:11

the future for you? So I would

6:13

actually look at it at kind of

6:15

the opposite way, given the changes that

6:17

have come out now. And if you

6:19

look at some of the solutions that

6:21

are being presented now into some of

6:23

the more modern approaches, it's very difficult

6:25

to actually pull those things apart now.

6:28

Before it was very easy, you had...

6:30

your aid as piece, your cockpit piece,

6:32

your breaking piece, and so on and

6:34

so forth, and your mapping and all

6:36

those kind of things. With these new

6:38

and more modern end-to-end solutions and you

6:40

know, fully vertically integrated and all those

6:42

kind of things, you actually start to

6:44

see there's not a lot of difference

6:46

between the way these are all configured

6:48

and the way they're developed as well.

6:50

So for example, if you as a

6:52

driver are using the system, you don't

6:54

want to have a separate... cockpit system

6:56

in a separate system. Exactly, that's why

6:58

I'm asking the question. I try to

7:00

figure out how as a supply you

7:02

you kind of are able to verticalize

7:04

yourself as it were. And of course

7:07

you can you can still do that

7:09

by using building blocks. It doesn't necessarily

7:11

mean which is I think where a

7:13

lot of the confusion comes from is

7:15

it doesn't mean you have to do

7:17

everything in-house just because you want to

7:19

have a vertically integrated solution. It just

7:21

means you have to make sure you're

7:23

thinking about your thinking about as a

7:25

system level in the system level in

7:27

the beginning. So I think you're, you

7:29

know, for example, I don't, when I'm

7:31

when I'm writing something on paper, I

7:33

don't go and cut down a tree

7:35

and make my own pencil, I buy

7:37

the pencil on paper and I can,

7:39

you can still, you can still have

7:41

IP and knowledge into this. And so

7:43

these systems when they're trained now and

7:45

you look at these very advanced systems,

7:48

they're trained with all the data available,

7:50

right? So the system can kind of

7:52

ask the question. Why? What am I

7:54

seeing in front of me? Are you

7:56

seeing people standing by a bus stop?

7:58

Are you seeing this situation? you get

8:00

situational awareness into the system, right? So

8:02

suddenly you start to be able, you

8:04

start to take away these boundaries between

8:06

these things. And so whether it's interacting

8:08

with a cockpit system or interacting with

8:10

a data system or you're interacting the

8:12

vehicle, it doesn't make as much difference.

8:14

So I would say that's what we're

8:16

really going for in kind of a

8:18

where the performance is something like the

8:20

invadiorship on the scale up, allows you

8:22

to do things that weren't possible before.

8:24

Oh, that's great. I was actually going

8:26

to ask you what your approach was

8:29

on this, because I mean, I personally

8:31

understand as an ex software developer, and

8:33

you know, I've worked in this in

8:35

this field, so I understand how you

8:37

have to, if you want to be

8:39

able to control everything as a manufacturer,

8:41

you have to be able to change

8:43

the software quickly, and you have to

8:45

work with suppliers, and now you to

8:47

do that. But that's really good to

8:49

hear that you're, you know, enabling this

8:51

right from the get-go at the building

8:53

block level because you know I constantly

8:55

review cars where the big question ask

8:57

them is what is you know you

8:59

say you have OTA update on this

9:01

vehicle what can actually be OTA updated

9:03

that's over the air over the internet

9:05

updates? And you know, then you know,

9:07

we start getting into the, oh, but

9:10

you can't do this. And I'm like,

9:12

well, you know, Tesla, China, Rivian, they

9:14

can do all of it. So why

9:16

can't you do this? And then they

9:18

tell me, ah, because you know, we're

9:20

still using some legacy parts that have.

9:22

proprietary firmware. And so, you know, that's

9:24

the challenge, right, I think, is for

9:26

you to create the best technology from

9:28

an electronics company's perspective, but deliver that

9:30

flexibility to the OEM. And like, I'm

9:32

wondering how you've had to approach this

9:34

internally, how have you, I mean, I'm

9:36

sure Magna itself gets it and wants

9:38

it happening, but how is it working

9:40

with OEMs who are maybe more resistant

9:42

to that or? you know, try to

9:44

kind of drag them into the future

9:46

as it were. So I would say

9:48

if you go back a few years

9:51

we were limited by technology. I mean,

9:53

right. I don't know if it's five

9:55

years or ten years. It depends on

9:57

what kind of Everything comes with a

9:59

price point, so it probably could have

10:01

solved it 10 years ago, but a

10:03

ridiculous price point that no one would

10:05

pay for. Now you're a point where

10:07

the price is coming to a level

10:09

where it makes sense, and also all of

10:11

the solution domain has come to a point where

10:13

you can actually achieve it. So I think now

10:15

it's limited by our own ability to manage it,

10:18

right? So I think you're right. So things like...

10:20

as being a software developer before you'll know

10:22

that things like how you're interacting with

10:24

the software code itself being able to

10:26

share it with your partners and suppliers

10:28

to be able to contribute and add

10:30

value and so on and so forth

10:32

those kind of interfaces and descriptions of how

10:34

things are done in the system and so

10:36

on and then how you deliver it and

10:38

not thinking about as a one shot you

10:41

deliver for an SOP and then you're done

10:43

you don't have to touch it anymore it

10:45

has to be forever you have to think

10:47

platforms you have to think you have a

10:49

generation one and generation two and a generation

10:51

three and it's it's over a lifespan and

10:54

over multiple hardware and things like that so

10:56

it's not really as I would argue that's

10:58

not a technical problem anymore it's a

11:00

technical problem exactly yeah And of course,

11:02

the issue is you can't change that

11:04

all at once because everything is built

11:07

up with that in mind. So you

11:09

have to start off by chipping away at

11:11

this and making sure that, you know, you

11:13

get the understanding, okay, well, when we do

11:15

it this way, look at the advantages and

11:18

then you get someone saying, someone will see

11:20

that and it's like, great, let's do more

11:22

of this. And then it goes a little

11:24

bit faster and a little bit faster. So

11:26

I think, you know, you know, the

11:28

understanding is there. The ecosystem is

11:31

not really there yet. Okay, so that's the

11:33

part that's slowing you down, okay. And I

11:35

think there's where we're, you know, starting to

11:37

see the companies that built this from

11:39

nothing have an advantage because they had

11:41

nothing to, they had nothing already there.

11:43

They could start from a different starting

11:45

point, right? And the companies that have

11:47

been there from the long term, they

11:49

have a little bit of a challenge

11:51

to kind of break down those. original

11:53

walls of this is how we've always

11:55

done it before and that's where i

11:57

think magna's been very good because magna's

11:59

been really trying to approach this with

12:01

respect of we have to make

12:04

a change it's it's the time

12:06

to make the change let's let's

12:08

do it you know so so

12:10

but we're not alone so yeah

12:12

and I think that's the challenge

12:14

right and you think you met

12:16

it because you early on understood

12:18

this so you've now created a

12:20

culture around it so everyone's on

12:22

board so that's the first step

12:24

right the cost as you said

12:26

costs and technology aren't what costs

12:28

maybe but technology isn't the biggest

12:30

problem that's been solved then getting

12:32

people on board internally that's being

12:34

solved now you're basically spending as

12:36

much time educating your partners and

12:38

your OEM, you know, manufacturers you're

12:40

working with as much as you're

12:42

solving their technical problems. Right? Yeah.

12:44

Yeah. And if you go back,

12:46

you know, seven, ten years, it

12:48

was, it was, there was just

12:50

a few people that really could

12:52

feel that this was the way

12:54

it was going and now, many

12:56

more do. So it's, of course,

12:58

easier for every person that gets

13:00

converted to, to, to, to get

13:02

traction. So. Where do you think?

13:04

things are going with you and

13:06

generally with supplies in the future

13:08

in terms of do you think

13:10

that suppliers are diversifying it because

13:12

they need to meet more of

13:14

that vertical pipeline from car manufacturers

13:16

or do you feel that there's

13:18

still some benefit to specialization? you

13:20

know obviously with software you have

13:22

a lot of freedom you know

13:24

when you're doing electronics and not

13:26

mechanical things you have a lot

13:28

of freedom magna of course does

13:30

a whole bunch of stuff but

13:32

you're magna electronics so you're mostly

13:34

focused on the kind of the

13:36

compute and the sensors so so

13:38

how do you how do you

13:40

think that's going to evolve? every

13:42

car is an EV every car

13:44

is highly connected and highly computerized.

13:46

So this area we're working in

13:48

is just so complex that there's

13:50

no way I can see that

13:52

one supplier would actually be able

13:54

to do everything. And I think

13:56

the quicker you get to that

13:59

assumption or that. you know that learning the

14:01

better you are making your position clear for

14:03

the future for sure right and that doesn't

14:05

matter if you're an OEM or a tier

14:07

one or a tier two everyone is not

14:09

the best of everything that is pretty clear

14:12

and there's normally a need to also create

14:14

choice as well so I mean you know

14:16

having your all your eggs in one basket

14:18

isn't a good idea either. In my previous

14:20

roles we fought with this idea of if

14:23

we are competing with our if we're competing

14:25

with our own customers that's not good for

14:27

example if we're competing if we're trying to

14:29

do something we're not good at that's also not

14:31

good. So for me there's going to be a

14:33

number of players it has to be less than

14:35

right today. but they have to be specialized on

14:38

certain areas of the problem so that you actually

14:40

get the best out of them and I've heard

14:42

some very good examples where suppliers of a tool

14:44

chain or an AI model or something have said

14:46

I'm really not going to grow to be 10,000

14:48

people and spread myself out because that's not what

14:51

I want to be I want to be the

14:53

best at this and so I'm looking for people

14:55

to help me take that and use it in

14:57

the context of you know last mile delivery or aid

14:59

us and so on. So one advantage of being in

15:01

Magnus we see a lot more than just electronics we

15:04

can actually start to see the trends around everything else

15:06

as well to help us to get that kind of

15:08

spreading of the because a lot of the things we

15:10

do can be used anywhere it's just that we haven't

15:12

done it before right so that's kind of where we

15:15

get to. But again I'm very mindful of the fact

15:17

that someone who's been working with a problem for 20

15:19

years or 10 years or even five years but they're

15:21

the best in the best in the best in the

15:24

industry. I'm not going to go and just try

15:26

and say I'm going to be better than you

15:28

by tomorrow when I've got all these other things

15:30

to do. I'm going to say let's figure out

15:32

how we do this in a good way together.

15:34

So in the future, I think you're talking about

15:37

some. more standardization around the platform, around the operating

15:39

system, around, you know, the same kind of things

15:41

that we've gone through with both PC and internet

15:43

and mobile phones, and there'll be some very good

15:46

players in that space, and then there'll be some

15:48

very good players in some of the software functionality

15:50

space, and there'll be some good players in the

15:52

sensor space, and we want to be in some

15:54

of these areas, but not all of them 100%

15:57

right. So that's why we partner up with big

15:59

companies like invidia, you're good at doing the

16:01

chips and you have a good ecosystem,

16:03

you have good tool chains and good

16:05

tool sets. We think that makes sense

16:07

for us. So we can focus on

16:09

adding our benefits, which is

16:11

where our experience comes in. Perfect.

16:13

One last question for you, you

16:15

mentioned sensors, you mentioned your expertise,

16:18

you know, in many fields, but

16:20

where do you think magna's expertise

16:22

is the highest? Where are you,

16:24

you think changing, making a difference? out there

16:26

for both manufacturers and the end product

16:28

for consumers. So I mean I think

16:30

we have a very good safety culture

16:33

and also experience of that given the

16:35

background and history we have we're coming

16:37

from and we know a lot about

16:39

how the vehicle behaves and what things

16:41

work well and what things don't and

16:43

then at the same time we also

16:45

understand customers because every customer is a

16:47

little bit different they have different requirements

16:49

someone five-star end cap, three-star volume, someone...

16:51

very high performing modern functions that are

16:53

expensive somewhat just the best they can

16:55

do with the money they have and

16:58

so forth. So we're very good at

17:00

finding those very good tradeoffs and making

17:02

it a safe product in a good

17:04

environment that fulfils the customer requirements and

17:06

then getting working in the car because

17:08

I mean you shouldn't underestimate actually getting

17:11

working with all the other things in

17:13

the car as well. So our experience

17:15

of taking technology, developing the pieces we

17:18

think we're good at developing. and then

17:20

being able to say you can do this with

17:22

less sensors or you can do this with this

17:24

configuration or you can get this performance if you

17:26

add this for example you know I mean we

17:28

look a lot of different domains like nighttime and

17:31

performance in rain and those kind of things we're

17:33

not necessarily a tier two would have been thinking

17:35

about or thinking about that. We can add that

17:37

expertise over the you know 20 plus years experience

17:39

we have of doing it and then say here's

17:41

the best product for you customer and this is

17:44

the way we would develop it and put it

17:46

into the cop for you. Fantastic. Well,

17:48

listen, I'm really looking forward to see what,

17:50

you know, comes down the pipe from this

17:52

partnership with Invidea and Magna. As I said,

17:54

I've always been very excited to see what

17:57

Magna's up to from a distance, you know,

17:59

obviously I can. and physically touch it without

18:01

necessarily knowing since it appears in vehicles

18:03

here and there. But I'm looking forward

18:05

to seeing these fruits of your labor.

18:07

Thanks so much for being on the

18:09

show, Stephen, really appreciated. Thank you, and

18:11

great. It's really good to talk to

18:13

you. Thanks a lot. And folks, we're

18:15

back with Austin Evans. Hi Austin, how

18:17

are you doing today? I'm doing great.

18:19

How about you? I'm pretty awesome. There's

18:21

a bunch of exciting things this week

18:23

to talk about. Pixel 9A, the new

18:25

Opel Fine X8 Ultra, which is there

18:27

a super crazy camera phone for China.

18:29

They sent me one. But more importantly,

18:31

you made an incredibly great video this

18:33

week. And I was just like, I

18:35

was looking at your feed yesterday. I

18:37

missed it when it was actually launched.

18:39

And I was like, oh my God,

18:41

this is the greatest thing ever. Plus

18:43

you had Luke Mayani on the on

18:45

the show with you. Tell us about

18:47

this video. You decided to see if

18:49

you could get the Apple lifestyle going

18:51

for the price of an iPhone 16e,

18:53

which is 600 US dollars, for less

18:55

than that. And that means everything. This

18:57

is kind of blooming away. I thought

18:59

you were just going to do the

19:01

phone and the laptop and your phone

19:03

laptop watch and iPad. Yeah. Almost did

19:05

the earbuds to the airpods. I actually

19:07

I give you exclusive on that one

19:09

because I did get them because I

19:12

did get them. They just didn't show

19:14

up for the video. They get a

19:16

little screenshot at the end of the

19:18

order and I guess they got lost

19:20

for a second or something. It was

19:22

a whole thing. Yeah, so essentially the

19:24

way I'd started to structure the video,

19:26

the best deals I knew were going

19:28

to be on eBay. So I knew

19:30

we're going to be on eBay. So

19:32

I knew I had to go into

19:34

it with a little bit of. So

19:36

I knew I had to go into

19:38

it with a little bit of flexibility

19:40

because I couldn't just say I'm going

19:42

to put a bit on iPhone 10-R.

19:44

I got a clean tenor with 120

19:46

gigs of storage, but it had a

19:48

bad battery, which I didn't realize until

19:50

I had opened it. So I was

19:52

like, that was actually really impressive, honestly.

19:54

I mean, because the amount of storage

19:56

at least helped a little bit. It's

19:58

64 based on the XR. 64 base

20:00

128 I don't remember if they did 256

20:02

but yeah it was a 128 so I

20:04

least 128 it's barely squeakable right now yeah

20:06

yeah which that was actually like not a

20:09

huge problem the big problem was when I

20:11

was setting up the phone I was transferring

20:13

from a phone that had so much storage

20:15

yeah exactly so it was a I think

20:17

I had to restart and reset the phone

20:19

and reset Apple pay like three different times

20:22

before I finally got it to work wow

20:24

the tenor was fine the problem with the

20:26

tenor was the tenor was the battery And

20:28

then the battery replacement was not fun. I

20:30

thought you did it. I thought for sure

20:32

you were going to cut and forward to

20:34

two weeks and say I brought it to

20:36

the guy near near you know near the

20:38

shop because I mean even look I you

20:41

know my background is electronics and engineering I've

20:43

fixed a million things before and even I

20:45

there's some stuff I'm just like I'm just

20:47

like it's just faster and safer for someone

20:49

else to do it. Yeah. So kudos for

20:51

doing that on the video. That was amazing.

20:53

Thank you. We did the Apple self-service repair

20:55

a year or two ago, where you know,

20:57

the machines, yeah, yeah, and like you do

21:00

that and it is the world's simplest thing.

21:02

Like the things open like three seconds, but

21:04

you're out there with the hair go with

21:06

like the heat god and you're trying to

21:08

like open the sealant, and you're so stressful,

21:11

you know, like the things open like three

21:13

seconds, but you're supposed to pull and twist

21:15

and pull and twist, but the problem is

21:17

that if that adhesive adhesive snaps is underneath

21:19

the battery. You're like, you're like, you're cooked,

21:21

there's like no way to get in. So

21:24

I was just like stressful like, yeah, I

21:26

was worried too. Yeah, it was, you

21:28

know what, end of the day, batteries

21:30

in there, it all works fine, no

21:32

big deal. So did, does it? Could

21:34

play it about the battery not being

21:36

official once or does it continue to

21:38

complain about that forever? It only complained

21:40

to me once. Okay. So I know

21:43

that some people say it pops up

21:45

like maybe like when they restart the

21:47

phone or whatever, but I only had

21:49

it show up for me once, but

21:51

I only had it show up for

21:53

me once, but I know they've

21:55

changed that over the years, because

21:57

it used to be much more

21:59

aggressive. battery. So if I hadn't have

22:01

grabbed that battery, if I was able

22:03

to live with it or had decent,

22:05

I could have spent a little bit

22:08

more and got like a 12 mini.

22:10

So if I would have found a

22:12

12 mini, I probably would have maybe

22:14

spent another 30 or 40 dollars, which

22:16

I think is worth it. But at

22:18

the time, I was hoping I didn't

22:20

have to pay that for that battery.

22:22

So if I hadn't have grabbed that

22:24

battery, if I was able to live

22:26

with it or had decent life, I

22:28

would have been in much better shape.

22:30

I didn't know until I got the

22:32

things in. So that was why we

22:34

did that first on boxing with Luke.

22:36

That was my first time seeing all

22:38

the products to figure out, okay, what

22:40

do I need to repair, what do

22:42

I want to try to leave some

22:44

sort of budget to work with. But

22:46

it was a fun challenge. It was

22:48

a fun challenge. I think what was

22:50

really great about it, but it was

22:52

a fun challenge. I mean, I think

22:54

what was really great about it, is

22:56

that because even though I agree with

22:58

you know, And I think that's a

23:00

good match in a way, right? Because

23:03

really that's kind of the successor, be

23:05

a single camera, you know, the basic

23:07

entry model screen, right? And it's still

23:09

supported, which is kind of as you

23:11

squeaked right by there. And actually I

23:13

was really impressed, you know, the pictures

23:15

and videos you took with it. By

23:17

the way, gorgeous 9-11 target you've got.

23:19

I didn't know you had that. Thank

23:21

you, thank you. Very nice. As a

23:23

car enthusiast myself. But yeah, so you

23:25

know, that was one thing. And then

23:27

you did the iPad 7-gen, right? 7-gen,

23:29

base model. And I could believe, what

23:31

was that, 65-70 dollars? I think it

23:33

got for $75-75 dollars. Yeah, it was

23:35

actually, that was one of the things

23:37

where. I didn't realize until the video

23:39

at how expensive old iPadsads are. Well,

23:41

because they hold their value. What can

23:43

do with it, right? Yep, yep, exactly

23:45

it. So I was like, oh, okay,

23:47

well, I'm sure people will find this

23:49

for, you know, 50 bucks, whatever. And

23:51

you can find some, like, really old

23:53

iPadsads. But the problem is that once

23:55

you get really old iPadsads, they aren't

23:58

supporting more. Even like, Netflix might not

24:00

work. Yeah, exactly. And that's the. feet

24:02

to the whole point. Exactly, yeah. So

24:04

the iPad was fine. Honestly, I had

24:06

no real issues with the iPad. I

24:08

spent extra like 10 bucks buying a

24:10

little like sort of flimsy case for

24:12

it, which that was a mistake. I

24:14

wouldn't have money. It wouldn't even like

24:16

hold the iPad up by itself. But

24:18

the idea was one of those areas

24:20

where the only thing that was actually

24:22

the mono speaker has technically stereo speakers,

24:24

but it's only on one side. Yeah.

24:26

totally fine. I mean, I was amazed

24:28

you were able to upgrade that to

24:30

the latest iPad OS. I didn't run okay

24:32

too. Like, I mean, it seemed to run

24:35

better than the iPhone, actually. That's exactly what

24:37

I was about to say. To be fair,

24:39

I think I asked a little bit more

24:41

out of the iPhone, the iPad, like

24:43

scrolling on Kendall or whatever,

24:45

but, yeah, no, it was a eye opening experience.

24:48

I'm not I'm not I will say once

24:50

the video is over maybe the things went

24:52

over to the side but with the watch

24:54

is actually I didn't mention the video I

24:56

even got the LTE version which was the

24:58

same price because I don't know how many

25:01

people are still running that and that was

25:03

how much this was like $67 or something

25:05

wow yeah I mean battery is not great

25:07

on it but battery wasn't really one percent

25:09

is still you know kind for something that's

25:11

that old yeah that you spent that little

25:13

money on like It's a five series too,

25:16

which is like actually usable, right? Wow. The

25:18

only problem I have with it was battery.

25:20

Like, and again, I would have had most

25:22

of the same problems when it

25:24

was new, right? Because this was I think kind

25:27

of in the era where like, battery life

25:29

was a little slow and importantly, like

25:31

the charging is so slow on these

25:33

things, right? So the newer Apple watches

25:35

charge, I don't know, twice as fast,

25:37

whatever. So you can actually, you know,

25:39

take a shower, drop it, drop it's,

25:41

you know, you know, 25% you go

25:44

okay cool I'll come back 30 minutes

25:46

from now. Did you ever replace the

25:48

screws that closed the iPhone because they

25:50

were missing? And it's it's still held

25:52

together. Okay. I don't know how much

25:54

those screws do because the adhesive that

25:56

like sort of glues that actually display

25:58

down is qua- quite strong. I don't

26:01

know if I would want to go swimming in

26:03

a pool. Oh, no, no, I mean, I don't

26:05

think that phone is water, I think it's more,

26:07

it's probably just IP 67 at best. That's a

26:10

great question. I don't remember, because actually, I daily

26:12

drove the iPhone, Tenard, it was new. I actually,

26:14

I drove the iPhone Tenard, when it was new.

26:16

I actually liked it, I drove the iPhone, not

26:19

the, not the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:21

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:23

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:25

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:27

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:30

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

26:32

the, the, the, the, the, the, the Something like

26:34

that. Yeah, I just remember the regular size 10-S

26:36

was like the battery was terrible So like you

26:39

know what I actually used the the 10-R like

26:41

whatever and I was so much happy because the

26:43

phone lasted all day and fun fact out of

26:45

all the somewhat things that have not held up

26:48

well in the 10-R battery life once I put

26:50

a new battery in Totally like I didn't even

26:52

have to think about it. That's nice Well, that's

26:54

impressive. And then you got through the Applewatch and

26:57

then you got the Mac. So the Mac, I

26:59

was really impressed. And I was surprised that you

27:01

didn't actually try to get replacement keys because even

27:03

though the butterfly is a little tricky to replace

27:06

physically the keys, it's possible. You don't actually have

27:08

to disassemble the Mac at all. It's just you

27:10

have to be very delicate because the mechanism is

27:12

much more fragile than Cesar keys. Caps that were

27:15

worn out, right? Basically, that's the only thing that

27:17

was wrong with it, right? Yeah, yeah. So when

27:19

I first got it, it was really stinky. Like

27:21

I definitely didn't smoke. Oh God, I hate it.

27:24

Yeah. Yeah. It did not smell good. But honestly,

27:26

after opening it up, dusting it out, I was

27:28

honestly, after opening it up, dusting it out, I

27:30

was afraid it was going to kind of, but

27:33

yeah. I mean, to me... No, that's fine. Yeah,

27:35

to be fair, I've actually never tried to replace

27:37

those key caps, because I know that you're right,

27:39

that mechanism is very, very sort of delicate, so

27:41

I didn't really think about it too much. Maybe

27:44

I could have swapped it, but for me, I

27:46

was just like... I just wondered if it crossed

27:48

your mind at all. It did not, no. You're

27:50

like, screw that. We're well into this video. now,

27:53

just going with it. And then the battery was

27:55

okay on the Mac, right? It was, yeah. I

27:57

don't remember the percentage, but it was like 120

27:59

cycles or something. It was like, oh, they had

28:02

just been replaced basically, it sounds like, wow. Just

28:04

someone hadn't spent that much time with that. I

28:06

don't know, that's interesting. I find a lot, so

28:08

we don't buy like, no, I actually, I'm like,

28:11

we buy a fair few, like used Macs and

28:13

use devices, and use devices. And what I find

28:15

is that sometimes, what I find is that sometimes,

28:17

like, like, like, phones always get used, the batteries

28:20

are always, you know, like if it's a couple

28:22

years old, you know, you're getting 80 or maybe

28:24

even less per set battery. But for Max, it's

28:26

interesting. I use the substantial part of the audience

28:29

out there who buys a Mac and maybe gets

28:31

it for school or work or whatever and doesn't

28:33

use it that much and turns around and sell

28:35

it because there are a lot of Max I

28:38

find with very low cycle counts and clearly like

28:40

hadn't been used that much. I mean. But at

28:42

same token, they're also definitely like computers that I'll

28:44

find with like a thousand battery cycles and all

28:47

speed up. Yeah, exactly. Like I think it's most

28:49

people who if you use your laptop for two

28:51

or three years, you're going to just naturally have

28:53

that. But it's interesting that there's a lot of

28:55

max out there that you can't really tell when

28:58

you're buying them unless someone has been incredibly, but

29:00

it's interesting that there's a lot of Max out

29:02

there that you can't really tell when you're buying

29:04

them, when you're buying them you're buying it, like

29:07

life, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

29:09

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

29:11

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

29:13

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

29:16

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

29:18

like, like, like, like, like, for a reasonable price.

29:20

I mean, it's not sustainable long term, because a

29:22

lot of these devices are gonna drop off the

29:25

cliff in terms of support, right? Yeah. I spent

29:27

a total of $532 to get the 2019 MacBook

29:29

Pro. That was the quadcore versions, which had the

29:31

Touchbar and the four ports. Yeah. iPhone 10-R, iPad,

29:34

Apple Watch. And the thing is, I had that

29:36

extra money once I had sort of bought, and

29:38

that's including like, like, like, paying paying paying for

29:40

the upgrades for the upgrades for the upgrades and

29:43

stuff. And mostly because the seller took like a

29:45

week and a half to ship it. Oh yeah.

29:47

I actually just got them. I actually posted this

29:49

short this morning. I thought I got a good

29:52

deal because I bought an original pair of Airpods

29:54

Pro, so first generation, for like $54. That's good.

29:56

But I got the box and said second gen.

29:58

So I got really excited. But I opened

30:00

it up and not only were they

30:03

not second-genns, they were in a

30:05

second-gen box, but they were first-gen knockoffs.

30:07

So they were actually fake airpods. They

30:09

didn't have noise canceling. I was like,

30:12

throw. Did you think the seller didn't

30:14

know? Because you know, some of them

30:16

are so, so real, right? Yep. that

30:18

I remember buying in Taiwan when I

30:20

was there last the last compute X

30:22

for me was in 2019 before COVID

30:25

and I remember I bought like a

30:27

knockoff airpods regular and you could not

30:29

tell like they had lightning they had

30:31

the right color everything the right LED

30:33

shade like I was like that's

30:35

why I bought them because I was like this

30:38

is insane yep it was exactly the same thing

30:40

they were crap but whatever yeah Yeah, they looked

30:42

absolutely pristine. I could, well, sorry, let me take

30:44

it back. They were dirty, but it was just

30:46

because someone had used it. But like, as far

30:48

as I could not tell a difference at all,

30:51

until I went to go pair them and it

30:53

immediately popped up saying, hey, these air parts aren't

30:55

genuine, are you sure? And then I'm like, okay,

30:57

cool, whatever, paired them, and then like, the noise

30:59

cance canceling wouldn't work. There's no transparency mode, like,

31:01

like, oh, oh, oh God. Okay, okay, okay, well,

31:04

well, well. So that didn't make the video, it would have been funny,

31:06

I would have been like a good like two minutes of it, I

31:08

realized I got scanned, but I just made it as a short, so.

31:10

Did you do a request for eBay to refund you and stuff? No,

31:12

it's like 50 bucks, who cares? Here's the thing. I have a policy

31:14

that I buy a lot of things, knowing that like I'm the guinea

31:16

pig, that like if it's not real, that's on me. It's a business

31:18

expense too at this expense too at this point, at this point, too

31:20

at this point, too, at this point, at this point, too, at this

31:23

expense expense expense, too, at this point, at this point, too, at this

31:25

point, too, at this point, too, at this expense expense, at this point,

31:27

too, at this point, at this point, at this expense, at this point,

31:29

at this expense, at this, at this expense, at this expense, at this,

31:31

at this expense, at this Bions, like I love the stuff you get.

31:33

It's kind of amazing. Like what I love, especially like, because

31:35

like me, I think you have this

31:37

thing where you love the cheap stuff.

31:39

Like I have this, I want to

31:41

democratize technology, right? And so

31:43

I've always been very excited about

31:46

affordable devices because even, you know,

31:48

or janky kind of like knockoffs

31:50

and stuff because they're fascinating, right?

31:52

They do suit a certain. part

31:54

of the market otherwise it wouldn't

31:57

exist but at the same time it's like some of it

31:59

isn't bad at all Right? And this is a

32:01

good example, like 600 bucks. You could use

32:03

this for a year or two. Say like

32:05

you're completely screwed with the economy right now,

32:07

you lose your job, all your Apple devices

32:09

die. 600 bucks, you can get back on

32:11

board. Wow. Like to me, that's where I

32:13

get so excited about this stuff. And so

32:15

I'm wondering, how long did you take into

32:17

research? Like, how long ahead did you have

32:20

to plan to actually get this? Or did

32:22

you say, we'll just make the video whenever

32:24

we get all this stuff. Yeah, so basically

32:26

we greenlet the idea, I don't know, a

32:28

few weeks before we actually got started. The

32:30

thing for me was, so I knew that

32:32

the, actually, we started working on when the

32:34

16E was announced, $600, that's exactly what we

32:36

started working on. So I think I probably

32:38

spent about two weeks sort of on eBay

32:40

trying to find items, because like I said,

32:42

I was, I had like a list, so

32:45

like as I was doing some research, I

32:47

was like, okay, I want, you know, you

32:49

know, at least a 10, at least a

32:51

10, at least a 10-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- Could I fit

32:53

an M1? Probably not. So like kind of

32:55

what's the oldest sort of Intel mattress was

32:57

supported. Like I basically had like two or

32:59

three options for each product, but that's what

33:01

I started bidding. So there's a point which

33:03

I was bidding like three phones at a

33:05

time. Like well, hopefully I get one of

33:07

these and turned out I didn't end up

33:09

getting the 10-hour, but I was like, carefully

33:12

juggling, okay, if I get this one, I

33:14

have to cancel this, we'll let it back

33:16

and forth, so let it back and forth.

33:18

So it, just sort of time to sort

33:20

of time to sort of like, just sort

33:22

of like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:24

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:26

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:28

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:30

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

33:32

like, like, like always options on eBay. And

33:34

I did specifically only use eBay for this.

33:37

And those are people like, oh, why didn't

33:39

she's like back, market, whatever. But what I

33:41

find is you get a better selection. And

33:43

for my purposes, I was willing to gamble.

33:45

So if I was going to save 20

33:47

bucks and maybe get something a little bit

33:49

sauce, like that was a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.

33:51

We should be very by on some of

33:53

these refurbishing sites. They're not necessarily going to

33:55

be guaranteed better quality anyway. Try down all

33:57

the items, then I had hit up Luke,

33:59

look hey, do you want to come out?

34:01

You know, because really, this video was, you

34:04

know, I saw the 16E, I'm like, $600,

34:06

that's crazy. And I was thinking about the

34:08

video he had done, where he, I think

34:10

he'd done like $300 or something, where he'd

34:12

done like the. absolute bare bones like you

34:14

know 15 year old like whatever the case

34:16

is the oldest stuff so I don't like

34:18

hey man I'm gonna totally steal your video

34:20

you wanna come help me with that he's

34:22

like yeah absolutely of course that's awesome great

34:24

well listen I'll put the video in the

34:26

show notes the link to it Folks, go

34:29

check it out. And those of you watching

34:31

on Patreon, we're about to give you a

34:33

treat, because we're going to show you some

34:35

phones coming up. Speaking of affordable phones, you're

34:37

a pixel user like I am. I have

34:39

a 9 ProXL right now. And you know

34:41

how good a pixel can be, especially the

34:43

A series. Every year, the A series is

34:45

a hit ever since the first one. And

34:47

the prices are still... Very decent considering especially

34:49

what's happening right now with terrorists and stuff.

34:51

Let's see if that stays but right now

34:54

today The pixel 9a is out. I'm holding

34:56

it up here. This is the white one.

34:58

Thankfully. I had a black one for the

35:00

first day or two and they recalled it

35:02

because apparently there's some defective part and they

35:04

sent me this white one. The black one

35:06

honestly do not buy it because Here's my

35:08

takeaway. This is this is very bland of

35:10

a design because it's very iPhone life's got

35:12

slap sides now and the rounded corners and

35:14

it's lost the visor. So as you can

35:16

see it's perfectly flat. It doesn't have the

35:18

beautiful camera bar that really is iconic, especially

35:21

on the nine series now. I think they

35:23

really nailed that design. So they got rid

35:25

of it. Of course, it's Google. They're going

35:27

to shoot themselves in the foot any chance

35:29

they get, right. But that being said. you

35:31

know if you can live with its camera

35:33

pill i think the on the black one

35:35

it blends in it really makes the phone

35:37

look really terrible the other thing i want

35:39

to show you is check out the bezels

35:41

if you can see on the video right

35:43

there like those are those are chunky as

35:46

and yeah and and you know at least

35:48

it's even like last year's eight a had

35:50

thinner vessels but the bottom had that chin

35:52

which was kind of a god awful yeah

35:54

so Imagine the black one with that. Now

35:56

it makes the vessel look even thicker, right?

35:58

Because you don't have that silver... around it.

36:00

So that's my only thing with this

36:02

problem. It's very generic in design, get

36:04

it in a light color, but this is

36:06

not about the design. It's about the value

36:09

and the fact that everything almost in

36:11

this phone has been updated since

36:13

last year. It's actually surprising. The

36:15

only things that remain from last

36:17

year are the ultra wide camera.

36:19

the front facing camera, the wireless

36:21

charging specs, which is just 7.5

36:24

watt, the fact that it's a

36:26

plastic bag, but it's all mat,

36:28

as you can see, like everything,

36:30

it's a metal frame, but everything

36:32

is mat, so no fingerprints, nothing,

36:34

nice. The other thing that's remained

36:36

is, unlike last year, are the

36:39

9 series in general, that has

36:41

a modem alongside the G4, but

36:43

it has the old modem, the

36:45

9300, that means no satellite connectivity.

36:47

So that's it, everything else, the

36:49

display is the same display as

36:52

the 9, just with chunky bezels

36:54

of doom. I don't know why,

36:56

it's so bezel-tastic. Look at this

36:58

thing, it's insane. Anyway, so other

37:00

than the bezels, the display is

37:03

exactly the same, which is amazing,

37:05

because in the past, the 8A

37:07

series, like 7 or 8, etc,

37:09

they always had a slightly lesser

37:12

display. So 2,700 knits, you know,

37:14

10 ADP, the whole 120 hertz,

37:16

that thing goes for two days,

37:18

no problem. And then you got

37:21

the 48 megapixel megapicksal

37:23

camera from the 9 Pro fold.

37:25

So not the better or bigger

37:27

sensor from the 9 series, but

37:29

the 9-profold one. So that's basically

37:32

everything is new. Oh, and charging

37:34

speeds, I mean, you're gonna laugh

37:37

at this. Yeah, faster, 23 watts

37:39

instead of 18. Oh, let's go. But

37:41

look, 499. Yeah, 8 gigs of RAM,

37:43

128 gigs or 256. I mean, that's

37:46

amazing. Like compare, this is

37:48

exactly what the 16E should

37:50

have been. Yes, like, yes, you

37:52

know, and I said that my 16-year

37:54

review, like, I love the phone, I

37:56

love the design, aesthetically, it's beautiful, it's

37:58

great, it's very iPhone. It's probably the

38:00

best looking of all the iPhones right

38:03

now in my opinion. Because you know,

38:05

I find the camera pods are too

38:07

ornamental on the current iPhone line. We're

38:09

going to talk about camera pods on

38:11

iPhones in a second. But I think

38:13

the thing here is if the iPhone's

38:15

16E, I can kind of live without

38:17

the old Troy because I understand Apple's

38:20

kind of really wanting to have like

38:22

one camera, two cameras, three cameras on

38:24

the lineup. But the lack of magnets

38:26

for the Maxafe. Yeah. 600 dollars, like

38:28

I understand that you can't make it

38:30

429 like the SE was, I get

38:32

that, especially today. But on this phone,

38:34

like they did it. You know, Google

38:37

didn't mess about. They did it right.

38:39

So I'm very happy with this. My

38:41

review is up on Hot Hardware. I'll

38:43

put it up. What are your thoughts

38:45

in general about this 9A from what

38:47

you've read and seen so far? Yeah,

38:49

yeah. I mean, well, especially from hearing

38:51

sort of your first impressions. I mean,

38:54

it seems solid. So for a context,

38:56

I've actually since late last year, I've

38:58

been using the regular pixel 9. The

39:00

regular, the green 9, which I would

39:02

show you if I was. I've been

39:04

so happy with this phone. So I

39:06

actually wasn't planning on switching to the

39:08

Pixel 9 this year. I actually have

39:11

not. Daily Drive. I've been daily driving

39:13

Zflips since day one. Yeah, you were

39:15

like Samsung this whole time. Yeah, yeah,

39:17

yeah. And so the Pixel 9 when

39:19

I got it. I had it. I

39:21

had it just doing a video on

39:23

a video on it. I'm like, got

39:25

it. I had it just doing a

39:28

video on it. I'm like, I had

39:30

it just doing a video on a

39:32

video on. Exactly, like I have just

39:34

been using Z flip for so long

39:36

as you know what? I want something

39:38

different. Let me actually spend some time

39:40

with pixel 9. Originally it was going

39:42

to be for a little while. I'm

39:45

like, oh, I'll just use it for

39:47

a bit. No, whatever. I'll move to

39:49

S25 or charge something else. But I

39:51

just keep using it, keep using it.

39:53

Maybe when S25 edge eventually shows up,

39:55

maybe that will be the thing that

39:57

kind of pulls me away. And $50

39:59

less? Yeah, the best you can get

40:02

right now on sale is a pixel

40:04

9 for 650, right? Yeah. Yeah. And

40:06

it's the same amount of storage. So,

40:08

you know, like, I don't know. I

40:10

think, I think regular price is $7.99.

40:12

So I think so. Yeah, yeah. Which,

40:14

I mean, it is always a little

40:16

hard to judge some of the pixel

40:19

pricing because you're right. The pixel 9,

40:21

I got it on sale like two

40:23

months after it came out. for 650,

40:25

right? So it like, yeah, it like,

40:27

the MSRP don't tend to stick around

40:29

for too long. I think the A

40:31

series usually doesn't get quite the same

40:33

kind of deep discourse. They're probably thinner

40:36

margins on that anyway. Exactly, yeah. But

40:38

I mean, even so, what you're getting

40:40

here is it might not be like

40:42

a huge headline like, wow, insane, crazy

40:44

deal, like you're the old like one

40:46

plus days or whatever. But what you're

40:48

getting here is a phone that will

40:51

do basically everything you need to do,

40:53

without major compromises. for a reasonable price,

40:55

you're getting the years and years and

40:57

years of software updates, you're getting, well,

40:59

yes, like you said, it might not

41:01

have the latest modem, you may not

41:03

have, I mean, tensor is not going

41:05

to, or the... But it's fine, you've

41:08

lived with it, right? Like, it's fine,

41:10

you've lived with it, right? Like, it's

41:12

not great, but it's perfectly serviceable. Perfectly.

41:14

And I think the other thing is

41:16

you point out of the software updates,

41:18

but more importantly, you get, you get,

41:20

right, right. Absolutely. And it's just a

41:22

good general experience. I think that's like

41:25

the bottom line, right? I think that

41:27

for so many years, I feel like

41:29

the pixel line has almost kind of

41:31

underperformed what it should have been. Yeah.

41:33

But I feel like the last year

41:35

or two, especially with the pixel nine,

41:37

there's not really any obvious things you

41:39

can point to. Yes, you're right. There

41:42

are certainly little things you can point

41:44

to, but like performance is fine. Everything.

41:46

aggressively pricing, especially when you consider sales,

41:48

right? Like, they're a little bit cheaper.

41:50

Like, I mean, I don't know if

41:52

they can maintain this price right now.

41:54

I'm, I'm hoping I'm really keeping my

41:56

fingers crossed and I want every. right

41:59

now that's listening to cross their fingers

42:01

really hard because like I'm like I'm

42:03

not sure they like honestly this phone

42:05

is so good they could easily charge

42:07

like 25 30 dollars more for it

42:09

and get away with that right now

42:11

yeah yeah but they're doing the right

42:13

thing right I think that Google for all

42:16

the the stuff we give them for killing

42:18

products too early and yada yada it's clear

42:20

that they see real value in pixel they

42:22

see real value in hardware they have made

42:24

the long-term commitments and they

42:27

continue to invest so I would be

42:29

very curious to see what the

42:31

actual profit margins on pixels are.

42:33

I can't imagine it's all that

42:35

particularly impressive. But I'm glad that

42:37

like, hey, they've stuck with it

42:40

and it's taken them nine generations,

42:42

but we're really on a spot

42:44

where it's really easy to recommend

42:46

a pixel, just full stop. And

42:48

you have an entire lineup. It's

42:50

like Apple. It's like Samsung. You

42:52

don't just have that one phone. Like, one

42:55

plus, awesome. Right. Apple is great. Right. It's

42:57

like Chinese phone, I got tons of them,

42:59

I love them, but they're not really attainable

43:01

to the average person walking into a, you know,

43:03

an 18T store or Verizon or a team of this form

43:05

is sold by all three carriers. Yeah, yeah. And it's sold

43:07

for Google Fire right now, there's deals which can get one

43:09

for free with a new line, so you don't get any

43:12

of that with one plus because they're not sold by carriers.

43:14

They only have one, two if you count the 13-hour,

43:16

the 13-hour model, the 13-hour model, the 13-hour

43:18

model, the 13-hour model, and open, and open

43:20

is getting old, and open is getting old,

43:22

so fair, so fair, so fair, so fair,

43:25

but like, but like. At least, look, Pixel

43:27

has an entire lineup, right? 9A, 9, 9,

43:29

9 Pro, 9 Pro Excel, and 9 Pro

43:31

Fall. That mean, that's incredible, because in the

43:33

US we have zero choice. Like, think about

43:36

it, you could get a motor razor, you

43:38

could get a motor edge, which is a

43:40

mid-range phone. you know you get a motto G

43:42

if you're on a budget on a on a

43:44

prepaid but then honestly I'd say buy this instead

43:46

because it's way way better but nobody has a

43:49

lineup like this this is the thing that kind

43:51

of people I think forget is like I

43:53

know that you know you and I and

43:55

my audience is super sex savvy and already

43:57

adopted they import phones and stuff but the

44:00

average consumer can access all of these

44:02

phones from Google. And even though the

44:04

tensor G4 sucks, and you know, I

44:06

know I'm preaching to the choir and

44:08

I'm a bit of a Stockholm syndrome

44:10

because, you know, my abuser treat me

44:12

well. My pixel tensor is crap, but

44:15

I love the software kind of thing.

44:17

Yeah, yeah. But look, I really think

44:19

that we have to give Google credit

44:21

because I don't think they make any

44:23

money overall on this. Like there's no

44:25

way. Like think of the development costs

44:27

of making the pixel 9 pro. fold

44:30

right like it's almost as good as

44:32

a one plus open and it's their

44:34

second phone like they must have spent

44:36

so much R&D money on this you

44:38

can't copy somebody else you have to

44:40

create it from scratch essentially right so

44:42

yeah I don't know I'm impressed with

44:45

Google that they're mashed to stick around

44:47

and grow actually this lineup like yeah

44:49

so it's what it's just I just

44:51

I like the fact that it's hard

44:53

to pick a bad pixel right now

44:55

Yeah. Like you can pretty much look

44:57

at any of the pixel line. I

45:00

would say maybe like the Excel, but

45:02

even then like, you can pretty confident

45:04

look at all of the pixels right

45:06

now and say, hey, like, these are

45:08

solid phones, reasonable prices, no real major

45:10

downsides, a lot of the reliability issues

45:12

have kind of been sorted out, compared

45:15

to, you know, like, like, you know,

45:17

use two with G3 and the previous

45:19

ones. Yeah, I know. That's good. And

45:21

one last thing on the 9A that's

45:23

kind of cool, they also updated the

45:25

water resistance from IP67 to 68, so

45:27

now you can bathe with it. I

45:30

mean, what I do all the time.

45:32

We do this all the time, Netflix

45:34

and chill in the bathtub. But look,

45:36

I think, you know, again, great stuff.

45:38

The next thing I want to talk

45:40

about is kind of related to Apple

45:42

and Google. We got a bunch of

45:45

quick news items I want to fire

45:47

off here. We talked about the... iPhone

45:49

camera bumps and you know speaking of

45:51

the lack of visor on this looks

45:53

like Apple's gonna change things There's some

45:55

cases now that have popped up and

45:57

it's not the first time we've seen

46:00

this but it looks like the 17th

46:02

pro series is kind of, reminds me

46:04

of Pocophone a little bit. Yeah. You

46:06

know, big rectangle at the top. What

46:08

are your thoughts on that? I think

46:10

they need a new design language, but

46:12

is this the right direction? I mean,

46:15

I always like to sort of reserve

46:17

judgment until we see the actual full

46:19

announcement, right? Because, you know, you'll see

46:21

the cases, you'll see the mock-ups, you'll

46:23

see the mock-ups, you'll see the mockups,

46:25

And none of them look good? I

46:27

mean to be fair, you're right. I

46:29

think we have, I think most people

46:32

can agree that the existing iPhone with

46:34

the weird like sort of triple camera

46:36

bump on the back is not exactly

46:38

a beautiful look. You know, it's been

46:40

around since the 11th or something. And

46:42

you know, I think we've over time

46:44

grown to just get used to it,

46:47

but I don't think anyone can look

46:49

at it and go, oh my God,

46:51

what a beautiful device. Like when you

46:53

look at 16E, the single camera, it

46:55

looks so clean, it looks so clean,

46:57

it looks so clean, it looks so

46:59

nice. what has already been a big

47:02

triple camera bump? And then we're extending

47:04

it to be this weird visor thing.

47:06

I mean, I'm always hopeful that like,

47:08

oh, maybe they actually do something with

47:10

the rest of that sort of space

47:12

where it's not just like, you know,

47:14

a finish, like maybe they stick something

47:17

there, whatever. But the thing is, I,

47:19

right now, I will be very surprised

47:21

if when they announce this thing, it

47:23

doesn't look ugly. It just to me

47:25

is like, especially because, have you're like,

47:27

have you know, you know maybe they're

47:29

targeting China in terms of design like

47:32

you know different tastes over there I

47:34

think that you know for us at

47:36

least in the West right now here

47:38

and especially North America where our choices

47:40

are very limited I think pixel nailed

47:42

the design best yeah they kind of

47:44

inspired themselves by Apple with the slap

47:47

sides and the rounded corners yeah it's

47:49

a little copycatish but I've grown to

47:51

love it but the the visor as

47:53

it is on the 9th series other

47:55

than the 9a is beautiful I think

47:57

it really defines the design language for

47:59

the phone Samsung is less offensive than

48:02

Apple. But it's also more bland. So,

48:04

you know, give and take. I do

48:06

really do think we need some change

48:08

on the Apple front. So

48:11

maybe like initially when we

48:13

saw the pixel nine, we

48:15

were like, hmm, not sure

48:18

about this change because you

48:20

know, it no longer wraps

48:22

around the edges. Yeah. Yeah.

48:25

But then we saw it

48:27

and it was just like,

48:29

oh, It's always hard to look at these

48:32

very early looks at things. You'll get

48:34

an idea of the physical dimensions, but

48:36

what are the actual materials? How do

48:38

they sort of interact? Are they really

48:40

going to be different? Is it going

48:43

to be two-toned? Is it going to

48:45

be some completely... Like, it's always hard

48:47

to know. So, like, right now, I'm

48:49

not encouraged. But also, I'm going to

48:51

keep an open mind until Timmy Cook

48:53

pulls it out and we go, pulls

48:56

it out and we go. Speaking of

48:58

pixels as well, we have leaks on

49:00

10 series pricing and it looks like

49:02

for especially the fold is

49:04

going to be pretty much

49:07

identical, maybe a new chip, which

49:09

makes sense because it's pretty

49:11

solid and you know, they

49:14

probably spent a lot of

49:16

money creating a second generation,

49:18

which is really great. So

49:20

what we're looking at is a Wow,

49:22

it says that this article on GS Marine,

49:24

I'll put it on the show note,

49:26

says the pixel hand sets will continue

49:28

to start at 499 through the pixel

49:30

12A and 28. I don't know how

49:33

they can do that with the current

49:35

economy. No way. Well, also, I understand

49:37

that like, you know, I don't know

49:39

where this sort of information was sort

49:41

of sourced from. I understand. You know,

49:43

a rumor at this point. Exactly. It's like,

49:45

I could believe that that's like their goal

49:47

is like their goal is like, like, like,

49:49

like, like, I find it hard to

49:52

believe that anyone with any serious

49:54

degree of confidence can tell me

49:56

what the 2028 pixel A12 or

49:58

whatever version we are on. That's

50:00

insane. But the news here says, I mean,

50:02

this is not a goal. I would not

50:04

bet on that goal. That's just what they're

50:07

developing. Like, okay, we think it'll be around

50:09

this price, and then we'll see what happens.

50:11

But yeah, also, I just, I know that

50:13

the pixel team leaks a lot, but come

50:15

on, are we really leaking pixel 12A right

50:18

now? I agree, that's insane. But the news

50:20

that just here says, I mean, this is

50:22

not news, the rumor, the rumor says that

50:24

we're gonna have, that we're gonna have, we're

50:26

gonna have, we're gonna have, we're gonna have,

50:29

we're gonna have a, price drop on the

50:31

fold because it's just a processor upgrade basically

50:33

so should be about you know 1600 which

50:35

is 200 less than current although currently there's

50:37

there's sales always yes but the other thing

50:40

to consider is a hundred dollars more for

50:42

the 10 and 10 pro excel no mention

50:44

of the 10 pro that that that seems

50:46

likely to me simply because of the economy

50:49

and I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhones

50:51

go up in prices here and the S

50:53

series or even the ZE series go up

50:55

and price a little bit this year too.

50:57

Last year they went up and price the

51:00

ZE fold and ZE fold and so you

51:02

know. Yeah I don't know I think I

51:04

think this pricing stuff right now if you're

51:06

playing with prices or claiming pricing you are

51:08

digging yourself a big hole because as things

51:11

are very volatile and so I would say

51:13

right now if you're really needing your phone

51:15

get go get it now. go get doesn't

51:17

matter which phone you're looking at to buy

51:20

it now because you're going to be set

51:22

for at least three or four years shorter

51:24

if you're you know a listener but my

51:26

point is you know I would I would

51:28

stock up a little bit because the uncertainty

51:31

is you know a big problem and it's

51:33

only can go up from here so yeah

51:35

sadly and if I was if I took

51:37

off my tech reviewer hat and put on

51:39

my company man hat I would launch every

51:42

product over the next year at like $100

51:44

more than I was initially expecting. You've got

51:46

a price out in certain the end because

51:48

it's so much easier to launch a product

51:50

at $8.99. 799 now and then just, oh,

51:53

you can always put it on sale all

51:55

you want. It is a very different thing

51:57

when you launch that product like maybe the

51:59

switch to and then have to go, oh,

52:02

hey, JK, we're gonna add a little to

52:04

the price, whoopsie, like. You got to start

52:06

high? You can always discount. It is so

52:08

much harder to raise the price. Yeah, yeah,

52:10

yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, I know. I agree

52:13

with you on percent. Also, we mentioned it

52:15

when we talked about the 9A here. The

52:17

Gemini Live visual AI feature. So this is

52:19

actually very cool. It's coming to all pixel

52:21

99. It's baked into the 9A at launch,

52:24

and it's coming to all S25 devices. So,

52:26

you know, basically, you know, Gemini Live right

52:28

now, you can hold the thing and talk

52:30

to it, and talk to it. Imagine now

52:33

that you can tell it to look at

52:35

your screen, but real time, like video, like

52:37

screen capture. You have a bunch of permissions

52:39

you can set for that. And then the

52:41

other option is to look at your cameras

52:44

in real time. So of course, you know,

52:46

there are lots of privacy issues here, right?

52:48

Like, we already freak out a little bit

52:50

when people take photos in... certain places like

52:52

you know I have a pool here in

52:55

my building it's shared and people don't take

52:57

photos generally with their phones but they're holding

52:59

their phones in the hot tub and you

53:01

don't know are they taking you know what

53:04

are they doing so now I'm like if

53:06

you're using Gemma Live right there with earbuds

53:08

or something oh God like my my The

53:10

technology is incredible. So what I did yesterday

53:12

is I walked around my house here, my

53:15

place, and I just asked it to describe

53:17

stuff. And then ask some questions about it.

53:19

I'm like, you know, there's a big park

53:21

here in Vancouver called Stanley Park. It's like

53:23

bigger than Central Park in New York, and

53:26

it's very close to my place. And so

53:28

I was like, there's a put, we have

53:30

a poster of it on the wall, and

53:32

I said, what is this, what is this?

53:34

for people with disabilities. Yes, especially visually impaired

53:37

people, because you can literally ask it to

53:39

describe everything and it just keeps going, you

53:41

know, and it only got one thing wrong.

53:43

You thought my soda stream in my kitchen

53:46

was a coffee maker, but everything else, like

53:48

it described acts. It described that I had

53:50

a magic mouse and an iMac on my

53:52

desk. Oh wow. Like it described the color

53:54

of it. It described like, you know, I

53:57

have a bunch of pill boxes from my

53:59

medications. It described that they were pill boxes.

54:01

I don't think it could get close enough

54:03

to read the labels. But it's really interesting

54:05

that it got most of it right. And

54:08

a little scary too because I. You know,

54:10

look, I'm pretty sure I didn't read the

54:12

terms of service, it's not my thing, because

54:14

I'm, you know, I'm not a real adopter,

54:17

I have to try the stuff out any

54:19

other, but I'm pretty sure that Google's getting

54:21

all this data to teach its AI, right?

54:23

So you're giving away a lot of your

54:25

personal life. In fact, I went in afterwards

54:28

and deleted that data from Gemini, just because

54:30

it's a little creepy to think what they're

54:32

doing, what they're doing, what they're doing, I

54:34

don't think it's creepy and I think it's

54:36

really impressive. But yeah, that's the thing. So

54:39

why are you thoughts on this? It's really

54:41

impressive. So yeah, I went to IO last

54:43

year where I think they had shown off,

54:45

I think they called it Project Astra at

54:47

the time, and I've called it Project Astra

54:50

at the time. And I've actually called it

54:52

Project Astra at the time. And I've actually

54:54

called it Project Astra at the time. And

54:56

I've actually called it called it Project As

54:59

It Project Ast. Project Ast. it's not like

55:01

a actual live feed like I think what

55:03

they're doing is they're like taking an image

55:05

every so many frames and they're trying to

55:07

compute like basically they're trying to do this

55:10

in the most economical way possible because if

55:12

you actually streaming 4k 30 FPS driver it

55:14

light on fire right but what's cool about

55:16

it is you're right it works already to

55:18

such a really high degree on your phone

55:21

as you assume this lands on other sort

55:23

of devices so whether it be some glasses

55:25

or a headset like you can really see

55:27

that sort of use case coming up. Now

55:30

that was actually last year, last week, as

55:32

it's in Seattle for the Microsoft 50th anniversary.

55:34

And they showed up Copilot Vision, which I

55:36

will say I didn't actually get to touch

55:38

it, but someone like kind of walked me

55:41

through a demo. It was very similar to

55:43

what we were getting with Gemini Live. It

55:45

was same thing where You know

55:47

you move the phone

55:49

around tell me what

55:52

this is tell me

55:54

a story about the

55:56

items you see like

55:58

all that kind of

56:00

stuff And it works

56:03

really quite well. So

56:05

we're definitely an era

56:07

where AI is vastly out

56:09

sort of outrunning the This the text

56:11

box the field, you know, it's

56:13

actually really be able to integrate itself

56:16

into your life in a much

56:18

more meaningful way I do I think

56:20

it's gonna be different for everybody I don't want to

56:22

speak for like what everyone's individual comfort level.

56:24

Yeah, these tools is but what I

56:26

can say is I'm very happy these

56:28

things exist me exactly right. You

56:30

can imagine if you are visually impaired. Oh

56:33

my god Just this would be such

56:35

an incredible. This is such an incredible

56:37

tool that you can like an example,

56:39

right? Like right now you're in Taipei,

56:41

right? You're talking to, you know, taxi

56:43

driver. You need to use Google Translate

56:45

It's a bit cumbersome, you know, you

56:47

are going to the corner store and

56:49

you're looking at a can and you're

56:51

You go to translating it visually. That's

56:53

all great Imagine now you just got

56:56

Gemini live running with your pixel buds or

56:58

whatever preferred your buds and you just

57:00

talk Yeah, and it just does the

57:02

stuff like you can say hold the

57:04

can and say tell me what's what's

57:06

in here And it does the translating

57:08

and it actually tells you you don't

57:10

have to like There's no middleman anymore

57:12

and and you know part of me

57:15

is like wow, but part of me

57:17

is like I'm too old for

57:19

this You know, like I'm feel like

57:21

get off my lawn kids like seriously

57:23

like I'm having a moment where I'm like Wow,

57:26

like yeah, this is this is happening

57:28

like, you know chat GPT, you know

57:30

Generally I in general, you know, it's

57:32

kind of fun to play with and you

57:34

know generate like these images and

57:36

yeah And like do the do the

57:38

things like, you know Refresh and

57:40

revise my headlines for for my stories

57:42

by iterating with with chat GPT

57:44

and Gemini Succes an email to customer

57:46

service because you know, you you

57:48

have a certain style for that and

57:51

I'm terrible because I just yell

57:53

at people But but

57:55

you know, oh, that's great,

57:57

but when I'm starting to see things

57:59

where an agent is on computer doing things

58:01

for you intelligently without being destructive

58:03

without like there's not it's not

58:06

generative so much it's more like

58:08

task grabbing your life your yes

58:10

your tech life and that is

58:13

the stuff we need right yeah

58:15

there's this thing I can't talk

58:17

about it yet but the thing

58:20

I've seen that runs on the Mac right

58:22

now that you can basically tell it to

58:24

operate on your files and you can tell

58:26

it to do stuff that you don't even

58:29

have apps installed for. It will go in

58:31

the background, create an app using ChatGPT that

58:33

solves the problem you're giving it and then

58:35

apply it to your files. It's non-destructive. It

58:38

just reads, it only read only access to

58:40

your stuff. But then it like, you know,

58:42

so for example, like you have a bunch

58:44

of receipts and you have Excel form, you

58:46

want to put all the data from the

58:48

data from the receipts. There are photos, photos,

58:50

PDF, random stuff, random stuff, you just tell

58:53

it. And it'll do it. And it doesn't, you

58:55

don't have to install anything on your

58:57

Mac, like it'll spin off a virtual

58:59

machine in the background. Yeah, yeah. Code

59:01

for itself, what it needs to fix,

59:04

using open source stuff from GitHub, and

59:06

then actually create the stuff and then

59:08

run it and then execute the task.

59:10

And it does it in seconds. And you're

59:13

like, this is where I want people to

59:15

get off my lawn, Austin. Yeah, yeah. Like,

59:17

I worked as a software engineer, I wrote

59:19

code, this stuff is happening in. Microseconds

59:22

in the background stuff that would

59:24

have taken me hours to do

59:26

20 years ago when I was

59:28

still on video games Unbelievable it

59:31

is it is and it's funny

59:33

to think about everyone's approaching it

59:35

from different perspectives, too You know,

59:37

like I've seen there's certainly some

59:40

versions that have been approaching it

59:42

from different perspectives, too You know,

59:44

like I've seen there's certainly some

59:46

versions that kind of build this

59:48

in I'm getting the cloud So basically

59:51

you could be in the browser, say,

59:53

hey, I want to order flowers. It

59:55

spins up a virtual machine, opens a

59:57

browser, starts navigating, and basically you're watching

59:59

it. everything inside your browser and at

1:00:02

certain points it will prompt you to

1:00:04

say hey do you want the dozen

1:00:06

roses of the two dozen? What do

1:00:08

you want the space? What are the

1:00:10

cases? The way they're doing I think

1:00:12

is very safe because it doesn't save

1:00:14

any information like you have to put

1:00:17

your credit card in every single time,

1:00:19

you have to give all the information,

1:00:21

you have to put your credit card

1:00:23

in every single time, you have to

1:00:25

give all the information, you have to

1:00:27

give all the information, you have to

1:00:29

give all the information, you have to

1:00:32

give all the information, you have to

1:00:34

give all the information, you have to

1:00:36

give it, you have to give it,

1:00:38

Yeah, sure, ship it and then you're

1:00:40

done. But you know, our phones are

1:00:42

powerful enough now. You could spin that

1:00:44

virtual machine on the phone, keep all

1:00:47

that data locally, and only go to

1:00:49

the cloud for the like the weather

1:00:51

info, the shopper info. Like that's even

1:00:53

better. And I think that's kind of

1:00:55

where we're going. Yeah. I want to

1:00:57

talk about. some of the Chinese news

1:00:59

really rapidly here. We've got the Fine

1:01:02

X Ultra out. I'm sorry folks, I

1:01:04

just got the box this morning. For

1:01:06

those of you watching on Patreon, I'm

1:01:08

holding the box for the Oppo Fine

1:01:10

X 8 Ultra. This is their top

1:01:12

line camera phone. I'm just gonna not

1:01:14

unbox it because I don't want to,

1:01:17

I need to rebox it. So yeah,

1:01:19

yeah, yeah. There's a divider and I

1:01:21

think inside of here is a case

1:01:23

and some documents. There is the phone

1:01:25

which... I can't show you because it's

1:01:27

in the thing, but look at this

1:01:29

camera pod. Let me see if I

1:01:32

can hold this up for you guys.

1:01:34

I think you say you're not going

1:01:36

to unbox it and you perceive it.

1:01:38

I can't, anything that's destructive I can't

1:01:40

do. So I can't remove this wrapper

1:01:42

and I'm not going to remove this

1:01:44

wrapper and I'm not going to remove

1:01:47

that IMI sticker. But check out this

1:01:49

camera pod. You can see how crazy

1:01:51

it. and a cable and a sim

1:01:53

tool and this is a 100 watt

1:01:55

charger, I believe this is a 100

1:01:57

watch phone. Anyway, expect more next week

1:01:59

on the show about this phone because

1:02:02

I want to play with it a

1:02:04

little bit. This is not sold anywhere

1:02:06

else. I'll link to a story from

1:02:08

GSM Arena that talks about the specs

1:02:10

and everything. alongside the X8S series, which

1:02:12

ships with the Media Tech Diamonds, the

1:02:14

9400 plus, which was also announced to

1:02:17

this, is an updated version of the

1:02:19

9400. The ultra that I just showed

1:02:21

you is eight elite, so it's quackum,

1:02:23

but the other ones are all 9400

1:02:25

plus. Now the 8S series, the X8S,

1:02:27

is basically a mini phone, like that

1:02:29

1 plus 13T that's been rumored, 6.3

1:02:32

inch display, and then. it's got also

1:02:34

an X8S plus, which is kind of

1:02:36

interesting because it's the exact same chassis

1:02:38

as the X8 non-pro that came out

1:02:40

in the fall, but with a 9400

1:02:42

plus upgraded in there. That's it. So

1:02:44

those are basically the phones. In terms

1:02:47

of the ultra, it's basically like everything

1:02:49

we had on the the ultra last

1:02:51

year, but they've gone to a thinner

1:02:53

chassis. a bigger battery and it's silicon

1:02:55

carbon so 6100 million power. You got

1:02:57

a new eight elite in there of

1:02:59

course and then you have this crazy

1:03:02

camera system which you know based on

1:03:04

the X8 pro that I used which

1:03:06

so far my favorite camera phone that

1:03:08

I've had my hands on. Sadly Shami

1:03:10

did not send me the 15 ultra

1:03:12

so I don't have that to compare

1:03:14

but what are your thoughts on these

1:03:17

Chinese phones? It is crazy at how

1:03:19

I think in the West it's really

1:03:21

easy. to, because you know, if you

1:03:23

don't see the phone in stores, you

1:03:25

don't see people walking around with them,

1:03:27

it's easy to kind of lose track

1:03:29

of how unbelievably fast the progress is.

1:03:32

You think about the battery tech, I

1:03:34

mean, the battery tech alone is like

1:03:36

making huge, huge strides. You look at

1:03:38

the cameras which have made huge strides

1:03:40

as well. You look at just the

1:03:42

variety of hardware that you have, I

1:03:44

mean, you look at the different flipping

1:03:47

and folding options, you look at every

1:03:49

size, I mean, it's one of those

1:03:51

things where... It really shows what competition

1:03:53

will do and also what it shows

1:03:55

what the lack of competition won't give

1:03:57

you. Exactly. For us, you know. in

1:03:59

the West or even in the U.S.

1:04:02

Exactly, when you see Apple doing their

1:04:04

own thing year after year in no

1:04:06

particular rush to launch anything until they're

1:04:08

ready for it, when you look at Samsung

1:04:10

who are cruising and doing their thing and

1:04:12

they're taking it one step at a time,

1:04:15

and you see the Chinese manufacturers

1:04:17

who are fighting just absolutely ruthlessly with

1:04:19

each other to get every scrap of

1:04:22

market share at every price, like the

1:04:24

phones are just, honestly, they're

1:04:26

incredibly fast, they're incredibly

1:04:28

quick. iteration and the

1:04:30

evolution is so rapid. Oh, I

1:04:33

mean 100% like Apollo has the

1:04:35

Reno series and Vivo has a

1:04:37

V series and again, these are

1:04:39

X PBK group companies, VBC has

1:04:41

been disbanded as a parent company,

1:04:43

but they're still very close in

1:04:45

their in their relationships. Both of

1:04:47

these phones come out literally with

1:04:49

a new version every four months. Four

1:04:51

months. Yep. Like imagine a pixel

1:04:53

A coming out every four month.

1:04:55

Like, like how do you improve what you

1:04:58

change? So it's crazy to me. It's

1:05:00

wild. It really is wild. Speaking

1:05:02

of which, there's a few new

1:05:04

zysms here that are like related.

1:05:07

So, you know, Opo has its

1:05:09

ultra and X8S series now, but

1:05:11

the 1 plus 13T display has

1:05:13

been T's. This is the. probably

1:05:15

China only 6.3 inch mini flagship,

1:05:18

right? Better than a 13 hour,

1:05:20

but less is good than a

1:05:22

13, but much smaller. And you

1:05:24

look at the display, you look

1:05:27

at the bezels, and it's identical

1:05:29

to the X8S, which is the

1:05:31

6.3 inch upper, which is also

1:05:34

identical to the Vivo X 200S,

1:05:36

which is also their mini phone.

1:05:38

And then there's a Vivo X200 Ultra that's

1:05:41

coming soon and you know we've been talking

1:05:43

about that on the show for a few

1:05:45

weeks now. That's now coming I think later

1:05:47

this month like I want to say April

1:05:50

21st or something like that. But here's the

1:05:52

thing about it. They're making a camera kit.

1:05:54

Remember the the Shami 14 Ultra and 15

1:05:57

Ultra actually you know the 13 Ultra that

1:05:59

all had a camera kit, which basically adds

1:06:01

a grip with a battery in it, a case

1:06:03

that you can mount some standard filters on, you

1:06:05

know, like camera filters. So that's really cool because

1:06:07

so far, Shami was the only one doing that.

1:06:09

I'm wondering if Apple will do that eventually with

1:06:11

the ultra that I have here that, you know,

1:06:13

just unboxed, because right now there's nothing being announced

1:06:16

for that. Have you ever used any of these

1:06:18

crazy camera phones and grips to go alongside them?

1:06:20

And what's your experience beaniffine if at all? No,

1:06:22

so I've never used any of the first party

1:06:24

grips. I've certainly tried some of the third party

1:06:26

grips that, you know, companies will make, but no,

1:06:28

I've never used any of the ones, especially with

1:06:30

the ones that have, like, batteries and whatnot installed,

1:06:32

and certainly filter that. That's one of the things

1:06:34

that, oh, man. I think someone's selling, that's, that's

1:06:37

one of the things that, oh, man. I think

1:06:39

someone's selling, right? I think they're like batteries and

1:06:41

whatnot installed, and what not installed, and what, and

1:06:43

what, and what, and what, and what, and what,

1:06:45

and what, and what, and what, and what, and

1:06:47

what, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

1:06:49

and, and, and certainly filters, and, and, and, and,

1:06:51

and certainly filters, and, and, and, and, that's, and,

1:06:53

and, and, and, certainly filters, and, that's, that's, that's,

1:06:55

come back to what we were saying earlier. There's

1:06:57

so much competition here. Everyone's trying to find every

1:07:00

possible little inch of like, oh, hey, we haven't

1:07:02

done this, we haven't done this. It's like, where's

1:07:04

Samsung? Where is my filter kit for my X25

1:07:06

in log, right? It's like, I just think that

1:07:08

everyone's playing in different worlds, and there's not enough

1:07:10

like true competition. Like I think back to, like,

1:07:12

I'm sorry, back to Samsung here, but I think

1:07:14

back to last year. with the S-24 launch. I

1:07:16

was in the room and they were kind of

1:07:18

talking about it. And people were like asking, oh,

1:07:21

well, are you going to bring log? And they're

1:07:23

like, log? Oh, we have an iPhone? Uh, yeah,

1:07:25

I don't know, maybe. And then for S-25, I

1:07:27

remember having a conversation? And then for S-25, I

1:07:29

remember having a conversation? And then for S-25, I

1:07:31

remember having a conversation? I remember having a, for

1:07:33

S-25, I remember having a having a conversation? And

1:07:35

then for S- and then for S- and then

1:07:37

for S- and then for S- and then for

1:07:39

S- and then for S- for S- for S-

1:07:42

for S-5, I remember, I remember, I remember, I

1:07:44

remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember,

1:07:46

I was having a, I was, I was, I

1:07:48

was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

1:07:50

I was, I was, I was, I was, I

1:07:52

If it takes someone in a room for a

1:07:54

briefing to say, hey, what about this feature? Should

1:07:56

you do this feature? And that's the first time

1:07:58

you think about it? Maybe you should be looking

1:08:00

at the competition. a little bit more closely because

1:08:02

they've been on that game for a whole lot

1:08:05

longer than a handful of YouTubeers

1:08:07

in a room saying do you have log

1:08:09

per chance? Yeah but that's the mindset of

1:08:11

you know the Chinese market is the same

1:08:13

with EVs right like it's like there is

1:08:16

so much competition that you know like here

1:08:18

we're just so isolated and it's going to

1:08:20

get worse with this economy so I'm like

1:08:23

you know that's what I'm like say go

1:08:25

buy a pixel because you're going to be

1:08:27

happy for a while at least you know

1:08:29

yeah I'll put a few news items related

1:08:32

to that Vivo X 200 stuff and the

1:08:34

one plus 13 T we also have a

1:08:36

bunch of teasers related to these products

1:08:38

like as I said display for the

1:08:40

13 T in a video trailer for

1:08:42

the 200 S which is the Vivo

1:08:44

small phone and then CM is you

1:08:46

know nothing's budget brand is coming out

1:08:49

with a phone to pro and we've mentioned

1:08:51

that last week but now we have a

1:08:53

teaser for that again check that out I'm

1:08:55

very excited about the CMF phone to pro

1:08:58

because last year's phone one for two ninety

1:09:00

nine was incredibly good and unfortunately this is

1:09:02

probably gonna be India only right now so

1:09:05

that there again I think they're narrowing down

1:09:07

their market to CMF being India only so

1:09:09

it's harder for us to get them this

1:09:11

year I've requested one and PR said you

1:09:14

know she was like you know I don't

1:09:16

know if you can even get your one

1:09:18

this year and I know she means it

1:09:20

because yeah we're pretty tight so it's like

1:09:22

last year she got me one but it

1:09:24

was like a year like a month later

1:09:26

or something you know yeah so stay tuned

1:09:28

for that one because supposedly they're gonna add

1:09:30

a tele photo which I'm like what like

1:09:32

how can you do this without messing it

1:09:34

up like but they did it with a

1:09:36

phone three a right exactly so let's see

1:09:39

how they can bring it down to like

1:09:41

two 99 three 29 I don't know something

1:09:43

like something like that But the other thing

1:09:45

I want to get your thoughts on is

1:09:47

this Red Magic 10 Air. Does that

1:09:49

mean Red Magic's going to make a

1:09:51

thin gaming phone? And if they are,

1:09:53

what are the thermals going to

1:09:55

be like? That's an excellent question. So

1:09:58

we actually just to look at. like

1:10:00

a few weeks ago at the 10

1:10:02

pro right the standard non-air variant and

1:10:04

you know it's interesting what they're doing

1:10:07

because you know you think about red

1:10:09

match you think gaming like obviously that's

1:10:11

like kind of like the main stick

1:10:14

and quite good pricing too when you

1:10:16

consider you know you're getting like a

1:10:18

Lee you're getting that giant seven thousand

1:10:21

amp battery all this kind of stuff

1:10:23

for the air I can see them

1:10:25

taking a couple different approaches because if

1:10:27

you look at the pro it's a

1:10:30

big it's chunky it's I don't think

1:10:32

it would take a great stroke of

1:10:34

imagination to... slim it slightly around some

1:10:37

corners you could make a slightly smaller

1:10:39

version that would probably not massively sacrifice

1:10:41

performance and battery life and what not

1:10:44

call it an air especially with silicon

1:10:46

carbon batteries exactly and you move the

1:10:48

fan because even though the fan off

1:10:51

the 10 pro actually holds up really

1:10:53

well on sustained benchmarks so yeah might

1:10:55

not need the fan and you know

1:10:57

ROG phone does not have a fan

1:11:00

it's external if you want it so

1:11:02

maybe that's the angle they're taking with

1:11:04

this I think that makes sense, right?

1:11:07

They could slim it down, they could

1:11:09

just, it may be even just include

1:11:11

a fan in the box if they

1:11:14

really want to, like that would be

1:11:16

a good simple way of doing it.

1:11:18

But my thought is that while they've

1:11:21

done relatively well so far, they're probably

1:11:23

starting to get enough feedback, like, hey,

1:11:25

you know what, we should make one

1:11:27

of these that, you know, fits in

1:11:30

a pocket and, you know, people want

1:11:32

to carry, because, I don't take this

1:11:34

down a notch, okay? That's a little

1:11:37

much. But yeah, well, let's find out.

1:11:39

This could be a China-only thing, too.

1:11:41

And related to that, Honor is coming

1:11:44

out with a new line of mid-range

1:11:46

phones called the Power Series. But the

1:11:48

only reason I brought that in there

1:11:51

is because, holy crap, the battery is

1:11:53

supposed to be close to 8,000 million

1:11:55

hours. Like what? Like on a fold

1:11:57

that's a reasonable size against silicon carbon

1:12:00

batteries, honors was one of the first

1:12:02

to implement that. So I'm not surprised,

1:12:04

but you know, remember when Energizer did

1:12:07

that 10,000 milliamp hour phone a few

1:12:09

years back at MWC and it was

1:12:11

like. inch thick. Yes. We're now to

1:12:14

the point where you can get a

1:12:16

phone down to about eight millimeters or

1:12:18

seven and a half millimeters with, you

1:12:21

know, 7,000 milliamp hour. It's supposed to

1:12:23

be a little more than 7,000, but

1:12:25

no more than eight. But that's like

1:12:27

insane numbers. That's like three day battery

1:12:30

life, right? So yeah, yeah. It's crazy

1:12:32

because I think for so long we've

1:12:34

been so used to most like, like,

1:12:37

like, like, no one would question if

1:12:39

the next snap dragon process, If someone

1:12:41

brought out a 30% bigger battery next

1:12:44

year, that would be unbelievable. So I

1:12:46

think for so long, we'd just been

1:12:48

accustomed to like, oh, it's gonna get

1:12:51

like 1% better a year or whatever.

1:12:53

But now we're starting to see 5,000,

1:12:55

6,000, 7,000, maybe 8,000 million power batteries

1:12:57

being a selling point, but not like

1:13:00

a huge sacrifice to get to. And

1:13:02

it's nice to see, like, I feel

1:13:04

like we're seeing more jumps in battery

1:13:07

over the last two or three years

1:13:09

with silicon with silicon. the 10 years

1:13:11

before that, right? So it's like, oh,

1:13:14

and we're just getting even more reasons.

1:13:16

Throw your old phone in the e-way

1:13:18

spit and go pick yourself up a

1:13:21

brand new red magic or whatever you

1:13:23

want to get, who knows? Yeah, I

1:13:25

think it's going to be the year

1:13:27

of thin phones with big batteries. Yeah.

1:13:30

And in a way, that's exciting because

1:13:32

we need a bit of change. Things

1:13:34

have been really boring. Again, we talked

1:13:37

about the camera pause on the iPhone.

1:13:39

Do you want to tell folks where

1:13:41

they can find you on the internet?

1:13:44

I mean, besides your YouTube channel and

1:13:46

maybe all your social media handles and

1:13:48

all that. Yeah, well, first of all,

1:13:51

thank you for having me. I appreciate

1:13:53

it. Yes, moderately difficult to find me.

1:13:55

If you look up Austin as most

1:13:58

places, Austin at Duncan on Instagram and

1:14:00

Threads, that's most where I hang out

1:14:02

these days. Folks, please subscribe to Austin's

1:14:04

YouTube channel, one of the best out

1:14:07

there. And again, you know, follow him

1:14:09

on social and all that stuff and

1:14:11

chat with us on social about this

1:14:14

podcast. You know where to find me

1:14:16

on the internet. I'm a 10-girl, that's

1:14:18

10-K-G-R-L- like the comic book character, just

1:14:21

drop the vowels. It's the same on

1:14:23

all the social platforms. I'm mostly on

1:14:25

Blue Sky, on threads, on Instagram. There

1:14:28

is a... for the podcast, mobile tech

1:14:30

podcast.com. Very simple. You can, of course,

1:14:32

subscribe to it on every platform you

1:14:34

can think of. You know, we're on

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everything. Spotify, Apple, YouTube, music, all that.

1:14:39

If your app lets you rate or

1:14:41

review the show, please do that, and

1:14:44

subscribe and tell your friends. And then

1:14:46

there's a YouTube channel as well, YouTube.com/mobile

1:14:48

tech podcast with like monthly or so

1:14:51

the occasional video, maybe an Check it

1:14:53

out, YouTube.com/mobile tech podcast. You know how

1:14:55

it works, like, subscribe, tell your friends,

1:14:58

click the bell, comment. And then you

1:15:00

also have the patron, patreon.com/takerel, that's patreon.com/tnkRL,

1:15:02

slash tnkRL, slash tnkRL, slash tnkRL. The

1:15:04

big perk there is very simple. So

1:15:07

you can listen to the podcast by

1:15:09

having the image in the background. in

1:15:11

advance, before it's everybody else gets it,

1:15:14

or you can watch and see some

1:15:16

unboxings, pseudo-unboxings, and some new phones in

1:15:18

our hands and our grimaces and jokes.

1:15:21

And I leave some stuff sometimes in

1:15:23

there, like when the FedEx guy shows

1:15:25

up and you know, so there's bloopers

1:15:28

and things. So check it out. Support

1:15:30

me if you can at appreciated. Patreon.com/TNTK.

1:15:32

And I want to think our sponsor,

1:15:34

Magna. Magna is more than one of

1:15:37

the world's largest suppliers in the automotive

1:15:39

space. They are a mobility technology company

1:15:41

built to innovate with a global entrepreneurial-minded

1:15:44

team of over 170,000 employees across 341

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manufacturing operations and 106 product development, engineering

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and sales centers spanning 28 countries. with

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65 plus years of expertise, Magna's ecosystem

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of interconnected products combined with their complete

1:15:55

vehicle expertise uniquely positions them to advance

1:15:58

mobility in an expanded transportation landscape. And

1:16:00

Austin, thanks so much for being

1:16:02

my guest, I really appreciate it.

1:16:05

Of course, thank you for having

1:16:07

me. Absolutely, we'll have Austin on

1:16:09

again the future folks and stay

1:16:11

tuned, we'll have a show next

1:16:13

week. Until then, cheers everybody.

1:16:15

This has been the Mobile

1:16:18

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1:16:20

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1:16:22

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