The EFTM podcast – TV Buying Advice, WIN an EFTM Umbrella and more of your calls!

TV Buying Advice, WIN an EFTM Umbrella and more of your calls!

Podcast: The EFTM Podcast
Date: 3 November 2026
Host: Trevor Long
Callers: Ted, Bob, Ben, Catherine

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[00:00:04] VOICE OVER: The EFTM Podcast. Talkback Technology. Got a question about tech? Trev’s here to help. Not sure what to buy? Ask Trev. Australia’s number one talkback technology podcast.

[00:00:25] VOICE OVER: Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev. Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years. The EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

[00:00:45] VOICE OVER: Real Australians with real questions every week.

[00:00:51] VOICE OVER: You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657. The EFTM Podcast, thanks to TCL’s range of SQD Mini LED TVs, built for a brighter Aussie living room.

[00:01:09] Trevor: Great to have your company. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading, and great to be back. Oh, look, I’m just going to flag with this straight off the bat. I mean, fortnightly is not a bad thing, let’s be honest. I mean, just for everyone, uh, but it would— you know what would happen if, uh, if I did that? It would, it would work out opposite to my travel or something. Like, let’s just think about this now for a minute. Okay, so it’s the 3rd and then skip a week, on a week. Okay, 17th, skip a week, on a week. 1st, oh no, skip a week, that’s a week I’m on. The next week I’m away would be an off fortnight. So anyway, there’s a contemplation there. You never know your luck. But it’s not just, you know, the calls that we need to get to, it’s the interviews as well. And there’s a few of those coming up. I think in the next little while we’re trying to track down Gemma from LG to talk about some of their initiatives. We’re gonna talk to HP in the next week, Amazon Eero as well. So there’s some things lined up. Producer Rob doesn’t know about it, but he’s been slacking on holidays. So, you know, I don’t know why his wife puts up with him given he’s been working while on holidays. But anyway, leaving that aside, um, lots to bring you and many much more planning to be done here for the EFTM podcast. But most importantly, I’d love to hear from you if you’ve got a tech thing you want to discuss. Can be a tech question, a problem, 0477 657 657, or you might have bought something cool and you want to brag about it, I’m down with that. I’m 100% down with that. Open the EFTM app, click Ask Trev, and send me a note, especially if you bought something that is topical like the iPhone Duo or the Samsung Fold. I don’t care what it is. If you’ve got a review of it and you want to share your thoughts, I’d love to hear it, of course, because my view is, is blinkered by my own experience or the things that I do or use. So love to hear the experience of others. I think I mentioned last week— no, no, it wouldn’t be last week. I mentioned somewhere, might have been on the Two Blokes Show, that moderator Howie had bought the iPhone Duo but was now returning it because it just didn’t do great accessibility, which is something he needs for his visual impairment. 100% a requirement of his phone. He’s an iPhone man but didn’t like the way it was implemented on the iPhone Duo. Great thing to find out. Unfortunate, it’s going to take him a few weeks to get a replacement, but that’s what it is. So yeah, no, if you’ve bought something and you want to share it with my audience, please get in touch. Um, if you’re a, if you’re a first-day downloader, then there is a unique and, and rare opportunity in the EFTM app right now to win an EFTM umbrella. You know, other than Jude, and it bothers— if you know, you know— there’s not many people with an EFTM umbrella. So the reason that exists right now, along with the JBL PartyBox 330, which is now available to enter and win in the EFTM app, uh, it’s a $650 beautiful PartyBox speaker there you can win from JBL. But I don’t normally run two comps at the same time, but yes, we’re currently running an EFTM umbrella giveaway. 2 people will win an umbrella. It’s going to cost me like a million dollars to post to you because they’re a pain in the bum. But anyway, the reason I did it was because there’s bonus entries. So literally, if you do get day 1 download, as in you’re listening on Tuesday, I think there’s like 2 bonus entries today. Then I think there’s a day with just 1 entry, and I think there’s a day with a couple more entries again. So basically, I did that competition to test our mechanism for the bonus entries, which will happen during the car giveaway. From next Monday, an Amazon device pack giveaway. We’re talking $2,500 worth of Amazon devices. There’s an Eero, there’s an Eero Outdoor, there’s a big Echo, there’s a couple of Echo Shows, there’s an Amazon Fire Stick. Like, legit, this is the ultimate smart home starter or upgrade. You choose. I don’t know, I don’t care how you use it. And then on November 16th, we begin the process of giving away a car. Enter every day for your best chance to win. Now, the other thing, I think— I can’t— I forget if I mentioned it. I really don’t remember. I definitely mentioned it in the Man Cave because I did a little video of it while I was in, uh, LA. Um, the thing about the, uh, car giveaway is this: it’s running for 90 days. And you have 180 chances to enter. But on most days, the entry limit will be 1. However, there’ll be bonus days, and those bonus days will allow you extra entries. But you won’t know that because every single day it’ll say 1 of 180, 2 of 180, whatever it might be. Um, but if you pay attention to my channels I will promote bonus days. I suspect we’ll do a bonus day just for the podcast audience. So I’ll pick a date and I’ll announce here on the podcast that on that date there’ll be 5 extra entries if you’re a podcast listener. And you’ll be the one that knows, oh, I can click again. Oh, I can click again. I can keep clicking again. And you’ll get all those bonus entries. And there will be a total of 90 bonus entries. That’s double the number of standard entries. So yeah, it’s worth paying attention. It’s worth listening. It’s worth downloading. It’s worth being a part of the man cave. It’s worth following me on socials. It’s worth having the EFTM WhatsApp group channel. So if you go to channels or updates on WhatsApp and search for EFTM, you’ll find us there as well. I’m gonna use different platforms at different times to promote the bonus giveaways. That’s what it’s for, because as I said in my Man Cave video, I would love, I have no control over who wins. The people that can’t win are my family, our contractors like Scott and Daniel and Rob, my aunts and uncles, it’s very clear rules. And they’re in the terms and conditions, which you can all read because they’ve been published and they’re very expensive to get approved. They’re up at eftm.com/terms. That’s where all the terms and conditions are for all competitions. The car one is slightly different ’cause it has the bonus entries and it’s a higher value prize. So it has permit numbers as well. It costs a lot of money to do it properly, folks. So if you see people giving stuff away randomly on the internet and it’s $10,000 or more, trust me, I don’t think they’ve tried. ‘Cause it’s a very expensive process unless they’re publishing permit numbers authorized under, New South Wales TPL, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which I am now going to look up and find to make sure that I’ve got those for you because it’s very important that I publish them and tell you what those permit numbers are. It is a requirement of having a permit is that you publicize those permit numbers. And yeah, we go to some trouble and expense to do them. This competition is authorized under New South Wales Authority TP05451 and South Australia Australian permit number T261920 and ACT permit number TP2602490. They’re official permits which you can check with the government. Anyway, so I’m just saying the competition for that starts on the 16th, and I look forward to everyone getting that. Now the first batch of magazines will be sent out on about the 13th, Friday the 13th, and so I hope you get them on the Monday or the Tuesday. Those addresses are locked in, but there’ll be a second mail out on about the 20th of November. If you haven’t registered to receive the EFTM magazine, just go to eftmid.com. Even easier, just go to eftm.com and at the top of every page is a banner for the magazine. But if you want to go straight to the signup form, eftmid.com, you put in your mobile number, it verifies it, then you give me your details including your address. And it’s a verified address, so you can— we know that it’s a real address, we don’t get return to sender, and then you’ll, you’ll get a magazine. And once, I don’t know, November 21st or so comes, there’ll be no more new addresses collect— or the address is collected for next year, but there’ll be no more sendouts this year. So yeah, that’s how you can get the magazine right now. You’ll have it by the end of November, and I’m super excited for you to get your hands on it and read it, but also hopefully be a part of that competition to win a BYD Atto 1 Essential, which at the time of drawing which is around Valentine’s Day next year, is a $27,000 car. Okay, there is a promotion right now, you can get it for $20 grand drive away, but drive away price for that car once the promotion ends, which is when the competition is, is $27,000, and I’m giving it away. There you go. So yeah, cracking prize, really excited for it, and look forward to you being part of it, folks, because let’s find a winner, you know what I’m saying?

[00:10:26] VOICE OVER: Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

[00:10:32] Trevor: Now, I suspect I’m going to bang on about this with Stephen Fenech this week, but I just want to reiterate what I talked about in an article on the weekend about the ChatGPT Dots. This is an AI agent which you can now get from ChatGPT. Now, it requires you to be on an expensive ChatGPT plan at the ChatGPT Plus is what it’s called. And that is about $200 a month. But also, and so I was given access for 30 days to that level of plan. I said to them, when they said we’ve launched this thing, do you want to try it out? Yeah, cool, I’ve got a paid plan, I’ll have a look. No, no, I had a Pro plan. Pro sounded good, $30 a month. No, no, Plus plan, $150 or $200 a month. So they did give me a 30-day trial, but I am Signing up, I’m paying the $200 a month because this has been amazing. ChatGPT Dot is an AI agent, which is vastly different to just AI. So AI is something that you can ask a question of and get a deep, meaningful answer, go back and forward with, you know, have whole conversations with about knowledge that it has, but it doesn’t proactively come to you or do anything for you. A ChatGPT agent, I believe the Meta Muse agents might be similar to this, but these agents are there to work for you. They’re there to be part of your team. So I, with ChatGPT, I linked a lot of things. I linked my email, my Gmail. I linked my calendar, I linked my contacts. I linked my Google Drive. I linked my Dropbox. I linked my Xero, which is my invoicing software. I link my Plaud, which is my kind of cloud recording software, and I link my Canva. So my agent, I’ve called Darren, I mentioned before, I did mention this last, last time, I’m sure, but these last few weeks have been just amazing in terms of what I have seen. From this concept. You know, it’s literally working for me. It is thinking for me. I’ll give you another example today. I’m waiting on new umbrellas, okay? So I’ve got new umbrellas coming from China, and Rachel, my contact at the factory in China, sent me a tracking number for the, uh, for the new umbrellas, and Every now and then I remember to check and it still says, you know, in transit. Then it said it’s in port, but for days it said that. So I said this morning, I said to Darren, can you just find in my emails, there’s a message from Rachel from China about the umbrellas. She’s sent a tracking number and a company. If you can monitor that and check it regularly and let me know if the tracking details change. So basically what I’ve said is I’m not gonna check this anymore. I’m not gonna worry about logging on to find that email, find the name of the tracking company, find the tracking number. I’m just going to wait for Darren to tell me it’s done. And so be it, he’s doing it. So I got a message, you know, a little text message from Darren saying, just so you know, uh, it’s, uh, it’s now cleared the clearance facility, it’s on its way. We’ll wait for another change. So I’m now waiting for one that says out for delivery, but I don’t need to go to the website and look for that. Darren will tell me. Um, I got it. I’m doing some end of year stats and, you know, you know, to scroll through someone’s Instagram, you’ve got to be logged in, you know, to see all their view counts and stuff. So I can look at Darren’s computer and I can open up Instagram, I can log in, so I don’t give Darren my login details. I logged into the computer and then I handed control of the computer back over to Darren. So Darren can now scroll through and look at all my analytics and different views and different things and give me some data and help me out and answer questions. I can go in and revoke that access at any time. Honestly, $200. It’s unbelievable. And so yes, I’m getting it to do other work for me that I could theoretically just get another AI bot to do, if you think of a chatbot. But I think it’s the integration of all that knowledge and data into one place with one agent that is going to be the most powerful thing here. Darren is learning how I operate, so he’s learning how I work, and that’s going to be huge. So yeah, um, here’s one for you. I, um, I asked Darren, and I also asked Claude, so I’ll share this with you now. In advance of the Melbourne Cup I said to both ChatGPT’s Darren, so my Dot, and to General Claude Chat, I said, do some research, Melbourne Cup 2026, take a look at the winners over recent years, where they were back to come, how short or long their odds were, and look at this year’s fields and see if you can see a trend worth following on this year’s race. Now Claude came back with just a heap of data, but it said the strongest all-round profile match I can find is Juju Keebo. And then it went into details, a lot of information. And I said, okay, I want your top 3 picks for the win. And then I want the best 5 to include in a box trifecta. So I’ve put, and I’ve put money on all these things just as a test, you know, it’s my job. Juju Keebo, Point of Law, and Mr. Monaco. Now just for reference, I asked Darren the same thing, also came back with Juju Keebo, also came back with Point of Law and came back as a third choice with Middle Earth. And in terms of the top 5 for that, uh, trifecta, Juju Keebo, Point of Law, Hopewell Rock, uh, and Mr. Monaco and Trust Your Instinct were across the two of them, they were the ones picked. So I’ve got a couple of box trifectas going. And I’ve got a lot of wins, and I’m hoping for some cash here, baby, because it’ll be a cracking story today if AI picked the Melbourne Cup winner. If it didn’t, you’ll never hear about it again. Let’s get on with your calls right here on the EFTM podcast.

[00:16:59] VOICE OVER: 0477 657 657, that’s the text line. Thanks to Vodafone, get in touch and ask Trev today.

Ted — Picture messages not sending from an Honor phone

[00:17:09] Trevor: Great to have your company and happy to help you out wherever I can. If you’ve got a tech question, you get in touch 0477 657657. Ted’s on the line. G’day Ted, how you doing mate?

[00:17:20] Ted: G’day Trev, how are you?

[00:17:21] Trevor: Mate, or should I call you grandpa?

[00:17:24] Ted: Let’s just keep it as Ted would be great, thank you.

[00:17:27] Trevor: Good luck with that. What can I do for you mate?

[00:17:30] Ted: Trev, look, the issue I’ve got, I’ve got an Honor XD9, very good phone for the price. I’m very happy with it, but The issue that I have is that every time I want to send a picture message or even an MMS to, let’s say, an iPhone, I can never do it. It never goes, never sends.

[00:17:51] Trevor: Never, ever, ever. And text messaging is working okay?

[00:17:54] Ted: Text messaging is working okay with them. But when I send a picture or MMS or a GIF, nah, it doesn’t go through.

[00:18:01] Trevor: Where’d you buy it from?

[00:18:03] Ted: I bought it from JB Hi-Fi.

[00:18:04] Trevor: Perfect. All right. So that was basically my way of saying, please tell me you bought it in Australia. Yeah. Well, I mean, because A grey import phone. So if you bought it, you know, shipped in from China, there’s a chance that it doesn’t have the right network settings. Simple things like that. Who’s your network? Telstra, Optus, or Vodafone?

[00:18:20] Ted: My network is Woolworths.

[00:18:22] Trevor: Okay, so they are, they’re a Telstra carrier?

[00:18:25] Ted: I think they are. Yes, they are Telstra.

[00:18:27] Trevor: Yes. So basically it should look— it should have— what have you tried? Have you tried many things to fix it?

[00:18:34] Ted: Look, I’ve done what my technological expertise has sort of asked for me to do and nothing worked. So, you know, I’ve gone to some settings and I’ve given it to apparently my younger daughters who seem to know everything, but they haven’t been able to find out the issue too.

[00:18:53] Trevor: Are they Android users?

[00:18:55] Ted: No, they’re not.

[00:18:57] Trevor: There’s your problem. They’re not going to know how to fix it, are they, mate? They’re looking for it. They’re just trying to turn it into an iPhone.

[00:19:03] Ted: Exactly right.

[00:19:04] Trevor: So there’s a couple of things. It could be in the deep in the settings. So Every Android phone, when you go into the settings and then SIM card, or settings and mobile, if you dig deep enough, you might find something called an access point. All right, sure. Now the access point is like telling it, um, back in the day when you’re trying to get on the internet, you had to, you know, tell your computer where your router was and stuff like that. It’s kind of like that. You got to kind of set up the right access point and Telstra MMS is an access point you need to set up, and it may not be set up. It normally gets set up when your phone connects to the network. And so while this is going to sound insane, the first thing I’d do is actually turn the phone fully off and turn it fully back on again, right?

[00:19:53] Ted: Sure. Yep.

[00:19:53] Trevor: Which you’ve probably been told before. Yes. But by powering it down and powering it back up again, you’re asking the phone to reconnect to the network for the first time, and that may instigate a download of the settings. Okay. Secondly, mate, take the SIM card out and put it back in again, because again, that might prompt the phone to go, oh, I need to update. Thirdly, check that you’ve got the latest version of Android software on the— on a phone. So make sure it has the latest— all software updates. But then if you go online, and you might find it on the Woolworths mobile site, but you’ll certainly find it on the Telstra site, you, you want to look up the access point settings, right? Sure. If you look these up, and I’m on the Telstra website now, I found it pretty easily. Um, it goes through step by step what all the— these really crazy addresses you need to type in. Now, why it’s not happening by default, I don’t know, but if you need to do this manually, it’ll step you through the process, and it’s basically entering a couple of addresses and some numbers and putting it through to manually put all these settings in. Um, once you do that man, it should then be connected and allow you to send those MMS messages. The other, the other thing, the other thing I’d say is switch to WhatsApp.

[00:21:15] Ted: Yeah, okay, yeah, that’s a good idea.

[00:21:16] Trevor: So WhatsApp uses the, the data on your phone instead of the cellular network, because even when you get MMS messaging working, and I want you to get it working, it sends them as really low quality files.

[00:21:28] Ted: Sure, horrible to look

[00:21:30] Trevor: at. But if you get yourself WhatsApp, you can send them as high-definition photos, and anyone can do it. Then you can have a family group chat on WhatsApp with you on Android and everyone else on Apple. Doesn’t matter, everyone shares things properly and at high quality, mate.

[00:21:45] Ted: Mate, that sounds good. I think I might just stick with the WhatsApp, and I do have WhatsApp, so, um, I’ll, uh, and now that you think of it, I think I have sent some picture messages on WhatsApp with no issues.

[00:21:55] Trevor: So just tell them to stop sending you bloody text messages and use WhatsApp. Tell them that’s your preference and that’s what you insist upon.

[00:22:02] Ted: Trev, I really appreciate the information and I’ll give it all a go. And you know what, like, even if it doesn’t work, I don’t really give a shit, to be honest with you. But

[00:22:09] Trevor: yeah, I tell you what, you might start caring when little babies start appearing in photos. You want to see better quality. And I’m saying,

[00:22:19] Ted: I’ll just— before I go, I’ll just let you know that I purchased this, uh, phone from JB’s and it was a great deal. And they offered this particular— I think they offered— they offered the watch. Now I took that watch out and I had a look at the instructions and then I put that watch back in back in the cupboard. I’m not putting that on.

[00:22:35] Trevor: I put it on Facebook Marketplace, get a couple, get $100 for it.

[00:22:39] Ted: I might do that. I might try.

[00:22:40] Trevor: If you’re never going to use it and it’s brand new in the box—

[00:22:44] Ted: it’s brand new in the box, never, never used. I looked at the instructions, too, too high-tech for me. I don’t need that sort of shit. I mean, stuff.

[00:22:50] Trevor: Put it on Facebook Marketplace and get yourself a couple of dollars leading up to Christmas.

[00:22:56] Ted: Fantastic, Trev. Thanks very much, mate.

[00:22:58] Trevor: All right, buddy, anytime.

[00:22:59] Ted: You take it easy.

[00:23:00] Trevor: Cheers, mate. Good on you, Ted. Cheers. Ted was, when I called him, Ted was working in the loader and it was very noisy, so he offered to pull over and I think he had to drive around the back of the shed so the boss didn’t see that he was pulling over. Anyway, Ted told me that his daughter was pregnant, so he’s going to become a granddad and he didn’t want to be called anything but Ted. And I said, good luck, Ted, because the first thing they’re going to do is call you something that you don’t want to be. So you’re better off coming up with a name that you do want to be. That’s why I was calling him Grandpa. And that’s why I think it’s important you have this ability to communicate with videos and photos. So my niece, for example, Gemma, sends almost daily photos of her beautiful daughter Leah, my great-niece, on Snapchat. It’s the only reason I have Snapchat is because I want to see those adorable photos. And I know that she might send me the odd one if I said, can you WhatsApp me? But I know that I wouldn’t see as many as my 16-year-old daughter who gets them all on WhatsApp— on Snapchat from her. So it’s the only reason I have Snapchat, is just so I can see beautiful photos of Leah. And that might be the only reason Ted uses WhatsApp, but he’ll definitely regret not having it if he didn’t.

[00:24:17] VOICE OVER: The EFTM Podcast, thanks to TCL.

Bob — Swapping a small iPhone for a bigger Android

[00:24:24] Trevor: Sounds like you’re on a game show, Bob. Welcome to the show, mate. How are you doing?

[00:24:28] Bob: Yeah, very well, thank you. Very well.

[00:24:30] Trevor: So what can I do for you, buddy?

[00:24:32] Bob: Right. I’m a longtime iPhone user, actually. A few people can— BlackBerry user and loved it. Moved over to the iPhone. Yeah, we’ve got— I had an iPhone 14 Pro Plus, nice big screen, etc., etc.

[00:24:54] Bob: My son told me I need to upgrade it, so I got into a 17, as the younger generation do. You gotta change the phone, Dad, which I did. But I just find the screen is too small, and I just feel that Apple are just pushing the boundaries where the dollar value is concerned and what we’re getting for bang for buck in terms of what’s out there. And there’s some far better choices, I think, in terms of, uh, Android. So my question is, and bearing in mind that the rest of the family are Apple users, so we use a few of the Apple features together, um, as a family unit, but is there something better out there that we can be looking at in terms of bang for buck and functionality?

[00:25:42] Trevor: So just remind me, the 14 was a Pro Max? You had a bigger Pro Max?

[00:25:45] Bob: Yes, yes, correct.

[00:25:47] Trevor: And the 17 was just a standard 17 or standard 17 Pro?

[00:25:51] Bob: Standard 17.

[00:25:52] Trevor: Okay. Yes.

[00:25:53] Bob: Only because of the dollar value. Yes.

[00:25:56] Trevor: Price.

[00:25:57] Bob: Yeah.

[00:25:57] Trevor: The Standard 17 is probably one of the best value phones on the market. It’s just that it is a small screen for some people. Before we contemplate whether or not you truly could or should try a different phone, what are those Apple features you share across your family?

[00:26:15] Bob: So we’ve got a group text message that we share. Yep.

[00:26:19] Trevor: So let’s, let’s work through them one by one. That can be replaced by WhatsApp, so just move the whole family to WhatsApp. Doesn’t matter what phone you’re on. Perfect.

[00:26:26] Bob: Uh, the second feature is Find My Phone.

[00:26:31] Trevor: Um, yeah, so individual device finding can’t be really easily done across platforms, um, but Google has a Find feature as well, and you can just use any computer browser to open up and search Find My Phone. You log in and you’re off. So look, you won’t be able to find your wife’s phone from your phone, uh, she won’t be able to find your phone from hers, but you’ll still be able to find your phone when you need it.

[00:26:57] Bob: When you need it. Those are the two most common features.

[00:27:02] Trevor: Yeah, right. I was going to say, I suspected that. And look, there’s a definite period of adjustment required, unquestionably, because it’s different. Um, yeah, all the apps are the same, everything kind of works the same, but it’s different. And so really, your contemplation is, you know, where— what are you prepared to spend? Because you talk about the budget, you know, being a critical part of this problem, really. What do you think is a good price for a phone that you’re willing?

[00:27:32] Bob: You know, in this day and age, if I were to say $1,000, I think I’m being more than generous. And having said that, this is the other thing. We were most recently in China, my wife and I.

[00:27:45] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:27:47] Bob: Mate, and you know where I’m coming from. You can buy a phone for $100 Aussie dollars.

[00:27:52] Trevor: Yes, very much.

[00:27:53] Bob: And you’re getting some really, really good features.

[00:27:57] Trevor: And look, I want to be very clear, there are phones you can get for $200, $300, $400 in Australia, and they’re all great. I don’t have a problem. I don’t think there’s a bad phone on the market. You just need to know what the limitation you’re buying is. And the limitation is either the screen brightness, the screen viewing angle, the screen size, the screen refresh rate, or the battery life, the quality of construction. Construction, different little things like that, and most importantly, the camera. Um, so I think you’ve got to find that middle ground, and I do think you’re in the right price point. So if I went and narrowed a search at, say, JB, and went, okay, so if we, if we had prices between $600 and $1,000, um, you know, Oppo’s Reno 16 is a great phone. It’s a 5G phone, um, it’s a, it’s a nice style. It’s $1,000. I’m a massive fan of the Nothing phones. Nothing, um, is the brand, and my youngest son is all in. He’s had 3 in a row of these phones. They’re awesome. So the Nothing Phone 3 is $1,000. Mate, there’s Google Pixels, but you’re probably not going to get the larger screen size in a $1,000 Google Pixel. Um, I don’t know that you’re gonna like the size of the Samsungs in that price point because they’re not really what they would describe as ultra size. So I think if you were to go into a JB’s or similar and look at Nothing phone, maybe the Motorola— I don’t know if you’d get the Edge, but it’s because it’s quite a different screen style. But certainly, you know, Motorola definitely have products in that price point. Um, Oppo, Motorola, Nothing— if you just looked at those 3 brands alone, right? But there are others. Honor, Xiaomi, etc. Dude, you’ll find a phone under $1,000, and I think you’d be blown away by what it can do and, and how the cameras are likely equal to what you’re getting on the iPhone in everyday use. Um, battery life is awesome and outstanding, and the design, just generally, the— they put effort into the design of these things at this price point because I think it matters at that price point. So I do think you’re going to find some great options, and I think that if you stayed above $600 and below $4,000, you’re in what I think is the sweet spot. Someone— where was I the other day? I was at a function and, um, you know what, I was sitting at the Today Show desk and we were off air, so it was just before we went on air, and we’re talking about— we’re going to talk about the Duo. And they turned to me and they said, would you buy that if you didn’t get free phones? I said, absolutely not. I would spend $700, $800 on a phone and that’s what I would buy, because I have realized over the years what you’ve realized which is they do everything you need to do.

[00:30:45] Bob: I was horrified to find out yesterday that my son’s pre-ordered a Dell at $3,500.

[00:30:54] Trevor: Wow. Yeah, yeah,

[00:30:54] Bob: yeah.

[00:30:55] Trevor: Well, I mean, he’s going to stand out. He’s going to show off to his mates. It’s— he’s going to be popular with some people. But, you know, unless he, unless he finds some productivity in that bigger screen, I don’t know that he’s getting true value for money.

[00:31:09] Bob: Value for money. Absolutely. And I think, you know, having that fad for the first few weeks, yeah, that’s fine. But if you look beyond that, I, yeah, I just can’t see how you can justify that sort of money for a mobile phone these days. Yes.

[00:31:24] Trevor: Your biggest challenge is that you, you’re, you’re, you’re looking for a screen size.

[00:31:30] Bob: Correct.

[00:31:31] Trevor: Because you’ve got a great phone. Bang for your buck, the iPhone 17 is outstanding value because it does all the powerful AI things. It has great cameras. It is an Apple, so there’s a lot of backing there, but it doesn’t have the biggest screen. You know what you kind of, I’m assuming, wish they had was still the old Plus phones, but they’re still way over $1,000. So you’ve just realized there’s, uh, there’s— it’s, it’s like people who realize that, you know, in electric cars, you’ve decided I’m going to get an electric car, and then you go, I would never buy a Chinese one. Um, and you drive a Kia, you drive a Toyota, you drive Hyundai, you drive whatever, and then you get behind the wheel of a Zeekr and you think to yourself, yes, oh my God, this thing is stunning. It is premium, it is luxurious, it is full of features, and its value is exceptional. And I think that any Zeekr owner would tell you that they don’t care where it’s made. They just know that it’s a great product that does more than what they need it to do.

[00:32:30] Bob: And I’ll give it the stamp of approval because we used a few of them as private charters in China.

[00:32:37] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:32:37] Bob: Amazing.

[00:32:39] Trevor: Wow. So good.

[00:32:40] Bob: Amazing.

[00:32:41] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:32:41] Bob: Yeah. So thank you for the advice.

[00:32:43] Trevor: You’ve got some shopping to do, Bob, and you let us know what you end up doing, my friend.

[00:32:47] Bob: Absolutely. I shall do. Thank you very much.

[00:32:49] Trevor: Good on you, Bob. Good to hear from you, mate.

[00:32:51] Bob: All the best, buddy.

[00:32:52] Trevor: No worries at all. I mean, sorry, I was just hanging up on Bob and I turned my own fader down. I think that’s a really interesting, uh, comparison— the cars versus the phones and things. I think that people are reluctant to look at other options other than the thing they’ve always had, which is like an iPhone or a Samsung. Um, but I think if you open your eyes, maybe you can find someone who’s bought one and owned one and you can get some feedback. But if you really go and have a look and you feel them in the shops and you’ll be blown away. By what they can do and how good they are. So hopefully Bob finds himself some great value out there.

[00:33:38] VOICE OVER: The EFTM podcast, thanks to TCL, Brighter Days, Epic Plays.

Ben — A TV for Mum under $1,000

[00:33:46] Trevor: Great to have your company. And if you’ve got a tech question, I’d love to help you out wherever I can, to the limit of my knowledge is the best I can do for you. Ben’s on the line. G’day, Ben.

[00:33:55] Ben: Josh, how are you going?

[00:33:56] Trevor: Mate, really good. What can I do for you?

[00:33:58] Ben: Yeah, mate, I’m just wanting to— and now it’s hitting that kind of period of Christmas time and that— looking to get a TV for my mum. Nice. Probably want to get her a large one. She’s got pretty bad eyesight and a bit hard of hearing. But just in looking around that 55-inch, but probably under the $1,000 mark.

[00:34:19] Trevor: Hang on, slow down. 55 inches is not big for a start.

[00:34:23] Ben: Oh, I— nowadays it’s, it’s, it’s kind of standard nowadays, nearly,

[00:34:28] Trevor: mate. 75 is the standard today. So let’s, let’s go back a step. You’ve got a $1,000 budget, is that what you’re saying?

[00:34:34] Ben: Yeah, I want to stick to that, around that mark.

[00:34:37] Trevor: That’s fair, that’s fair. Um, um, I, I’m literally just using my own little, uh, TV finder here on, on eftm.com. So if I, if I look at just all TVs $1,000 and under. Then if I filter by the biggest screen, we can definitely get a 65-inch TV for $1,000.

[00:34:59] Ben: Yeah, I, I, yeah. So I, you don’t think it’s about, um, it’s about like this, uh, the bigger the screen, more about the technology, the screen. So I was thinking 55 because then I’d get more value, or what would be better value, do you think?

[00:35:15] Trevor: Well, so I would argue at 55 inches you’re probably not going to get the true value from the, the greatest TV technology because firstly, you said she’s got bad eyesight, so you know, there’s that. Secondly, the smaller it is, the less advantageous the TV technology is. Um, right, so you know, like a micro RGB and all these really new things, I don’t know that you’re going to really get any better picture from a 55-inch. Yeah, but still, mate, it’s not like we— it’s not like for $1,000 we’re talking about getting a 75, 85 here. We’re definitely talking about 55, 65s, right?

[00:35:49] Ben: Yeah. Okay.

[00:35:50] Trevor: And so you end up there with looking at it and going, okay, so you could get a— the, the— I, I would say the, the most expensive of the lot is, let’s, let’s call it $1,088. So just over $1,000 for a TCL. Uh, that’s a Quantum Dot Mini LED TV. Beautiful. If I scroll through and look at this list, mate, there’s a Hisense at 55-inch, Kogan 65-inch, Samsung’s entry-level stuff at 55-inch. And I’m starting to think, yeah, as I drill down, I think you’re probably better off at that, literally just on a $1,000 price point. You might go a couple bucks over, right? So let’s, let’s call it $1,100 max, right? I think Samsung, Hisense, TCL are going to treat you well there.

[00:36:36] Ben: Um, right.

[00:36:37] Trevor: And, and with each of them, are you going to notice the difference between Samsung’s Mini LED, Hisense’s Mini LED, and TCL’s Quantum Dot Mini LED? Probably not, right? So at that point, you’re just driving on price. You’re just saying to them, listen, you get me the best price possible. Um, which is why— and I’m not, I’m literally not trying to make an ad out of it— which is why I really am excited about the data that we’ve got on the website for TVs, because I can show you that the TCL TV, for example, was $1,300, you know, in May, but it’s been down as low as $994, and now it’s $1,087. So you could go into the shop and go, listen, 2 weeks ago it was $994. You do me that price, I’ll buy it right now. So, right,

[00:37:24] Ben: yeah, yeah,

[00:37:24] Trevor: hey, drive a hard bargain. You’re also about to walk into Black Friday. So it’s, it’s going to get crazy on you. The other thing I’d say is, um, be mindful that no matter what you buy now, it’s going to be a, like a smart TV. It’s going to be the whole bloody deal, um, and it may be overwhelming or different for her in terms of the remote control and all those kind of things. So I would, I would suggest to you that you look at a thing. I actually had one, um, on the Today Show only last week, uh, HomeLife Technology got a thing called the Big Button TV Remote. And mate, right, this thing has 6 buttons: on/off, mute, volume up, volume down, channel up, channel down.

[00:38:12] Ben: Right, yeah, because I’ll be honest, this television is probably going to run as a dumb television. Yeah, due to the fact my mum doesn’t have internet. So yeah, that’s something that I was going to— my next question was going to be perfect. That’s fantastic.

[00:38:25] Trevor: Yeah, look, I don’t know that you can get rid of the apps on the home screen and all that kind of stuff. Stuff, it’s a bit hard to do. Plug it into an antenna and, um, and set up this Easy Remote, and she’s just got a volume up, volume down, channel up, channel down. Doesn’t have to worry about the home button, don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. Um, it will— all TVs today, when you turn them on, they don’t go back to the channel you are on, they pretty much show the home page. A bit annoying, but if you then hit channel up, you’re going to be in the right spot.

[00:38:52] Ben: Fantastic.

[00:38:54] Trevor: So mate, I think the $1,000 is a good price point. I think you will get a beautiful, a beautiful 55-inch TV. If you were to hold out a couple of weeks, you might even come close to getting a 65.

[00:39:08] Ben: Okay. Oh yeah, my plan is Black Friday, so, um, all those sale times. So yeah, I’ll look into it. Okay, great.

[00:39:15] Trevor: Go to eftm.com, click which TV to buy, and this is— there’s no affiliate, I don’t earn any money from any of the things here, it’s just a list of every TV on the market and and the website literally goes out every hour and finds the best prices. So when I look at this TCL Quantum Dot Mini LED TV, I click find the best prices. It shows me how much that TV is at Appliances Online, Binglee, Good Guys, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman. See everyone’s prices in one place.

[00:39:43] Ben: Awesome, sounds mate. I didn’t know you had that.

[00:39:46] Trevor: And no, no, and the price chart from the last like 6 months, so that you can see. So that TCL again, you remember I mentioned $994, it’s been $994 for 35 days over the course of the last 6 months or so.

[00:40:03] Ben: Wow.

[00:40:03] Trevor: So you can see essentially what prices it can be sold at and allows you to walk out and say, no, I’m not buying it until it’s $994 again.

[00:40:12] Ben: Yeah, cool,

[00:40:13] Trevor: mate. Enjoy, have some fun playing around with that, mate, and find your mum a great new TV.

[00:40:17] Ben: Brilliant, thanks, hey, Jeff.

[00:40:18] Trevor: All right, buddy, no worries at all. Thanks, mate. And, uh, yeah, I mean, look, we’ve got some cool stuff coming. Uh, we’re just redesigning it now a bit. Kyle, who, uh, built the modern version of it for me, um, so you remember the story of this, I kind of built all this using Claude at the start of the year, but I was having to manually create this update, and then I, um, acquired, uh, jbbuddy.com uh, did a deal with Kyle, who runs that, to take it over and incorporate that technology into the EFTM TV Buyer’s Guide. And he’s been absolutely rabbiting away at that now for a few months and has some really cool changes coming to it to make it even more, um, buyer-focused. So we’ll have feature comparisons, lots of stuff. It’s going to be very, very cool. So yeah, don’t, don’t miss it. It says which TV to buy, it’s at the top of the EFTM website, eftm.com.

[00:41:09] VOICE OVER: This is the EFTM Podcast.

Catherine — Share trading app push authentication not arriving

[00:41:13] Trevor: Great to have your company and happy to help wherever I can. Catherine’s on the line. G’day, Catherine.

[00:41:17] Catherine: Good morning.

[00:41:18] Trevor: What can I do for you today?

[00:41:20] Catherine: I’m having trouble receiving a push authentication notice from my share trading platform onto my Samsung.

[00:41:30] Trevor: Right.

[00:41:31] Catherine: And which means I can only have the app on my phone and I can’t access the desktop you know, platform,

[00:41:42] Trevor: because when you try and log on on the desktop, it says you need to verify who you are and it sends a notification. You’re not getting that.

[00:41:49] Catherine: That’s right. And I actually have logged a friend’s phone number with them, so I’m getting the push notification through them.

[00:41:58] Trevor: So it’s a text message that you’re looking to get?

[00:42:01] Catherine: No, it’s actually— it comes through with a tick or, you know, a tick or a cross. And you’ve got to click on the tick

[00:42:10] Trevor: in the app.

[00:42:12] Catherine: Yes.

[00:42:12] Trevor: Right. So how’s the friend’s phone number involved?

[00:42:15] Catherine: Oh, well, he’s got an iPhone, so I’ve given the Share platform his phone number as a contact number,

[00:42:24] Trevor: but

[00:42:24] Catherine: so that I can access it.

[00:42:26] Trevor: But does he get the tick of the cross?

[00:42:28] Catherine: Yes.

[00:42:29] Trevor: Does he have your app logged in?

[00:42:31] Catherine: Yes.

[00:42:33] Trevor: Oh, so you’ve installed the the Market app on his phone with your login.

[00:42:38] Catherine: That’s right.

[00:42:39] Trevor: Okay, so it’s actually not— it’s nothing to do with his phone number, it’s the fact that it’s logged in on his phone.

[00:42:43] Catherine: That’s right. And this is not an ideal way to move forward, but I did that to prove that it was, you know, would work on another phone.

[00:42:57] Trevor: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so Have you uninstalled the app on your phone?

[00:43:03] Catherine: Yeah. Oh, look, I have gone round in circles a thousand times. Wow. The CMC people, you know, they— I’ve got email after email, phone calls. I’ve lodged complaints. I’ve had them escalated. And they’ve got to the point where they’ve just said, look, we’ve done everything we can do because you’ve got the app and the app works.

[00:43:23] Trevor: Yeah, right.

[00:43:24] Catherine: So, but my dilemma is, do I go and buy a new phone? Is it a Samsung issue or do I go to an iPhone?

[00:43:33] Trevor: Well, I mean, if it was a widespread issue, they would know about it. So, yeah, that’s what’s kind of— that’s why I would not suggest at this point that you buy a new phone because that’s— yeah, that’s— I mean, that’s an amazing thing to even suggest to someone that they should need a new phone just for a particular app. So that kind of troubles me to think that that might be the thing to do. It also troubles me that they’ve tried everything and they’ve kind of come up blank.

[00:44:02] Catherine: Well, they, they said to me that I should keep investigating it and I said, well, with your resources and, and staffing, surely you could do it. And they just said, well, there’s too many variables. So I did say, well, I could go to another platform.

[00:44:19] Trevor: Exactly.

[00:44:20] Catherine: But I have to then be sure that, you know, if I move everything over, say, go to ComSec, I’ve got to be able to know that I can use their verification setup.

[00:44:30] Trevor: Well, one, when, when you, when you request this notification, I know that it would normally pop up and give you a pop-up notification, but even if you go into the app, does it have a notifications tab that shows you notifications that you’re pending?

[00:44:47] Catherine: Not on my phone.

[00:44:51] Trevor: I worry that it’s actually— I’m thinking about whether or not it’s sending it to a specific device now, and now it’s actually sending it to your mate and not your phone.

[00:45:04] Catherine: But I never got it.

[00:45:06] Trevor: You’re not going to—

[00:45:07] Catherine: I never got it. And then it was like, well, I’ll, you know, check his phone.

[00:45:11] Trevor: Do you have any friends with an Android phone?

[00:45:14] Catherine: No.

[00:45:15] Trevor: That’s the problem.

[00:45:18] Catherine: That’s an issue, isn’t it?

[00:45:19] Trevor: Yeah, it is. That’s— I just don’t want you to buy a new phone for it not to work.

[00:45:23] Catherine: Well, someone said to me an S21 is pretty old.

[00:45:27] Trevor: No, it’s not that. It’s not that old that this shouldn’t work, I would say to you. And look, I’m the first one to say, hey, there’s a new phone, how cool. But, but if it’s not necessary, then it’s hard to justify. And that’s—

[00:45:39] Catherine: well, yes, for my needs, it’s, it’s up until now.

[00:45:42] Trevor: Also, I just realized that I use a similar platform to you and I just went, oh, I wonder how I log in. And I didn’t have the— I don’t know what phone I’ve got the app on. So I just let the page on my, on my computer wait. And after a while it said, I’ll send a text. And it just sent me the text with a 6-digit code and let me in.

[00:46:02] Catherine: Oh, well, mine was doing that prior to this happening. Every time I would log on with my password, it would send a digit to a text, digit to my phone, which I would enter. Yeah. And that got me to it. And then suddenly one night, I think it might have been a Sunday night, I’ve lost track now. It just didn’t do that. And it said I had to have this push authentication.

[00:46:30] Trevor: Yes, they’ve implemented multi-factor authentication. I know. Yeah.

[00:46:33] Catherine: Yes.

[00:46:34] Trevor: Look, I’ll do a bit of digging, but at this point you have exhausted all avenues and it really does feel like at the very least you need to format that phone and start again. If not, try a new phone. I really, I really feel sorry to say that.

[00:46:46] Catherine: Yes. If I format the phone, that means back to factory settings. Do I lose everything on my phone?

[00:46:54] Trevor: You lose everything. But if you’ve got your photos using Google Photos and your email using Gmail, nothing matters. You’ll get it all back when you, when you log in again.

[00:47:03] Catherine: Okay. No, I also have BigPond.

[00:47:06] Trevor: Yeah, but that’s okay. You can log that in again. That’s fine.

[00:47:09] Catherine: Okay.

[00:47:11] Trevor: It’s, it’s— put it this way, it’s the exact same thing that’s going to happen when you, when you buy a new phone.

[00:47:17] Catherine: Yes, but don’t they transfer everything?

[00:47:19] Trevor: No, I do not want you to do that because that could bring the problem across.

[00:47:22] Catherine: Oh, okay.

[00:47:25] Trevor: So I think factory reset the phone.

[00:47:31] Catherine: Okay, do I lose my phone numbers?

[00:47:33] Trevor: No, your contacts should already be in your Google account.

[00:47:37] Catherine: Okay,

[00:47:38] Trevor: and you can check that by logging on to your Google account on your computer separately, phone, and just go to gmail.com and then look up your contacts.

[00:47:46] Catherine: On, on my Gmail, you’re saying?

[00:47:49] Trevor: Yes, which is the, the account that your phone is signed in as.

[00:47:53] Catherine: Um, but that’s email, isn’t it? What about my phone messages?

[00:47:57] Trevor: Trust me, all of your contacts are listed there as well.

[00:48:00] Catherine: Are they?

[00:48:01] Trevor: Oh, messages you won’t have, but your contacts, the people’s phone numbers, will be there.

[00:48:06] Catherine: All right,

[00:48:07] Trevor: all

[00:48:07] Catherine: right, all right. Okay, well, I’ll, I’ll do that.

[00:48:10] Trevor: No worries.

[00:48:11] Catherine: And if that doesn’t work, um, I’ll just let you know. So if anyone else comes across this issue— yep. Um, and, uh, it might be a new thing.

[00:48:21] Trevor: Just let me know what happens and, uh, which, which way you get sorted either through the factory reset or the new phone.

[00:48:27] Catherine: All right. Okay.

[00:48:27] Trevor: Good on you, Catherine.

[00:48:27] Catherine: Thanks so much, Trevor.

[00:48:30] Trevor: Thanks for getting in touch.

[00:48:31] Catherine: Bye.

[00:48:31] Trevor: Cheers. And if you’ve got a question like Catherine, get in touch. 0477 657 657.

[00:48:38] VOICE OVER: Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

[00:48:47] Trevor: Thank you for listening. Great to have your company this week, and I look forward to joining you again soon. Soon, um, I did want to say, I’m about to watch it myself, um, good friend of the show, uh, Josh Janson, uh, and his old mate Tommy Jacket. Now, long time listeners will know that back in the day they had a podcast called The Daily Talk Show, which I was just— it was a big part of my day. I would literally, you know, have this daily content to listen to, make me feel like I had a couple of mates who were just— I was listening in on every day. Anyway, they stopped doing that after nearly 1,000 episodes. Um, and they work in video production, and they went to America and filmed a documentary. I feel like a year ago, but maybe I’m just following too closely. They’ve finally published that documentary. I have not watched it. It is an hour 16, and I have full confidence that it’s beautifully produced and very, um, non-biased. So just straight down the line, look at Two Aussies. This is the title that you need to search on YouTube. YouTube. Um, you could search for the channel In Guns We Trust, or you could search for the title Two Aussies Try to Understand America’s Gun Culture, In Guns We Trust. So I, I’m going to watch that after this while I eat my lunch before I do an embargoed review for this evening. And I hope it’s great, and I hope you watch it as well. They’re very proud of the number of views they’ve got. They’ve got 56,000 views already. And I hope that gets many, many more because I’ve seen comments already, people saying it’s just, it’s really well done even from a gun owner’s perspective or a gun fan’s perspective. So yeah, I’m going to be really interested to see how it pans out for them. So please give that a look, Two Aussies Try to Understand America’s Gun Culture. Jump into the comments and tell them that you enjoyed it or didn’t, and tell them it was my reference that got you there just so they know where the traffic’s coming from, folks. Right, um, thank you for listening, thank you for downloading. Let’s do it all again real soon.

[00:50:51] VOICE OVER: The EFTM Podcast, thanks to TCL, Brighter Days, Epic Plays.