The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode #746 – Foldable phones a success and more to come!

Episode: TBTT #746 – Foldable phones a success and more to come!
Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Tech
Date: 20 August 2026
Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: That’s it.

[00:00:00] Stephen Fenech: Okay, I’m ready. All right, thanks for joining. Right, just getting his things in order.

[00:00:06] Trevor Long: Lucky I didn’t say I wasn’t ready, eh?

[00:00:08] Stephen Fenech: Oh well, I would have acknowledged and respected your position. Yeah, and kept recording.

[00:00:13] Trevor Long: Righto, here we are again, eh?

[00:00:16] Stephen Fenech: Here we are again, another week of just stimulating repartee. If this is your first time listening, welcome.

[00:00:23] Trevor Long: Do you reckon one day, one time when we record, because it’s no secret that we record all our podcasts on one day, right? Do you reckon maybe we should do this first, mate? Maybe one time.

[00:00:32] Stephen Fenech: That’d be wild.

[00:00:32] Trevor Long: You know, like we’re— not that we’re not fresh right now, but we can come in.

[00:00:36] Stephen Fenech: I’ve worked out why your headphones don’t go in well. Because they’re in the wrong ear. Really? Yeah, you’ve got them the wrong way around. Let me just talk for a minute. I’ve got this thought that I am going to finally hand over the reins of producing the EV Show to producer Rob.

[00:00:50] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:00:51] Stephen Fenech: Just because I’m pretty sick of having to remember to text people and see— he gets all the texts and puts them into a spreadsheet anyway. So I’m thinking we’ll organize that anyway. So that’s just so you know, Rob. It’s coming. Good luck to you, Rob. The challenge there is if we want to do that, we should probably do it when we’re back from overseas because we’re going to need to lock in on the EV because if Rob’s going to organize all the calls in a particular time window, 10 to 11.

[00:01:15] Trevor Long: That governs when we start.

[00:01:16] Stephen Fenech: Governs when we start.

[00:01:17] Trevor Long: Oh, you can get here early.

[00:01:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you get here early at 8:30 and we could smash the show out. Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:23] Trevor Long: You know, really. I might book a hotel nearby just sort of sleep, come the night before.

[00:01:28] Stephen Fenech: There’s an Ibis on the road next to the Bunnings.

[00:01:30] Trevor Long: I might have to book it, mate.

[00:01:30] Stephen Fenech: I can’t imagine you in an Ibis, to be honest.

[00:01:32] Trevor Long: I’ve been— I’ve stayed at an Ibis before.

[00:01:34] Stephen Fenech: Really?

[00:01:34] Trevor Long: There’s an Ibis.

[00:01:35] Stephen Fenech: You lowered yourself?

[00:01:36] Trevor Long: No, I remember there was an Ibis. I think it was an Ibis or Quest. I’ve stayed at an Ibis. I remember staying at an Ibis in Anaheim when I was over on a Souths trip. Our Anaheim hotel was Ibis.

[00:01:48] Stephen Fenech: Hang on, are you talking about when you played for Souths? Yes. That’s a long time ago.

[00:01:52] Trevor Long: Yes, I know, but I’ve stayed in a— still an Ibis that I’ve stayed in.

[00:01:55] Stephen Fenech: That’s like saying I stayed in a Flag Inn.

[00:01:57] Trevor Long: There’s one near the airport too.

[00:01:59] Stephen Fenech: Which airport?

[00:02:00] Trevor Long: I think Sydney Airport.

[00:02:00] Stephen Fenech: There’s an Ibis. Yeah, there’s something. And I stayed at the Ibis in Darling Harbour once once, and it just, it made me realize what it is. It’s just a building. It’s just a bunch of concrete, like, prefabbed rooms just stuck together. Because even the whole, the whole bathroom was like a stick-in bathroom. Like, you know those showers that are just a plastic mold? There’s your shower. I think the whole bathroom was just like, it was a concrete room with, here’s a bathroom stuck in the corner. Okay. You know, it wasn’t high value. But if you want to get involved in the Two Blokes Talking Anything show, Ibis, we’re happy to make you our chosen hotel partner.

[00:02:33] Trevor Long: I won’t stay there, but I’ll You’re our chosen provider. Yeah, when we travel, we travel a lot.

[00:02:40] Stephen Fenech: Mate, if I—

[00:02:42] Trevor Long: And we were a gas man as well.

[00:02:45] Stephen Fenech: I knew that Amanda would have a real struggle to find accommodation in New York because there’s accommodation every block, right? Exactly, yeah. And so I knew I would need to narrow it down. And so I narrowed it down. Like I went, I’m gonna say Midtown because it’s easy to get both ends and you want to be near a subway line. I think that’s important. You know, that’s good.

[00:03:02] Trevor Long: So on the west side?

[00:03:04] Stephen Fenech: Or right in the middle. It’s, I don’t know.

[00:03:08] Trevor Long: What are you between, 5th and 6th Avenue?

[00:03:09] Stephen Fenech: I don’t know, mate. I don’t know, but we’re Midtown anyway. So I found a couple and I kind of went, here’s my narrow, and she basically went, I don’t know. But let me tell you this, if I’d have written Ibis Manhattan, she would’ve gone no. So like, really? Yeah. Oh no, she’s— No question.

[00:03:24] Trevor Long: There goes our chance of partnering with them.

[00:03:25] Stephen Fenech: She’s a 5-star Princess mom.

[00:03:27] Trevor Long: Is that right? There’s a Hilton Midtown. Hilton corner of 6th.

[00:03:30] Stephen Fenech: Mate, there’s an everything Midtown.

[00:03:31] Trevor Long: There’s a, on the corner of 6th Avenue and 57th Street, there’s a Hilton. Everything.

[00:03:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Okay. Hilton everywhere.

[00:03:38] Trevor Long: I’ve stayed there.

[00:03:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’ve stayed in a lot of places.

[00:03:40] Trevor Long: I think Samsung had us there one time.

[00:03:42] Stephen Fenech: Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so my friends—

[00:03:44] Trevor Long: remember I stayed in New York with my friends? They had a place down in, down in Lower Manhattan and then in Midtown above MoMA. That was there, right near their apartment too. Yeah.

[00:03:54] Stephen Fenech: Right. Well, I can’t stay there with my family, so no, thanks. I could ask them. No thanks. Again, Amanda wouldn’t do that.

[00:03:59] Trevor Long: Really?

[00:03:59] Stephen Fenech: She would hate staying with people.

[00:04:01] Trevor Long: But they wouldn’t be there.

[00:04:03] Stephen Fenech: I know, but I think someone else—

[00:04:05] Trevor Long: what, every time I’ve stayed there, I’ve stayed there both with them and when they weren’t there. I couldn’t do it. My Mikey and I stayed there for 2 weeks one time in their apartment.

[00:04:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right. It just feels inappropriate to me. Yeah.

[00:04:16] Trevor Long: No, we— mate, I left him like $500 US to say thank you. Like, it wasn’t—

[00:04:21] Stephen Fenech: yeah, that’s— yeah, mate. Yeah, I’d leave you $500 US and let me stay at your place for one night. Yeah, no, anyway, that’s a third of what we’re paying per night.

[00:04:28] Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:04:29] Stephen Fenech: You’re doing very well. 2 weeks of, um Yeah, so one of my mates was here the other day and we were talking about, you know, where are we going and how long are we away for? And he goes, well, that puts any renovations on the back burner. Well, thankfully we haven’t talked about the renovations for a while, but yes, there’s no chance of renovations.

[00:04:45] Trevor Long: Nothing in our foreseeable future. We’re looking at starting, we’re gonna redo our back deck. We’re gonna redo the back of the house.

[00:04:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, some more. But yeah, we’ve gotta get 3 rooms for the first 2 weeks.

[00:04:57] Trevor Long: Yeah, of course, hey, of course.

[00:04:58] Stephen Fenech: ‘Cause Amanda’s dad and Jackson, it’s just too many people.

[00:05:00] Trevor Long: Right, so how are you gonna divvy that up? You haven’t worked that out yet?

[00:05:02] Stephen Fenech: Oh, just, well, so. The girls stay together? That’ll be on their own. And then yeah, like boys and girls kind of thing.

[00:05:07] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:05:07] Stephen Fenech: Okay. Yeah. And then when Jackson and Richard leave, we’ll just get a double room.

[00:05:12] Trevor Long: So I’ll— Are they leaving early?

[00:05:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they leave on the 23rd of September.

[00:05:15] Trevor Long: Oh, so Jack’s gotta come back to work.

[00:05:17] Stephen Fenech: I think he just didn’t want to spend 4 weeks with his family.

[00:05:19] Trevor Long: Right. So he’s gonna be running the show back here by himself. Yeah. Mate, party time.

[00:05:23] Stephen Fenech: Risky Business style. Yesterday we were in the garage, I don’t know, doing something and Amanda goes, do you know how to make spaghetti bolognese? And he goes, what do you mean? She goes, if I make enough sauce for when you are here on your own. And I said, listen, why doesn’t he just go and stay with his grandfather while— She goes, ‘Cause he’s just having microwave meals as well.

[00:05:41] Trevor Long: So hello, what did Jackson say? I know how to order Uber.

[00:05:44] Stephen Fenech: Uber Eats. Pretty much.

[00:05:47] Trevor Long: Basically he’ll be fine. I do have the Uber Eats app.

[00:05:48] Stephen Fenech: He’ll be fine. But yes, once they go, we’re just twin beds and Harry and I’ll share a bed and Amanda and Vivi will share a bed. We’re done. That’s much easier to do hotels when it’s a smaller group.

[00:05:59] Trevor Long: Of course.

[00:06:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. 6 really tips you over the edge.

[00:06:01] Trevor Long: 6, yeah. Family. My kids were a lot smaller, a lot younger. We did one big room. So we had two doubles or two queens and a foldout. Poor old Hayley, the youngest, she was always on the foldout.

[00:06:12] Stephen Fenech: And we’ve done that. But again, the sixth person tips you over the edge.

[00:06:16] Trevor Long: Of course.

[00:06:17] Stephen Fenech: And if we’ve got one person in the room of their own, we may as well just have an end.

[00:06:20] Trevor Long: Have you got connecting rooms?

[00:06:21] Stephen Fenech: You can never pre-book that easily. It’s a very hard thing to pre-book. So what I do is just the week beforehand, you ring them or you email them and say, can you just put a strong note on there that we wanna be on the same floor? Preferably adjacent. You can just That’s the best you can do. But the kids are all old enough now. That’s not a big deal, especially when we— when there’s 3. Yeah, well, Amanda’s dad’s got one of his own. It doesn’t really matter where he is, but, you know, we can all meet. And then it’s me with the boys and Amanda with Victoria. So it’s easy. You don’t need to worry about how close you are to each other.

[00:06:48] Trevor Long: It’ll be fine.

[00:06:50] Stephen Fenech: Whatever.

[00:06:51] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:06:52] Stephen Fenech: Good times. Yeah. Bring it on. But that’s— there’s a lot. There’s one more. What? There’s— so there’s one more week of video, folks, just so you know.

[00:06:58] Trevor Long: This is the penultimate week of video.

[00:07:01] Stephen Fenech: You know, penultimate for this period. Do you know where I learned the word penultimate?

[00:07:05] Trevor Long: Penultimate.

[00:07:05] Stephen Fenech: Penultimate. Do you know where I learned that word?

[00:07:07] Trevor Long: At 2GB.

[00:07:08] Stephen Fenech: No. SBS. Now You See It. Was that the name of the game show? Do you remember that game show?

[00:07:13] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Stephen Fenech: Now You See It.

[00:07:14] Trevor Long: It was like you had to work out what the pictures meant.

[00:07:18] Stephen Fenech: No, it was, yeah, it was a game show. I’ll read the Wikipedia.

[00:07:22] Trevor Long: Joe Burjo did that.

[00:07:23] Stephen Fenech: No, no, no, no, no.

[00:07:24] Trevor Long: Your mate.

[00:07:25] Stephen Fenech: Now you see, it was an Australian children’s game show. They do it on Seven Network, hosted by Mike Meade and a robot named Melvin, pitted individual children against each other. Show’s narrator, the voice of Melbourne. What did you do there? Oh, from 1991, Sophie Formica hosted it. Oh, there you go. I didn’t remember that. And there’s a picture. There was this big word, there was this word board. And so you would, you would see these letters and words on the screen. It’s not showing up now that I try and show you. Yeah. And for some reason he would say, Mike would say, and the penultimate Ultimate letter. And so that’s how I learned the word penultimate.

[00:08:00] Trevor Long: See, every day is a school day.

[00:08:01] Stephen Fenech: Every— well, I learned it from television.

[00:08:03] Trevor Long: Every day is a school—

[00:08:03] Stephen Fenech: television helps, folks. Television helps. Anyway, speaking of helping, here we are right now with a bit of this.

[00:08:11] Trevor Long: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:08:13] Stephen Fenech: Not a bad price.

[00:08:13] Trevor Long: With Trevor Long from eftm.com. Really handy device. And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:08:21] Stephen Fenech: Great to have your company. Episode 746. Cannot wait for the, uh, Boeing 747 next week. Thanks to the great people at Netgear and Arlo. We love that you, uh, look for those brands when you’re out shopping, and we appreciate the support they give to, uh, the Two Blokes Talk Tech Show. Excuse me, I’m gonna sneeze any second. What, really?

[00:08:39] Trevor Long: Yes. Until today I’d never heard you sneeze.

[00:08:43] Stephen Fenech: Until today.

[00:08:44] Trevor Long: You remember you sneezed earlier?

[00:08:45] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, bless you.

[00:08:47] Trevor Long: Wow. And you never even said thank you either.

[00:08:48] Stephen Fenech: Sorry, mate. Yeah, you meant to say you’re so good-looking.

[00:08:51] Trevor Long: You’re so good-looking, like Seinfeld. Yeah, get on you.

[00:08:54] Stephen Fenech: It’s a challenging thing to say to someone because if they’re not a Seinfeld fan— no, no, you’re so good.

[00:08:59] Trevor Long: Look, you’re so good looking. Yeah, just say they’re not a Seinfeld fan.

[00:09:02] Stephen Fenech: Just say bless you. Yeah, I know, but if they’re not a Seinfeld fan, can we work out why people say bless you?

[00:09:06] Trevor Long: Is it sort of, are you at the risk of evil spirits or something when you’re sneezing? Is it your soul is exposed? Is your soul exposed to the devil during that sneeze? Well, and that’s what they say, bless you.

[00:09:17] Stephen Fenech: Response to sneezing is the Wikipedia entry. Yes. Uh, in English-speaking countries, their usual response is God bless you.

[00:09:23] Trevor Long: God bless you.

[00:09:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Is a common phrase generally used to wish a person blessings as a response to a sneeze. It’s— I’m just being linked back to the same article now, folks, trying to, you know, understand why the most widely approved phrase is— I mean, give me a bloody answer here. Maybe, you know what, I’ve— here’s what we’re going to challenge something. Yeah, I’ve just gone, I’m going to read the Wikipedia answer. Let’s just go, we’ll use AI. Well, I’ll Google it. Why do we say God bless you when someone sneezes. And there’ll be an AI answer, right?

[00:09:53] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:09:53] Stephen Fenech: AI overview: due to ancient superstitions and historical health fears.

[00:09:58] Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:10:00] Stephen Fenech: Escaping souls. Ancient cultures believed that a sneeze forced the soul briefly out of the body. Saying a blessing acted as spiritual armor to protect the person from harm. What a load of absolute rubbish.

[00:10:14] Trevor Long: Well, it’s lasted throughout the ages.

[00:10:17] Stephen Fenech: Has it though?

[00:10:19] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:10:19] Stephen Fenech: Bless you.

[00:10:20] Trevor Long: You know what makes me laugh too? Jo, my wife Jo, whenever she sneezes, she says, “Excuse me.” In reflex action, she’d be sitting out on her own sneezing, or I’m in my office, she sneezes out there by herself and she sneezes and says, “Excuse me.” Even when she’s by herself. So who’s she saying excuse me to? I don’t know.

[00:10:39] Stephen Fenech: It’s just habit. To the souls around her? Yeah, maybe.

[00:10:43] Trevor Long: But don’t you find that funny? There’s no one near her. If you sneeze, would you say excuse me if there’s no one here? No. She does. Wow.

[00:10:50] Stephen Fenech: You’ve tuned into a tech podcast. I’m Trevor Long. He’s Stephen Fenech. And we are two of Australia’s leading and most respected technology commentators here to tell you all about sneezing.

[00:11:01] Trevor Long: You’re here to learn stuff. Hey, we just taught you something.

[00:11:03] Stephen Fenech: But nothing about tech though.

[00:11:04] Trevor Long: Okay, well, that’s coming.

[00:11:06] Stephen Fenech: Well, hang on. We did. No, no, hang on. We learned that sometimes the AI summaries are good.

[00:11:10] Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:11:13] Stephen Fenech: I found a way to bring it back.

[00:11:14] Trevor Long: But you’re not— you don’t have to sneeze anymore. Is it all good?

[00:11:17] Stephen Fenech: No, it’s gone.

[00:11:17] Trevor Long: It’s gone. Okay, there you go. Sneezing fit yesterday. I did that.

[00:11:20] Stephen Fenech: What? Yeah, it was like constant.

[00:11:22] Trevor Long: You have hay fever or something?

[00:11:23] Stephen Fenech: Not that I’m aware of. Anyway, um, Stephen, we’re a couple of weeks away from a pretty big event. We’re a couple— what’s that, mate? Apple. Um, likely— we don’t know.

[00:11:32] Trevor Long: A couple? Isn’t it 3 weeks away?

[00:11:34] Stephen Fenech: That’s a couple.

[00:11:35] Trevor Long: 4 weeks away? No, it’s not, it’s 3.

[00:11:36] Stephen Fenech: It’s 3. There’s a couple, not 3. No, I think it’s in the realm.

[00:11:41] Trevor Long: A thruple.

[00:11:42] Stephen Fenech: Okay, stop.

[00:11:44] Trevor Long: Okay, we might—

[00:11:45] Stephen Fenech: I don’t know, um, but anyway, it’s— there’s a lot going on with the fold world, right? Um, so we want to talk about a few things, uh, and you mentioned this on the Tech Guide podcast, the Telcite research about premium phones, but there was a bit in there about foldables as well. Um, we might do some continued speculation on Apple. Um, but I— and Google Pixel has been announced, and you’ll start seeing reviews come out over the, over the weeks ahead.

[00:12:08] Trevor Long: Fold Pro, Fold 11. Pixel Pro Fold 11. Yeah, Pixel 11 Pro.

[00:12:12] Stephen Fenech: I don’t want to read you the headline because it’ll give it away, but yes, I want to ask you, if you had to distribute the sales of the Galaxy Z Fold 8— yes— and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, where would they sit on the balance scales as a percentage? All right, I’m saying 60/40 in favor of the Fold 8, 51/48 in favor of the Ultra.

[00:12:36] Trevor Long: No way. Yeah, more Fold 8 Ultras.

[00:12:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, that— but that’s, that’s kind of, um, the surprises. Nathan Riggert told AFTM the sales split between Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 8 are nearly even at 49— sorry, I’m the wrong way around— 49-51. So 49 to the Ultra, 51 was the Fold 8. Um, basically, because— so what happened was there was a report, um, out there that suggested Samsung was producing an extra million units of the Fold 8 because of global demand. And I thought— and I said to the boys who were going to write, I said, listen, let’s That’s just a global weird article. It doesn’t really mean anything to us. Let’s find out. Let’s ask Samsung. And so they said that that’s where they go with those, those stats. And Nathan also said notably around 6 out of 10 customers who purchased one of the new Galaxy Z series came from non-foldable devices. 6 out of 10. 60%.

[00:13:28] Trevor Long: That’s big.

[00:13:29] Stephen Fenech: Were new to fold.

[00:13:30] Trevor Long: When my review headline said the Fold 8 is going to open the floodgates to first-time foldable users. Yeah, that’s kind of—

[00:13:38] Stephen Fenech: and we talked about our reviews last week. You know, big fans. And I keep seeing really positive things from everyone who’s buying it.

[00:13:45] Trevor Long: Our mate Aaron, remember, we had the footy with him the other day, our mate from Suttons. He’s, he had, he was one of the earliest people to get it that I knew of. Yeah, he sent us photos.

[00:13:55] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, I think that’s fascinating because it’s the, it’s the first time if you think about, you know, Fold 7, Flip, like there’s never been anything close. Like Flip’s always been this frankly underwhelming result for Samsung in many ways and Fold 8 passport size has really given them something of a massive shot in the arm, which makes a lot of sense, right? But what’s fascinating to me is, you know, it was— I tried to work out exactly when it was. My gut feeling is it was 2022 where Gary McGregor said to us that the Z Folds would be there, they would outsell S Series.

[00:14:35] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:14:36] Stephen Fenech: And I don’t know that we’re anywhere near that because none of these numbers help us understand where it’s on the climb though in the charts.

[00:14:42] Trevor Long: It’s coming up.

[00:14:43] Stephen Fenech: It is. It really feels that way.

[00:14:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, I agree.

[00:14:47] Stephen Fenech: I don’t think I’ve had more people say to me that, yeah, I’m interested in that. I had one, a couple of moderators today said, I’ll get this, the iPhone Fold when it comes out. I can see it now.

[00:14:56] Trevor Long: If you’re going to fold it.

[00:14:57] Stephen Fenech: Well, they both said we’re on a plan. I don’t care.

[00:14:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, but yeah, I think what it’s done and the Telcite research shows that we’re willing to invest in the tech. Yes. And the foldable category in particular, while still not— hasn’t really crossed the threshold into mainstream just yet, I think these are the devices. So the Samsung, which is already in market, and we’ve seen, as you said, more people buying the Fold than the Fold 8 Ultra. But also to look, the elephant in the room is that Apple is going to produce a similar shaped fold. Their foldable is going to be—

[00:15:29] Stephen Fenech: the shape is desirable.

[00:15:31] Trevor Long: Yeah, more like the Fold 8. So Apple’s probably looking at those stats thinking, yeah, right, beautiful. Yeah, right. So they’re thinking, okay, the interesting thing of the Tellsight data from FOAD was—

[00:15:43] Stephen Fenech: and here there’s a— I’ll have a full chat with him on next week’s episode of EFTM— um, one-third of iPhone users say they would consider an Apple foldable. And if you look at just pro Apple, so Apple iPhone Pro or Pro Max users of any age, that interest in foldables jumps to almost half. Yeah, which is, I think, important because probably—

[00:16:02] Trevor Long: yeah, you probably need to be a pro user to even afford it and consider it as a possibility.

[00:16:08] Stephen Fenech: But you know, that’s, that’s a big early number for almost half of them to go, yeah, I’d consider it. Well, that’s a big early number.

[00:16:14] Trevor Long: You think about it, it’s kind of like, like think back to when Apple first released the iPhone. Yeah, right. It was popular for a number of reasons. It’s Apple, it’s this amazing new tech, but it’s the first one. Yeah, they wanted the first one. Yeah, this is another first for Apple. People want it.

[00:16:31] Stephen Fenech: It’s the worst part about being a tech reviewer who have to hand back every Apple phone you get. I really want to keep that one. So I feel like, I feel like, I, I, yeah, I feel like it’s, it’s Every 2 years I buy a phone from Amandah. Yeah, but I think there’ll be a purchase because it just feels like a really significant— yeah, time.

[00:16:48] Trevor Long: It’s a massive—

[00:16:49] Stephen Fenech: well, significant device for Apple and for technology.

[00:16:53] Trevor Long: Also too, I’ve always been saying that Apple coming forward with a foldable finally, I think you can think of this as one of 2 ways, right? Firstly, Apple’s probably going to come out and say— I can predict exactly what they’re going to say. We’ve, we waited till the technology was perfect. So their fold will be, you can’t see a crease, it’ll be amazing, all the apps are going to work great.

[00:17:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:17:16] Trevor Long: And that, that’s, that’s one reason. But the other reason too is that the form factor hasn’t reached that maturity. Remember those numbers? I think was like 5% of the market was foldables.

[00:17:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:17:26] Trevor Long: So is Apple a big enough company to drag people into this? Like we’ve seen Samsung, they’ve got enough pull to bring people into the foldable. What was that, 60% of people for first time in a foldable. How many— how much effect will Apple have on that being the form factor of note?

[00:17:47] Stephen Fenech: I think it’s huge because the, the, the allure of, of Apple is huge. And by the way, that other thing that came out of the Telstra numbers is that Apple in the first half of this year, 3.8 million— 3.87 million phones sold, by the way. So that’s a lot of phones. Um, 49% were Apple. Yeah, there’s nowhere in the world that has that number.

[00:18:07] Trevor Long: No, you mean—

[00:18:08] Stephen Fenech: I’m pretty sure Apple’s dominance, yeah, in Australia is unlike anywhere in the world. Like in Europe it’s at 25%.

[00:18:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, I know, but you don’t reckon America is pretty high?

[00:18:17] Stephen Fenech: No, Motorola does way really well over there. There’s some big brands.

[00:18:21] Trevor Long: So you’re saying that, well, nearly— well, they said what was it, 49.4, and Android is obviously 50%.

[00:18:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so Samsung’s 33% here, here in Australia, Apple 49%. Whereas, and I think, I think most Australians would assume that. Yeah, people just assume that Apple’s even bigger than that, to be honest. Yeah, right. But what you don’t understand is that that is unique in the world.

[00:18:40] Trevor Long: Well, Apple’s— there’s only one brand running iOS, whereas there’s 20 other brands running Android, right?

[00:18:45] Stephen Fenech: In, in other parts of the world. Yeah, I know you—

[00:18:48] Trevor Long: I know Europe, it’s pretty—

[00:18:50] Stephen Fenech: there’s Android 25% in Europe.

[00:18:52] Trevor Long: Not in America. I thought America would be half and half. Nope.

[00:18:55] Stephen Fenech: Really? Let me, let me dig Yeah, right.

[00:18:58] Trevor Long: Because I, you know, that’s interesting. But I’m thinking like, does Apple— I asked this question before Apple released the Vision Pro.

[00:19:06] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:19:07] Trevor Long: Do they— are they a big enough company to make a technology mainstream? And with the Vision Pro, unfortunately it was so expensive it really didn’t. Like if that was half the price, everyone would be wearing a VR headset today.

[00:19:22] Stephen Fenech: I’m confused by different numbers that I’m seeing.

[00:19:24] Trevor Long: So in America you’re talking about—

[00:19:25] Stephen Fenech: At one point I see something that says it’s 69% market share. Market share. But others say it’s absolutely not, right? But, you know, if I’m just looking at as many sources I can quickly as I can, it does appear to be at 50% or more in most.

[00:19:39] Trevor Long: Like, okay, it’s a US company, mate.

[00:19:42] Stephen Fenech: In the US, iPhone’s on a market share of 58.3. More than a billion phones are active. A billion iPhone— hang on, this, uh, so this one says more than a billion phones. This isn’t the— yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Apple’s big, all right?

[00:19:59] Trevor Long: But as big in the US as they are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what, well, they’re an American company. Of course they’re gonna buy iPhones.

[00:20:07] Stephen Fenech: But it’s, see, it depends where you look. Like I’m looking now at another graph. And again, this is what’s hard, right? There is no actual data. And it says that Australia’s 60% and America’s 58%.

[00:20:18] Trevor Long: Maybe that’s a particular quarter. It’s not ’cause don’t forget, that’s fiat.

[00:20:23] Stephen Fenech: This is iPhone market share by country 2026.

[00:20:25] Trevor Long: Okay, because that figure of, uh, FOADS from Telcite was the first half of 2026.

[00:20:31] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Which country has the largest iPhone market share? There’s a good one.

[00:20:37] Trevor Long: Uh, United States.

[00:20:39] Stephen Fenech: It’s a great line and just shows me why the internet’s full of it. In 2022, the percentage of mobile users who use iOS mobile devices was higher in North Korea than any other country in the world.

[00:20:48] Trevor Long: What?

[00:20:48] Stephen Fenech: What, Kim Jong-un? Like, he only lets iPhones?

[00:20:51] Trevor Long: Yeah, he says, nah, Samsung stuff. Samsung.

[00:20:53] Stephen Fenech: Hang on. I don’t know, this is— I mean, it’s just silly.

[00:20:56] Trevor Long: These North Koreans don’t support the South Korean technology.

[00:20:59] Stephen Fenech: These numbers are dumb.

[00:21:01] Trevor Long: They’re crazy.

[00:21:01] Stephen Fenech: I’m telling you, that’s crazy. I don’t know. See, the problem is there is no— everything, even TelSight’s data is just survey data. Yeah, you survey 1,000 people, you get an answer, right? But obviously that’s pretty accurate in statistical terms, of course. But it’s important to note that.

[00:21:15] Trevor Long: But do you— to answer my earlier question, do you think Apple’s got the, the, uh, clout to make foldables the new trend and the new shape as well. Like, Samsung has already sort of led the way here, but Apple— I get the feeling that once Apple does it, everyone’s going to think, well, it’s official now, foldables are a thing.

[00:21:35] Stephen Fenech: We’ve talked about this too many times before. It’s like 5G, it’s like wireless charging, it’s like everything, right? Apple does it, it becomes real. And you can’t argue that Samsung execs, Samsung employees will be going, why is everyone talking about Apple and their foldable phone? We’ve been doing this forever. It doesn’t matter. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, it’s just, it’s just different. I’m sorry. It’s actually— someone should do a PhD. It’s, it’s hard to quantify why it’s different. Yeah, it’s the— there’s a desirability around the brand.

[00:22:05] Trevor Long: Yeah, of course.

[00:22:06] Stephen Fenech: And when they do something that I was saying on the radio this week, we’re talking about the Pixel devices, and I was saying, honestly, I think the Pixels are second only to Apple in terms of design and style and, and, you know, design desirability. They just don’t have that brand desirability, right? I genuinely think they’re a beautiful phone. Nice.

[00:22:22] Trevor Long: Yeah, and, and pure. There’s no UI on it. It’s Android. It’s pure Android.

[00:22:25] Stephen Fenech: Even just on aesthetics. Yeah, Samsung people would hate the fact that I don’t even rate them in the top 3 there, but it’s like, I’m sorry, but I’d pick a— if you— if I was doing a design judging, if I was judging on designs, in the top 3 would probably be Apple, Google, and Motorola. I love the way Motorola do colors and textures and things, whereas Samsung—

[00:22:47] Trevor Long: yeah, you like this, do you? The Pixel?

[00:22:49] Stephen Fenech: I think it’s beautiful. It’s clean.

[00:22:50] Trevor Long: The, the, this camera bump is slightly smaller, not too small.

[00:22:54] Stephen Fenech: But, um, it’s still enormous.

[00:22:55] Trevor Long: Yeah, still big. Well, these are XL, but at least it doesn’t jiggle on the table. This is XL. Oh, what did you get? The—

[00:23:01] Stephen Fenech: the— oh, I’ve got them all.

[00:23:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, I got the XL.

[00:23:04] Stephen Fenech: Put it on the table, it doesn’t jiggle.

[00:23:05] Trevor Long: That’s the 11 and the Pro XL.

[00:23:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it doesn’t jiggle.

[00:23:09] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s good.

[00:23:10] Stephen Fenech: Hey, that is why if those rumored photos leaks are to be believed, Samsung’s going to go horizontal on the camera as well, new with the S27. Yeah, which for me, first, which for me is half about making it not wobble on the table.

[00:23:24] Trevor Long: Well, it’s going to look like the 11 Pixel then.

[00:23:25] Stephen Fenech: And secondly, it’s about bringing in Qi too. You’ve got to have—

[00:23:29] Trevor Long: of course they need to make room for it. Of course, mate. Of course. But getting back to the Apple Ultra foldable, so we pretty much established it’s going to have 2 cameras, so similar to the Fold 8, 2 cameras, passport-shaped, 5.5-inch screen on the front, 7.7, I believe, is their screen inside, more rounded edges rather than square. You’ve got the dummy, so you know the shape of it. We’ve seen it. So we’ve shown everyone here.

[00:23:54] Stephen Fenech: Many times. Yeah.

[00:23:55] Trevor Long: So it’s going to be pretty similar to the Fold 8. And we’ve said this too, that once, once everyone sees the massive hype over Apple’s launch, it’ll be on the news, right? When Apple release a foldable, it’s going to be— there’s going to be Android users go, oh wow, that’s cool. And then they go, hang on a minute, Samsung’s got one.

[00:24:12] Stephen Fenech: So I’m buying that one.

[00:24:14] Trevor Long: And Google and Motorola, but not in that shape.

[00:24:16] Stephen Fenech: I know, but it’s still going to make people think foldables.

[00:24:18] Trevor Long: Everyone’s going to think, oh, hang on, foldables are real.

[00:24:20] Stephen Fenech: People will buy a Motorola going, mine’s bigger than yours, to an Apple user. Like, there’s just advantages to the different form factors.

[00:24:26] Trevor Long: I just reckon, I’m gonna make a prediction. I reckon this time next year, folds will make up 25% of the market.

[00:24:33] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, makes sense.

[00:24:34] Trevor Long: It’s gonna be pretty big. Yeah. At the moment it’s 5.

[00:24:36] Stephen Fenech: And we’re still pretty confident it’s gonna be stupidly expensive.

[00:24:39] Trevor Long: You think?

[00:24:40] Stephen Fenech: 3.5 minimum. 3.5, I think. Yeah, it won’t be higher.

[00:24:42] Trevor Long: 34.99, 35.99.

[00:24:44] Stephen Fenech: It won’t be higher than that. You don’t reckon? My number is 34.99 and lower. So if it’s 34.99, we’re even. It’s a—

[00:24:50] Trevor Long: Well, I said 34.99 and you went, there’s no way it’s gonna be that expensive.

[00:24:53] Stephen Fenech: Oh, and then we agreed that that was the number.

[00:24:56] Trevor Long: You went high. I said 4K initially, but I go, if it’s— it’ll be probably— if it’s 3.5, if it’s lower than 3.5, yeah, I’ll be surprised.

[00:25:04] Stephen Fenech: Essentially, in betting terms, 34.99 is the line. Yeah. I’m unders, you’re overs. I— and I think I say this to Fouad next week in the EFTN podcast, um, that, you know, for me, the smart move is to, is to try and get it at 32.99 so that it’s only $300 more than Sam’s Samsung, you know, I think that gap is— but, but, but that said, $300 more than their bigger one, it’s going to be, it’s going to be $700 more if it’s $3,499.

[00:25:30] Trevor Long: That’s like we expect, that’s, that’s $800 more than Samsung, than Samsung’s, which is— and, and Samsung, they’re in a great position here because they’ve, they’ve got, they’ve already named the number. Okay, yes. So you reckon Apple execs are going, oh my God, what do we do here? They’re not going to budge. Because I think them lowering the price to be more like Samsung is sort of kind of admitting defeat almost, you know. They’re going to say, well, now as a premium product—

[00:25:53] Stephen Fenech: well, this is why I struggle with the $3,499 price tag. Not that I don’t understand the price of memory, all those things, right?

[00:26:01] Trevor Long: And it’s new.

[00:26:01] Stephen Fenech: But an iPhone 17 Pro Max, right, is $2,199.

[00:26:09] Trevor Long: 17 Pro Max.

[00:26:10] Stephen Fenech: 17 Pro Max. From— yeah, it was just the entry level because they’ve all got the same entries, right? But if we go to Samsung right? And we go, okay, so from— let’s look for a Galaxy S26 Ultra. Yep, $2,199. Yeah, they’re exactly the same. So how does Apple justify two devices that are essentially exactly the same? They’re the same form factor, same number of cameras, same things. Yeah. How do they justify charging $800 more when they’ve never had such a gap like that?

[00:26:42] Trevor Long: I’ll tell you the answer. The answer is Apple, because they’re Apple, because they can— it’s like the Vision Pro, they can make it $6,000.

[00:26:50] Stephen Fenech: But they’re not comparing it to anyone.

[00:26:52] Trevor Long: I know, because they’re— and that’s, that’s probably another excuse for them, I guess. We’re not going to compare ourselves to that product. We did this, so this is our product and here’s how much it costs.

[00:27:01] Stephen Fenech: There’s all— look, the thing that’s in Apple’s favor is when you walk into Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, JB Hi-Fi, wherever, and you go, oh, I want the Apple foldable. Oh my God, it’s $3,499 or whatever it is.

[00:27:12] Trevor Long: But you get it in your hand and go, oh my God.

[00:27:13] Stephen Fenech: And the salesperson goes, goes, did you know this one here is $2,499? They’re going to go to Samsung. Like, it immediately gets ruled out because it’s not an iPhone. Yeah. So I get, I get that they can.

[00:27:25] Trevor Long: That’s what they’re banking on, mate.

[00:27:26] Stephen Fenech: I get that they can, but I’m saying they’ve never done that.

[00:27:29] Trevor Long: Well, I think they’re banking on the fact that this is a first for them, a first type of product, and that they know that they’ve got a very strong customer base who is willing to trade up to a more expensive product. Plans are now back in sort of, and people are thinking, okay, I can pay that off over 3 years, not a drama.

[00:27:49] Stephen Fenech: Not sure what sort of telco deals they’ll do, whether they’re even allowed to do incentives like—

[00:27:53] Trevor Long: telco deals like—

[00:27:54] Stephen Fenech: they don’t really do incentives like Samsung does.

[00:27:56] Trevor Long: Well, I think what they’ll do, they’ll do massive trading deals. So if you’ve got to bring in your iPhone 16 and we’ll give you $500 off or whatever, that’s how they’ll justify the change for people.

[00:28:06] Stephen Fenech: I think we could see for an Ultra Fold, yeah, I think we could see $1,000 off with a trade-in. Yeah.

[00:28:12] Trevor Long: Okay, because you think if you bring a 16 or 17—

[00:28:15] Stephen Fenech: yeah, any pro— so again, they’re targeting this for pro users. You bring a 16 or a 17, $1,000 off on a Fold. You’ll get $1,000 off.

[00:28:23] Trevor Long: Yeah, that makes sense. That’s pretty compelling because then you’re committing to a telco and a plan for 3 years, you know, and you want to get rid of your old phone anyway. So yes, yes, and you’re right, I think people likely to buy this one would be a pro user. I couldn’t see, say, Joe, my wife, giving— wanting a Fold No, she’s happy with her. She’s using the 17 Pro she’s got now, so that’s more than enough phone for her. Like, I don’t think, uh, although, you know what, you don’t know you need something until you see it. Like, I reckon, like, you know, she loves scrolling and playing games on her phone, and I think once she sees the bigger screen, although she’s sort of, yeah, I showed her the Samsung devices, she goes, yeah, it’s pretty good.

[00:29:03] Stephen Fenech: One of the things that I found most fascinating about this, because even though it feels like— it feels great to be using this on a, um, when it’s open on, say, let’s say Instagram, right?

[00:29:13] Trevor Long: Photos.

[00:29:14] Stephen Fenech: Let’s— no, no, let’s, let’s use a thing that you spend a lot of time on, which is just scrolling reels, right?

[00:29:19] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:29:19] Stephen Fenech: Let me find a reel that I can actually click on that’s not going to be problematic. But if you look at the size of a reel on this screen, right, you go, that’s, that’s a great screen, same size. Put your Pixel up against it.

[00:29:29] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:29:30] Stephen Fenech: Put your, put your Pixel up against this just side by side with that screen in the middle there, and mate, it’s the same size. You may even have a bigger screen, so you’re not actually getting a bigger screen.

[00:29:42] Trevor Long: Yeah, I understand.

[00:29:43] Stephen Fenech: And in most cases, not always, it’s actually— its best use is actually reading.

[00:29:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, reading.

[00:29:49] Stephen Fenech: It’s just easier to read a website, watching, viewing widescreen content like YouTube movies, but also turn your phone on its side. That’s a big screen you got there.

[00:29:58] Trevor Long: Dual scrolling too, like having two apps at the same time, like That’s what I reckon. Apple’s— the Fold will be a genius multitasking. It’ll look amazing, the animations. It’ll look— oh wow, you know, how cool is that? It’ll snap into place, it’ll do this. There’ll be some amazing iOS hidden code that they’ll probably unlock for the foldable device that’ll look amazing. Like you drag up the app and it, you know, it opens up. And do you reckon they’re just gonna do it?

[00:30:26] Stephen Fenech: I think that works really well on a Samsung.

[00:30:27] Trevor Long: It does, but I think Apple’s gonna add their little touch to it, you know, those little surprise and delight little touches.

[00:30:33] Stephen Fenech: The thing that Apple needs to do at the keynote without question is demonstrate why you need it. And that’s not just a bigger screen because they’ve got big screens already.

[00:30:41] Trevor Long: Well, true. But I think that, you know, I think they’ll make the point that, you know, we’re a, we’re a mobile society and that we consume content everywhere. And, you know, there’ll be pictures of people using this on a plane and on a train and, you know, wherever they are and multitasking as well. They’ll make it like a pro because at the moment the Samsung device is more a content, content consumption device. The Pro, the Fold 8 Ultra is more your content but also multitasking sort of higher end. I think they’ll position this as all of those things. So they’ll position it as being someone, you know, doing, doing their work. There’ll be a little, you know, working on the side or doing something on it and also playing a game on it and doing these other things. So I reckon too, they’ll have a feature that will allow you to like imagine an app that you can play across two phones. So you link link them and imagine being able to play a game where you got your Fold open and they’ve got their Fold open and you, you’re playing tennis or a game that two of you can enjoy on a bigger screen. You know what I mean?

[00:31:43] Stephen Fenech: You’re a thinker, Steven.

[00:31:44] Trevor Long: I reckon that’s sort of what Mono trying to say is that it’s going to be more than just, oh, here’s a foldable phone. They’re going to have to have features that you’re going to go, holy hell, that’s amazing.

[00:31:55] Stephen Fenech: If Samsung was selling 50% of their phones as foldables, they would just— all they need to do is be in the market. But see, they need to raise it from 5% of the market to 25%. As you say, it needs to Apple’s going to get 0%. They need to do the heavy lifting to get some traction here, right?

[00:32:09] Trevor Long: But like, my point is that you can’t just say— Apple can’t just say, here’s a foldable and it’s iOS 27. Yeah, there has to be— apart from the amazing hardware that we can no doubt expect, there has to be something that their fold does that you’ll think, oh my God, I need a foldable phone. Yeah, that’s amazing.

[00:32:28] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and look, the other conversation out there at the moment from people I’ve been talking to is it’s going to be delayed.

[00:32:35] Trevor Long: Not—

[00:32:35] Stephen Fenech: and I don’t mean by 6 months. Well, that’s the rumor, or rumor, or experts. Some people say delayed. No, I’m hearing people in the industry, um, some people say use the word delayed. I would call it staggered, staggered release. Yeah, I don’t think they want the Pro and Pro Max to have a launch date at the same as the Ultra. So I think you’re— let’s bring up a calendar.

[00:32:55] Trevor Long: So let’s say, say September 11th around Australia is the—

[00:32:58] Stephen Fenech: if we think the launch, the announcement date is September 11th, and then the availability date is Friday the 18th. No, it’s normally probably the, the, not the next Friday, the Friday after, the Friday week after. Friday the 18th is the likely on-sale date for Pro and Pro Max, right? I’d argue 30th, 30th will be for the Fold. I’d say, yeah, second, second of October, right? If not 9th. I’d love it to be the 9th.

[00:33:20] Trevor Long: And why is that not a production delay, or they just want to just stagger? I think it’s about the demand.

[00:33:24] Stephen Fenech: I think it’s about separating out the customers and the demand. Okay, you know, you reckon?

[00:33:29] Trevor Long: Yeah, they did that before.

[00:33:30] Stephen Fenech: Do you remember?

[00:33:31] Trevor Long: Was it the iPhone X and the, and the 8? So the 8 came out, then the X came out a couple weeks later. Was it? Yeah, so that might be the true how it unfolds. But yeah, there you go.

[00:33:46] Stephen Fenech: I might need someone to write me a bunch of puns for Live Crosses.

[00:33:50] Trevor Long: Sure, mate, I can help you with that.

[00:33:51] Stephen Fenech: Can you?

[00:33:51] Trevor Long: I charge $500 an hour, but okay.

[00:33:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, it’ll only take you 5 minutes, so it’s within the no-cost category.

[00:33:57] Trevor Long: Be the $50.

[00:33:58] Stephen Fenech: No cost category, 5 minutes.

[00:33:59] Trevor Long: I could come up with a few for you.

[00:34:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, because it’s going to going to be huge. As you say, this is—

[00:34:04] Trevor Long: yeah, I think it’s a watershed moment for foldable phones. It’ll be every company— I reckon it was, it was like HTC waiting for the Vision Pro. It said, yeah, come on, we’re going to be, we’re going to be legit. Every company— Motorola, uh, Honor, uh, Oppo, Google, everyone else who’s had a foldable phone— think of, come on, let’s go.

[00:34:25] Stephen Fenech: I saw a TikTok the other day of a bloke with the Vision Pro, an unbelievably great use for it, right? Yeah, right. So let’s just call him an electrician, right? And, and it’s a two-story house and there’s a place in the house where they need a cable. And so what he did, he’s wearing the Vision Pro and it’s some sort of app that’s been built that it’s LiDAR scanning this, scanning the room. So it’s see-through, but it’s creating a LiDAR map of the room. So it’s accurate. And he drops a pin kind of thing. So this is where I want the point to be. And what that pin did was shine a beam, like put a beam, a virtual beam all the way up, like 10 million stories up, right? And then he goes upstairs. Stairs and it’s mapping the room again, but that beam is there.

[00:35:01] Trevor Long: Wow, that’s smart.

[00:35:02] Stephen Fenech: Right, so that beam is there.

[00:35:03] Trevor Long: So this is where I’ve got a drill there. Yes. Yeah, wow, that’s smart.

[00:35:07] Stephen Fenech: Right up into the roof cavity.

[00:35:08] Trevor Long: Tape measure. So, okay, it’s—

[00:35:09] Stephen Fenech: yeah, but have you ever done that?

[00:35:10] Trevor Long: It’s painful. It’s, it’s 100, 102 from the corner. Okay, 102 from that corner.

[00:35:14] Stephen Fenech: But how do you know the corner downstairs is the same as corner upstairs? The wall’s been offset like this. Yeah, this—

[00:35:19] Trevor Long: look at the plans.

[00:35:19] Stephen Fenech: This defines it, right?

[00:35:20] Trevor Long: Yeah. Wow, that’s smart.

[00:35:21] Stephen Fenech: Go up into the roof cavity and there’s that beam coming up, and it’s like I can bring it in here and drop it down here. Mate, I just thought that was unbelievable. So for people that think Vision Pro is a failure, you saw it wrong. It was— yeah, I don’t think it was ever to be a genuinely consumer-driven device.

[00:35:37] Trevor Long: I’ve got to say, whenever, like, I do sometimes drag it out and watch things, and when I’m using it, I’m thinking, this is incredible, right? But just getting to the point of, okay, I’ve got to unpack it, I’ve got to wear it, I’ve got to connect the battery, do it. There’s a bit of work to it.

[00:35:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:35:53] Trevor Long: So yeah, when I do though, it’s a really fun experience when I get to that point. And but I love, I love connecting my computer to it and using that as the screen, as the full screen.

[00:36:04] Stephen Fenech: I’ve got to, I’ve got to get one back because they announced something. And again, they don’t announce these things properly because Apple doesn’t like to do everything globally. It’s like a small— but there’s apparently some immersive live Friday Night Baseball. What? Like immersive?

[00:36:17] Trevor Long: I haven’t— gee, haven’t got it anymore.

[00:36:18] Stephen Fenech: You go back, I’m like, I’m just sitting.

[00:36:20] Trevor Long: I’ve still got one. I use it occasionally. I watch, like, there are some movies you can watch in 3D. Yeah, I’ve done that a couple of times. They’ve got Star Wars in 3D, so I’m thinking I’ll watch that.

[00:36:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:30] Trevor Long: Uh, and some apps too. There’s, um, there’s a few good, a few good games you play on it too.

[00:36:35] Stephen Fenech: And yeah, yeah, yeah, look, it’s a remarkable device. The foldable is going to be amazing. You have to— Bruce, we’re sorry, but for the next few weeks there’s going to be a lot of Apple talk. What can I say? It’s going to be the biggest, it’s going to be the biggest story in a long time.

[00:36:50] Trevor Long: It’ll be definitely this year’s biggest. It’s Apple’s biggest launch since, since the original iPhone or since the iPhone X where they went no home button.

[00:36:59] Stephen Fenech: You think? I mean, it’s definitely since the X. Yeah, but surpasses the X though, surely.

[00:37:05] Trevor Long: Well, I reckon too, the bigger, another big sort of moment was they had the, the Max phones. Remember the one? Oh, they’ll never do that.

[00:37:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the big screen.

[00:37:13] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:37:14] Stephen Fenech: What about Apple Watch? The same, same year. Is it bigger than that year? Is this bigger than— yeah, was that, was that 2014?

[00:37:21] Trevor Long: Yeah, way bigger.

[00:37:22] Stephen Fenech: So this is bigger than when they announced the Watch for the first time and the, and the Plus phones.

[00:37:26] Trevor Long: Well, mate, you think about it, it’s a completely different form factor since the iPhone was invented. It’s, and it’s ironically coming up to 20 years next year. It’s the biggest form factor change in 20 years. So it could be the biggest launch ever. I think when you come to think of it, is it one more thing?

[00:37:46] Stephen Fenech: By the way, it is to me. It’s one more thing to me. It’s John Ternus’s first chance to say one more thing.

[00:37:51] Trevor Long: You reckon he won’t upfront just say boom? Oh, he’ll probably go Pro, Pro Max and say, right, hey, that’s them. But now let’s, uh, because you’ve got to remember, unfold.

[00:37:59] Stephen Fenech: They’re not going to announce an 18 or an 18 Plus or an 18 or an Air 2. They’re going to announce just Pro phones, so we think.

[00:38:05] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:38:06] Stephen Fenech: Um, so I think it’s half an hour of Pro and Pro Max and how good the cameras are. Or maybe it’s Apple Watch first.

[00:38:12] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:38:12] Stephen Fenech: Pro and Pro Max, and then it’s like, you know what, do you know what, we’re going bigger. Yeah. Is it one more thing or does he create something new?

[00:38:21] Trevor Long: I think it’s not one more thing. I think it’s— I don’t know.

[00:38:24] Stephen Fenech: No, it’s one more.

[00:38:25] Trevor Long: It’s got one more thing.

[00:38:26] Stephen Fenech: It’s one more thing.

[00:38:26] Trevor Long: It’s bigger than one more thing, mate. It’s bigger than one more thing. What are some of the one more things we’ve had that have been— well, Yeah, this is major product announcement. It’s not just one more thing. This is major, major product announcement. Yeah, I think it’s going to be— it won’t be one more thing. I reckon there’ll be some sort of segue into the fact that, you know, but you know what, we’ve heard from our customers, we know you want to go bigger.

[00:38:51] Stephen Fenech: Okay, here’s all the Apple one more things according to Macworld. Yeah, Apple Airport in 1999. Yeah, 22-inch cinema display.

[00:38:58] Trevor Long: Display.

[00:38:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, iMac and DV— iMac DV and iMovie. Wow, they were really clutching at straws. In 2000, Aqua, whatever that is, the Power Mac G4 Cube. In 2001, PowerBook G4. Yeah, 2002, iMac G4. Yep.

[00:39:13] Trevor Long: 2003, I think it was the—

[00:39:15] Stephen Fenech: 2003 was the Power Mac G5 and the 12-inch PowerBook G4.

[00:39:18] Trevor Long: 2005 was the iPod Shuffle.

[00:39:20] Stephen Fenech: Well, 2004 was iPod Mini Colors. Yeah, 2005 was Shuffle and TV shows. Yeah, 2006 2006 was MacBook Pro and Apple TV. Ah, 2007 Safari for Windows. My God, it feels like this is easily one more thing. Yeah, maybe, uh, iPod Nano, FaceTime, Apple TV second gen. FaceTime was 2010.

[00:39:43] Trevor Long: Uh, yeah, because I was at that launch. It was myself and, uh, what’s the guy, the hero Mac guy? Gary, what’s his surname? Gary the Mac guy from— used to work Fairfax. Yeah, just me me and him that were there. I was with the team at the time, Gary Barker.

[00:39:56] Stephen Fenech: Gary Barker.

[00:39:57] Trevor Long: And he and I—

[00:39:59] Stephen Fenech: Jesus Christ, iTunes Match in 2011, like, that’s a one more thing, really? Yeah. Apple Watch 2014, Apple Music 2015, iPhone X 2017. That’s it.

[00:40:08] Trevor Long: So it might be—

[00:40:08] Stephen Fenech: so the last one more thing was the iPhone X.

[00:40:11] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:40:12] Stephen Fenech: Jesus.

[00:40:13] Trevor Long: And that was decent. It might be one more thing. It has to be one more one more big thing. They might say one.

[00:40:20] Stephen Fenech: And remember, we knew about the iPhone X, so it wasn’t like it was a one more thing surprise. We knew about the iPhone X. Yeah.

[00:40:25] Trevor Long: How?

[00:40:26] Stephen Fenech: Well, it was leaked.

[00:40:27] Trevor Long: The rumors, the rumors.

[00:40:27] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the rumors. Like we knew, like we know, we knew as much about that as we did this.

[00:40:30] Trevor Long: Fair enough.

[00:40:31] Stephen Fenech: So it doesn’t—

[00:40:32] Trevor Long: I’d argue we know more about this than we did about the X back then.

[00:40:35] Stephen Fenech: Possibly.

[00:40:35] Trevor Long: This, I think, is the worst kept secret in Apple history. Yeah, the foldable, and all the details about it is kind of there. Yeah, but that’s why I’m thinking there’s got to be some detail of it, some feature of it that’s still gonna go— you’re gonna go, Wow.

[00:40:49] Stephen Fenech: I think as much, much as I respect the work that Samsung’s done to build these phones, build this category, I think Apple’s going to shock them.

[00:40:57] Trevor Long: Well, you know what though, I’ll go this far. I reckon Samsung built the bridge that they’re going to drive over. Samsung did the legwork to bring them to this point. Without Samsung doing their— if Samsung never had a Fold, Apple wouldn’t have come out with one first.

[00:41:12] Stephen Fenech: No.

[00:41:13] Trevor Long: So Samsung sort of paved the way and Apple are going to drive over that road.

[00:41:18] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah. Okay, I’m putting up—

[00:41:20] Trevor Long: quote me—

[00:41:20] Stephen Fenech: I’m saying I think it’s one more thing.

[00:41:22] Trevor Long: Okay, I think watch, phone, 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, and one more thing, the Fold.

[00:41:30] Stephen Fenech: I think you could easily come on stage and go, we’ve only been talking for 40 minutes and those are two spectacular phones, but there’s one more thing. Yeah, boom. And just come out and say, but we’ve got another choice for you, maybe.

[00:41:41] Trevor Long: Then, you know, before there was only the 13 and the Pro and the Pro Max, but we’ve got—

[00:41:45] Stephen Fenech: and that’s another choice. First minute is where they have to sell this thing. It’s because we believe that people that have got productivity in mind and content consumption—

[00:41:54] Trevor Long: yeah, they’ll— I reckon it’ll be massive on the content consumption. And you know what it’ll be? Apple TV will work like a genius on it, right? Apple TV will be— that’s what they’ll show on it, Apple TV, nothing else.

[00:42:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they’ll show accessories that’ll allow you to have it on a plane, have it on a stand, all that kind of stuff. Stuff like accessories are going to be a mad— yeah, they will.

[00:42:12] Trevor Long: Yeah, they’ll have heaps of covers and cases and stands and all other things that you can spend your money on.

[00:42:18] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech, uh, that speculation will continue for another couple of weeks, folks, because we don’t expect the announcement to come until September 11th Australian time. My prediction is we’ll find out when the event is next Thursday.

[00:42:31] Trevor Long: Next Thursday, so tomorrow week.

[00:42:33] Stephen Fenech: The last two years, the announcement of the event, the invites go out out then? Has come on the 27th.

[00:42:40] Trevor Long: I’ll be keeping an eye on the inbox.

[00:42:41] Stephen Fenech: 27th of August.

[00:42:43] Trevor Long: I’ll keep an eye on the inbox.

[00:42:44] Stephen Fenech: Get up early and see what your email says.

[00:42:46] Trevor Long: Keep an eye on the invitation to watch it online.

[00:42:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and that’s the difference, is there’s two types of invites that go out. We’re inviting you to an in-person event. Yes. Or we’re inviting you to watch online.

[00:42:58] Trevor Long: That’s what Trevor will get. And then Stephen will get a, we want you to watch it online.

[00:43:02] Stephen Fenech: Yay!

[00:43:03] Trevor Long: And I’ll go, there, thank you.

[00:43:04] Stephen Fenech: Big one.

[00:43:04] Trevor Long: Which one took my spot?

[00:43:06] Stephen Fenech: Hey, hey, hey, Stephen’s not turning.

[00:43:10] Trevor Long: All good, all good.

[00:43:12] Stephen Fenech: All right, Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:43:14] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Two Blokes Talking Tech, proudly brought to you by Arlo. Now Arlo make a great range of security cameras across all price points. You can start at the Essential, which is your entry-level camera under $100. They do have pan and tilt cameras as well, but they also have cameras that increase in quality, and we’re talking the resolution of the cameras. Now, why is that important? I’ll tell you why. Because there’s some detail you need. You know, I’ll give you an example. A friend of mine who, uh, I won’t name, but showed me a video of a young guy in a hoodie looking at their cars, even coming into his driveway, seeing if the car’s open, and he had a, let’s say, an inferior camera that wasn’t able to show up too much detail. So having a Pro camera, the, the Pro 6th generation, that adds to the resolution. And the Essential Pan and Tilt Outdoor is 2K resolution, but there is a 4K resolution with the Pro line, and that gives you much better detail when you’re looking at number plates, faces, all these kinds of things that could mean the difference between identifying someone and not. The other thing to consider too is their security, the, the plans you can get with your Arlo cameras. And these allow you to store that footage for up to 30 days online, but also gives you smart notifications. So it’ll tell you when there’s a person, where there’s a car, a package, or an animal on your property as well. It’ll also give you safety warnings too when it hears loud noises or detects flames. So you think about all the, the peace of mind that your security cameras can give you when paired with an Arlo Secure Plan, then you can add those other smart features and safety features to the mix as well. So if you haven’t set up your cameras, and if you have, you can always add to your ecosystem with the range of Arlo cameras. There is something for everyone, including their, their video doorbells and floodlights and a variety of other units too. Check them out. If you want to check them out for yourself, head over to arlo.com. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:45:27] Stephen Fenech: All right, Stephen, we We’ve both reviewed a couple of TVs this week. I took the time on Sunday, poor Harry, I made him come to the office and move TVs, pack up TVs. He’s my grunt man. He’s my slave driver. He’s my grunt man. So we had to pack up a big TV. Pay him well, which I’ll tell you. No, he gets paid every month. He’s an employee of Travelong Media. Is he really? Yes.

[00:45:49] Trevor Long: Is that right?

[00:45:49] Stephen Fenech: Yes, he’s on the payroll. One of the warehouse team.

[00:45:51] Trevor Long: Is that right?

[00:45:52] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:45:52] Trevor Long: Officially?

[00:45:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Salaried employee.

[00:45:55] Trevor Long: Superannuation too?

[00:45:56] Stephen Fenech: You don’t have to pay super until you’re 18. Tax file number, the whole deal. And not earning anywhere near the tax-free threshold. Anyway, we had to pack up a big TCL I want to tell you about.

[00:46:07] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:46:08] Stephen Fenech: We had to re-box a Hisense and we had to unbox a Sony because I wanted to take the Sony home because in our dining room we have a 65-inch TV and I thought this is the right place to test it.

[00:46:18] Trevor Long: Right.

[00:46:19] Stephen Fenech: Sometimes the problem I have with TVs is I just set them up downstairs and what I do is I watch Top Gun, I watch a couple of other things.

[00:46:25] Trevor Long: That’s your go-to.

[00:46:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I watch a couple of things. Do some brightness and contrast tests, and I just get a sense of the movie for sound quality, the TV in that way, which is what I did with the TCL. But the Sony, full declaration, they gave us a long-term unit, which is basically a unit to keep when we went to the announcement. So I was able to take it home because, mate, when I take something home, if I say, hey everyone, this is the new remote, Amanda’s like, another TV, you know. But this is gonna be here for a while, so it’s okay. Plus, can I tell you my favorite thing about the Sony TV first while we talk about that?

[00:46:56] Trevor Long: The Mirage stand?

[00:46:57] Stephen Fenech: Nope.

[00:46:57] Trevor Long: Are you wall mounted?

[00:46:58] Stephen Fenech: It’s pretty cool. No, no, no, it’s just sitting on a bench. Yeah, the remote control has little speckles on it. Disney+, Prime Video, and a star, and you can program that, uh, whatever app you want.

[00:47:10] Trevor Long: Yeah, nice.

[00:47:10] Stephen Fenech: So I’ve set that so Amanda can turn on the TV and just go MLB. Oh, like, it doesn’t need to find the app, nothing. You can honestly, mate, if that was Joe, it’d be Come Dine With Me. Fine, but don’t you like— I love the fact that, you know what, everyone’s got a preference. And, you know, even Harry said to me, your companies pay for this. And I’m like, yes, they— of course they There’s deals done to say, like, put real estate, put your app on this side of the screen and this part of the button, and all that kind of stuff is done. But mate, it’s a simple thing, but I think that is awesome.

[00:47:37] Trevor Long: That is cool. No, I never, I never mentioned that in my review. I was talking more about the television.

[00:47:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s, but that’s fine. Let’s be clear. No, but we’ve said this, and I, I love this about our, yeah, our podcast. I love this about our relationship. You’re the guy that can tell far more about the quality and the detail of the TV. I’m more interested in— so for example, I’ll give you another one. I’m mucking around with this, so it’s set up, it’s a Google TV, right? Yes, I’ve used the TCL Google TV, I’ve used plenty of Google TVs, but when you go the picture menu, it brings up a Sony menu button. Like, it’s a Sony menu, not the Google menu. Yeah, Sony’s put the effort into making the menus look in the same way that Samsung skins an Android phone. Yeah, Sony has skinned this Google TV, and I respect that and I like that. That’s cool. Really, really impressive. It makes you feel like you didn’t just get a Sony TV with a Google TV operating system. I felt like I’m getting a Sony TV with Sony version of Google TV.

[00:48:27] Trevor Long: Absolutely. It’s sort of like, you know, the Samsung phones, a good analogy. They’ve got their One UI on top of Android.

[00:48:32] Stephen Fenech: Now this is, this is an RGB TV, which is the talk of the town. But when we went to the announcement of this TV, they were very clear they’re doing RGB different and they think better than anyone else with the way the, the pixels are oriented. There’s a whole range of things they’ve done. What, what’s the verdict?

[00:48:47] Trevor Long: Yeah, well, now the verdict is that they explain— I think they explained and also um, in, in actual demo, the use of the TV, they’ve demonstrated the best, uh, use of the RGB. Because the previous, like, you think of Mini LED, and while what, what you saw in front of you was the only TV you’re looking at, and you think, yeah, that’s pretty good, yeah, you didn’t have the luxury of comparing it to another TV next to it. Yeah, yeah, Mini LED. So the one, the one advantage of having RGB, which means that you’ve got red, green, and blue making up the backlight, you’re not competing against one color. In the— with Mini LED, you’re competing against one color brightness.

[00:49:30] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:49:30] Trevor Long: And that’s that luminance of the single backlight, color backlight. And what that does, it tends to wash out adjoining color. And now because of that— and look, Sony, I’ve got to say, massive respect for Sony. I’ve got their Sony 4K projector, which I’ve had in my theater for years. The TV, their technology, their processing of their image and all of that technology And you got to remember, Sony’s a cinema company, a studio, right? So they’re from lens to lounge room. They’ve got the tech to make it look schmick.

[00:50:04] Stephen Fenech: And that’s, that’s the point, right? They, they’re not just here to produce a screen that we look at and see. They’re here to produce something that represents the content in the correct way, completely accurate, which is what they’re aiming for. What’s your thoughts on its, its RGB representation of color when compared to other RGBs we’ve seen this year?

[00:50:23] Trevor Long: I’d say the accuracy on this and depending on what you watch, right? So don’t forget, they tuned this to especially work for streaming. Now, how often have I said disc v streaming, disc wins hands down? They’ve done some sort of wizardry here to really pump up the streaming. Like, their upscaling of just normal sources is really evident here. You can see even streaming, like, I got shots from Netflix, and mate, there’s the color and depth in that image that you’d normally think, wow, that’s disc quality. Quality they’ve achieved on streaming. So they’ve really pumped it up. And the fact that they can have a really bright color next to a darker, different color— the RGB is made for that. So there’s no, there’s no blooming around anything. They’ve really nailed the contrast. And that just adds to that. All those little bits add up to— that’s what makes a better picture.

[00:51:17] Stephen Fenech: So we— the reason I strategically had Harry come here so that we do all this boxing at the same time is because I’ve I’ve, I resisted sending the Hisense back because I wanted to see this side by side with the Hisense. Ah, UR9 was the first one we reviewed. Now remember when, and we talked about this when Sony announced these TVs, it was awesome that they had some competitors there. And do you know what, they looked better every, in every way.

[00:51:40] Trevor Long: So what I did, we said, but hang on, to be clear, we are reviewing the 7.2. Yes, there is a better model, correct, the 9.2, correct, just for the record.

[00:51:47] Stephen Fenech: Um, so I, I sat this and this and this was— that’s why it’s important to say we’re comparing a 7 level to a 9 level from Hisense and Sony, right?

[00:51:55] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:51:56] Stephen Fenech: But still, I expected there to be something from Sony’s RGB technology. And I will be honest with you, I didn’t think it was remarkably better.

[00:52:04] Trevor Long: Yeah, Sony wasn’t—

[00:52:04] Stephen Fenech: 7 versus Hisense versus Sony. Sony didn’t leap ahead, right? What we did, we overlapped the TVs half and half and then ran the exact same content, some YouTube, you know, high contrast, high color stuff. And do you know what, in every scene it was like, oh, the Hisense is better there, or the Sony’s better here.

[00:52:19] Trevor Long: And I I said, you were just streaming, weren’t you? Streaming? Or like, I was watching free-to-air and everything on mine.

[00:52:25] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and that’s fine. But what I’m saying is, on like-for-like picture with bright colors and HDR zones and all that kind of stuff, yeah, my number one thing was— I said this to Harry, which we’ve said a lot— is you only ever take one TV home.

[00:52:39] Trevor Long: That’s right.

[00:52:40] Stephen Fenech: And even if I could see a slight difference in the Sony, it wasn’t enough to make me think, oh, I need to have this one instead of the other one. There’d be other things that have factored that in. But for me, me, initial thoughts, it’s actually more— it’s less about the RGB nature of this TV and more about the fact that I am a massive fan of Google TV as an operating system.

[00:53:00] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s good.

[00:53:01] Stephen Fenech: And the way they’ve made it work with their TV seems to me to be class-leading.

[00:53:06] Trevor Long: One thing I noticed too, like, I’ve only used a few Google TVs in my time, but one thing that stands out is that they really make it easy to find content. Like, they sort of know what you’ve signed into and everything’s there. If you were— all these movies was suggesting, oh yeah, I haven’t seen that.

[00:53:23] Stephen Fenech: Continue watching works really well across different apps.

[00:53:26] Trevor Long: Like, it’s— but the examples I used, I went from— I did a couple of Netflixes, uh, but also looked at just full HD streaming. Like, I watched Collateral, you know, the Tom Cruise movie. Yeah, that was on ABC iview in HD, and it actually upscaled really nice. Like, it wasn’t— uh, although Collateral probably wasn’t the best example because Michael Mann deliberately washed that out and it was all set at night. So it’s really tough to, to see the, to take the grain out of the picture. Yeah, but still did a great job on free-to-air, on streaming and on Netflix. And like I said, streaming on Netflix, Disney Plus in 4K was this. That’s what this TV is built for, right? 4K streaming. It just seemed to pump up. Oh, so you had a streaming version of between the Hisense and the Sony? Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, no, I don’t know, I didn’t have another TV next to it, but to my eye, like, that looked like— there’s shots of, um, Apex, you know, the movie with Charlize Theron. Yeah, Eric Bana’s in the start of it. And mate, look, look at the contrast, like, these pictures. Look how good the, the color is on there. And like, look at the skin tone and right against the white. And these— he’s got his black scarf here that’s not in— not intruding with anything. They’re really about— the contrast is exceptional on this TV.

[00:54:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s a $3,000 TV at 65 inches, right?

[00:54:44] Trevor Long: It’s slightly above sort of market price for other similarly sized TVs. TVs. I think that’s the Sony, that’s the Sony tax you pay, right?

[00:54:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:54:52] Trevor Long: But you know what, the other, the other great feature of it too is the sound, right? The audio on this was surprisingly good. It had like a virtual surround. Dolby Atmos sort of seemed to give a bit more scale to the sound as well. So it was, it was pretty cool. And I mentioned the Mirage stand, you know, the Mirage stand where it can, if you got cables running down behind it, that made the, it made the cable invisible. So if you have cables running horizontally, you can see it.

[00:55:18] Stephen Fenech: It’s just this little— it’s like a fluted glass, but it’s just a bit of plastic. Sits on the bottom, sits beautifully on it.

[00:55:24] Trevor Long: It looks like it’s floating.

[00:55:25] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. So I had a good look at a TCL. It’s pretty much their premium TV. It’s their SQD X11L, 75-inch, $7,500. Whoa.

[00:55:38] Trevor Long: So this isn’t RGB, is it?

[00:55:40] Stephen Fenech: It’s not RGB. TCL have not got RGB. RGB. They’ve gone SQD, which is Super Quantum Dot. We’ve talked about Quantum Dot for years, right? That’s the— so they’ve basically said, listen, this stuff’s awesome. Like, TVs are great. Why don’t we just make it even better? So they’ve just taken what was there last year and added, you know, more sparkle to the Quantum Dot and made it better. And so, man, I’ll be honest with you, brightness, contrast, color reproduction— again, as a single TV sitting in a room, you’re going, this is unbelievable, right? Plus, as a premium TV, comes with— it’s a soundbar at the bottom, so it’s got great forward-facing sound. It’s got beautiful forward-facing sound, which is Bang Olufsen. Yep, sound. Um, it has a great striking design, like a metal bezel edge, like beautiful TV. And mate, Google— again, Google TV. And what— again, when you, when you get a Google TV from Kogan or from Aldi or something, right, you do the setup and it’s just a Google setup, right? But what TCL and Sony have both done is they’ve, they’ve integrated themselves into that setup. And when you see a TCL logo when you’re setting up a TV, you got— it’s a TCL TV. Yeah. So you feel like you’ve— you’re getting the operating system from them, which I think is really important. But I might— then I went to the EFGM TV Finder and I went, okay, what can you get 75 inches and what are the price spread, right? Mate, for $7,500 you can get Samsung’s OLED, LG’s OLED.

[00:57:02] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:57:02] Stephen Fenech: Like at a 75-inch or 77-inch, what are we doing here, TC? Like, it felt, it felt wrong, the price. We got a price tracker on, on the, on the website, right? Yep. And so I see, I saw that a few weeks ago it went down to $5,499 at one point, something like that. Which is still high for 75. No, but that’s the price for, for your flagship, for a brand’s flagship 75-incher. That’s the price. So my take I got really from this was, hey, if this appeals to you or you’re a TCL fan or whatever it might be, I wouldn’t pay $7,500. I would, I would wait for it to be in the $5,000s.

[00:57:35] Trevor Long: Isn’t TCL normally sort of more on your affordable sort of value sort of price?

[00:57:39] Stephen Fenech: Well, they’re just like Hisense. They’ve got, they’ve got a range from affordable all the way up to premium and they operate in the exact same way. TCL SQD Mini LED. And by the way, it’s got like 10,000+ Mini LEDs. Like this is a strong number of dimming zones. In that sense. And it’s SQD, and the model number is X11L.

[00:57:59] Trevor Long: Wow, 75-inch.

[00:58:01] Stephen Fenech: 75-inch.

[00:58:01] Trevor Long: And had the speaker built in, the soundbar built in.

[00:58:03] Stephen Fenech: So 2 subs, 4 subs at the back.

[00:58:05] Trevor Long: Yeah, wow.

[00:58:06] Stephen Fenech: And then the nice big speaker.

[00:58:07] Trevor Long: That’s what I like about— like Hisense do that too. They’ve got really good sound out of the box. Their TVs sound great. One, that’s probably one downside for Samsung. Samsung’s TV, because they look so thin and they don’t have enough volume in the TV to create a big sound. Yeah, I think that’s one down thing.

[00:58:22] Stephen Fenech: And I think you wouldn’t do it in the frame or in the OLED, but in just one model of it, just add an extra 3cm and you get a JBL or a Harman tuned. They own them.

[00:58:32] Trevor Long: They own Harman. Yeah, well, they own JBL too, which owns Harman.

[00:58:36] Stephen Fenech: Add a sound with a brand, because that’s what Hisense and TCL are doing. They’re saying it’s got really good sound, like car companies do. Yeah, like I bought the option pack in my Cupra that had Beats Audio.

[00:58:46] Trevor Long: Beats? Oh, you got Beats in your car?

[00:58:47] Stephen Fenech: I’ve got Beats Audio in my car. And do I notice that it’s any different than the others?

[00:58:51] Trevor Long: Mr. In my mouth.

[00:58:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but that sounds like a real wanky thing to have.

[00:58:54] Trevor Long: You don’t reckon Beats sounds wanky?

[00:58:56] Stephen Fenech: Nah, it sounds cool, man. Dr. Dre loves that. Is that his name?

[00:59:00] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s, yeah, Dr. Dre.

[00:59:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he loves my car. Yeah, okay. Beats by Dr. Dre in the car.

[00:59:06] Trevor Long: He only got a couple of billion from Apple.

[00:59:07] Stephen Fenech: He did pretty well out of it.

[00:59:08] Trevor Long: He did all right.

[00:59:09] Stephen Fenech: Anyway, uh, yeah, wow. You can read, uh, you can read Stephen’s review of the Sony, uh, Bravia 7.2. Yep. Uh, on techguide.com today you can read my review review of the TCL SQD Mini LED X11L at eftm.com. And yeah, let us know what you think.

[00:59:26] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:59:31] Stephen Fenech: And we do it all thanks to the great people at Netgear. If you’re looking for a Wi-Fi system for your home, Netgear’s got you covered with their Orbi range of mesh Wi-Fi systems. So if you’re paying for great Wi-Fi to come into your home, make sure you’re getting that Wi-Fi in every room of the house where the TV is, where the PlayStation is, where everything is. You should get the speeds you’re paying for. And if you’re not getting that, what are you doing? And it’s, it’s a utility, it’s a part of your home that should work every time for the speeds you’re paying for. So check out a mesh system if you’re in the market, uh, give them a try. Have a look at the price comparisons between Netgear and everyone else. And all we ask is that you give them a— give them the crack in your comparisons. And you can find out more and you can shop directly at netgear.com.au.

[01:00:09] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[01:00:13] Stephen Fenech: Look, we don’t have to spend a long time on this, but I just, I was putting together, I was trying to come up with a couple of remaining TV segments before I go away. I’m looking around the room, I’m going, what up? And I’ve just got so many cameras from DJI, Insta360, GoPro. And I was just thinking about how it’s a camera crazy.

[01:00:32] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[01:00:33] Stephen Fenech: The last, I don’t know, few years has been in the creator space. And while it is essentially designed for the people we hang out with at events with great fun influencers with their little cameras and things.

[01:00:43] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[01:00:44] Stephen Fenech: Filming everything. Yeah, it’s also unbelievably great for family holidays. Absolutely. Party, like birthday party videos. The Insta360, for example, I did a quick little video the day, and a mate of mine said to me today, can I borrow it next Monday? I’ve got a rehearsal for my band. What I want to do is I want to put it in the middle and have all, all of us looking at the camera, and then I’ll split it so that it can, you know— I went, mate, absolutely, it’ll be great fun. You could have fun with that. Um, the, the, the way you can create content with these things is unbelievable. I think the 360s from Insta360 is very cool, but it cascades down. Insta360’s now got action cameras. Insta360 now has microphones. DJI used to just be drones, now they’ve got action cameras. 360, Pocket, you know, the, the Pocket, my go-to cameras when I travel.

[01:01:29] Trevor Long: That’s my go-to, the DJI Osmo Pocket gimbal camera.

[01:01:31] Stephen Fenech: And the gimbal camera. And Insta360’s got the Luna, it’s a gimbal camera.

[01:01:35] Trevor Long: Exactly, the same as dual screen, dual things as well.

[01:01:38] Stephen Fenech: GoPro sticking with the original form factor, but they’ve got a 360, the Max they’ve had. Yeah, they’ve also got, they’ve also got a, uh, they’ve got a gimbal that you can put their cameras on.

[01:01:46] Trevor Long: You put a phone in it first.

[01:01:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they’ve got a phone gimbal and they’ve got a gimbal that you can put the GoPro on as well.

[01:01:51] Trevor Long: So you’ve got to buy two different products, or I’ve got no idea. I’ve got the, I’ve got the phone one.

[01:01:55] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’ve got the phone one as well.

[01:01:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, I’m going to be tinkering with that one.

[01:01:58] Stephen Fenech: The very fact that this market exists, especially when you consider, do you remember, do Remember when we used to strap a Samsung phone to our faces?

[01:02:06] Trevor Long: No.

[01:02:07] Stephen Fenech: Oh, for the VR, with the VR gear. VR, right? You’d stack it, you’d snap a phone here, and we were buying the, uh, the— what was it, the Fusion? 360 Fusion? No, 360 Fly. Samsung had 360 cameras. Yes, 360.

[01:02:21] Trevor Long: Samsung had one. Is that what you mean?

[01:02:22] Stephen Fenech: That’s what I mean. Samsung had it. I’ve got a couple of them downstairs.

[01:02:24] Trevor Long: I’ve got it too.

[01:02:25] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the, the—

[01:02:26] Trevor Long: had a little tripod with it, the 360 Fly, all this stuff. And now it come coming back in. And back then, way better doing it.

[01:02:32] Stephen Fenech: Back then it was a dome on top and it was actually not fully 360, and then had to defisheye it. Yeah, but now it’s two, yeah, two lenses side by side. Yes, which is, mate, it’s, yeah, it’s crazy. I, I just think this market is exploding.

[01:02:47] Trevor Long: I took the Insta360, the, what was the previous model, the X5? X5. I took that to the Grand Canyon.

[01:02:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[01:02:53] Trevor Long: Yeah, it was good shots there, but The— like, this is— you got to remember, this is at a time when they’re releasing these products, but at a time when phone cameras are amazing as well. Yeah. So they’re like, you got your phone camera, but I think there’s some people who prefer to have a separate device and to go for that maybe slightly better quality and just versatility with a standalone camera. Yeah. The phone is— can do the job of like 90% of content creators use these anyway.

[01:03:22] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[01:03:23] Trevor Long: Phones, but there’s this extra— there’s this added layer of creativity you can achieve with these new cameras.

[01:03:28] Stephen Fenech: I think—

[01:03:28] Trevor Long: but also too, we should mention microphones. Yeah, mics. You can— how many times— how many social media videos have you seen where people are talking like this, right, on their— on their little post? They’re holding a little mic, they haven’t clipped it to their shirt.

[01:03:40] Stephen Fenech: Just clip it to your shirt, you idiot!

[01:03:41] Trevor Long: Clip it there, mate. Maybe they don’t want to show the brand, I don’t know.

[01:03:44] Stephen Fenech: It doesn’t matter, clip it. You can put it on the inside.

[01:03:46] Trevor Long: Magnet. Yeah, I know.

[01:03:47] Stephen Fenech: Um, the Thing is, and the microphone’s a great point, because if you’re making content today, and that doesn’t make you an influencer, you could be a business. Mate, there’s a real estate agent in Hornsby who came up my feed and he’s making a lot of videos. Good on you, mate, for trying. But mate, get a microphone. You’re 100 meters from the camera. Get a microphone. I can’t hear you. Yeah, true, true. It’s just a bad experience. Audio, to me, audio is as important as video.

[01:04:15] Trevor Long: Absolutely, yeah, it can ruin a video, bad, poor audio.

[01:04:18] Stephen Fenech: Correct.

[01:04:18] Trevor Long: Absolutely right.

[01:04:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but—

[01:04:19] Trevor Long: Am I right? How am I sounding?

[01:04:21] Stephen Fenech: You’re sounding fine, Steven, you’re sounding fine. But you know, it’s interesting because again, Insta360 kind of newish to that microphone space. We’ve used them a bit in some of our car videos you see coming up with the logos on them. Like, that’s a really cool feature. I think we’re at the tipping point of logos. Like, I think people are getting really annoyed with the number of DJI logos.

[01:04:38] Trevor Long: You just become a billboard for a company now.

[01:04:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I mean, I’ve— I use pretty much by default the Rødes with a magnet because it doesn’t say Røde. It’s got that Røde O, the O with a stroke through it, but it’s like embossed so you can’t see it very easily. And I use that pretty much inside. So the magnet’s on the outside so you can’t see that it’s a brand.

[01:04:56] Trevor Long: Trent doesn’t do free advertising.

[01:04:58] Stephen Fenech: Well, I just think like I don’t want to take the focus off whatever I’m talking about. Of course. But it’s so cool that you can do these things today.

[01:05:06] Trevor Long: The industry’s taught us that, you know, you can achieve achieved quality with these new cameras and the mics to, you know, that’s broadcast quality stuff you’re producing. Like, you look, we’re doing— you do your crosses and stuff, that’s with an iPhone. Yeah. And so you can see the sort of standard we’ve reached here.

[01:05:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s so cool to see these. The gimbal cameras are the most exciting thing because of the way it’s going to be. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to present it on Today Show. I’ve got a gimbal for a proper camera, so I’ll take one of my Sonys, you know, big, one of those big Ronin gimbals, right? Yeah, it’s a cheap It’s a knockoff version of some Chinese company that sent it to me. I can’t work it out, to be honest. But it’s all this AI tracking, but doesn’t work very well. But there’s a gimbal that works great. But yeah, I think people are familiar with the concept of the gimbal. So I want to show that and then go, hey guys, what about this? So they show the DJI.

[01:05:49] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[01:05:49] Stephen Fenech: And then we go, but don’t forget, action cameras still exist. And I’m going to take in all my GoPros because I’ve got like 40 GoPros from the early days. Yeah. When you just see how far they’ve come.

[01:05:59] Trevor Long: What are DJI up to? What, Osmo Action 5 now as well? Yeah, they’ve got them going. Yeah, but didn’t Insta360 have a really small camera too before that?

[01:06:07] Stephen Fenech: The real little—

[01:06:08] Trevor Long: wasn’t it like a lapel camera almost?

[01:06:10] Stephen Fenech: Wasn’t it the little square one?

[01:06:12] Trevor Long: It was like a little pill-shaped one. Oh yeah, that’s on one side. That’s—

[01:06:16] Stephen Fenech: well, that’s the DJI. I have that as well, don’t they?

[01:06:19] Trevor Long: Uh, they do, but Insta360 had it first.

[01:06:21] Stephen Fenech: Yes. Yeah, I’ve not seen that.

[01:06:22] Trevor Long: I don’t— had it first.

[01:06:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they didn’t send me one of those.

[01:06:25] Trevor Long: Um, you’re talking about the gimbals. Um, The bit of trivia for you, you know the, you know how they, the, the, what are they called, the Steadicam? Steadicam, uh, that’s kind of what a gimbal does, right? Steadicam. The first film that the Steadicam was used, can you tell me which one it was? Have we? Yeah, it was Rocky.

[01:06:44] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you do.

[01:06:44] Trevor Long: I remember you, the guy, the inventor, when Stallone’s running up the steps, um, he, that’s the first use of the Steadicam.

[01:06:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there you go, folks.

[01:06:53] Trevor Long: And it was because it was cold The story is that there was a bloke following behind with a car battery to keep it all warmed up and running, and he had to run up the thing carrying this heavy battery while the bloke’s holding the camera. Yeah, and that was that iconic shot of him top of the steps and then—

[01:07:11] Stephen Fenech: Shout out to Hayden and Isaac, the Steadicam operators for the Today Show. They do a great job.

[01:07:15] Trevor Long: Okay, yeah, righto.

[01:07:16] Stephen Fenech: It’s pretty much every segment.

[01:07:17] Trevor Long: On the set? Are they on the set with it?

[01:07:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, every other camera’s around.

[01:07:20] Trevor Long: They come and sort of roam around.

[01:07:21] Stephen Fenech: Every other camera is a robot, right? Okay. Hayden and Isaac run the one Steadicam.

[01:07:25] Trevor Long: Good luck to them.

[01:07:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, it’s, you know, but you know how laborious a Steadicam is? They don’t do 2 days in a row. So if Hayden’s wearing the Steadicam and Isaac’s winding the cable, the next day will be the other way around.

[01:07:35] Trevor Long: Ah, yeah. Wow, it gives them a rest.

[01:07:37] Stephen Fenech: It’s, it’s a big thing.

[01:07:39] Trevor Long: Taxing.

[01:07:39] Stephen Fenech: You’re carrying a huge camera on your body. It’s just been stabilized by the gear. Amazing technology. Wow. Anyway, there you go, folks. Two Blokes Talking Tech, uh, episode 7:46. Thank you, Netgear. Thank you, Arlo. We’ll be back next week for the final video episode until October.

[01:07:53] Trevor Long: So this was the penultimate video for the moment.

[01:07:56] Stephen Fenech: For the moment. Now you see it. Thanks, Mike Meade. Um, I feel like watching a clip about it somewhere, but anyway.

[01:08:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, what is it? The pen ultimate?

[01:08:06] Stephen Fenech: Is this happening?

[01:08:09] Trevor Long: Yes, it is happening.

[01:08:12] Stephen Fenech: Goodbye.

[01:08:12] Trevor Long: Bye-bye. Everything about you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.