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The first major electronics announcement event of the year, Samsung Awesome Galaxy Unpacked March 2021 event announced two new phones to the Galaxy line. Ray Sidney-Smith, Augusto Pinaud and Art Gelwicks as we discussed the event and how the smartphones announced will impact your personal productivity and the market.
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In this Cast | Commentary Episode for Samsung Awesome Galaxy Unpacked March 2021 Event
Art Gelwicks
Art Gelwicks, a productivity and collaboration consultant, blogger at theideapump.com, and host of the Being Productive podcast as well as ProductivityCast Podcast.
Headlines & Show Notes | Commentary Episode for Samsung Awesome Galaxy Unpacked March 2021 Event
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Raw Text Transcript | Commentary Episode for Samsung Awesome Galaxy Unpacked March 2021 Event
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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:04
Hello personal productivity enthusiasts and community Welcome to Anything But Idle the productivity news podcast. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith.
Augusto Pinaud 0:12
I am Augusto Pinaud.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:14
Hey there, there I am. How’s it going everybody? We are recording on March 18 2021. And this is Episode 49. We’re doing a commentary episode a special episode in between our normal monthly weekly episodes for the Samsung awesome galaxy unpacked March 2021 event. Each week, of course, we review that and discuss the productivity and technology news headlines of the week. But in between those when the special electronics events happen, we put these special episodes out. And to do that today, we have brought Art Gelwicks Art Gelwicks is a productivity and collaboration consultant. He’s a blogger at the idea pump calm. And he’s host of the being productive podcast, as well as he joins us on weekly, the weekly productivity cast podcast. And so welcome to the show Art.
Art Gelwicks 1:08
Hey, guys.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:10
How’s it going? How are you doing today?
Art Gelwicks 1:12
I’m doing all right.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:14
Good, good. Good. All right.
Art Gelwicks 1:15
Talk about Samsung stuff.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:19
Wonderful. So the Samsung event, while they called it awesome. I think that’s hyperbole. They they did announce the launch of two of their phones within the galaxy line, the a 52 and the a 72. And so what did you let’s let’s start with the event itself. What did you think about the event as a whole? And then we can get into the particulars of the devices that they announced?
Art Gelwicks 1:51
I didn’t actually get it. Go ahead and gousto cuz you got to watch it. I didn’t actually get to watch it.
Augusto Pinaud 1:55
I did. I did. And, and the preparation for the show. You know, Samsung has come on every show they have done in the last year. So really well prepare is fancy. It’s the studio work did all that part was really, really well done. I mean, the show the videos, everything has been, you know, to the standard was Samsung has shown from the first day. I’m so I’m going to stop there. So I don’t need to comment about the awesome part.
Art Gelwicks 2:31
Yeah, okay, somebody in their marketing department, they slipped, and I’ll give him, I’ll give him a pass on that. Because anybody who uses awesome, after, you know, 1993 needs to have, you know, a little mental reset done for them. It’s interesting when you can catch a video from one of the other sources out there, that summarizes the entire event in three minutes. which I found very useful. Because, you know, like most Samsung things, there’s a lot of fluff and air and in the build up to things that and they weren’t releasing a massive number of products in this event. So I’ll kind of give them a pass on that. I mean, honestly, how many people even knew there was an event going on yesterday, so.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:25
So I’ll take the I’ll take the contrary view just for the fun of it. So I think that they did, considering the fact that they were launching really products that aren’t pop, like they’re not not popular, but they’re not also, as you said, Who’s Who even knew that they were doing an unpacked event yesterday for the fact that they had to put on an event, they spent 30 minutes trying to do the best they could with what they were given, you know, whatever marketing department or, you know, their their studio had to put together. And so I think they did a pretty good job of putting on these little vignettes. And these musical pieces and components trying to show I think a younger crowd, that they that they can engage with the phone in this kind of I hate to keep calling it like the new normal, you know, perspective, they’re really trying to show, you know, hey, you can still be together while you’re apart. They tried to show it in different kind of all the features that fit the moment. And I felt that was actually really important and powerful for them to do. I will say that whoever decided to use the word squad. I don’t know if that’s just a generational like a younger generational thing. I don’t know, but I was just like, can you please stop using the word squad? But that was just a bit of a pet peeve issue.
Art Gelwicks 4:52
I just I that’s a whole soapbox for me.
Augusto Pinaud 4:57
The awesome squad Come on
Art Gelwicks 4:58
people now you know You know, I do remember watching that cartoon. It’s just, they’re trying too hard to hit that target audience. But it is in recognition of the target audience for the products that they released here. I mean, let’s keep in mind, these three phones that they released, and there’s actually three because there’s a 5g variant of the first one, are targeted at a sub flagship level audience. Now, when I say sub flagship level, I’m specifically referring to price point. I mean, we’re talking about devices that on the high end are are shooting for roughly about $550. So when you compare that to, you know, a note 21, Alt or a note 20 Ultra, you know, at 15 $100, you’re talking in entirely different world, you’re also not going to see a massive online and a massive, well, you may see more online, but mass media marketing campaign around these devices. And partially, I think it goes to, to the naming of the freakin things, I mean, the galaxy, a 52, the Galaxy A 72, what the heck, it sounds like an airplane. So when we, we look at these devices and their target audience, this event is really only targeted to the media, people who they’re hoping to leverage to get more awareness out. But most people are going to be introduced to these types of devices when they walk into a carrier location, or they walk into a mass retailer, and they have these available as alternatives to the S 20, ones of the world and things like that. So I’ll kind of give them a pass on that. And when you look at some of the design choices they’ve made, you’re right, that it fits with shooting towards that audience, which, honestly, that’s a whole different thing for me physical phone design choices. I’m not sure why so many companies are making these innovative choices when most of them spend their time in the cases anyway, just you know, spend less time worrying around that and more time worrying about the other parts of the phone.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:05
So I’m actually really curious about how many people use their phone without a case, you know, how many people actually walk around without a case on I introduce
Art Gelwicks 7:15
you to my son. And amazingly, amazingly, he has done extremely well, with not having massive damage happened to the phone. I’m terrified of operating my phone without a case. But also, to me, it’s almost like the you know, the the baby gap, part of having a phone, you get to dress it up. So I’ve got a stack of cases, all for different purposes and different configurations. And I’ll swap them back and forth at all. I used to feel bad about that. I don’t anymore. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:52
I like the idea of having different phones for different cases, it’s kind of like watch bands,
Art Gelwicks 7:57
please
Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:58
watch band. And otherwise,
Art Gelwicks 8:00
I give you a precise example. This is a note 20 or 21, whatever old trick, whatever. But this one has a slot on the back or I can put two cards in it. So I can put like my debit card my credit card. So if I’m going to go out someplace, maybe I’m going to go out, take the dog for a walk or something and I don’t want to take my wallet and everything else, I just slipped two things in there slipped my phone in my pocket, I’m out the door. So there is functionality to these kinds of platforms. And I think, to tie this back to what we’re talking about, one of the things that Samsung pushed in their previous event, was the personalization. And I think that’s one of the things that they’re trying to carry through all of their devices is make the device yours. Now, it wasn’t from what I’ve seen, it wasn’t as heavily messaged in this last event, but there’s still an underlying part of it, they did tie it to things like the Samsung or the Samsung things are the the equivalent of their locator smart things. The Smart Yeah, that’s what it is, and the
Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:01
galaxy buds live,
Art Gelwicks 9:03
right, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna see coming in the near future, a new Galaxy watch that’s going to hit if they can figure out what operating system they’re going to run those those types of things. So we’re gonna see that continuation. But again, I think this is a targeted platform for a targeted audience. And we have to recognize something to the US is Apple centric, we get that I can see the gousto I can see, the US is Apple centric. However, the US is only a little tiny part of the overall world. My
Augusto Pinaud 9:39
friend discussion that was never intended is right.
Art Gelwicks 9:42
I understand that. That’s the reason why Samsung is the biggest player in cell phones because they have this distributed market and this. This is where they sell their phones. I mean, we talk about these high end flagships while they’re cool and they had neat functionality. Those wind up being proving platforms for a lot of the tech that winds up in these mid range phones that get in everybody’s hands.
Augusto Pinaud 10:09
Yeah, no, I’m actually to that comment, there’s a couple of things, there was no conversation in the show about the US price. That mean one thing that the phone is launching initially in Europe, not in the United States. Also, it is interesting to me how, as the iPhone obviously is the apple flagship, Samsung has been trying to get closer and closer and closer to Microsoft. Last, we are the Microsoft phone, if you are on a Microsoft environment, use a PC, you want assumption, not any other device. And even the only mentioned, at least that I note on my notes on the show was how easy will be to connect the 50 272. Two, Microsoft OneDrive. That was the only mention of anything outside of the Samson box.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:07
All they had to say Google duo at some point. They did. They did they did but they but they really tried hard not to have to say anything else.
Augusto Pinaud 11:17
And they’re really been pushing to two people to marketing wise to people to associate the Samsung phones with the Microsoft brand as much as as possible. The other thing that was interesting, and I don’t know if this has been available everywhere else, this is the first time I noticed it is that these phones are the first phone that I see that Samson said you can connect more than one Air Bud. So you can bring a Urban’s as friend for this. So we can you can hear in yours. I have seen on the past on Apple and Samsung, that you can share herbal, it’s like I put one and you get another one of mine and we share them. This is the first time on the show on again, could be that it was a feature that I missed on that you can bring another Urban’s as, okay, let me bring my friends are both so they can connect to my phone. So we both can hear in a stereo that was really, really interesting.
Art Gelwicks 12:20
If it’s been available before, I don’t recall seeing it. It’s, it makes sense strategically for a couple of reasons. In my mind, one, if you think back to one of the things that that people used to do when we had headphone jacks, is you had headphone splitters, you’d literally, you know, two people plugged into one phone, or if you didn’t even have that, you just handed them your earbud excuse me, and you sat connected, you know, through a three foot wire, both listening to mineral output from your phones, the ability to hook two sets of air but or galaxy buds or whatever to your phones. makes sense for this audience makes sense for a hate set for a younger audience who you know, has the media sharing, and they enjoy that aspect of it more. So I don’t know that that’s going to be a game changer type of feature. But it’s one it’s the same thing as when they identified that there’s functionality that’s tied to Snapchat.
Augusto Pinaud 13:19
Yeah, but you see for that, for what I understand is the $500 mark, okay, on the phone that is this more younger generations, etc. It is and technologically is really interesting that now you get to the point where I can come and pair my earbuds as friend pair, not as a permanent pair, and I can share that and probably then we’ll be able to switch back to my device. Otherwise, it’s going to be a headache. But that I don’t know that that was it, there was a few things that caught my attention. And on this event,
Art Gelwicks 13:58
whenever I look at a feature set that’s released by a vendor that’s not hardware related, but it’s tied either to an experience or tied to software. I always ask what other devices in this manufacturers line? Would they logically transition this feature to in the future? This is one of those features that I could see it showing up in the s 21 line or the successor to the s 21. I would not see it showing up and things like the notes, the note line just because notes targeted for business. But I could see this carrying forward and the reason why I say that is because there’s the equivalent of air share on the Sam’s excuse me on the samsung lines. That has been available for a little while. I’m sure some people count on it quite a bit. I don’t find reason to to utilize it. But this is again the type of thing that would we see this feature expand within the product line or is it just something to resonate more Mostly with the target audience. Again, I don’t think it’s an earth shaking thing. But it’s a neat idea. I like I like the concept. I like some of the core functions that they’ve returned, they’ve gone back and they’ve said, Yep, we need to put that back in there. And that makes a significant difference at this range. And this type of model, and they and other things that they haven’t really worried about.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 15:24
Yeah, like the idea of having the, the galaxy buds sharing option purely for the fact that when, you know, like, you go on vacation, save like the Samsung tab, you know, the Galaxy Tab, you you are capable of basically extending that feature to something like that. Now you get on the plane, the family, you know, especially if you have teenagers. They both have galaxy buds live, they pop them in, and they can now watch a movie and be quiet for the flight and be entertained long car rides.
Art Gelwicks 15:57
That’s an excellent way to put to look at it, because I hadn’t thought about it, looking at it outside the phone line. But when you take that base functionality that’s available through the buds. And if you open it up, if you’re Samsung, and you say okay, well, maybe we’ll make it so any Bluetooth audio, you can have two Bluetooth audio connected at the same time and broadcast to both. Now we take something like an S seven or an S six light, and we make that functionality available where you have kids with two sets of headphones, or you have two sets of Bluetooth speakers, and you can have stereo output or surround sound. I mean, this is it opens up interesting opportunities. But it also requires them to to have that unified thinking across their platforms, which I think of any manufacturer currently. I think maybe Samsung does that. They they think about how does it How does this work across the board? Google, they’re lucky if they remember they have products. Microsoft? Yeah, hardware is not their gig. So you wind up with companies like Oppo, you are one plus, and you start digging Motorola, they play in the space a little bit, but I don’t think they have that unified concept. So yeah, it’ll be, it’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of it. But again, to me, it’s it’s one of those nice, Oh, that’s cool. And then, you know, four months down the line, you look at it again, go, Oh, that’s cool. And you keep remembering it’s there, but it doesn’t become an integral part of your day.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 17:30
Yeah, I think a younger generation may may see more usage out of this, because they’re in that modality, where they would want to be sharing these things, you know, they’re in school, and they want to be able to, you know, listen to something or share something, but not interrupt the classroom, or if they’re on, you know, I know that we’re currently all, you know, schooling from home and working from home and that kind of thing right now. But we will go back to that environment where, especially in the fall, which is, you know, where this phone is really, you know, lined up to sell for, you know, basically summer into the fall for those students, they’re going to be in environments where they want to be able to share with their friends, but they don’t want to, of course, disturb the environment around them. And I feel like, I mean, I know, personally, I would use that feature. If I had other people who had Bluetooth enabled headsets that were compatible, alright, I’m not going to go out and buy multiple galaxy buds, buds live, just to hand them out like Chiclets to friends, so they can listen along with me. But if they happen to that would actually be really nice. Because then in environments, you could actually do that kind of thing. Or be in an environment where you wanted to wanted to have kind of an exclusive experience. Like, if you were doing a tour, you know, a lot of people in the gig economy are doing these kinds of tours. And it would be really great if you could actually provide like music or little vignettes, or those kinds of things, while you’re on a walking tour. You know, there are lots of different, like creative ways in which this can be used. And of course, I think about this on a small business perspective, you know, small business owners can also now like, say, Come into my retail space, especially if you have to have limited numbers of people coming into a retail space, and now popping your head buds. And I can actually provide you with this immersive retail experience. And you know, for the four or five people in the room, if we can broadcast to that number of people. We’re not, we’re now creating, I don’t know, like the idea of hearing in his earbuds is very different for me than listening to a speaker in an ambient space. And I just really liked that immersive experience. So I see a lot of opportunity here in that and it was one of the one thing in the show that I was like, You know what, that’s really that’s cool. I like that. Right?
Art Gelwicks 19:51
I see possibilities. I don’t get a lot of demand for people who want to listen to Bavarian Beer Hall music with me. So I There is there isn’t that there isn’t a line forming for that. But you’re right there are.
Augusto Pinaud 20:06
I go back and start a marketing campaign aren’t needed from you here.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 20:12
We respect your choice though. All right.
Art Gelwicks 20:14
Do you know what? You know what? Don’t make me get up on the soapbox. So it’s an underserved community. But anyway, this goes back to that proving ground concept that I was talking about with the flagships we see that a lot on the flagships we see, we see that especially in the Google’s Google space, but I think this is also an opportunity where they’re saying, okay, we have this new stuff, these are the newest phones that are coming out, we’re going to try it here and see if it carries forward and other things. Because there’s a low cost to doing these types of opportunities. It’s not like they’re saying, okay, we’re going to take out the headphone jack, where you have all kinds of repercussions. If this succeeds, great, fantastic, if it doesn’t, who noticed. So it’s a good testing platform as well for them to determine whether or not this is this is worth pursuing.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:08
Alright, so I want to cover some of the pieces of the puzzle here. And so the show covered a couple items about the product itself. So it said that they are coming in four colors. Awesome, black, awesome, white, awesome blue, and awesome, violet. And that’s what I got. So basically, a black, white, light blue and light purple versions.
Augusto Pinaud 21:34
The good news is no matter which color you pick is going to be awesome.
Art Gelwicks 21:38
Okay, and maybe this is just me, but the black and white ones I get totally makes sense. I’m not totally sure about the choice of two pastel style colors. And the reason why I say that is when we when we think about this type of an audience it almost Okay, this is going to sound terrible. I’m a guy, the odds are pretty good. I’m not going to buy the violet or the baby blue.
Augusto Pinaud 22:07
True, but true. But the violet I’m baby glue may go well into a junk generation. Yeah, and that’s exactly why black and white.
Art Gelwicks 22:16
Yeah, and I don’t I say that in the same heartbeat that I have the rose gold phone. So you know, go figure. But I just I don’t know, I saw their color choices. And you look at that you get that initial this visceral reaction of like? Yeah, okay. Those are, to me, those are all phones that are going in cases.
Augusto Pinaud 22:39
Well, and that is that is the thing, it is the same thing when on the on the last on when Apple released the apple air they came with this same green, Asian pastel blues and pinkish that, are they they have zero attraction for me Space Gray. That’s my color. And I hope they never stopped producing. That’s the color one. And I don’t want any other but but that’s me, I understand that there is an incredible amount of people excited the fact that their iPad now can be greenish. It’s, you know, my iPad doesn’t go on the case. But the iPhones I agree the iPhones go into the case this something we’ll get into a case faster than before I opened the box, the case should better be next.
Art Gelwicks 23:24
If you go back to the back in yours, LG used to have I want to say it was the LG three, I forget, one of them had an interchangeable back, there was a plastic back that you could pop off and you can change it for different. And they started to manufacture different configurations that you get one that was leather one that was carbon fiber things. Now granted, you can get to the internals when you took that off. But these are the types of phones again, with Samsung’s thinking about personalization. That to me it makes logical sense if they have a thin applique that you can put over to change that design in that interface. Because these are really blank slates to me. I mean, if you look at those phones, if you’re not going to put them in the case, or you’re going to put them in a clear case, the odds are pretty good. You’re gonna put something between the phone and that clear case, you’re gonna have stickers, you’re gonna have decals, you’re gonna have pressed flowers, who knows what, but you’re going to customize it and that to me is what they they counted the fact that they have the colors, but they didn’t tout the fact that the colors were the value. I mean, again, when you look at things like the the high end notes, that color is something that they want you to show off. That’s part of the brand recognition. None of this is branded color for you and not to belabor it anymore, but nobody’s gonna look at this phone from across the room and say, Oh, that’s an A 50 whatever.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:52
I don’t think anyone’s gonna be walking around saying their phone model number with these Galaxy A a series Yeah, they’re just they’re just weird names. And I get it, I get it. I mean, we talk about, you know, Audi’s and BMWs, in their numbered variations also, and we get over it, but I never remember BMW version series models versus Audi version series models as quickly as I can remember, you know, a Ford Mustang. You know, like, there’s just something about having a name that represents something in the real world that I really like about about product naming, but that’s a whole nother ballgame. So, so the a 52. And I don’t know if I’m looking at this, right, I took a screenshot because I was like, this is right. So the A 52 is a 6.5 inch screen. Did anyone see the a 72? screen? Is that is that correct? Okay, so 6.7 inch screen, I’m not sure why
Art Gelwicks 25:54
it is 78. Yeah, the 72 is a six, seven, this the a 52. And the 52, g 5g are both six fives. The difference is the 5g one is 120 hertz screen refresh, whereas just the straight 52 is a 90 hertz refresh, which I think is interesting across the board, because the lowest screen refresh you have on any of these models is 90 hertz. Whereas if you take like the note 21, or the note 20 Ultra, it’s lower screen rush refresh is a 60. It jumps between 60 and a 120. So they’re definitely trying to push into that higher resolution or higher refresh rate. Resolution isn’t over the top, I mean, you’re looking at 2400 by 1080, or OLED screens, which should give you a good battery life and nice display outputs in this class. And you’ll notice if you go back and you watch the presentation, every call out, they added that caveat to every metric, it’s like best screen resolution in this class, best, the fastest unit in this class. And they’re I think they’re just being cognizant of the fact that somebody will go and try and compare this to an S 21. Or they’ll try and compare it to, you know, an apple Pro. And it’s like, No, it’s not. These are Hyundai’s guys. I mean,
Augusto Pinaud 27:16
but but it’s good that they are mentioned in the class. So that way, the comparison people understand you know, the people who may not be technologically savvy, understand the difference between data and and then it’s not only is half the cost, well, it’s also dirt, limitations on that technology.
Art Gelwicks 27:34
It some of their choices on the Configure if your phone stats guy. And that’s how you’re going to make a decision. They’ve made it really hard, because there isn’t a clear stacking in the stats. Like for example, the lowest end and the highest end both have the same processor, the mid range, which I count the 5g one is the mid range has a better processor. Now it’s probably because it’s 5g and it needs it. But still, that makes it hard to make that decision that the storage is similar, you’re talking available in for six or eight gigs storage or RAM capabilities. The the mid range and high end are both six and eight. Onboard capacity 128 or 256 default. I think if I remember correctly, they all said that they would support microSD up to one terabyte of onboard storage, which is not what I’m a huge fan of that. I think it’s totally unrelated on the Android platform. Because if you’re a stream, if you’re a streaming aficionado, almost all streaming services give you the ability to download, you can configure them to download to the microSD save your data download on Wi Fi take it with you and watch it when you want.
Augusto Pinaud 28:56
Yeah, but there was one one thing I saw that was different from das 21. That there’s 21, as far as I understand, don’t have that, that microSD. So that’s not available there. That will make a big, big difference. price wise is better. But now you have the expansion.
Art Gelwicks 29:13
I’m really not happy when I saw that they took that out. Because to me, that’s one of the biggest values of the note I have, for example, I have a 512 gig storage card in it. And I love it. I use it all the time. I use it just so I’m not tying up on board storage, but for some reason they make these decisions.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:35
One of the other things that they touted in the show was the fact that they were IP six, seven rated. Yeah, and that’s really good. So for folks who are who are not aware, when we when we talk about IP ratings, the six has is related to the solid, you know solids basically getting into the protective casing. And then the second number is related to liquids. So six means It’s protected from total dust Ingress, meaning that, you know, you basically have a sealed space for for solids getting in. And then the seven is, you know, second highest in in rating, meaning that you can submerge that phone up to one meter depth in water for short periods of time. So you know, it, that’s really good. I mean, like,
Art Gelwicks 30:22
again, though, thinking about the audience targeted, these are typically very active people, you would think, so you’re going to get a phone in a device. And if you’re going to encourage them to use this as content creators, which was the real big push around the 21, when they brought those out, was targeting content creators, it’s no different here, it’s just, and literally the fact that they’ve included some other features in the mid and the high end. That phone is going to be in an environment where it’s not pristine. So you have to have that. Personally, I don’t know why a manufacturer releases something that doesn’t have at least, you know, a base IP rating anymore. I mean, I wouldn’t, I won’t buy one flat out at all, there’s no there’s no reason. And I’m and I carry around a phone that when you take the stylus out, it’s got a hole in it the size of a pencil. So But still, it has an IP rating. So
Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:17
yeah, and just just knowing that people are going to be potentially misunderstanding this, just be aware that even though it might be IP six, seven, the like, you can’t take this into the ocean because of the salt water, it will go ahead and and corrode the the gaskets, basically the phone is held together with the with glue with adhesive, gaskets, and so just be very, very mindful of the fact that yes, clean clean water. And so and no pressure, it can’t can’t go down further than a meter because then it starts to provide pressure on the phone. And that’s where that IP six eight rating comes in. That is where you can actually put the phone under pressure and it won’t actually break the gaskets you know basically break the seal on those gaskets but I thought that was a pretty good selling point on those phones cuz you know, you’re in the shower, you know, you, you know you’re outside, you drop it in a puddle of water, you can go in every
Art Gelwicks 32:13
day carry around device, it means you don’t have to worry about that aspect of it. And that’s that’s an important thing.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:21
They brought up they brought up gaming. Today battery life with intelligent battery that turns off when you’re sleeping and enhanced.
Art Gelwicks 32:29
I want to see that one’s because we’re talking about batteries that are 4500 milliamp and 5000 milliamp while good. I mean, we’re not talking about massive displays or anything like that. Yeah, two days is really generous. But even so if you can make it a full day, and I didn’t notice if it’s supported, it supports 25 watt wired charging, which helps a lot. I mean, that’s a fast charge then. So you know if you can recharge the phone in 45 minutes. Okay. It’s not that big of a deal.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 33:04
Yeah, five megapixel and 32 megapixel cameras, and they really touted the camera upfront in the show. And
Art Gelwicks 33:12
again, with the audience, I mean, you know, taking pictures of yourself seems to be more important than taking pictures of the rest of the world. But what I did like is the fact that one on the highest end on the 772. I’m going to try and actually use the correct ones. Yeah, it’s the 72 I guess. Yeah, that’s like 272 has an eight, or an eight megapixel, three times optical telephoto on the back. And anybody who’s ever taken any pictures will have any value will tell you that optical is better than digital. The fact that they’ve got a three times optical even though it’s not a fantastic level of zoom, it’s absolutely going to be better than anything that you know, Digital’s going to pull. So that’s a good thing. The other thing that I thought was really interesting too, is that they returned optical image stabilization to the phones, for video recording, which and they do they if you watch the event, they do a very nice demonstration as to how OBS works, that it uses an internal gyroscopic sensor that passes control codes to the processor, which then moves to a tiny little motor mechanism that moves the camera to rebalance it to make sure that things are stabilized. If you’ve ever shot video with Oh is and then shot video without it, you’ll want to go back to is there’s a point where you can get Oh is to where it’s like having it on a gimbal where there’s complete stability. And I don’t know how good do is is and this phone or these phones, but it’s got to be better than not having it at all. So I was very happy to see them returning that capability. They’ve got NFC, which I think yeah To huge well, and here’s the thing is I think we’re going to find that the phones that do not have NFC are going to become fewer and fewer and fewer. And the reason being is because we’re now in this environment of contactless payment, that infrastructure is getting pushed out faster because of things like COVID. And specifically because of COVID, that it will then be present many of the places that were dragging their feet around providing contactless payment and NFC recognition of phone based payment, now have it. I mean, I found that the other day at my Costco that didn’t have it for the longest time, and now they have, they still make a mess out of it, because you still got to punch in your PIN code. Come on, guys step it up. But the basic functionality is going to be there. So I’m glad to see that that’s established. Now they did take away a really nice Samsung feature that used to be available. I don’t know if they took it away just in these phones or prior to it, but it’s gone away. There used to be a way with Samsung phones that you could actually use NFC or contactless payments with a card reader that did not have contactless payments on it, it actually used a magnetic induction.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:14
Samsung Pay. Yeah,
Art Gelwicks 36:16
it’s going away. It was a neat technology. But I guess it’s just unsupported.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:22
Yeah, well, I think it’s because of the EMP compliance, the chip compliance that has been coming down the pike. The reality is, is that a magnetic card reader means that you have less security and with the chip, actually, that that key that security key built into the chip just couldn’t be complied with. And so they decided that it was the the long term viability of the technology was going to it was it was a good stop gap and absolute now that Now that everything’s catching up more, I
Art Gelwicks 36:51
think that’s probably okay. They do have the in display fingerprint sensor, which I am a not a fan of, I’ll be honest. It’s, it works. It doesn’t work, as well as the ones that I found, like on the back and the Google ones No. And honestly, don’t even get me started with in screen fingerprint readers and screen protectors, oh, my goodness,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 37:16
you have to get really high quality ones.
Art Gelwicks 37:18
Well, here, okay, here comes my soapbox, I got one, I put it on my phone. And I looked at my screen. And I’m like, What the heck is that there’s a circle, right in the middle of the screen protector, that’s a different type of material to allow the fingerprint scanner to work. But it’s there all the time. It’s like somebody has attached a bingo chip to the middle of my screen. I’m like, this is not going to fly. So yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things that I have had more issues with it. Matter of fact, I know somebody who’s actually not going to get a Samsung, they’re going back to the pixel line, just because the pixel has the, the fingerprint reader on the back. And he has more reliability with it. I
Raymond Sidney-Smith 38:03
I also like the idea that with a case on you know, like I have a pixel and so this is just under like, it’s, it’s, it’s underneath when you put a case on it. And so you know, when you’re going to click on and unlock it because your your fingers going into that little reservoir that dip in it. And and so I found the the fingerprint reader to be incredibly useful. The only time I’m annoyed by it is the fact that if it’s laying flat on the surface, I need to I need to basically lift the phone in order to be able to unlock it. However, however, when it’s laying flat, I have it turned on these, the the feature turned on to just doubletap the screen to turn on the display. And since it’s paired to my my phone as a as a trusted device, I’m I’m not in that situation very often, because I just double tap on the screen swipe up, and it’s unlocked. But it is a little you know, that is the one limitation
Art Gelwicks 38:58
there is there is definitely a plus to having the sensor at the front. I mean, I, my previous note was a note eight where they actually put the sensor right next to the camera flash in the camera, the worst placement for a fingerprint scanner ever designed. Because all I had was fingerprints on my camera, every time it it would tell me you should clean your camera lens. And I would turn around like you want to know why. But you know it and I didn’t agree on that particular aspect of it. Now, that being said, though, you’re right. Not having to pick up the phone to unlock it to me is a bigger factor. Because of the I use LastPass Yes, I still pay for LastPass Yeah, apparently that’s not a thing we want to do anymore, but I’m doing it so deal with it people
Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:45
Oh yeah, I do. I do. Also I think it’s well worth the money.
Art Gelwicks 39:48
But I use the on the front fingerprint scanner all the time. That’s how I unlock things. That’s how I authenticate things. And in this particular case, a specific Use Case because of holding the stylus, what I can do is I can hold the stylus out of the way. And I’ve actually encoded one of my other fingers instead of my thumb that I can press and unlock, while I’m still holding the stylus. But again, so weird use case. That being said, the fact that they have the fingerprint scanner, and they recognize that it needs to be there. I think it’s fine. I mean, it’ll be what it is.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:23
Yeah, I tell everybody to do your do the six fingers. You know, when you when you’re setting up your fingerprint, scanner, fingerprint, fingerprint security, because, you know, there’s gonna be times when your fingers are dirty, you know, like, you just dipped your thumb and chocolate, you know, because you’re eating chocolate. And you want to be able to use another finger, let’s clean. I
Art Gelwicks 40:43
think it only supports four fingers, though. If I remember correctly, I could be wrong. But I don’t
Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:49
I don’t know how many. I mean, I have multiple fingers on each. Yeah, I
Art Gelwicks 40:52
do, too. I have four. But we all have five on each most, at least most of us. So we work from there.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:59
I don’t know, I have to look. But I pretty much. I think it’s I think it allows up to the number that I have, which is six. Okay, but we could see. Also, they of course brought up the fact that you have 100 odd games available through the Xbox game pass ultimate. So they connect to the Microsoft platform there, they touted Samsung Knox. But the two pieces that I wanted to, before we close out just cover is that they guaranteed three generations of operating system updates. And they also set a minimum of four years of security updates, which I think is just you know, it’s becoming kind of industry standard to have three generations or three years of operating systems, which is different. But you know, three generations of operating systems are really good. I think it should be more, but that’s for governments to legislate. And then four years of security updates, I think is also a pretty good industry standard. Now,
Art Gelwicks 41:56
well, let’s clarify the security updates a little bit because I did read an article earlier in the week that it’s not truly four years at the same pace. So for example, the first and second year, I believe you get monthly updates. The third year, you get quarterly and then the fourth year, you get two updates. every six months, you get updates, and then you’re done. Which is better than nothing, by far. But still during that last year period, you’re looking at a six month gap between your security updates. I’m okay with the operating system updates being slower or not happening, I get it, there’s a point where you just you know, three years is fantastic for operating system updates, I’m totally sold with it. That to me convinces me to get a device that I know that I can go through an entire plan with a carrier and be ready to get rid of it and know that I’ve got the most current operating system at the end of that period. Security To me, that’s one that they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t skimp on they should just every month, you know, it’s advice, just keep sending it out, just keep sending it out. And then at the end of the four years, say, Alright, you’re done, go buy a new phone,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 43:07
I’m in complete agreement, I think they should be providing security updates, and should be required to, you know, across the board, all of their devices provide monthly security updates. I think it’s it’s foolish for them to think that people getting hacked is somehow a competitive advantage to have the folks who are who have older devices who basically are loyal customers, because they’ve kept their phone and are using it and and are going to allow them to be susceptible to these things, withstanding the fact that we know how often new security issues crop up across all the operating systems. You know, last week or the week before that we reported the the the ability to basically hack every iPhone prior to, you know, 14.3, right. But, you know, a couple weeks before that major, you know, holes in the Android operating system, you know, so like, we just keep seeing all of these crop up. And it’s not because either operating system is bad. It’s just because hackers are out there doing one good hackers, ethical hackers are doing some really sophisticated research. And some really bad actors are very, very talented at being able phones. And they’re coming up with these sophisticated hacks. And so we need to have these things in place for us to do that. I wanted to switch gears just ever so briefly to really the end result, which is for our audience, in terms of being a productivity driver. Where does this fit into your ecosystem, if at all, and go for art?
Art Gelwicks 44:44
Well, these are the types of devices that I think are good logical extensions of existing systems. So for example, if you’re an Evernote user or a OneNote, user or anything like that, these are these are tools that will work well with those systems, you’re not going to overpay to be able to carry that information forward, you’re not going to overpay to be able to take screenshots and scan documents and capture them into your systems. They are broad enough platforms and powerful enough platforms to last you for quite some time. I mean, just looking at the mid range and the high end, it’s especially since the mid range supports 5g. Granted, it’s it’s a sub six, 5g, but that’s still highly acceptable. I think these could be very useful complimentary tools that said, their phones, I mean, this is this is as close to just, you know, standard phone as you’re going to get. So from a productivity standpoint, I wouldn’t be hesitant to incorporate either one of these into my processes and my solutions. There’s just the capabilities are there, they’re going to support the functionality you need. They may not be top of the line, they’re not going to do things like you know, natural handwriting capture and things like that. But they’re going to do everything else that you’re probably going to ask but
Augusto Pinaud 46:11
Yeah, I agree with you, they say it’s basic, you need to remember this is a basic phone from, but from the productivity time point of view, this will be a completely capable device, I probably will not recommend it to somebody which this device will be their main device. If this is going to be your main device, I will probably tell you go for something more powerful. But if this is an auxiliary device, to your Mac to your PC to or you have other devices, this will be a completely capable and fully functional device.
Art Gelwicks 46:46
Yeah, at this price point, you could go and buy this phone, and then go buy like an S six, tab light with stylus for less than what you would pay for an S 21. So you’re going to have an expansion of the platform capability, you’re going to have literally two tools available to you, you’ll still have decks available to you. And you’re going to get equivalent, if not superior productivity capabilities. So it’s it’s a very viable option in my mind. I mean, until we see all the testing and everything and see if they don’t have any fatal flaws. But right now, yeah, I would not hesitate.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:30
My take on this is that there are a lot of features in here caked in for social components. And if you just get rid of that stuff, if you can blood, let that system to get rid of all of that. It’s not junk, because it’s it’s there, these are useful social features. But if you take that stuff off the system, I think that like fun mode, for example, while productivity can be fun, I think fun mode completely, just getting rid of that office system, that’s a that’s a productivity driver, if you can get deactivate some of those pieces in the back end of the Android operating system to get you kind of a baseline on it, then I think the 6.5 inch, a 50 to five G is actually a really good device, notwithstanding the the lower end processor didn’t have the higher end processor or Jo, it has the highest. Yeah, it had the higher.
Art Gelwicks 48:23
And I think that’s because of the 5g in it. I mean, it needs that processor, because it needs the 5g 5g modem capabilities. I think also, when you look at a 5g device, you’re going to be asking it to do things such as streaming gaming. And you and you need that horsepower to be able to have that maximum experience.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 48:43
Yeah, so I didn’t like the fact that the eight a 52, five g had the smaller screen, but I think because it had the higher processor, that’s the one I would go with plus, it’ll age into the 5g network. To be quite honest, I did not expect I mean, you know, all throughout last year into this year, all I heard was people saying, Well, you know, hold off on the 5g hold off on the 5g, and I got the 5g variant on my my news pixel five. And I’m surprised that I can already get 5g connectivity in many of the places that I go, which is currently nowhere, but will be somewhere soon. And so you know, having
Augusto Pinaud 49:20
room on the roof of Yes,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 49:23
not. Right. Exactly, exactly. And so I’m actually I’m actually pleased by that. You need to make sure that you whoever, whichever carrier you’re using, whether or not you have 5g capability, but growing into it because it seems like all the carriers are really scaling out 5g much faster than I had actually anticipated. I mean, you know the fact that T Mobile is now lighting up the entire country with their purchase of sprint, and seeing Verizon and at&t really push hard to get even with Bryson’s ultra wideband version. They’ve gotten that in a lot more places than I thought they would much faster than then they have So they’re scaling pretty quickly, which means that 5g will be available to us faster than we thought. And so I’m really, I’m pleased. I mean, it should have been how 4g LTE was rolled out, you know, that was a long time coming. So seeing 5g rollout a little faster
Art Gelwicks 50:17
is good. And I think this is another one of those circumstances where we’re seeing this and I hate the phrase paradigm shift, but it is truly that of people having to work from home the the increased load on home based bandwidth, the copper based and the coaxial based solutions, and even the fiber based solutions can only do so much because they have physical infrastructure that has to go in place, you can deploy wireless infrastructure so much faster. And now 5g is playing in a bandwidth level that makes them a viable competition. I mean, I can I can considerably say that. If you have good clean 5g, you can outrun standard home home based internet. Well, now that makes at&t a player where they’ve fumbled it numerous times, it makes T Mobile a player where they’ve never really made any inroads. So I’m a big fan of competition in the marketplace, I think this is an excellent way to introduce that competition. The technology has to push that I’m not saying go buy a 5g phone, because you’re going to get that benefit right now. Because you’re absolutely right. It all depends on whether or not the towers are set up properly around you. But the fact that you have that, as part of your base moving forward, will only work to your advantage. And at this price point, I think, I think this is where we’ll start to see this more commonly integrated in, I mean, going and buying a 21 just to make sure you’ve got 5g capability. Okay, I mean, the the note I have has 5g capability, but I think I’ve only seen it once. And that’s just because of the area I’m in.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:02
Right, it’s all going to be geographically situated. And you know, when you move from home to somewhere else, it can be very different. And so it depends on where you go regularly that you need access to that stuff. All right, we think I think we have doubled the length of the actual event. They need
Art Gelwicks 52:19
to hire us to do it because we could
Augusto Pinaud 52:22
say our event was a lot more awesome and a lot more compelling than what I saw on the other one.
Art Gelwicks 52:27
It was a it was a low bar to reach.
Augusto Pinaud 52:32
I think it anyways
Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:34
yeah. All right. All right, gentlemen.
Art Gelwicks 52:36
Sam’s gonna have me back for the apple event so I can make fun of apple. Oh, come on. They’re happy has to be equity here man.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:46
We should have we should have you on with Michael Sliwinski so we can watch you guys log it out.
Art Gelwicks 52:53
Bring it on.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:55
I think I think it gousto enjoys the the apple love when when the apple event is going on so so I allow him to make I allow him to make the the Microsoft and Android pot shots when he when he talks about these things. But you know, it’s fine. It’s fine. We let it go. Alright, well, Art thank you so much for joining us here on Anything But Idle. How can folks keep up to date with you and the work you’re doing out there?
Art Gelwicks 53:22
Best way just come over and visit me at the idea pump or look for me on twitter at Art Gelwicks
Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:27
so at Art Gelwicks and then the idea pump calm. Thanks so much Art for joining us as always,
Art Gelwicks 53:33
anytime guys.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:36
Already gousto we have reached the top of our time together on this Anything But Idle. Thanks so much for everything that you do to make Anything But Idle happen.
Augusto Pinaud 53:47
Thank you very much and see you next time.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:51
All right, everybody. We are at the end of our show. If we missed something in our coverage of the Samsung event Feel free to drop us a message on our contact page at Anything But Idle comm You can also tweet or dm us on Twitter at Anything But Idle. And so our DMS are open you can go ahead and message us there. If If comment or question about this particular show. You can also leave a comment on the episode page. This is Episode 49. If you go to Anything But Idle comm forward slash 049 you’ll be able to go ahead and find the comment page of comment section at the bottom of the episode and go ahead and leave us a message there on the episode page you’ll find show notes. So we’ll have links to the stories we’ll also embed the actual live events so you can watch it if you’d like to. We also include a text transcript, and that text transcript is actually embedded in the episode so you can go ahead and click the Read More link it’ll open up and you can read that while listening and you can also download as a PDF for you know if you wanted to print it or put it on your tablet and read along that kind of thing. So those are available to you don’t don’t forget about those. And of course if this is your first time watching, please subscribe to the YouTube channel or Facebook page or whatever you’re watching on. So you get notified for future shows we go live weekly on Mondays at 6pm. Eastern. And then otherwise if you’re listening to the podcast, you can go ahead and subscribe in your podcast feed as well. Note that the podcast feeds and things are kind of changing language but Subscribe and follow are the same thing. And all it means is that you’re going to be able to connect to us for free, but just it’ll go ahead and notify you or download Episodes New Episodes when they come out going forward. But if you go to Anything But idle.com click on that follow up, you know button on the page. It’ll give you instructions on how to subscribe or follow us and get those episodes downloaded. Free every week. Okay, otherwise with that we’ll see you all next time on Anything But Idle Here’s your productive life.
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Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.