The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 729 – Samsung’s 2026 Range, and a new Apple CEO

Stephen and Trevor have seen the full range of TVs from Samsung and have thoughts. A move to Micro RGB, a shift to OLED and where is 8K?

And interesting time for TVs Tim Cook steps down as Apple CEO – what next for Apple and the new CEO.Trev’s got the Foldable dummy, is it legit?

The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 and a new Security camera coming!

AI Generated transcript below

[00:00:00]  Trevor Long: 2 Blokes Talking Tech. Welcome.

[00:00:01]  Trevor Long: Great to have your company.

[00:00:01]  Stephen Fenech: Welcome.

[00:00:02]  Stephen Fenech: And that’s a traditional welcome. It’s just, you know, you normally start in the middle of a sentence.

[00:00:08]  Trevor Long: All right. Okay. It’s at this point I want to let you know that what are you going to say? I’ve confirmed. Well, last week we were talking about Lightning Aussie. Was it last week or the week before? Yeah.

[00:00:22]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:00:22]  Trevor Long: Remember the person that says, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:24]  Stephen Fenech: So start, we start the show.

[00:00:25]  Trevor Long: Yeah. So they said, remember last week we went for a long time and we started talking.

[00:00:29]  Stephen Fenech: But it was still technically 22 seconds to 94, 47 seconds, narc talk starts.

[00:00:35]  Trevor Long: Narc, a person such as a government agent who investigates narcotic violations. Well, that’s also not the only definition.

[00:00:42]  Stephen Fenech: No, but someone else in the comments corrects the other narc definition as well.

[00:00:45]  Trevor Long: Yeah, me.

[00:00:46]  Stephen Fenech: Oh, I thought it was someone else. No, you did.

[00:00:48]  Trevor Long: It was me, it was me. I put it in there. 48 seconds, banter and sports ball talk. 20 minutes, show starts. I think you really should have included the AI conversation.

[00:00:57]  Stephen Fenech: The AI chat was definitely tech.

[00:00:59]  Trevor Long: Note. Sorry to disappoint.

[00:01:02]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s a woman.

[00:01:03]  Trevor Long: But I’m actually not a he.

[00:01:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s a woman.

[00:01:04]  Trevor Long: You actually have a woman who watches your show. Hey, yikes. This is maybe why it— I’m going to read more.

[00:01:10]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:01:10]  Trevor Long: Why I’m not a fan of Sportsball Banter. Thank goodness the extra line there.

[00:01:14]  Stephen Fenech: Of Sportsball Banter.

[00:01:16]  Trevor Long: Right. Plus I don’t watch Channel 9 except for Tipping Point. Oh, come on.

[00:01:19]  Stephen Fenech: Tipping Point’s a great show.

[00:01:20]  Trevor Long: Great show. Yeah. Just put The Today Show on, folks.

[00:01:23]  Stephen Fenech: Not hooking the— not a fan of The Today Show, by the sounds of it.

[00:01:25]  Trevor Long: What’s going on there?

[00:01:26]  Stephen Fenech: So her only vision of you is on this podcast. Lol. Have a great day, guys.

[00:01:33]  Trevor Long: 21:59, shout out. And 1 hour, 1 minute and 27 seconds. Yikes. I don’t know what we did then, but yeah, I don’t know. It is what it is.

[00:01:41]  Stephen Fenech: Wow. I do say something offensive.

[00:01:42]  Trevor Long: I’m not going to be able to find it quick enough. I’m sorry, but you did actually text through to the text line a photo.

[00:01:50]  Stephen Fenech: What?

[00:01:50]  Trevor Long: She was with— I’m going to say it was Robert Scoble. Do you remember Robert Scoble? Yeah.

[00:01:54]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:01:56]  Trevor Long: Yeah. So it was an older photo because Robert Scoble’s Not really. I mean, he’s around, but—

[00:02:00]  Stephen Fenech: So what are you saying? She’s an older lady?

[00:02:02]  Trevor Long: No, I’m just saying it wasn’t a current photo, but—

[00:02:05]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:02:05]  Stephen Fenech: Right.

[00:02:05]  Stephen Fenech: So she’s not a teenager.

[00:02:08]  Trevor Long: Okay. Mate, we’re on dangerous ground here.

[00:02:11]  Stephen Fenech: I’m just saying you’re the one who said the photo—

[00:02:14]  Trevor Long: Well, I was just commenting that I was able to date the photo by the subject.

[00:02:18]  Stephen Fenech: Right.

[00:02:19]  Trevor Long: It’s like me showing a photo of me and Buzz Aldrin. That dates the photo because it’s from 2007.

[00:02:23]  Stephen Fenech: Have you got a photo with Buzz Aldrin? Yeah. Yeah, really?

[00:02:25]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:02:26]  Stephen Fenech: In 2000 and when?

[00:02:27]  Trevor Long: 2000, no, it’s gonna be like 2010.

[00:02:30]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:02:31]  Trevor Long: He was over here with Xbox. Yeah.

[00:02:34]  Stephen Fenech: 2010, where was I? I was still working at the Telegraph then. I don’t know. Brushed. Oh, how did you get there ahead of me talking to Buzz Aldrin?

[00:02:42]  Trevor Long: In 2010, yeah.

[00:02:44]  Stephen Fenech: How did that happen?

[00:02:45]  Trevor Long: Those were the glory days for Stephen Ross.

[00:02:48]  Stephen Fenech: Wow, mate, I was first in line back then, baby.

[00:02:50]  Trevor Long: Because I was doing a podcast with Luke Boner the other day and he was talking about, you know, dead or alive, who would you want to have at dinner? Dead or alive? And he mentioned something about Buzz Aldrin. I said, mate, I’ve met him. He goes, you have not. And I took some time to find my Google photo and showed him on the podcast.

[00:03:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[00:03:05]  Trevor Long: Shit. Is he dead now? Did he die recently? No, he’s still alive. Still alive, Buzz Aldrin?

[00:03:09]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Buzz is still alive. You sure?

[00:03:10]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:03:11]  Stephen Fenech: Would you stake some money on that or?

[00:03:12]  Trevor Long: How much do you want to bet?

[00:03:13]  Stephen Fenech: No, I’m not going to bet anything. I just, you don’t seem sure.

[00:03:15]  Trevor Long: Okay, $100.

[00:03:17]  Stephen Fenech: Let me Google him. I don’t want to bet yet. I want to take your money, but I’m just going to—

[00:03:20]  Trevor Long: You’re happy to take my money. I’m saying Buzz Aldrin still alive.

[00:03:24]  Stephen Fenech: Is that what you’re—

[00:03:25]  Trevor Long: Neil Armstrong, brown bread.

[00:03:26]  Stephen Fenech: Is that your claim? Buzz Aldrin still alive?

[00:03:28]  Trevor Long: Yep. He’d be 87, 90.

[00:03:32]  Stephen Fenech: You are correct. He’s 96 at the moment.

[00:03:34]  Trevor Long: He’s much older.

[00:03:35]  Stephen Fenech: Born in 1930.

[00:03:37]  Trevor Long: Buzz is still buzzing.

[00:03:38]  Stephen Fenech: Still buzzing.

[00:03:39]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:03:39]  Stephen Fenech: I can remember I didn’t meet him, but I remember seeing him in the Qantas lounge in Los Angeles.

[00:03:46]  Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:03:46]  Stephen Fenech: And I remember I took a photo of him on the quiet and did a little post saying, here’s me complaining about the 12-hour flight our trip back from LA. This bloke went to the moon and back.

[00:03:57]  Trevor Long: That’s a good line.

[00:03:58]  Trevor Long: Yeah, that is a good line.

[00:03:58]  Stephen Fenech: Not bad.

[00:04:01]  Stephen Fenech: So he had a much longer flight than I had.

[00:04:02]  Trevor Long: He had had a bit of a flight.

[00:04:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s it. So 12 hours, that’s nothing to him. I think he was on his way to Australia.

[00:04:08]  Trevor Long: Maybe you crossed paths. Yeah, maybe you crossed paths. Head of your meeting. Yeah.

[00:04:13]  Stephen Fenech: I didn’t get the invitation. Yeah, Xbox, I’ll catch up with you.

[00:04:18]  Trevor Long: Hey, I found it. Here we go. Hang on, top down. Stand by. There it is. Wow.

[00:04:25]  Stephen Fenech: You look 12 in that photo, mate. Are you sure it was ’07? That was 1978.

[00:04:30]  Trevor Long: It was 2010.

[00:04:32]  Stephen Fenech: Wow. Geez, doesn’t the beard put some years on you, mate? I reckon you should shave your beard.

[00:04:38]  Trevor Long: The greys are not a good thing either, bro.

[00:04:40]  Stephen Fenech: True that. Yeah. But mate, I reckon, have you ever considered shaving the beard?

[00:04:43]  Trevor Long: I mean—

[00:04:44]  Stephen Fenech: Shaving it? No. Just for a bit. It grows back.

[00:04:46]  Trevor Long: So what I thought was I could shave it ‘Cause after iPhone launch this year, I’m gonna travel with the family for 3 or 4 weeks. I can shave it then just to see what it looks like.

[00:04:56]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right. So you’re kicking off your trip straight after iPhone.

[00:04:58]  Trevor Long: Yeah, assuming iPhone is on the 8th or 9th. The family flies over on the 9th. Okay. So the idea is to go with them.

[00:05:08]  Stephen Fenech: Get down to LA, meet them in LA.

[00:05:10]  Trevor Long: No, San Fran, we’re coming into San Fran.

[00:05:11]  Stephen Fenech: Very nice. Okay, cool.

[00:05:13]  Trevor Long: So, but it’s commonly accepted in my family that if the iPhone is delayed, And until a week later I ditched, like we have a trip and I have to leave and miss something. Like I might miss going to Boston Fenway Park or a Yankees game or something. Which Amanda’s frankly happy about. She’s like, and you’ll have to miss something. Oh, okay, cheers. Yeah, thanks babe.

[00:05:33]  Stephen Fenech: Oh, so you sort of say if it’s a week later, the family’s still gonna continue on from that trip.

[00:05:36]  Trevor Long: Oh, the family trip is happening on those dates. That’s happening, yeah. And I feel pretty okay about that because not that Amanda couldn’t travel on her own, but Jackson’s traveled enough now that he, he could easily, you know, guide them through everything. Plus Amanda’s dad’s coming for the first 2 weeks. So.

[00:05:50]  Stephen Fenech: Wow, really? Beautiful.

[00:05:51]  Trevor Long: Yeah, we’re bringing Amanda’s dad because he’s a Yankees fan.

[00:05:53]  Stephen Fenech: Is he really?

[00:05:53]  Trevor Long: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s why we’re going to New York.

[00:05:55]  Stephen Fenech: So do they play the Yankees during that period?

[00:05:57]  Trevor Long: We’re going to see Yankees-Mets. We’re going to see Yankees-Mets on September 11th.

[00:06:02]  Stephen Fenech: In New York?

[00:06:02]  Trevor Long: Yes. Wow.

[00:06:03]  Stephen Fenech: It’s going to be amazing.

[00:06:04]  Stephen Fenech: That’s the— what do they call that? When is it?

[00:06:04]  Trevor Long: Epic.

[00:06:07]  Trevor Long: The Subway Series. Subway Series. It’s still a Subway Series, but I don’t know if this September 11th game is because obviously significant.

[00:06:13]  Stephen Fenech: And it’s the 25th anniversary too this year. Wow.

[00:06:15]  Trevor Long: We’re going to be in New York for the 25th anniversary.

[00:06:18]  Trevor Long: Like I said to Amanda, we can’t go to the museum or anything because it’ll be just crazy busy.

[00:06:18]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Wow.

[00:06:23]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. But you know what? Just to be there that time, I think pay your respects, mate.

[00:06:26]  Trevor Long: But just like Harry’s like, what will they do at the baseball that night?

[00:06:29]  Stephen Fenech: Because, you know, like, you know, it’ll be, you know, I reckon it’ll be a minute’s silence. They’ll do something, won’t they? For sure.

[00:06:35]  Trevor Long: They’ll do lots. They’ll have to, mate. They will have a fire, a fire person singing the anthem.

[00:06:41]  Stephen Fenech: Fire engines on there and a fire, like fire.

[00:06:43]  Trevor Long: Because normally they get like a military, but they’ll get a firey to sing the anthem. Anthem. Like, if you already see it now.

[00:06:48]  Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:06:49]  Trevor Long: So yeah, so you know, can you believe it’s 25 years already? That’s wild.

[00:06:53]  Stephen Fenech: A quarter of a century ago though. Yeah, time goes, mate. Time, it goes so quick.

[00:06:58]  Trevor Long: Really, really does.

[00:06:59]  Stephen Fenech: Time is just like a raging river, just flies by.

[00:07:04]  Trevor Long: Flows by.

[00:07:05]  Stephen Fenech: Flows by.

[00:07:07]  Trevor Long: Time’s like a space shuttle, just flies by.

[00:07:09]  Stephen Fenech: Flows by.

[00:07:10]  Trevor Long: Or an Apollo capsule like Buzz Aldrin. Flights by.

[00:07:14]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, wow. Is that one of your more notable people you’ve met, mate? You’re not normally a selfie guy.

[00:07:19]  Trevor Long: No, well, that wasn’t a selfie. I think someone must have said, “Do you want a photo?” I’m like, “Okay, yeah, cool.” Well, I don’t have many celebrity photos at all.

[00:07:25]  Stephen Fenech: Mate, I’ve got a ton of them. I’ve got a whole folder full of them. You’re not the guy who goes, “Oh, can I get a selfie?” No.

[00:07:31]  Stephen Fenech: Why is that?

[00:07:31]  Trevor Long: Really?

[00:07:34]  Trevor Long: I feel like—

[00:07:35]  Stephen Fenech: It’s not lack of ego, is it? It’s not—

[00:07:38]  Trevor Long: On my part, no.

[00:07:39]  Stephen Fenech: It’s not an ego thing. I’m thinking, oh, you know what?

[00:07:42]  Trevor Long: Yeah, I, most of the time when I meet people, they’re out there, they’re working, they’re in at a radio station to do an interview. And I think what happened is I watched, like I’m sitting, you know, at a radio station, you’ve got the producer’s desk. I’m sitting there call vetting, I’m on the phones.

[00:07:54]  Stephen Fenech: Yes, you work.

[00:07:55]  Trevor Long: I might have gone to get the person, but they interview and then they’re coming out and it might be me or someone else that walks them out, right?

[00:08:02]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:08:03]  Trevor Long: And just the number of people you see come down to go, can I get a photo? I just look at them and go, mate, come on. But no, you’re at work and they’re here to do a promo interview. They’re not here to say, signed celebrity autographs.

[00:08:14]  Stephen Fenech: Well, but they are here to promote something though. And normally the times I’ve been at 2GB many times when there has been a celebrity before me or after, and normally they get the shot inside the studio. Yeah, you didn’t sneak in? I’ve seen plenty of producers sneak in and get shots with celebs. Yeah, but they’re at the time.

[00:08:29]  Trevor Long: Yeah, honestly, yeah, just not a thing.

[00:08:31]  Stephen Fenech: Or just something you didn’t think.

[00:08:33]  Trevor Long: I just— it’s not something.

[00:08:34]  Stephen Fenech: Is it your lack of being a movie fan that maybe prevented you from doing that?

[00:08:38]  Trevor Long: But I met Michael Richards.

[00:08:40]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s TV show, but that’s TV show. But like, yeah, well, and you never— but didn’t you tell me he was a— he was a bit of a—

[00:08:46]  Trevor Long: the interview was crap, right?

[00:08:48]  Stephen Fenech: He was in a weird, weird rooster, right?

[00:08:50]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:52]  Stephen Fenech: What did you just say?

[00:08:52]  Trevor Long: Weird cat. Weird cat.

[00:08:53]  Stephen Fenech: I thought you said something else. Sorry, I thought I heard something different there. These earphones, I’ve got to check them. Yeah, I’m thinking, oh, you have to beep that out.

[00:08:59]  Trevor Long: On that note, let’s do this.

[00:09:02]  Stephen Fenech: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:09:04]  Trevor Long: Not a bad price.

[00:09:05]  Stephen Fenech: With Trevor Long from eftm.com. Really handy device. And Steven Fenech from techguide.com. Com.au.

[00:09:13]  Trevor Long: Great to have your company. Episode 729 of Two Blokes Talking Tech. Thanks to the great people at Arlo and Netgear for all your home networking needs. Uh, please look up Netgear and consider them when you’re in the stores looking for a new Wi-Fi router or similar. And if you’re looking at home security, give Arlo a shout as well. Um, plenty of great products, plenty of great features, amazing AI inclusions. Uh, well worth a look. We’ll tell you about them shortly. All we ask is that you consider the people that support us in the same way, the companies that support this podcast.

[00:09:42]  Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. And our other podcasts.

[00:09:44]  Trevor Long: That’s right. So it’s TV season still. We, we have LG in the, in the bank. We talked about them a few weeks ago. Hisense still to come. But we do have this week our first look at the full range from Samsung. Now, we saw a lot of this at CES, but the local launch is important because, A, we get a bit more time and you get to see more of the products. So at CES, it was like one, you know, kind of flagship thing for each kind of feature, whereas we got to see a lot of different TVs here, different features like the art store and stuff like that. And we have pricing.

[00:10:13]  Stephen Fenech: Now, free, all that.

[00:10:14]  Trevor Long: I’m going to tell you that I’m a bit fascinated by the Samsung position in 2026.

[00:10:20]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:10:21]  Trevor Long: Because there’s a couple of things that have changed dramatically. Now, we talked about this when they announced their OLED pricing a few weeks ago. They’ve gone all in on OLED, right?

[00:10:29]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:10:29]  Trevor Long: They’ve gone massively in on this. 3 different series of OLEDs, which they announced a month or so ago.

[00:10:33]  Stephen Fenech: It was about 6 weeks ago, the day before LG’s event.

[00:10:36]  Trevor Long: But what’s critical is it’s a dominant part of their lineup.

[00:10:39]  Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:10:40]  Trevor Long: Like there are more OLED models than micro RGB.

[00:10:43]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:10:43]  Trevor Long: Which is their new flagship technology.

[00:10:46]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:10:46]  Trevor Long: Kind of put— see this TV here in the studio, which you can’t see, folks, is a Neo QLED 8K TV. It’s, I think it’s probably 3, 4 years old now.

[00:10:55]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:10:56]  Trevor Long: It was $10,000 for an 85-inch model, right?

[00:10:59]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:11:00]  Trevor Long: That’s the Infinity Display. So much of that was their premium TV, right? Neo QLED is now essentially their fourth, third or fourth under Frame. Like, you know what I mean?

[00:11:10]  Stephen Fenech: In terms of overall, well, Frame Pro is technically a Neo QLED, correct? But just the fact it’s a lifestyle.

[00:11:16]  Trevor Long: But in terms of a TV technology, yeah, it’s now from Samsung’s perspective, they’ve elevated micro RGB to the top. Yep. They’ve put OLED underneath.

[00:11:28]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:11:29]  Trevor Long: Price-wise it is that price-wise, but that’s how they’re positioning them. Premium downwards, then the Frame. Then Neo QLED, then Mini LED, and then Mini LED QLED. So I find, I find it fascinating they have walked away from 8K. And you remember being in Korea with Samsung talking about what the eye can see and having scientists and all these people come in and 8K.

[00:11:50]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:11:51]  Trevor Long: And look, do I notice that that TV’s 8K? No. Yeah, I think that’s a bad thing.

[00:11:55]  Stephen Fenech: It’s time. I think 8K is something I don’t think maybe we may not ever see in terms of entertainment. In this decade, but probably not. But I find it in my observation of the Samsung launch is that it’s not just about the one particular model. Obviously they’ve got a range of TVs to sell. My focus on my, my story is obviously Micro RGB came first. That was, that’s their newest technology that I think, you know, over the years we’ve seen, you know, when, when Quantum Dot came out, well, you know, that was big and, you know, Mini LED, well, that’s another one. This is another one. This is Micro RGB is another step.

[00:12:31]  Trevor Long: And I think one of the things we’ve— I think we’ve talked about enough that our core audience knows what RGB is. It’s a red, green, and blue light instead of just a single blue or white light, so you’re getting a more wider color gamut available to your eyes.

[00:12:44]  Stephen Fenech: And in Samsung’s case, each cell is a red, green, and blue cell, is about the width of a hair, human hair. Each of those is individually controlled as well. So that’s a lot of control.

[00:12:55]  Trevor Long: But critically, it should be noted, there is not the same number of micro RGB pixels or sorry, micro RGB LEDs as there are pixels, as there are pixels, it’s still arrays of—

[00:13:08]  Stephen Fenech: yeah, but way more, which is like mini— they said the micro RGB is half the size of a mini LED.

[00:13:12]  Trevor Long: So there might be, there might be 50 pixels with one mini micro RGB behind it, right? So just broadly. Yeah. But what, what, what stood out to me remarkably when we were talking to Simon Howe from Samsung earlier in the week was that a current— a mini LED TV, so a pretty darn good TV, in fact an OLED as well as I understand it, is able to reproduce 45% of the color that the human eye can see. Yeah. So if you, if you imagine the color blue, like on the background behind us, there’s shades of it, right? So if you imagine now the full shade, the full spectrum of blue from, you know, from, from white through to, through to black, the blues in between, the human eye can see 100% of that. A TV has only been able to reproduce 45-50% of that.

[00:13:56]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:13:57]  Trevor Long: Micro RGB allows them to create 75% of that.

[00:14:01]  Stephen Fenech: Still not 100, but it’s much better.

[00:14:03]  Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s a huge leap.

[00:14:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it is huge. Definitely. Well, it’s because of that control they’ve got, sort of the precision that they give. The control they’ve got results in just really pure— there’s no barrier to the color. Before, there was a color filter, and there was— before you saw, your eye saw it, it had come through a few processes there.

[00:14:22]  Trevor Long: And it was at its core illuminated by a white or a blue box.

[00:14:26]  Stephen Fenech: Now the illumination is the color.

[00:14:28]  Trevor Long: That’s right.

[00:14:29]  Stephen Fenech: That’s— it’s just so full-flavored and bolder and warmer and more natural. But, uh, that aside, it was interesting to me that the sort of the tip of the spear for Samsung this year— and this isn’t so it doesn’t discriminate against one particular type of TV, don’t forget they’re launching a whole range of TVs— the emphasis on AI. Vision AI companion in particular. So that was kind of the feel I had, was that AI to make your picture better, your sound better, but also if you want to ask it a question, or where’s that actor from, or where, what, what, what, where’s a good restaurant around here, or something like that. So becoming more a companion, a smart hub where all the family gathers.

[00:15:11]  Trevor Long: Here’s how I differ from you greatly. When you go to eftm.com, I don’t even mention Vision AI. Really? I just don’t think anyone cares.

[00:15:19]  Stephen Fenech: No, I think they do.

[00:15:20]  Trevor Long: Mate, I think it’s a cool feature. I think it’s a cool example, like who’s in this movie or whatever. I don’t think anyone’s doing that. They were like, oh, instead of having to pick up your phone, mate, just pick up your phone.

[00:15:29]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but in my headline I said AI-powered and I said the range including micro RGB. So I emphasize that micro RGB, that was the first type of TV that I mentioned. But yeah, the strategy, the approach for Samsung, their goal here is to turn their TVs that not only look great and sound great and do everything, but also for something that is kind of like your AI companion at the same time. I think they’re trying to diversify the use of the TV in your home rather than just being the— oh no, smart TV that you just stream stuff on. Yes, it’s more than that.

[00:16:01]  Trevor Long: Well, I think the reason for that also is because you’ve got an 8-year-old smart TV, it’s still going to run all those smart apps. And if it doesn’t, you just get a Fire Stick or Google Chromecast and it will. So they need to create purpose for the new operating system. And that’s one of the things Simon or Phil mentioned. It’s like How long since you bought your last TV? It could be 5 to 10 years.

[00:16:22]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:16:23]  Trevor Long: So we need to turn this thing on out there now. It’s unbelievable what it has in it.

[00:16:26]  Stephen Fenech: It’s a whole new thing now.

[00:16:27]  Trevor Long: Like even just Samsung TV Plus. When I was, I was down at Mum’s on the weekend and my uncle was there from Queensland and I went in, my mum wasn’t there, he was just at her house and he was watching, I don’t know, not Ice Road Truckers, but something like that. And I’m like, what is this on? He goes, Samsung TV Plus. And I went, just the fact that he said that, yeah, no, means that he’s got one at home and he chose to find that here at Mum’s.

[00:16:48]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:16:49]  Trevor Long: Do you know, like those channels, like we were, we were in our hotel room and Amanda put on Dog the Bounty Hunter because we used to watch that when it was on Foxtel and we just watched that for half an hour. And yeah, like it’s so much content. We talked about it last week. We were watching Law and Order all the time. Yeah. So that’s, that to me is differentiating.

[00:17:04]  Stephen Fenech: Come dine with me, mate. Come dine with me is her channel.

[00:17:06]  Trevor Long: But for me, if I’m Samsung, yeah, genuinely looking at the range that we’ve seen so far across the industry, I think their big lead advantage is glare-free technology.

[00:17:17]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true.

[00:17:17]  Trevor Long: Which they have now included in. So there’s, there’s two types of micro- Micro RGB, it’s in the best, so it’s in the best of everything. So the glare-free technology is in the best of the micro RGB. Yep, there’s 3 OLEDs, the 2 best of those have, um, have glare-free, and the best frame, Frame Pro, have glare-free. And man, you stand there, even in just the showroom they had it in where there was just another— they had TVs on angles, you know, like this. Just the, the reflection of the other TV being dispersed. Now LG firmly believe that their, uh, reflection reduction—

[00:17:52]  Stephen Fenech: yeah, compromising the color though. They reckon LG claim that other technology, which I mean Samsung, compromises the color quality in some sense, or the amount of color you see.

[00:18:02]  Trevor Long: So, but I, I, you, you and I both commented on the Hisense TV 116 that we sat and looked at. You could see the bloody LED light bar, the light strip, as a strip.

[00:18:11]  Stephen Fenech: Yep. All the time.

[00:18:12]  Trevor Long: If that had Samsung’s Glare Free, it’d just, it’d be a brighter area of the screen. Yeah, but it wouldn’t be a light bar.

[00:18:17]  Stephen Fenech: True.

[00:18:18]  Trevor Long: I just think that the push and Samsung had a big wall where they were showing all these little technologies like, you know, Knox and Google Photos and all these things and had a little logo of Australia on a few things. And they weren’t there because they’re exclusive to Australia. They were there because they’re highlights for them in Australia. Samsung TV Plus was one, but glare-free was one of them. It’s like this is an Australian need.

[00:18:39]  Stephen Fenech: It’s made for Australian, for Australian customers because, you know, we live in like open, open-plan living areas. We’ve got, we like, we’ve got a lot of sunshine, big windows. So It’s a feature that Aussie customers really, really gravitate towards. And I think that now that we’re getting even bigger TVs, they’re a bigger target for light and reflection.

[00:18:59]  Trevor Long: I think what you do is if you, if you go to your current TV and maybe just turn it off is probably all you need to do and look at whether it feels like a mirror to you. Yeah.

[00:19:10]  Stephen Fenech: If you can see your reflection in it.

[00:19:11]  Trevor Long: Well, but I always, I say stand on an angle. So Stephen, if we both look over it, then this is useless to the viewer at home, but it’ll probably turn off other televisions in the room.

[00:19:19]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I can see that. I can see that.

[00:19:20]  Trevor Long: Now when we, when we You turn the TV off and you can see the couch, you can see the picture on the wall, you can see the lamp. So we can make out the things.

[00:19:28]  Stephen Fenech: It’s a mirror.

[00:19:28]  Trevor Long: It’s a mirror. Yeah. The glare-free takes that away. It’s like I wouldn’t buy a MacBook Pro without the Nano coating.

[00:19:35]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true.

[00:19:36]  Trevor Long: And I’ve never noticed it had an impact on me. Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:39]  Stephen Fenech: Me neither.

[00:19:40]  Trevor Long: So I think you’d need to be a real color narc to want to dislike the glare-free technology. That’s the old, that’s the old Pro.

[00:19:47]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, because they got rid of the words on the keyboard.

[00:19:50]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. How come you’re not using the new one?

[00:19:50]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:19:52]  Trevor Long: I don’t know. It’s over in there in a box. I’m using the Neo as my main device.

[00:19:56]  Stephen Fenech: This is just sitting here. Okay, cool.

[00:19:58]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Okay.

[00:19:58]  Trevor Long: Cool.

[00:19:59]  Trevor Long: I’ll just sidetrack. I can’t fault the Neo. Yeah, fair enough. I’m not needed for anything more.

[00:20:04]  Stephen Fenech: Fair call. Just on the TVs though. Let’s get back to the Samsung range. I did notice that similar Hisense release there. They’ve got RGB micro LED RGB Mini LED. And they— the big emphasis for them was that they were— they wanted to keep it within range for more or more customers. And you know what, Samsung’s done the same thing. So the two ranges— yeah, they have the two ranges. Well, now let’s have a look at it, right? So the R85H range, which is the RGB entry-level micro, starts at $2,499 for the 55-inch.

[00:20:41]  Trevor Long: Mate, that’s OLED pricing. But that’s— that’s an LG OLED for 55-inch TV.

[00:20:45]  Stephen Fenech: Prices are like $100 less. For the same TV. I think RGB, Mini LED.

[00:20:51]  Trevor Long: Yeah, and I think they’ve all missed the beat here.

[00:20:53]  Stephen Fenech: Well, why do you say that?

[00:20:54]  Trevor Long: I’ll tell you this, what I think will happen this year. I think OLED will have its best year ever for Samsung, for everyone.

[00:20:59]  Trevor Long: I think LG and Samsung will sell more OLEDs than ever because if you go to the internet and say what’s the best TV, yeah, it says OLED. We always say that.

[00:20:59]  Stephen Fenech: You think so?

[00:21:08]  Stephen Fenech: I don’t know, I think Micro RGB in the right size and in the right room room, right? If you don’t have— even in a bright room, I know even a bright room, OLED is fine. You know, I think it’s, it’s sold. I think Samsung want to sell all kinds of TVs, right? So Samsung’s view with OLED has always been, you know, if you, if you, you want to, uh, you know, not an overly bright room, and that’s where OLED will sit, because they want to sell you an OLED, they want to sell you another TV, right? LG, of course, don’t make any mention of that. And in, in my experience of having OLEDs in, you know, my big open area, windows everywhere, OLED has never been a problem in that big opening. But you’re mentioning price here. Now let’s talk— well, I’m talking Samsung to Samsung, right? So the Samsung, the cheapest OLED, let’s, let’s go 55-inch. Okay, so 55-inch, that’s the S95B. So you’re saying same prices. So you’re saying Samsung has leveled OLED with micro RGB in terms of size and value?

[00:22:03]  Stephen Fenech: Whereas LG, I think, have slightly differed with their OLED display.

[00:22:03]  Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:22:06]  Trevor Long: Well, they’re, they’re B series, you can get cheaper. Yeah, remember, it’s $9,999 for a 55-inch.

[00:22:12]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and Hisense has only got RGB as well, so there’s no OLED.

[00:22:16]  Trevor Long: But Hisense have a wider range, uh, and they’ve still got a large range of mini LED.

[00:22:20]  Stephen Fenech: But if you, if you’re saying, right, I want 2026 technology, micro RGB, what do you got? $2,590, $2,500 for a 55-inch brand new RGB technology, that ain’t bad.

[00:22:33]  Trevor Long: Well, let’s remember, these are recommended pricing, and that could be lower in retail.

[00:22:37]  Stephen Fenech: It could be cheaper.

[00:22:39]  Trevor Long: There’s— I’ll say this, you’re not selling many micro RGBs at these RRP. They need to come down by $500 odd.

[00:22:46]  Stephen Fenech: I don’t reckon the— well, let’s look at the MR95F, right? So the MR95F is the absolute flagship. So the— they don’t even have a 55-inch in that one. 65-inch, $5,299. 55-inch in the, in the other one below it, $2,499. Yeah, so So that’s, sorry, 65-inch, $3,299. So what’s that one? $5,299. So that’s a $2,000 differential for one class of micro RGB to the other.

[00:23:14]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:23:15]  Stephen Fenech: Now the top one has glare-free.

[00:23:17]  Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:23:17]  Stephen Fenech: What else does it have the other one doesn’t?

[00:23:18]  Trevor Long: It’s slightly more Infinity style.

[00:23:21]  Stephen Fenech: Right. So the frame design as well.

[00:23:22]  Trevor Long: The design is there. So micro RGB Samsung, 85-inch. Again, it’s the new Neo QLED, right? Because they don’t have that anymore. The Neo QLED with the Infinity frame and the 8K was $11,000, $12,000. It’s, it’s, yeah, no, but it’s, mate, it’s just that it’s a downstream. They’ve always had two tiers of Neo QLED. The top one’s gone now, the 8K one’s gone, right?

[00:23:43]  Stephen Fenech: But to be clear, the voice AI, Vision AI, all of them, great.

[00:23:49]  Trevor Long: Yeah, the 85-inch top level, best with the good design and glare-free, the 85-inch micro RGB is $10,000. So it’s essentially on par with what used to be their 8K Neo QLED TV. Yeah, okay, but let’s, let’s be clear, that’ll come down $6,995, you know, in retail probably.

[00:24:06]  Stephen Fenech: So the 100-inch Neo QLED now is $6,999.

[00:24:11]  Trevor Long: Yeah, but again, yeah, it’s— we only ever looked at this.

[00:24:14]  Stephen Fenech: It’s not the flagship. It’s not a flagship model anymore. Is that what you’re saying?

[00:24:18]  Trevor Long: In no way, shape, or form.

[00:24:19]  Stephen Fenech: Okay, so you’re saying though that OLED— and you’re right, look at the pricing— the OLED compared to micro RGB are comparable, aren’t they?

[00:24:26]  Trevor Long: 83-inch Samsung’s best OLED, the S95H at 83 inches, is $10,000. An extra 2 inches gets you micro RGB. Wow. I’ll tell you right now, now I’m buying the OLED because that’s got the glare-free. Yeah, so does the MicroAGB, but doesn’t they know it’s OLED, the MR95?

[00:24:43]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:24:43]  Trevor Long: Are you telling me— yeah, that you— and do you remember the Bible I sent you from AI reading the show?

[00:24:49]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:24:49]  Trevor Long: Do you remember what it said about you being super technical and me just being a jibberer? Um, it’s basically what it said, more a commentator. Yeah, yeah. So are you telling me that if you had $10,000 and you wanted an 83 to 85-inch TV you wouldn’t pick an OLED?

[00:25:06]  Stephen Fenech: It depends on the OLED.

[00:25:07]  Trevor Long: So, but no, no, no, this is Samsung’s best OLED with glare-free.

[00:25:11]  Stephen Fenech: I’ll tell you what I’d do. I would, I would give micro RGB a crack. Micro RGB, better, better brightness, it’d be brighter. It would be— I make color quality, I think, comparable to OLED as well. Black levels, you know, there’s a whole bunch of a wider color gamut, obviously. That’s on micro RGB.

[00:25:32]  Trevor Long: Micro RGB’s advantage over OLED is the amount of colors that it can show you.

[00:25:38]  Stephen Fenech: Natural color.

[00:25:39]  Trevor Long: Yeah. And OLED’s advantage is contrast.

[00:25:42]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Is the black levels.

[00:25:43]  Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:25:44]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:25:44]  Trevor Long: Black, you know, head-to-head, blooming, all that kind of stuff.

[00:25:47]  Stephen Fenech: I think though Samsung then have got, well, yeah, good, good that they’ve got two ranges of products that are as good as each other in your opinion.

[00:25:55]  Trevor Long: I know, but think about the talkback caller that we’ve talked to for 10 years now. And often we say to them, okay, what size do you want? What’s your budget? And then they say, my budget’s $2,500 and I want a 65. You say, well, you can’t buy an OLED, right? Right, because you’re out of the budget.

[00:26:07]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:26:08]  Trevor Long: It’s often the case that you can’t get the OLED because it’s out of your budget. But when you’re telling me that micro RGB is the same price essentially as OLED, I don’t— I just don’t know how you’re not— you’re not choosing OLED.

[00:26:20]  Stephen Fenech: Qualify that with whatever you buy has to be glare-free.

[00:26:24]  Trevor Long: So yeah, no, no, no. So that’s why both— remember this, with Samsung, to get glare-free OLED, 7— let’s go 65-inch. Yeah. Glare-free OLED, 65-inch is $4,000.

[00:26:37]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:26:37]  Trevor Long: Right. So Micro RGB with glare-free is $5,299.

[00:26:43]  Stephen Fenech: Okay, well, in that case, yeah, you’d go OLED. Absolutely.

[00:26:47]  Trevor Long: And that’s the middle of the range.

[00:26:48]  Stephen Fenech: Although again, though, color is better on the Micro RGB and color output is better.

[00:26:54]  Trevor Long: We have to be very clear here. We’ve seen these things in showrooms, right? Yeah. We have not sat side by side with an OLED and a Micro RGB.

[00:27:02]  Stephen Fenech: I have reviewed an OLED. And separately reviewed the micro RGB.

[00:27:05]  Trevor Long: I understand that they haven’t sat them side by side. You haven’t sat them side by side.

[00:27:08]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly right. But if just going by the numbers, right, if I’m the technical one, going by the numbers, the micro RGB, if color and that whole picture quality, if that’s what you base your picture quality on, then that’s the winner.

[00:27:22]  Trevor Long: That’s my point. If color is what you judge it on.

[00:27:24]  Stephen Fenech: Color and brightness.

[00:27:24]  Trevor Long: But I judge it on contrast. I would always choose an OLED. Yep.

[00:27:28]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:27:29]  Trevor Long: Now what’s, what’s kind of fascinating is and frankly not everyone else got to see this because we were taken up to an area where they were demonstrating the Art Store because they’re putting the art on all the TVs, right? And they had a Frame Pro, they had an OLED, the premium one, which has a beautiful floating screen, by the way.

[00:27:43]  Stephen Fenech: Beautiful. Yeah, it’s good.

[00:27:44]  Trevor Long: And then they had a micro RGB and they had a beautiful artwork there, beautiful artwork here, and a lovely Indigenous artwork on the micro RGB. But it was very bright and white and it looked like a TV.

[00:27:53]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:27:53]  Trevor Long: And I said to them, this thing in the middle, this OLED, we were like, can I touch that? Because that doesn’t look like—

[00:27:59]  Stephen Fenech: I thought it was a sticker on the front. It looked like a painting with brushstrokes.

[00:28:03]  Trevor Long: They were kind enough to get Fradge, their tech guy, to put the same artwork on the micro RGB.

[00:28:09]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:28:10]  Trevor Long: And it looked as good. It looked rich.

[00:28:12]  Stephen Fenech: Because it was the glare-free one.

[00:28:12]  Trevor Long: It was glare-free. It looked brilliant, right? Yeah. But here’s what’s fascinating. The colors were very obviously different.

[00:28:19]  Stephen Fenech: Ah, so you’re saying the RGB just popped a bit more.

[00:28:22]  Trevor Long: You could genuinely see the colors. Now it was a work of art. But here’s the thing, it was a work of art. I don’t know what it was meant to look like.

[00:28:27]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:28:28]  Trevor Long: So it goes to that whole, what are you meant to see?

[00:28:30]  Stephen Fenech: That’s the difference.

[00:28:31]  Trevor Long: Yeah. I think when you put a movie on. Yeah. And you see—

[00:28:34]  Stephen Fenech: I’d love to. And I did this with, when I did the 115-inch micro RGB, I put, I watched Empire Strikes Back on it. Yeah. And mate, it looked like it was made last week.

[00:28:45]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:28:45]  Stephen Fenech: And that’s, that’s a 45-year-old movie, 46-year-old movie. It looked, it popped, it looked great. And I’m really sorry that my photos of the TV that I took in that room room didn’t really do it any justice at all.

[00:28:59]  Trevor Long: That’s right.

[00:29:00]  Stephen Fenech: You really needed to see with your own eyes. It was remarkable.

[00:29:03]  Trevor Long: I, I think that 2026 is going to be a fascinating year for television sales because all— well, not all three, but certainly Hisense and Samsung are going to go very hard promoting RGB.

[00:29:14]  Stephen Fenech: Yes, they are.

[00:29:14]  Trevor Long: Because I think it’s probably got a higher margin for them to build and sell.

[00:29:19]  Stephen Fenech: Just to repeat too, Hisense don’t have OLED anymore, right? So Hisense, it’s RGB, all in on RGB, ULED, their Mini LED as well, right? Yeah. Whereas Samsung and to a lesser degree, well, you think, look at LG, let’s take LG as the example. They’re also sort of facing the prospect. Well, they’re known for OLED, right? You think OLED, you think LG, fair? Yeah, they’re kind of the leaders. But they’ve also got micro RGB.

[00:29:43]  Trevor Long: But they’ve put it—

[00:29:44]  Stephen Fenech: how have they positioned it?

[00:29:45]  Trevor Long: They’ve positioned it in the middle underneath OLED, right?

[00:29:49]  Stephen Fenech: Oh no, price-wise it’s kind of in the same.

[00:29:51]  Trevor Long: But in their range, when you say what’s your premier TV, they’ve put OLED at the top, then micro RGB.

[00:29:57]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:29:57]  Trevor Long: And there’s bugger all of them. Them.

[00:29:59]  Stephen Fenech: Yes, there’s only 4 models, 4 sizes.

[00:30:01]  Trevor Long: Not many at all, right?

[00:30:02]  Stephen Fenech: One range, 4 sizes or something.

[00:30:03]  Trevor Long: So that’s, that’s a hedging of your bets because, mate, let’s remember we looked at their, at LG’s OLEDs and their entry-level OLED, the C, or not entry-level but their C class, which is their mid, mid-letter, their bread and butter range, is phenomenally better than last year and would be my pick.

[00:30:21]  Stephen Fenech: Brighter. Yeah, right, true, true.

[00:30:23]  Trevor Long: So, mate, yeah, if you’re able able to see all these TVs, which we’re lucky enough to do at this point, I still think LG’s C OLED— yeah, C6 is this year—

[00:30:33]  Stephen Fenech: will be—

[00:30:34]  Trevor Long: is, is an unbelievable value, the value, the quality and all that. Yeah, when you consider that, when you consider the normal premium that OLED attracts, LG have nailed the C. They have. Uh, Samsung have nailed the fact that they’re in that market now. Let me ask you, and we’ll nail glare-free in OLED.

[00:30:50]  Stephen Fenech: Well, let me ask you this then, has Samsung now because like Neo QLED is awesome. That’s amazing. So has Samsung created that situation for themselves where the Neo QLED, which a year ago people were shopping for Neo QLED, they’re thinking, hang on a minute, I get a 75-inch for how much?

[00:31:07]  Trevor Long: $2,999.

[00:31:08]  Stephen Fenech: Like, mate, you don’t reckon that’s gonna get people moving?

[00:31:11]  Trevor Long: Your budget is $3,000. Do you want a 55-inch micro RGB or do you want a 75-inch Neo QLED?

[00:31:18]  Stephen Fenech: 75. And that just goes to, remember Simon was saying about how many larger TVs they’re selling in Australia. Australia is like the 4th in the world per capita buying big TVs. So we, mate, that’s a no-brainer.

[00:31:32]  Trevor Long: It was Justine that gave us that number first.

[00:31:34]  Stephen Fenech: It was, okay. But that’s, mate, that’s a no-brainer because you want a big TV, right?

[00:31:39]  Trevor Long: So I counted it, 46% of the models that Samsung have are over 75 inches. 25 inches or more.

[00:31:46]  Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:31:47]  Trevor Long: 46% of the models they’re selling, nearly half.

[00:31:50]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there you go. Wow. Says a lot about the market, mate, and how we want bigger TVs. But, but you know what, there’s this— I’ll tell you, there’s two types of TV buyers, right? There’s two types of buyers. There’s the— and this is the same for kind of every category. Like, say you’re a car buyer, right? You want to, you want to get a luxury car. You’re spending money on the luxury car. You, you’re the other customer who just wants a car, something nice, that’s reliable. Right, you’re gonna spend less than that other customer. There’s the same customer in the TV market.

[00:32:16]  Trevor Long: Correct, 100%.

[00:32:17]  Stephen Fenech: So you’re a luxury, you want the luxury, you want the best, you’re gonna go micro LED, big screen, you’re gonna go all out. Whereas your average customer’s gonna go, okay, what’s down here? Neo QLED, CLG OLED.

[00:32:30]  Trevor Long: And I think that if you were to reflect, if you had data on the number of people who you’ve spoken to on the radio over the years that have asked you about TVs. And it’s so rare to have someone say, I don’t care about the budget. Yeah. And therefore you’re able to say, get an OLED, right?

[00:32:43]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:32:44]  Trevor Long: I want an 85-inch TV, I don’t care about the budget, get an OLED, right? That’s what we’ve always said. I think it’s far more common to come across someone that goes, well, mate, I got $4,000 and I want the biggest thing I can get. Well, mate, Neo QLED or Frame, like, you’re gonna end up with something—

[00:32:58]  Stephen Fenech: Well, that’s the customer. That’s the average customer I’m talking about, which is, let’s face it, it’s probably 90% of the market, right, would be customers who’ve got, okay, I’ll spend this much, I think so, what can I get?

[00:33:08]  Trevor Long: Oh, my, the final thing I’d say on this is, as a caveat, to look back on this episode in 3 months, 6 months from now, once we’ve really looked at all these TVs properly, is I maybe— I’ve watched micro RGB, I’ve watched these RGB technologies, they look good, but I need to live with one and, and, and compare it genuinely to OLED to work out whether I truly notice. If I truly notice the color in everyday viewing of everyday things, not just in, you know, epic movies and things, yeah, then that will tip the needle all the way towards micro RGB and RGB technology generally.

[00:33:42]  Stephen Fenech: And you’ve got, you know, RGB letters you’re going to see from every brand this year, right? So, you know, from LG, Samsung, Hisense, Sony, everyone’s going to be playing the RGB game. So customers are going to be bombarded started with this RGB talk, but luckily for some other brands, mainly Samsung and LG, they do have those other formats that they can fall back on and say, okay, well, if RGB is not for you, how about this? And those other alternatives are awesome.

[00:34:09]  Trevor Long: Yes, beautiful. You know what, let’s wrap it with that and say, honestly, yeah, it’s hard to find a bad TV because you’ve got to remember Mini LED. Yeah, they’ve got, they’ve got a 55-inch Mini LED for $1,000.

[00:34:20]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but by the way, the Crystal TV, how much is 100?

[00:34:24]  Trevor Long: TVs up there are Crystal TVs. I was, because Laura and I was on both the 43-inch Crystal and the 85-inch Neo QLED 8K TV, right? Law and Order, same thing. Yep. And I don’t see the difference.

[00:34:35]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but that’s not bad.

[00:34:36]  Trevor Long: That’s unbelievable.

[00:34:37]  Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s excellent. Yeah, what are we complaining about?

[00:34:37]  Stephen Fenech: Bad at all.

[00:34:40]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly, mate. No, you’re right.

[00:34:41]  Trevor Long: What on earth is wrong with that?

[00:34:43]  Stephen Fenech: Nothing. So, but again, it’s that customer.

[00:34:46]  Trevor Long: You can get a— you can get a 98-inch Crystal UHD for $3,799.

[00:34:53]  Stephen Fenech: Boom, there you go. See, but that’s, that’s the other customer, right? Who, who, who— go big or go home. Quality or size. Yeah, if you want both, you’re gonna spend massive money. If you want to sort of hedge your bets on either side, then there’s the full range to look at there.

[00:35:05]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, awesome. All right, you can read our thoughts on the Samsung range and the pricing is all available at techguide.com.au and eftm.com. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech, and we do all thanks to the great people at Netgear netgear.com.au if you are looking to upgrade your home network to get it ready for the future. Whether you’ve got a lot of new devices that you’re buying, new laptops, new phones, new tablets, they’ve all got advanced Wi-Fi technologies in them like Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7. You got to be ready for those. Your router might not actually be able to supply that level of technology to your network, so an upgrade is worthy, especially when you consider the speed of the NBN coming into your home. Now if you’ve got gigabit NBN or 2 gigabit NBN, you really do need these Wi-Fi technologies to route the traffic correctly and efficiently instantly through your home. And Netgear’s got that covered with their Orbi range of mesh systems. You can find out all about their entire range. You can even shop online directly at Netgear. If you want 10% off, you can get that through signing up for their newsletter. It’s all on their website, netgear.com.au.

[00:36:05]  Stephen Fenech: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:36:09]  Trevor Long: All right, Stephen, massive, massive news this week. You know it’s big news when our phones start ringing. Yeah, did you get that on?

[00:36:17]  Stephen Fenech: Uh, I had a couple of emails.

[00:36:18]  Trevor Long: Bloody radio day. Yeah, and you I’ve got back-to-back radio and then TV stuck on. Oh man, it was just— yeah. Anyway, Tim Cook gone, gone, gone.

[00:36:27]  Stephen Fenech: He, he— this, and this was rumored for months. Well, this is not gone, he’s stepping down.

[00:36:31]  Trevor Long: First question, yeah, I got from everyone, was this a shock? My answer, no. Yeah, not at all.

[00:36:36]  Stephen Fenech: I knew it was coming.

[00:36:37]  Trevor Long: So the timing was a shock, no. I wasn’t expecting to have to churn out an article and be ready to talk about this on many platforms, on 9 News. But yeah, it wasn’t shock. Yeah, because, you know, here’s what happened. So obviously, if you don’t know this already, you can read it at techguide.com.au. Tim Cook is stepping down as of September 1st. He’ll become executive director or something.

[00:36:57]  Stephen Fenech: Executive chairman.

[00:36:58]  Trevor Long: John Ternus, the current head of hardware, will become the new CEO. I reckon Mark Gurman had this a year ago. You probably look it up when he had it first for Bloomberg, but I think that’s a strategic leak from a year ago. What you do is you start leaking the potential leadership change. Yes. Yeah, because I think they need to know how the stock market’s gonna react. They’ve never leaked anything Worth it to me.

[00:37:19]  Trevor Long: I wouldn’t speak to it.

[00:37:19]  Stephen Fenech: I don’t—

[00:37:22]  Stephen Fenech: But they’ve given you stuff under embargo. We’ve all had that.

[00:37:24]  Trevor Long: What’s important to know is that what you’re able to do by leaking that, having so many stories about Tim Cook leaving and John Turner’s taking over—

[00:37:32]  Stephen Fenech: it’s less of a shock.

[00:37:33]  Trevor Long: You bet. No, no, but you’re able to measure the reaction.

[00:37:35]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:36]  Trevor Long: So if Wall Street and management reacted badly to that, then you know what, you have to say to John, man, it’s not your time, you know. And you’re right, they have a plan.

[00:37:44]  Stephen Fenech: Set up a test balloon like that.

[00:37:46]  Trevor Long: 100%.

[00:37:46]  Stephen Fenech: You reckon?

[00:37:47]  Trevor Long: 100. They’re a $4 trillion company. They cannot risk a made him CEO.

[00:37:51]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:51]  Trevor Long: So look, John Ternus, even though he’s 50, he’s young.

[00:37:55]  Stephen Fenech: Well, that’s how old Tim Cook was when he took over. That’s right.

[00:37:58]  Trevor Long: But he’s been at Apple for 25 years. He’s worked under Steve Jobs.

[00:38:01]  Stephen Fenech: Yes, of course.

[00:38:02]  Trevor Long: So he’s a brilliant selection for two reasons. Firstly, he has the legacy.

[00:38:06]  Stephen Fenech: He’s got an engineering background.

[00:38:08]  Trevor Long: No, no, he’s got the Steve Jobs legacy in his bones, right? So he can say, yeah, he can actively say, Steve Jobs was an influence. This is the way Steve works. This is the way Steve did things, the way they all say it now.

[00:38:18]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:38:18]  Trevor Long: Secondly, he’s young enough to do a 15-year tenure and still 65, the same age as Tim Cook. Yes. Whereas—

[00:38:25]  Stephen Fenech: and then retire a bit in it.

[00:38:26]  Trevor Long: Whereas if you got to remember, he’s the youngest part of the senior leadership team. If you chose Bob Borchers or Greg Joswiak, and with the greatest respect, I’m sure they don’t watch Two Blokes Talking Tech. They’re lovely gentlemen.

[00:38:36]  Stephen Fenech: Hi, Greg. And who was the other guy? Bob. Hi, Bob.

[00:38:39]  Trevor Long: Bob Borchers. Lovely, lovely people who I respect and I get on with really well.

[00:38:43]  Stephen Fenech: They’re older.

[00:38:44]  Trevor Long: They’re older. Yeah. So if you put them in as CEO, how long are they going to be CEO? Go for?

[00:38:48]  Stephen Fenech: No, true.

[00:38:49]  Trevor Long: Like 5 years, 10 years.

[00:38:50]  Stephen Fenech: You know what fascinates me is that people know he’s the Apple CEO. Like, that was the— I did a few interviews too about this too, right? And they’re thinking, everyone said, oh, Tim Cook, and they’re sort of naming him like he’s a household name, right? And I said in my interview, I said, could you name the Samsung CEO right now? They go, nope.

[00:39:06]  Trevor Long: No.

[00:39:07]  Stephen Fenech: I said, because they’re so visible. The executives are so visible. He fronts the keynotes and he’s there and just like Steve Jobs did. And now, and John Ternus is already doing that.

[00:39:16]  Trevor Long: If you’re listening to this on Thursday Tonight, then tomorrow morning on the Today Show, I’ve got an interview with Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, right? Yeah, it’s a big get. I’m super excited about it. Does everyone know who Satya Nadella is?

[00:39:27]  Stephen Fenech: Uh, yeah, I think not everyone, but a lot would.

[00:39:29]  Trevor Long: So I would say not as big as Tim Cook, but way bigger than Samsung. Do you know what I mean? Like in the level of tech CEO.

[00:39:36]  Stephen Fenech: My mate TM Rowe, is that who you’re talking about?

[00:39:38]  Trevor Long: I just don’t think if you said that to him in San Francisco. Yeah, I spoke to him in Paris and it’s It’s like, I don’t know, like I found it very hard to pitch a story on it because it wasn’t one-to-one. Who is it? Who is it? Right.

[00:39:51]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, exactly right.

[00:39:52]  Trevor Long: But so yeah, you’re right. John Turnus will become known as Apple Steve. Well, he’s known already, but not in the wide community.

[00:39:58]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but not at all, mate. That’s one thing. Apple, very visible. Their executives are visible. Visible. We know, like how I’ve been talking to Greg Joswiak for 20 years as well. Like you’ve talked to him recently and these are the guys who’ve been with the company a long time. Yeah, they’re true Apple.

[00:40:12]  Trevor Long: Craig Federighi, Eddie Chu, all these people. That’s right.

[00:40:16]  Stephen Fenech: Employees that have been there for decades. So yeah, smart.

[00:40:20]  Trevor Long: Jaws is coming up on 40 years.

[00:40:22]  Stephen Fenech: What’s that?

[00:40:23]  Trevor Long: Jaws comes up to 40 years this month of employment.

[00:40:25]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Let’s watch your interview.

[00:40:26]  Trevor Long: Imagine what he’s going to get, like a plaque.

[00:40:28]  Stephen Fenech: He’ll get a gold—

[00:40:30]  Trevor Long: they get those little statue things that they make. They’re made out of solid— really?

[00:40:33]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:34]  Trevor Long: They make 10, 20, 30-year. Is that right?

[00:40:36]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:40:36]  Trevor Long: Big block things. They’re like YouTube play buttons, but far more exciting. Exactly.

[00:40:41]  Stephen Fenech: Plus the stock options are better too.

[00:40:43]  Trevor Long: Mate, what do you think of the timing? So it’s— it’s— yes, September, a week before 19 weeks of notice. And literally, if our guesses are to be believed, it’s one week before. So let me ask you this. Who stands— who’s the first person we see on September the 8th in the livestream keynote?

[00:41:02]  Stephen Fenech: Has to be John Turnus.

[00:41:03]  Trevor Long: It’s not Jim Cook shaking his hand. It’s not Ian Hendover.

[00:41:08]  Stephen Fenech: No, I don’t— well, maybe, but I reckon they’ve named September 1st And I think that was— that’s the time. That’s the time for him to step up. And his first step up is that event.

[00:41:20]  Trevor Long: So here’s what you do.

[00:41:22]  Stephen Fenech: Would you get Dub Dub? There might be something.

[00:41:24]  Trevor Long: Dub Dub, you know how Dub Dub’s video is normally silly? Yes. You make that a handover video. Yeah. So it’s him and you do something, you know, like a movie reference, right? Find a movie reference.

[00:41:36]  Stephen Fenech: Here’s what you do when you get this sort of email.

[00:41:38]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, whatever.

[00:41:39]  Stephen Fenech: You can have a lot of fun with it.

[00:41:40]  Trevor Long: So I think John is literally not just bought into that because he’s a new character.

[00:41:43]  Stephen Fenech: Like, he’s got a little L plate on it.

[00:41:46]  Trevor Long: But Tim kind of hands over to him in that.

[00:41:49]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:41:49]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:41:50]  Stephen Fenech: Be careful of those reporters. Be careful of that thing on the wall.

[00:41:52]  Trevor Long: And then Craig comes in and goes, but this is my show, you know, because it’s Dub Dub.

[00:41:55]  Trevor Long: So I think John—

[00:41:55]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true that.

[00:41:57]  Stephen Fenech: They can have a lot of fun with that. I think that’s the other thing too about Apple execs. They’ve got a bit of personality. John Ternus is, you know, he knows his stuff. But Craig Federighi is kind of the runaway sort of personality plus sort of bloke. But Tim has participated in a few of those sort of funny videos. Yeah. Remember the formula? Yeah, box, box. He goes, what about that turn? He goes, it’s all a turn around Apple Park. Yeah, but look, it’s good that they can take the mickey out of themselves a bit and have a bit of fun. I think that’s sort of— that plays into people’s love of the brand.

[00:42:26]  Trevor Long: No, the brand.

[00:42:27]  Stephen Fenech: And you got to remember, right, it’s all about the brand. Yeah, Apple, the brand. And it’s that timing of the handover and the iPhone launch launch event. The timing— hey, I’ve got a new screen.

[00:42:41]  Trevor Long: I’m sorry, I forgot about it.

[00:42:42]  Stephen Fenech: The timing is— yeah, I think because I’ve described that new iPhone launch as an iPhone launch like never before. Yes, you’re going to see a never-before product there, the folding.

[00:42:55]  Trevor Long: He’s going to get to say one more thing, and he’ll—

[00:42:57]  Stephen Fenech: and he’ll— that’ll kind of be the new direction that they’re going in, sort of new, you know, upward, onward and upward with him and with their products. Yeah, I think it’s a nice time, nice timing there. Yeah, yeah.

[00:43:07]  Trevor Long: Bottom line, line. Not a shock, but a surprise time.

[00:43:11]  Stephen Fenech: Sooner than you thought?

[00:43:12]  Trevor Long: No, honestly, I think it could have happened a year ago.

[00:43:15]  Stephen Fenech: Like it— No, no, we see. But Tim Cook for—

[00:43:18]  Trevor Long: And nothing controversial. Like I had someone from a large media organization say, is there any scandal here? And I went, no, it’s just a—

[00:43:24]  Stephen Fenech: No, mate, it’s Apple.

[00:43:25]  Trevor Long: It’s just a CEO who’s 65 with millions of dollars not needing to work every day.

[00:43:29]  Stephen Fenech: Billions of dollars.

[00:43:30]  Trevor Long: So he doesn’t need to work every day. You just come in and be executive chairman.

[00:43:34]  Stephen Fenech: How hard is it?

[00:43:35]  Trevor Long: Yeah, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Yeah, I think it’s a success.

[00:43:38]  Stephen Fenech: Steve Jobs, when he passed away, that’s when Tim Cook took over. Yeah, Steve Jobs when he died was only 57.

[00:43:43]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:43:45]  Stephen Fenech: So we didn’t get to 65.

[00:43:46]  Trevor Long: Stop and smell the roses. All right, well, that’s speaking of September.

[00:43:51]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, hello, there’s your Trevor’s Pony Up for the Dummies again. Oh geez, that’s heavy, isn’t it?

[00:43:55]  Trevor Long: There’s your— well, it doesn’t matter. That’s— so that’s your iPhone 18 Pro Max. Yes, there’s your iPhone 18 Pro. Yes, mate, they’re exactly the same as last year. Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:04]  Stephen Fenech: Okay, so can you show me? So keys are the same?

[00:44:06]  Trevor Long: Keys are the same.

[00:44:07]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, everything’s still got your camera. Do you ever use that camera?

[00:44:09]  Trevor Long: Oh, I’ve started using it more and more.

[00:44:11]  Stephen Fenech: You’re joking?

[00:44:11]  Trevor Long: Yeah, really, to launch the camera.

[00:44:12]  Stephen Fenech: You know how many times I’ve taken accidental photos by grabbing that button? Like a thousand times. Okay, just let you know.

[00:44:18]  Trevor Long: So basically identical except one thing, and I’ll point this out here where—

[00:44:22]  Stephen Fenech: oh, the, the front sensor.

[00:44:24]  Trevor Long: Sensor, if you can see, you can make it out there. So there’s, there’s a camera which is the round dot, and then the next to it is normally quite a big pill-shaped area for the sensor. So it’s basically smaller. They’ve reduced the size of the sensor at the top.

[00:44:37]  Stephen Fenech: So for camera or the case manufacturers, their case wouldn’t intrude over that area anyway.

[00:44:42]  Trevor Long: And, um, yeah, what do they call them? Screen protectors, of course.

[00:44:45]  Stephen Fenech: Righto.

[00:44:46]  Trevor Long: But I know you really want to talk about—

[00:44:48]  Stephen Fenech: well, let’s— yeah, show me your— show me your fold, mate.

[00:44:50]  Trevor Long: So that is your iPhone Ultra.

[00:44:52]  Stephen Fenech: Geez, it’s heavy.

[00:44:53]  Trevor Long: But, but Now feel it in your hand as a metal model. Now I need to point some things out about the dummy. It doesn’t open fully unless you remove the backing. It’s quite hard to— hang on, whoops.

[00:45:02]  Stephen Fenech: Hope it opens easy in real life, mate.

[00:45:04]  Trevor Long: Yeah, no, it’s got a clip in it, so it only opens that far, but I’ll take this little back off, it opens fully.

[00:45:08]  Stephen Fenech: Okay, right.

[00:45:09]  Trevor Long: Anyway, so basically, um, what we saw in the—

[00:45:13]  Stephen Fenech: right, so you reckon the bump only goes there because, you know, my 3D prints— yeah, I actually printed the latest version that I found, which is still the—

[00:45:21]  Trevor Long: which is here, the old design.

[00:45:22]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so here, this is the first one I printed, which we had on the show before, right? So this, this opens up, right?

[00:45:28]  Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:45:29]  Stephen Fenech: Here’s the second version that I printed, which has been updated. But look at the camera bump, which is right.

[00:45:34]  Trevor Long: Well, I can tell you it’s wrong. That’ll be 100% wrong because the volume rockers will be at the top, right?

[00:45:38]  Stephen Fenech: Because the buttons here on the side—

[00:45:40]  Trevor Long: yeah, but you can’t put the volume buttons on the side because they’d be right next to the power button and that would make them hard to use. Yes, right. So a couple of observations: volume rockers top, top of the phone.

[00:45:50]  Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:45:50]  Trevor Long: Um, uh, camera control button’s still there. And this, I’m going to try and show here, that’s the power— the side button, as they call it. I’m telling you, the print button, it is 1mm bigger than the traditional one, which means it’s Touch ID.

[00:46:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, Touch ID.

[00:46:05]  Trevor Long: Touch ID for sure.

[00:46:07]  Stephen Fenech: Although won’t the front screen have Face ID?

[00:46:09]  Trevor Long: No, it may not. In fact, look at that, there’s no cutout for anything.

[00:46:13]  Stephen Fenech: You know what, well, my 3D one got the shape right at least.

[00:46:16]  Trevor Long: Look. Yeah, but so let’s look at the camera bump.

[00:46:18]  Stephen Fenech: Show me the camera bump. Sorry, before you do that, so look at the camera bump that you’ve got on the dummy and look at the one that’s floating around.

[00:46:24]  Trevor Long: But let’s Remember that the dummies are always— they’d be 99% from the 99% specs. These— this, this— when was it? It was like last year that this spec came out.

[00:46:33]  Stephen Fenech: Now this, this was more— this was— came out because this one, I’ve had that one for months, right? This one for months. Yes, it got the shape right. That’s basically correct. This one was last week.

[00:46:41]  Trevor Long: I understand. Yeah, but, but mate, someone, whoever made that, didn’t make it from new specs, right?

[00:46:45]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:46:46]  Trevor Long: But now hold this and go, okay, so how does this work as a phone? And I’ve got to tell tell you, when you do this kind of thing, so when you kind of go, okay, that’s interesting, it’s— yes, it’s not that wide bigger. No, but look, it’s not that much bigger. Yeah, than a Pro Max.

[00:46:58]  Stephen Fenech: In fact, the screen itself is the same width almost.

[00:47:01]  Trevor Long: It’s almost the same width. Hold that thought.

[00:47:03]  Stephen Fenech: I reckon slightly wider. Oh geez, you kill someone with one of these.

[00:47:08]  Trevor Long: I’ll get my measure.

[00:47:10]  Stephen Fenech: I think, I think slightly wider, mate. Really?

[00:47:12]  Trevor Long: Look, let’s measure it. All right, let’s Let’s do it. So give me the iPhone Pro Max. Theoretically, the screen on this— why is that not moving?

[00:47:23]  Stephen Fenech: Right, that is hard to open.

[00:47:24]  Trevor Long: Great content. You take your fingers— yeah. So remember this, 72.1 rough screen size width, width of the screen on the Pro Max, right? On the, on the, on the Fold or Ultra, it’s slightly more at 75.

[00:47:40]  Stephen Fenech: So it’s 3mm wider screen, not much, which I think makes sense because, you know, You know what, that’s my biggest complaint about other foldable devices, and I’m going to show you the, the Oppo here as well. I’ll look at the Oppo, look at the Oppo screen, right, which I’m loving by the way. I’m really enjoying this. Yeah, look at the width of that screen compared to Apple, what Apple are going to produce. So yeah, you can see the width there, which is, which has always been my gripe for foldable.

[00:48:04]  Trevor Long: But now, but now think about, now think about this. Yeah, with a keyboard. Yes, up to there.

[00:48:10]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but the other thing you got to remember too, mate, is if I can open it, people are saying, oh look, you’re not going to get— and Apple did this deliberately, right? You either want a nice tall screen all the time, okay, either that, or you want a screen like that, or a screen like that.

[00:48:26]  Trevor Long: Yeah, you think it’ll be held in—

[00:48:28]  Stephen Fenech: oh mate, that’s how I’m gonna hold it.

[00:48:29]  Trevor Long: You think it’ll be held?

[00:48:30]  Stephen Fenech: Definitely. That’s the, that’s the advantage of having that shape is, you know, look at the Fold now, right? I open, open this one up. So like the old Sidekick, you know, look, look at the size of these ones, right? Look at how typing on that. So hold that that way.

[00:48:43]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:48:43]  Stephen Fenech: So look at the size difference there. Yeah, that’s slightly wider. And if you then want to watch a movie, guess what? You flip it around and the aspect ratio— so tilt it out a bit— the aspect ratio is going to be more suitable. Yeah, like you look at this one, also you watch a movie, it’s only through the guts.

[00:48:59]  Trevor Long: And you know when you, when you fold this half up and you’re watching YouTube Yeah, with this it’ll be better there as well.

[00:49:04]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, see, it’s a bit more the right shape.

[00:49:07]  Trevor Long: Right now, the controversy— I’ll give you this, have a look at these two dummies here. Yeah, what do you notice about them?

[00:49:13]  Stephen Fenech: Um, the— these ones in particular, what is not here from the fold? The—

[00:49:18]  Trevor Long: ah, no, no, uh, the flash. Nope, no, ignore that, it’ll be there. That’s, that’s the third lens.

[00:49:24]  Stephen Fenech: No MagSafe, MagSafe, no wireless charging.

[00:49:27]  Trevor Long: Well, Whoa, MagSafe, really?

[00:49:29]  Stephen Fenech: Also might have wireless charging but not MagSafe. How can you have that? How can you not have that? I just can’t believe they wouldn’t have it unless they add it with a case. Maybe have a MagSafe case for it that’s got MagSafe no matter what.

[00:49:41]  Trevor Long: That’s just wild to me.

[00:49:42]  Stephen Fenech: Can you do that, add MagSafe just with a case?

[00:49:44]  Trevor Long: Yeah, well, obviously, because it’ll have wireless charging. That’s not really—

[00:49:48]  Stephen Fenech: well, will it?

[00:49:49]  Trevor Long: Yeah, there’s no— there’s normally an indication on the dummies of where the wireless Magsafe charge is.

[00:49:55]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:49:55]  Trevor Long: And this doesn’t have it. Now that might be a design thing, it might be a dummy thing, we don’t know. But I think it would be wild for them not to have MagSafe.

[00:50:03]  Stephen Fenech: Mine just had the Apple logo on the back here. No wireless charging.

[00:50:06]  Trevor Long: So I think that’s fascinating. And yes, as we talked about a few weeks ago, no 18 because that’ll be a 2027.

[00:50:11]  Stephen Fenech: So yeah, that’s now not getting it in this, in this run of dummies means that there’s not going to be an 18 till possibly next year, March 2027. Now remember recently we were talking about the possible delays for this. I don’t think I think there will be, but maybe—

[00:50:25]  Trevor Long: I never thought there would be.

[00:50:26]  Stephen Fenech: Would it ever be the possibility where they announce it with these phones, these come out, and then 2 weeks later this comes out?

[00:50:31]  Trevor Long: Yeah, I think it’s quite likely.

[00:50:33]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they’ll be staggered.

[00:50:33]  Trevor Long: They’ll be staggered, but I don’t think that’s it.

[00:50:35]  Stephen Fenech: Not by months.

[00:50:36]  Trevor Long: I don’t think that’s a production delay. I think that’s a marketing delay.

[00:50:39]  Stephen Fenech: Right. You know, do you think though, like, how— like, it’s funny how Apple made a deliberate— like, they didn’t just make an iPhone that folds open, right?

[00:50:46]  Trevor Long: No.

[00:50:47]  Stephen Fenech: So they made a deliberate change, a deliberate difference to the design.

[00:50:51]  Trevor Long: I love holding holding, yeah, the Ultra Fold like this. I love this.

[00:50:55]  Stephen Fenech: That’s perfect for you because you don’t like a big screen, but there’s a big screen when you want it. Just like the Flip, you like the Flip 8 because that’s a big screen when you want it. Yeah, I think that’s a nice— that, that I’ll call it now, this is a cross between a Flip and a Fold. Yeah, don’t you reckon? Yeah, it’s got a small front screen, opens up to a big screen, and open it up again, is it iPad mini size?

[00:51:16]  Trevor Long: No, it’s smaller than an iPad. And a lot of people said that to me, oh, there’s get— bye-bye Mini. Mate, this will be a $3,000 device. The iPad Mini is a $900 device.

[00:51:24]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:51:25]  Trevor Long: Yeah, well, that’s stupid. Yeah, but could it be an iPad Fold? Like, could that— could it not be an iPhone? You—

[00:51:32]  Stephen Fenech: oh, you reckon it won’t be called an iPhone? I’m just saying— iPad Fold—

[00:51:36]  Trevor Long: I’m just saying, is it a new name?

[00:51:38]  Stephen Fenech: Well, it’s a phone, mate. So it’s— yeah, it is.

[00:51:40]  Trevor Long: Close it. Is it an internet communicator? Is it an iPod?

[00:51:44]  Stephen Fenech: It’s, it’s everything. If you were making a phone call, you’d be making a lot of this, right?

[00:51:47]  Trevor Long: You’d be going Hello?

[00:51:48]  Stephen Fenech: So holding it like that. Hello? You wouldn’t be doing this, these ones. If I can open the freaking thing.

[00:51:54]  Trevor Long: Just for fun.

[00:51:55]  Stephen Fenech: Would you be making a phone call like this, the big one?

[00:51:56]  Trevor Long: No, but just for fun.

[00:51:57]  Stephen Fenech: Hello?

[00:51:58]  Trevor Long: Think about it for a minute. What if their vision for the future is that you always have AirPods? So you make phone calls with AirPods. You know, you rely on your watch for notifications. This is just the portable screen of the future.

[00:52:12]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s kind of like—

[00:52:13]  Trevor Long: What if it’s just a new thing.

[00:52:15]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so everything else is all voice commands and you’re hearing stuff through your ears anyway. You’re talking to Google or Siri, I should say, and getting answers through.

[00:52:25]  Trevor Long: You’re saying what if it’s not an iPhone Ultra?

[00:52:28]  Stephen Fenech: So just the difference. I know it’ll be the iPhone for sure, mate, but when you want to sit down and scroll to watch things, um, you want, you want a screen to look at, won’t you?

[00:52:39]  Trevor Long: Utterly fascinating. Yeah, yeah. And John Ternus is going to be responsible for however well that goes.

[00:52:44]  Stephen Fenech: Well, that’s— is that a historic thing, mate? A new brand new CEO launching a brand new class of iPhone.

[00:52:48]  Trevor Long: Speaking of which, let’s go back to John Ternus for a second. Yeah. Did you research and look at, you know, where he worked before he came to Apple?

[00:52:54]  Stephen Fenech: No.

[00:52:54]  Trevor Long: Virtual reality.

[00:52:55]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay. So he’s got the—

[00:52:57]  Trevor Long: isn’t that interesting?

[00:52:59]  Stephen Fenech: Credentials, mate.

[00:53:00]  Trevor Long: At that point you go, okay, what are we doing about glasses? Yeah, that’s his first move. Meeting.

[00:53:06]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, righty-o.

[00:53:07]  Trevor Long: What are we doing about glasses?

[00:53:09]  Stephen Fenech: New sheriff in town.

[00:53:10]  Trevor Long: Forget goggles, what are we doing about glasses? I want to see every demo.

[00:53:13]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay. Is, um, and, and just to, uh, pay tribute to our man Tim Cook, uh, your mate Tim Cook, the, uh, he has had his tenure at Apple has been spectacular, right? So the company’s gone up in value, he’s introduced larger screen iPhones, doing very well, larger screen iPhones, Apple Watch, uh, AirPods, the Vision Pro, all the Macs that have come through. If we’ve gone from Intel to M2, Silicon changes, that was massive as well. So he’s shepherded the company through a pretty solid, uh, area of growth. Yeah. And, uh, I think when they— when he first came into a CEO, they were worth like, uh, some— how many? $300 billion.

[00:53:54]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:53:55]  Stephen Fenech: So, uh, Apple doing very well.

[00:53:59]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. No, well done. And I think it’s the right time, it’s the right announcement.

[00:54:03]  Stephen Fenech: But it’s no shock. So I think people who don’t follow tech as closely as you and me and other listeners of the show, they think, oh, Tim Cook stepping down. It made the news, it was on Nine News all day.

[00:54:13]  Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:54:14]  Stephen Fenech: As if, oh, and Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down. They at least got that right, that he wasn’t, you know, sacked or—

[00:54:19]  Trevor Long: No, that’s right.

[00:54:20]  Stephen Fenech: No scandal around it. It was his own choice and him deciding to— And that was a question I got. I said, what’s happened here? I said, no, mate, this is a long time coming. It’s, uh, it’s nothing unexpected.

[00:54:29]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:54:32]  Stephen Fenech: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Two Blokes Talking Tech is proudly supported by our great mates at Arlo. Now you know what, if you are putting together a system, if you want to start from scratch or you want to add on to your system, there is a bundle and save option where depending on how much money you spend and how much products you buy, you can save up to 20% So if you were to buy these cameras, say 5 of them at a retailer, you’re not getting the same, uh, the same bonus here of bundling and saving. You can only get that on the Arlo website. So, uh, you can— if you’re buying a wireless doorbell, wide floodlight, a hub, solar panel, essential camera, indoor essential camera, they’ve got them all here. And there are— there’s some discounts going on as well, but when you put them all together, after you’ve, uh, you can save up to 20% off you built. So it’s worth it if you are just adding to your system or starting from scratch. Get that peace of mind. Arlo cameras are always there for you, showing you those smart notifications and giving you all those— that information to give you the peace of mind that you know that your home is secure. Check out the bundle and save option at arlo.com. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:55:52]  Trevor Long: Preparation’s enough to get there. I needed a drink.

[00:55:55]  Stephen Fenech: Pocket. The pocket. I needed a drink.

[00:55:56]  Trevor Long: Okay, sorry about that. And then I went, oh my God, about to talk about the Pocket 4. Oh, by the way, I forgot to go also, passport size Microsoft Duo. That was the— it was—

[00:56:05]  Stephen Fenech: anyway, how old is that?

[00:56:06]  Trevor Long: Uh, 2019. Okay, oh, that only that long ago. Okay, yeah, I think they have a—

[00:56:11]  Stephen Fenech: so they had one smaller than that too, you know. Okay, I’ve got the one smaller than that that’s actually more like that size. I’m going to dig it out.

[00:56:17]  Trevor Long: Dig it out. Yeah, dig it out. Anyway, uh, DJI have announced the, uh, updated Pocket. Yeah, fourth generation. And the way I describe this to people is when you think about, for example, uh, cameras, you think about DJI and their drones. When they put cameras— we originally, when we bought drones, we put GoPros on them with mounts and that were stabilized. Then DJI started making their own cameras to go with their own gimbals, and what they created was quite simply this effect. So you’ve got, I’ve got a camera, if you look at the camera right on my forehead there, and no matter what you do with your hand, that camera stays level, right? Solid, just unbelievably rock solid.

[00:56:53]  Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:56:54]  Trevor Long: Which is just such an awesome bit of technology. It’s like Steadicam technology.

[00:56:58]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:56:59]  Trevor Long: You know, in every sense.

[00:57:00]  Stephen Fenech: This is popular. My Pocket 3, which I bought, by the way, I bought that. I don’t know why they didn’t send it to me, but I— that was my go-to. Any trips that we were on— hello, are you filming me right now?

[00:57:13]  Trevor Long: Filming you right now.

[00:57:15]  Stephen Fenech: Any trips that we go on, we’ll say I’m filming filming like the Samsung launch, all the new phones and all of my videos, all shot with the Osmo Pocket.

[00:57:21]  Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:57:22]  Stephen Fenech: So, uh, the Pocket 4, I’ve got to say, nice improvement. They’ve got, uh, 4K up to 240 frames per second. They’ve now got dedicated zoom button. Before the zoom— here was the zoom before, that was your zoom on the previous model. Now they’ve got up to 4x zoom with a button.

[00:57:39]  Trevor Long: They’ve also just 4x zoomed in on your face.

[00:57:42]  Stephen Fenech: Good luck, I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah. They’ve also got a dedicated button just beside the zoom, so that can be a customizable button, right, as well. And the 5G joystick is still very cool, very sensitive, or quite accurate.

[00:57:59]  Trevor Long: It’s still great. So I’m going to switch here from Steven mode. I’m going to triple-click the joystick to go into selfie mode. Yep.

[00:58:05]  Stephen Fenech: He’ll go, who’s that?

[00:58:07]  Trevor Long: Who’s that handsome man? Hello, ladies.

[00:58:11]  Stephen Fenech: And it’s also got obviously too, one of the great features is the ActiveTrack. ActiveTrack, have you tracked on me right now? So ActiveTrack 7.0.

[00:58:19]  Trevor Long: Double click on Steven’s face.

[00:58:21]  Stephen Fenech: Is it 7.0?

[00:58:22]  Trevor Long: No matter where I move my hand, it locks onto Steven’s face and it’s just on Steven.

[00:58:28]  Stephen Fenech: And you know, enjoy. So really the Osmo Pocket and, and you know, and another great feature too, there is a microphone built in. But if you’ve got a DJI microphone, there’s actually a— is it the transmitter or the receiver that’s built in? Receiver. Receiver. Built in. So the transmitter, which is the microphone, goes on your— if you’ve got a DJI mic, you don’t need to— you know how in your phone you’ve got to plug something into your phone? There’s something already built into the Pocket 4. So you’ve got a DJI mic, boom, go in the settings, they’ll connect.

[00:58:56]  Trevor Long: I like this little attachment. Oh, the fill light in the, in the Creator Kit. This is a little fill light which I’ll put it in.

[00:59:01]  Stephen Fenech: Love it.

[00:59:02]  Trevor Long: I’ll put it in selfie mode, triple click, and it clicks on the back and gets its power from, from the actual— there’s a camera not quite on the back, not quite on on the back because I’m filming. There it is. There we go, it’s on. And so it’s got color and brightness settings. So basically you’ve got yourself a little studio light no matter where you’re recording, which is very, very cool.

[00:59:21]  Stephen Fenech: This is, and as I said, I use it on the road all the time. Even here, I film a lot of stuff with it as well. Hey, in full color now. The 4 is a huge improvement that created, and the previous model never had those contacts on the back of the thing. So that’s right, that’s new. And imagine all the other accessories they’re gonna have as well. I reckon they’re gonna have a shotgun mic X2 shotgun mic to fit it there as well. So the Creator Bundle is the way to go, or they’re called the Creator Combo, is the way to go. I think it’s $959. You get the light, you get the pouch, you get also the little, what do you call the microphone, little covers as well, the little fluffy covers. So I reckon that’s the value. On its own, I think it’s $749.

[01:00:03]  Trevor Long: $770, I think.

[01:00:04]  Stephen Fenech: Just the bare camera. And you also get the gimbal lock, which you’ve put in place there. Doesn’t come with a case. Doesn’t come with a case anymore. Case just slipped in. Yeah, and would just protect the lens and the screen. But now there’s a pouch and it’s, uh, I would recommend—

[01:00:19]  Trevor Long: you get a bigger battery, you get a little tripod stand, a bunch of little things that come with it.

[01:00:23]  Stephen Fenech: It’s the way to go. It’s unbelievable.

[01:00:26]  Trevor Long: This weekend, unbelievable little bit of kit.

[01:00:28]  Stephen Fenech: It really is. 100% agree. I love it.

[01:00:30]  Trevor Long: All right, check it out, uh, techguide.com.au and eftm.com.

[01:00:34]  Stephen Fenech: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech. One other quick little mention of a product that was released this week. Reviews are to come. The Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam. Now floodlight and solar, other brands you need to have wired floodlights.

[01:00:53]  Trevor Long: That’s right.

[01:00:53]  Stephen Fenech: Now in the case of the Reolink, they’ve got the solar panel right above the kit, sort of fixed above the camera. Two adjustable floodlights. But they do have the— there’s a 7,800 milliamp-hour battery on board as well. If it gets 1 hour of sunlight, that’s enough power that goes back into the device for a whole day of operation. So they’ve got their solar technology they’ve got on board. That’s, let me tell you exactly the name of it. Solar Ease is called the technology. 1 hour of sunlight through the solar panel, a whole day, also supports full illumination of the floodlights after the sun has gone down. It has an improved charging efficiency. It’s a 2K HD camera with a 100-lumen floodlight. Floodlight and also has a 150-degree field of view. So it can cover quite an area.

[01:01:45]  Trevor Long: So to be clear, it’s a floodlight camera that isn’t wired, but it also gets its power through renewables.

[01:01:52]  Stephen Fenech: Basically kind of a set and forget solution. Even if it’s a little bit in the shade, some parts of the day.

[01:01:56]  Trevor Long: You gotta remember that 1 hour of sun is like 1 beating hour of sun is enough, but 6 hours of just, you know, half sun is gonna be okay as well.

[01:02:04]  Stephen Fenech: It will add up, yeah. And a shout out to young Aidan, who’s a fan of the show, also represents Reolink. I think it works for— what’s the company called? Sefiani?

[01:02:12]  Trevor Long: Sefiani. Shout out to April.

[01:02:13]  Stephen Fenech: And April too. Yeah, April’s a friend of the show as well. So that’s their client, the Reolink Solar Floodlight Cam available now. It’s, I think, is $179, which is—

[01:02:24]  Trevor Long: Taking your PayPal donations for shout outs. If you’re in PR, we’re here for you.

[01:02:28]  Trevor Long: From this point on, donations only.

[01:02:28]  Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[01:02:30]  Stephen Fenech: That’s us. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all I got, mate.

[01:02:33]  Trevor Long: Oh, okay.

[01:02:33]  Stephen Fenech: That’s it.

[01:02:34]  Trevor Long: I was going to say we can be bored, but we can’t. Not in that sense. You know what I’m saying? You know what I mean?

[01:02:38]  Stephen Fenech: Mentions.

[01:02:39]  Trevor Long: Anyway, you can read all about those great stories and great products at techguide.com.au and eftm.com. We’d love to hear from you throughout the week as we lead up to next week’s show. I’ll be in China. Stephen will be in San Francisco. So it’ll be a remote episode. No YouTube next week. Sorry, folks.

[01:02:52]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah. You’re going to have to wait another week to see these beautiful faces every Sunday.

[01:02:56]  Trevor Long: I mean, we will in time. Time play around with options.

[01:03:00]  Stephen Fenech: So what do we take out?

[01:03:02]  Trevor Long: Yeah, well, uh, so you know what you can do with the USB-C cable? You can set the Osmo Pocket up as a webcam. Okay, so, uh, Stig was saying what you can do with Riverside, which is the software we use to record remotely, is you can have— so you and me are on with our laptops, you can bring another device in like your phone in and use it as the camera, right? But I’m thinking, yeah, let’s set the Osmo those up instead of with ActiveTrack and, you know, set those up as the webcam. You’ll just get a different view.

[01:03:31]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, we made webcams in our computers as well.

[01:03:33]  Trevor Long: Yeah, no, but the Osmo is going to be higher quality sitting up. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.

[01:03:38]  Stephen Fenech: I will remember to pack the proper gear.

[01:03:40]  Trevor Long: It’s also effort, so there’s that.

[01:03:43]  Stephen Fenech: Uh, you taking a check-in bag, mate, or you’re just carrying on? Yeah, me too. I’m checking in this time too. So there’s no, there’s no, uh, like when I went Going to New York, there was like pretty tight connections. I’m thinking my bag’s gonna be on the other, not gonna make it. But this time I’ve only just got in and out. No switch flights.

[01:04:01]  Trevor Long: We’re shooting it today, so story. So I need to take a bit, not everything, but I’m taking one bag with everything in it including clothes.

[01:04:07]  Stephen Fenech: So anyway, travel’s like Paris Hilton, mate. There’s a lot of bags.

[01:04:10]  Trevor Long: Well, it takes a lot to look this good. A lot of clips here that could go bad for me this week. Yeah, but that’s okay. All right, folks, see you next week.

[01:04:19]  Stephen Fenech: Ciao.

[01:04:20]  Trevor Long: Bye, Steven. Safe travels.

[01:04:21]  Stephen Fenech: Safe travels. Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.