Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event August 2021 Commentary Episode

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:00
Hello personal productivity enthusiasts and community Welcome to Anything But Idle, the productivity news podcast. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith.

Augusto Pinaud 0:07
I’m Augusto Pinaud.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:09
And we’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is Episode 74. The commentary episode, our special commentary episode on the Samsung Galaxy unpacked August the 11th event, and we’re recording this on August 12 2021. Of course each week, we read and review and discuss the productivity and related technology news headlines of the week. But when major productivity and related technology if that’s happened, of course, we bring you these special commentary episodes to give you the latest on what’s happening. And so today, we’ve brought you brought a special guest to do our special commentary episode. And we have Art Gelwicks Art Gelwicks is a productivity and collaboration consultant. He’s a blogger at the idea pump.com and host of the being productive podcast, cross Platform Podcast, of course, he joins the gousto myself and Francis Wade each week on ProductivityCast. Welcome to Anything But Idle art. Hey, guys,

Art Gelwicks 1:03
if they keep doing these unpack things, I’m just going to have you introduce me as Mr. Samsung. We’ll just go with that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:12
Yes, so we had an a packed unpacked event yesterday. And let’s get started with the show. Augusto, what did you think about the show in terms of its production value and your overall impression? And we’ll go from there,

Augusto Pinaud 1:29
you know, I’ve been saying on the last shows that Samsung has been grabbing the apple playbook and copying it. And I will say on this one, maybe even improve it in the sense that they are not secretive. I mean, there was nothing that came on the show that we’re saying who Wow, we did not expect this one. No, not really. We knew almost every detail. But they came organize. They came with message, the clear message they wanted to send for product that people at least the geeks had already chance to look and to think and to read. So that also allow people to be more focused on the message they’re giving instead of trying to go do it have no you already knew everything that it had. So now you can listen to their message. So I think they’re doing really good in there. It’s been was a great show. It wasn’t too long. Not everything fit in the show. But I think the three main parts were really clear. Now we’re going to talk about the phone. And the phones were incredible. Now we’re going to talk about everything really clear, except the airboats as we said in the pre show, but though they are Blitz, but everything else is really sim clear with the message. I really enjoyed the show.

Art Gelwicks 2:52
Yeah, I agree with you completely. It’s nice to see them taking advantage of the fact and you can argue this one way or the other intentionally leaking a lot of the the specs and the things that the Technorati want to hear, beforehand, so that when they get into it, they’re not spending time talking about five nanometer chips and things like that. That’s all you know, inside baseball type of stuff, but to really spend as much time as they did, digging into the three real points of focus around the three products and, and that was one of the key takeaways I had is that they did not overlap their messaging across the three products. Each one has a very clearly targeted purpose, and a targeted audience for it. And the audience may use two or three of the devices, no question there. They did touch on the ecosystem as they get towards the end of the presentation. But just the fact that they were very clear around why they were doing what they were doing, I think came across very well there. There was one like musical number in there that I’m like, okay, that must have been thought up like really late at night on a couple of glasses of Saki because I don’t know what that was. But the rest of it was really good. So

Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:09
I enjoyed also the diversity of people that they put in front of the audience. This time I felt like everybody who was on screen had a command not only of the products they were talking about but were also the I felt like the right people at the time for presenting those those pieces of materials. So I felt that was really interesting as well. Okay, so they started off the show. What I think was was their their primary effort, which was the galaxy watch, What number are we up for?

Art Gelwicks 4:41
Number four,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:42
so I got it right so the galaxy watch for what did you What did you think about their partnership with Google and the warehouse and where they are going with the watch for

Art Gelwicks 4:53
I was a little bit surprised right away that that’s what they led with was the the watch But then again, that’s been one of the most talked about things. I mean, the fold and the flip have been out for a couple years now, The watch has been out, but not in this format, not in this design, not with these internals and not with this operating system. So it was getting a lot of chatter. But right away, they didn’t bother with it can do these apps, it’s going to be where oh s, they mentioned that we know they’re working with Google, it was deep on fitness deep on health, immediately talking about things like oh, two sensors and blood pressure, and viia and all of the different capabilities and design choices that they had made, for example, around redesigning the strap to pull the sensor closer to your arm, and doing the engineering breakouts to show you how that they how they changed the internals of the watch to make it more reliable for health, which is very different than what galaxy did or Samsung did with their galaxy line prior to the actives for quite a long time because they were supposed to be productivity watches, they were add ons, they were many phones. But now it’s all in on the health aspect of it, which I think is great. digging into the device itself. I think they’ve got a winner on their hands.

Augusto Pinaud 6:21
You know, how they learned from the from the past, you know, I was researching for the show I I learned that was one of the one of the galaxy trees, I don’t remember which one had the ability to do blood pressure, but was never released in the United States because they didn’t proceed to get the FDA approval or FDA approval one of the two things. And I held with this one, they really do so they can send that strong message that hey, we are here. The thing that surprised me with the watch was they dropped iOS, as far as mentions and the research I did. They now So no, we’re going to stay compatible with Android. And if you want it compatible with your iPhone, Fine, go buy an Apple Watch. That was really interesting to me. Well, they drove away.

Art Gelwicks 7:10
I don’t I don’t know that they’ve cut it off. I mean, everything that I’ve been looking at so far is it still supports the basic functionalities, message notifications and that sort. But there’s always been an assumption and everyone that I know of my son in law has a galaxy watch and an iPhone, there is some compatibility between the two. But it’s not intending to be an Apple Watch, that by no stretch of the imagination. This is something that is designed to be the equivalent in this ecosystem, or in this case, almost superior to the current model structure. The design changes that they’ve made internal from an engineering standpoint are significant. They’ve gone from a 28 nanometer chip and the original designs to a five nanometer chip. That’s a huge performance and power savings. They’re talking about being able to have a 40 hour battery life on this watch. Well, that to me is epic. If I if I get 15 to 20 hours out of my watch, I’m just ecstatic. And that’s out of ties and watch which was optimized for that. They were Oh s watches, you’re lucky if you got 10 hours in most cases, we could be looking at their separate chips for the always on display, we could be looking at legitimately having always on display on the watches. without significant battery drain, it sounds minor, it’s something you would expect from a watch. But you’re absolutely right. It’s not minor, it’s a big hurdle to cover. So when we look at the design of these watches, the visual appearance, I like the fact that they have the active design, which is the continuous class front, or they have the classic design that has the rotating bezel. I think the rotating bezel is distinctive enough and usable enough that it made sense to keep it. But changes to the as I said to the band structure into the configuration, the memory storage, it’s got 1.5 mega RAM, and I think it’s 16 Giga storage on board, which is crazy on a watch. But if we think about their purpose, being able to pull down a Spotify playlist, download it to the watch and be able to take it with you to be able to use apps that are written in were written for wearos you have to be able to learn them. And if you go back to previous conversations we’ve had about Google pushing their developers to develop in multiple platforms, giving them actually a discount on the profit margin that Google takes out of the Play Store, going from 30% down to 15%. If you develop on multiple platforms, well if I’m writing an app, and now I can write it in a way that part of it works on a watch. That’s going to put me into that class and get more money. It makes it better for me or for Google, but it also makes it more for Samsung, because Samsung says, hey are watching us more and more now. So I did not hear anything in the presentation that turned me off about the device, or said, Oh, yeah, that’s they’re selling me a bill of goods. All of it sounded good across the foot. And I’ll admit, the next day, I pre ordered one. So I have one coming the end of August. I’ve had a frontier for three, four years, and it has served me well. But Samsung has a fantastic trade in program right now for their old watches. And I just I couldn’t walk away from it. Where will this be successful or fail, it’ll be dependent on how good the health capabilities truly are. Because we’re gonna see updates in the Samsung health application, but will also be dependent on how much the App Store increases for functionality and capabilities to the device. When we see more and more things expanding into the device itself. and support of it that I think is really going to be the differentiating factor. Will this become the next Apple Watch, no pun intended, but

Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:06
only time will tell I’m really I’m really looking forward to the active version. I think that’s the right one for me. And I’m just waiting, I’m going to give October I’ll give I’ll give it to October for Google to not announced the pixel watch. And then and then I’ll probably buy the galaxy watch for active series. I think that’s the that that one just matches what I currently have in terms of aesthetic and everything else like that. I do like the fact that it has an LTE option, and just being able to untether and go. And while I’m not, I’m not turned off by the idea or turned on by the idea of having music on the go in a in a mobile sends, like downloading to my office on the fly, it’s still is kind of nice to have the option to be able to make and receive a phone call. If I go on a run, you know, give give a family member a call. And I don’t mind having a conversation kind of you know them hearing me kind of run and having a conversation and catching up. It’s good use of my time. I don’t see myself, you know, being like, Oh, I want to listen to Spotify while I’m running. I totally understand why others would. But I would download the music beforehand. That’s just my nature. So but i think i think this is I think based on the specs based on pricing, everything that I looked at, this seems like the right watch at the right time. And and I’m looking forward to playing around with it. So

Art Gelwicks 12:32
we’ll see. I have very high hopes for it, especially around the health aspects of it. They focused heavily on the sleep tracking capability, which I’m in a very avid user of the sleep tracking on my watch currently. Plus, I’m very interested in this big a and I forget exactly what that means. But it’s the body mapping for body composition mapping, basically, it’s much more accurate than other things we can you can get scales that have that capability, too. I like that idea. I like that approach. It’s a good way to self monitor. So well. Like I said, I didn’t hear any negatives. So

Augusto Pinaud 13:10
it’s not my excitement, my excitement was how much they push into health because really this thing to watch doesn’t matter. If you’re thinking about the weird they were last year talking about the Apple Watch. They have come from Venus, we don’t know, to really be an incredible health companion. And I think this push will push both, you know, as the tide goes up, every boat in the in the ocean will go up as Samsung gets pushing and pushing and pushing, Apple will need to push. And I think that’s exciting because honestly, the last release I mealing. Okay, but nothing really magical because there is no need for something magical. Because there is no they’re watching the market unfold now. So I am excited about it.

Art Gelwicks 14:00
I The other thing that I think will, will drive this is I’m praying that Samsung and Google finally merge or make much more compatible. Samsung health and Google Fit. Getting data between the two, sharing the data and working with the applications has always been a painful process. I’m hoping this gets us over that hurdle. And they work to common ground with that. And we can really start to reap the benefits of it. There was a lot of applications they showed in the product logo shots as to what’s going to be available for it. And a lot of those applications are ones I’ll admit that I use or have wanted to use and not been thrilled about their implementation on the watch. So I’m hoping to see that that improve. So watch to me, I’d give him an A minus right now.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:46
So that’s the bioelectrical impedance analysis is a cadence impedance analysis is what you were talking about in terms of bi and let’s spend good amount of time kind of explaining it and why it was important and that kind of thing. And I really like the group challenge and I didn’t Notice, did the group challenge require everybody in the family to have? I don’t know, okay, okay, I have a Samsung watch, because that was my thing I was like, that would be great, I would love to do that with my, you know, there’s, there’s a litter of us, so thorough, I have a lot of siblings. So it would be great to be able to, you know, incur, I want to encourage them, I, you know, there’s nothing, nothing that I want to do in terms of, you know, being negative toward them about their health, I want to just, you know, just improve and, and provide positive reinforcement. And I would love to do something like a group challenge with the family. But if everybody has to have a Samsung, you know, devices, then it’s just really not gonna happen. Well,

Art Gelwicks 15:37
what we may see though, and this is a cross platform type of thing, we may see developers write apps that are easier to write now, because of where iOS and the Google support for the development side, and also write it on the apple side for the Apple Watch, that can communicate across in the cloud. So then, theoretically, you could do those kinds of together competitive things, something like a map, my run type of application, that would work much better on this improved Android platform, work with the apple one, and then you could coordinate together. I don’t think we’re far from that I think developers will be very behooved to do that, because that’s where they’ll see the maximum return on their development investment.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:18
Yeah. And and just to your point about the, the, the, what was it, I lost my train of thought you were talking about earlier? Come back to me as soon as we’re recording, so alright, so I rarely have a point. So Oh, no, there was something on the tip of my tongue there. And it just, it just lost it. So final thoughts regarding the galaxy watch for and anything else there.

Art Gelwicks 16:48
Like I said, I’m gonna hold my judgment until September 2, after I’ve got the thing in my hand for a couple days, I will throw out one thing, though I did mention about their trading. Samsung is being very aggressive about this right now. So if you do have an Apple Watch, and you’re thinking about switching over, or if you’ve got a Samsung watch already, go to the Samsung site, look at the pre order process, I was able to get the entire thing down to 279. For the high end, classic model stainless steel, the only thing it didn’t have was LTE. So and that was with a significant trading on the watch. So they’re very aggressive about getting this device out there currently. And I think it’s a good opportunity to take advantage of it.

Augusto Pinaud 17:32
And we will put a link on the notes on the show. So if you if you are interested in that, you can certainly look at the show notes.

Art Gelwicks 17:40
Yeah. And I’ll be curious to see what Apple does next time. Because Finally we may have, we may have a fight Finally, it will be nice to finally have some true competition back in this space.

Augusto Pinaud 17:49
No, again, I think that’s the most exciting part for me about the episode I will I will buy a Samsung watch. Most likely not. But the fact that our device is coming that I’m getting excited about it means that he gives me the hope that Apple now will look at this and say, oh, okay, we need to do something about it. Instead of what we have been doing that is like okay, well, we are going to just put another one. I have not been upgrading mine because there is nothing that hey, they have come feature wise. I said okay, one to have that.

Art Gelwicks 18:22
Yeah, yeah. So if Apple wants to impress me their next one bit, are there one more thing on their watch should be that it has a headphone jack

Raymond Sidney-Smith 18:32
35 millimeter, not not, not lightning. So so. So we will go from the watch for announcements. And then oddly, they go to an opening with tm ro the CEO of Samsung, introducing any notable items, tidbits that you picked up from the his opening there. And then we’ll go into the into the zip, the Z fold and z flip.

Art Gelwicks 18:58
It wasn’t it was the normal messaging that I’ve always gotten from it. I honestly didn’t pay that close attention to that transition piece. Because I was still soaking up some of the watch piece itself. But it’s one of those things I like the way he sets up each of the sections. Because so many of the other companies, when they do their rollouts, their CEOs, the high end execs will be out there and they just belabor the point. Tim rose seems to tee the ball up, he hands the driver to the next person and he steps off really quick. I mean, he’s only on there for a few minutes. And then the next person really picks up and goes with it. So there wasn’t anything special in the messaging, but I don’t think it broke up anything as to the delivery of the overall presentation.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:41
Yeah, I didn’t read anything into his language other than the fact that he wanted to make sure people understood the Samsung message. And that was this, you know, if you’re in the Samsung family of products that you’re going to have a seamless experience and that they are working on innovation every day. And of course, go ahead,

Art Gelwicks 19:59
no, no, go ahead. Because I was gonna say that was the first time that they started to dance around the idea of ecosystem. They got all the way to the end of the presentation before I ever heard the word ecosystem. But right. During his interlude, he was setting the stage of, yeah, these are all individual products. But they’re all better together. Yeah. Which I think we’re going to hear from now on. I think Samsung has finally turned that corner and said, You know what, just get all our stuff. Life will be happy. But it

Augusto Pinaud 20:32
but honestly, as an apple user, that’s the first time that I will, if I will consider ever leaving the iPad ecosystem Apple ecosystem. I will go for a Samsung, I will buy the Samsung laptop, the phone, the tablet, because I will get what I liked the most about my apple ecosystem that is that I can copy on this iPad and paste on that mic over there.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 20:56
So yeah, so we go from that to then the announcement of the Z flip. Three.

Art Gelwicks 21:04
And was it the flipper the fold first,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:07
I thought that we did that. We did the full okay. We did the fold. So we went to this. This is the fold, we’re talking a 6.2 inch cover screen. And then it opens up to having this 7.6 inch screen that basically has been folded in half and then opens up to a full size 7.6 inch screen. What did you think about the galaxy fold three, which is 5g. By the way, it’s 5g and Wi Fi 60?

Art Gelwicks 21:35
Well, the advantages is that we’ve seen Samsung’s folded phone before. So that wasn’t like a kind of thing. We wanted to see how they fixed the problems that it had and had some things that jumped out at me right away, before you even unfolded that 6.2 inch wide screen is narrow. It’s actually a fairly narrow device, tall, but narrow, which means you could literally use it one handed for most people, which I thought was very interesting, because I was having a hard time identifying any other products in their line, that are at that price range that provide you that capability. Now, that being said, it’s also thick, because it’s a doubled up screen. But it still has that nice capability of being able to, to work with it running around. The second part that I thought was interesting is when they actually opened it up, it did look smooth, it did have that feel, yes, you could see in some shots, there’s still a crease, I think we will always have a crease for for a number of years to come until the screen technology catches up. What fascinated me was the amount of time they took to explain how they got a pen to work with a screen that had that crease in it. And that, honestly, that’s not something that really occurred to me, it’s like, okay, yeah, now that you mentioned it, that would be a pain in the neck. And they talked about how instead of having one large digitizer under the screen, they actually have to, and they’ve changed the algorithms to be able to work with the two sides. They also spend an exceptional amount of time talking about how they change the pen itself. I’ve been an S Pen user for years, with all the note devices I’ve had and use it on a Chromebook and on tablets. And they’ve changed the S Pen to now have a softer tip. There’s a spring in it to absorb shock, so it doesn’t dent into the screen things that you initially look at and go. Okay, that’s nice. But is it? Is it necessary? As someone who has used soft plastic screen protectors? On my note, I will tell you, yes, it absolutely is necessary, because there’s nothing more distracting to have him than having handwriting marks that stay in a soft screen. And that those screens are still soft. I mean, it’s not like it’s hard plastic or glass. I mean, they’re still some give to it because it’s flex but from a layout wise from position wise, I liked when they opened it up, you saw them using it, the keyboard and the split configuration and the typing. But their focus on not only the quality of the large display, and using that it’s an HD screen, being able to get that visual quality on the large images. But then take advantage of the fact that you technically have two screens and being able to split your work and actually split your work into thirds and quarters and work between those you could get a real sense that they were they were positioning the fold somewhat is a media consumption device, but much more as a high end executive productivity device. I mean, it’s got a it’s got a price tag attached to it. No question about

Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:50
Yeah, they were definitely pushing the productivity components there. I also am concerned about the screen especially when you decide to put a screen protector either on that folding screen. I will be curious what Third Party options are for a screen protector there because you know, just over time that that wear and tear on that screen is going to be problematical. And then of course, screen protectors on the exterior, that Gorilla Glass making sure that you can put a screen protector on that, and how that really rides considering there’s really there’s nothing protecting it. But the glass, if you if you put a screen protector on it, then you have edging and you know, so you’d have to have that kind of you’d have to have really specialized exterior shielding on that. And that’s just weird. That’s a weird feel for me. And so I’d be curious how cases will work in that in that regard?

Art Gelwicks 25:39
What’s gonna make and break that are the cases honestly, go ahead. Yeah,

Augusto Pinaud 25:42
so I don’t understand that phone. I understand the flip. But if the default, I didn’t understood default, it may be that I’m now starting to get old for technology, maybe. But at that technology didn’t I don’t know what I wanted to. I didn’t buy. I could not envision the flip. I did. But the other one,

Art Gelwicks 26:02
that was one of the first challenges is looking at this device and go Okay, so what are the use cases? Where does this do things that I can’t do anyplace else. And we talked about it a little bit in the pre show, the closest thing to this device in the working space is actually the surface duo from Microsoft, where it’s a dual screen Android layout, because then you’re literally using that, that two mode configuration, there is a mode on this on not only the fold, but on the flip called flex mode, if we get one more F in here, I get the trifecta. If I can say that fast enough, without embarrassing myself, that’ll be even better. But the flex mode allows you to turn it sideways, flip one half of the screen up and then keep the bottom half of it down. So you can almost use it like a mini laptop that people are looking at, oh, yeah, that just looks or I’m sorry, that’s a sign on three a from years ago. That’s that’s a Windows CE II pocket computer from years ago, it’s that configuration is back to visit us yet. Again, it’s usable, it’s not I wouldn’t try to write the great American novel on it. But you can respond to an email or to that. So from a from a purpose standpoint, if I truly need to be mobile, and I need a device that’s going to give me near laptop power and capability, large screen consumption and still fit in my jacket pocket. This is really the only one that meets all three of those criteria. Now that said, How many people have all three of those as requirements. There’s, there’s not a

Raymond Sidney-Smith 27:34
Yeah, just looking at it from from that perspective, if I if I wanted to spend the cash on that kind of high end device, I can see myself doing that I looked at that leather case. And I thought it has a kickstand, a nice sturdy ability to flip that open into a full screen mode, it’s smaller than you know, I’m not going to take my iPad and put it in my pocket, not even iPad Mini right, I’m not going to try and walk around with that and the keyboard. But if I were going out on the road, hopping on a flight and wanted to really power through some email power through a, you know, get some writing done, I could actually envision myself with that device doing that work. And I don’t put my phone to my face like the that’s not true. I do on occasion. But I don’t do this a lot. I normally have a headset in. And if if you can, if you’re in that mindset where you’re just, you know, maybe have 123 sets of headphones, and you’re using that all day, the idea of the phone being something that you have to put up to your face becomes less of an issue. And then it becomes a productivity tool that is capable of just having more real estate, I do not like doing email on my phone, I just really find the screen size to be too small to really just take in email, especially since my email tends to come in, they tend to be longer messages, just being able to have the real estate to see the message along with what you’re writing. I just need that. And so I can, I can see a use case for that. And so in that way,

Art Gelwicks 29:04
think about this use case. And this is where it kind of jumped out at me think about every zoom call or team meeting that you’ve been on as of and you’ve taken it on your phone, you’ve got this little tiny screen. And if somebody shares something, you go blind, trying to read it. But if you have a device like this, you flip it open. Now you have a lot more real estate. And it’s similar in size and basic layout to the most popular Android tablet that was ever made, which was the Nexus seven and the Nexus seven is a very comfortable device to use. Rest in peace.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:37
Yeah. Poor guy. Oh, I love that Nexus seven.

Augusto Pinaud 29:42
I apologize. It’s not the full default is the one I envision because you’re talking and I’m like, No, no, no. This way. Yeah. The one open this way. Yes. Don’t I concede I’m waiting. Well, what? I thought you were talking about the one that closed down when I was like, Okay, we’ll

Art Gelwicks 29:58
get to that. We’ll get past

Raymond Sidney-Smith 30:00
You’re not buying that one.

Art Gelwicks 30:02
Yeah, you’re not the audience for that one that is true. But I

Augusto Pinaud 30:06
know who the audience holds the fold instead? No, no, the fold I fall in, I have fallen in love with that device. I think that will be if Apple comes with a thing like that, I will buy it immediately. Because then I will be able to replace two devices. For one, I will replace this phone and the iPad Mini and carry now, one device instead of two. That one was incredible, sir, you were talking and I was like, no, what he’s saying does imagine a much on my mind.

Art Gelwicks 30:34
One, one opens this way, one opens this way.

Augusto Pinaud 30:39
When they get the one that on roll,

Art Gelwicks 30:40
then we’re we’ve moved to a whole new level,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 30:43
or just a purely purely glass, right, the ones that are completely decent or transparent. So the only minor overhead,

Art Gelwicks 30:51
I was gonna say there are some things that worry me about this device still to this day, what’s waterproofing XX A, which, which means, okay, you can sneeze on it, you can take a little bit of a drizzle. But that’s about it. I mean, Now, granted, it’s an engineering marvel that they were even able to get to IP x eight was something that has two different screens and a hinge in the middle. But that’s good, you can’t you’re not taking it in the bathtub with you, I wouldn’t recommend it. So that’s one thing in my book. The second thing again, is, I’m just not convinced that it’s durable enough yet, to be able to survive every day heavy use by users, I mean, you’re talking, think about the number of times you pull out your phone during the course of the day, will now think take that and be the number of times that you’re opening and closing that screen, I it’s repetitive, it’s got to have wear and tear, you’re going to get dust in the joints, you’re going to get dirt in the joints, this is going to happen. And the reviews that I read the long term ones around the fold to have talked about those types of things, the wear and tear on this type of emotion device, it’s always been been a concern, a moving part breaks.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:10
And when this sucker breaks, I mean, we’re not talking a $400 device or a $300 device. This is big money when this thing breaks. So that how well it holds together will be very interesting. But again, if we think about this market, if if somebody’s got this tucked into their bill Blass vest, you know, in their three piece suit, it’s probably not going to take that wear and tear, but I wouldn’t take it to the beach. And remember that a lot of the executives, I mean, I happen to work with a lot of executives who are completely mobile, where they no longer work on a desktop, they’re doing everything on their phone. And so just spend this money on a high end phone like this is actually not that unreasonable, if they’re not going to have any other device. True, right? You know, like, because the cost is consumed in you know, I don’t know, you know, added into that particular that that pricing. So if you’re not gonna buy a laptop, if you’re not gonna buy another set of peripherals for that laptop and everything else.

Art Gelwicks 33:14
Do you know, they didn’t mention this matter of fact, they didn’t say it anywhere. Do you know if it supports decks,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 33:19
I do not know. But I can only imagine it well

Augusto Pinaud 33:21
I NC to me.

Art Gelwicks 33:25
And that I have to look and find out because that to me, that’s the winner right there. If this thing supports decks out of the box, and you can open it up and run decks in that open tablet configuration, and then take this thing and drop it into a dock with a screen. Now you have the pocket computer you’ve always wanted, because it has all the form factors that you could use or need. If you’re on an airplane, and you open that thing up and start working. You got it made. You don’t have to check this in your luggage, you don’t have any of that other challenge. So there’s a lot of potential use case for this.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:02
It looks like it looks like it does support decks

Art Gelwicks 34:04
less important than then to me. That’s a given. Yeah, that to me is the wind. And because if you take those executives and you say, look, you don’t need to buy a laptop or anything else will just give you a dock and a monitor keyboard mouse where you can plug in and you’re just going to work just the same way you were working before text messages and everything else are going to come right across. That is a huge step in the right direction.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:25
Yeah, that really appeals to me like that, you know, that whole notion of I’m not worried about where my documents are not worried about what I’ve been working on, because it’s all there and ready for me no matter where I am. And I’m just going to, you know, get to one office. I’m up and running on a screen, go to my next office up and running on the screen. I think there’s a there is a market here. I think they need to probably sell that a little bit more in terms of how that works because the audience they’re going for is high end executive. Absolutely. And there’s probably a downstream market for this phone. Once it does become a little bit more affordable, that will be really ripe for having this kind of ability and capability, especially as more companies go to hybrid. And you do have to change context in terms of working modality. And I think there’s a, there’s a really great opportunity here. Okay, I want us to move on to the Z flip three, and answer a gooses questions around who this is for so so they move from the fold to the flip three, who is it for art, this is for the influencer crowd.

Art Gelwicks 35:36
If you look at the way this is, this device is designed its package. The messaging started with it, they use BTS to do a custom music number to promote it, it is all around the influencer and social media market. It has that flex position where you consider it on a table and actually take pictures using that upright the selfie cam, which we didn’t talk about with the fold. But I believe both of them have the invisible selfie cams, which is fascinating. I don’t know there’s necessarily critical, but it’s a capability. But just the fact that they spent time talking about how you can set this thing up to take pictures of your group and be in your group pictures. That’s exactly what this thing is designed for is that that audience of people who want that social interaction, they are trying to generate content. They are content creators, not editors. And they are going through and just recording. And it’s a phone that’s designed to be seen, which is ironic, because it’s the smallest phone of the group. But it is definitely a phone to be seen. And I can, I can absolutely believe that going out. And that action of flipping that phone open will get it noticed. I mean, opening something like a book is one thing that looks almost kind of geeky. But that that semi nostalgia of flipping that phone open and being able to do things with it. I think there’s definitely an interest to it. They they talked about the customization of the colors and the visual design, and the fact that there’s a larger back screen on it. So there’s still a large number of things that you can do with the phone without even opening it. Which I found fascinating, too. So yeah, this is, this is the tick, this is the tick tock Instagram phone in my book.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 37:25
Yeah, there’s definitely a crowd that there will be no nostalgia because they won’t remember the Motorola razor. It’ll be lost on them. And that’s okay. No, nothing retro, that it will literally be retro, yes, but it definitely made me think of that when I when I saw it, I was like, oh, gosh, that’s the Motorola razor in like today’s version of it. And I also love that they took another play out of Apple’s playbook, which is that they were like, oh, and you can use your watch to basically take the picture. They just took androids built in functionality and you know, probably refined it a little bit, and then made it their own innovation. And so that was very interesting to see. I actually like this phone. And quite honestly, if I bought if I you know, I had the cash laying around to just buy the the Samsung z fold three. And that was my my weekday driver, I would absolutely get the Z flip three as my weekend phone. It just adds so much sense. It is definitely much more pocket friendly. If that’s a phrase,

Art Gelwicks 38:28
it is definitely a more comfortable device than even I would say compare it to an S 21. Just that compact form factor has a lot going for it. I like a lot of those aspects of it. I like the fact that they’re they’re really focusing this device on what it should be and who it’s for. Not that it can solve all needs for all people.

Augusto Pinaud 38:53
Like I can I can respect that.

Art Gelwicks 38:57
I I wouldn’t. I would be kind of taken aback by an executive in the three piece suit who pulls out a flip. I’m like, Okay, yeah, you’re trying to be cool, but it’s not my kind of device, but I absolutely can see people using it.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:14
I think they’d have to bring it down to size that yes, absolutely. I think so but they would need to make it a smaller size when it’s in that wallet. You know, for configuration and the folded configuration

Art Gelwicks 39:25
this this will be a little bit chunky, the the three versions on these, I think are Samsung’s way of coming back and saying yes, we can make these things last. I think the four and the five we’re gonna see them do a heavy push to make them thinner. They’ve got to get closer back to the thickness of a standard phone or a phone and a half. Having having basically two phones layered together in your pocket is a lot of a lot of weight. And I was talking to a friend of mine online and the first thing she said was half of my stuff doesn’t have pockets to begin with. Am I going to put it so but the fact that it is much more compact lends itself to, to being able to do this. So, like I said, it definitely has a market, I think it’s gonna be very successful. Honestly, I think it will be extremely successful in Korea, I don’t know if it’s going to be as successful here in the States.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:17
Well, again, it has the IP x A rating, which is detrimental to me, I can think of my own younger days, if I’m out at a bar or a club, I go to the bathroom, I flip out my phone, and the first time it drops in the toilet, it’s gone. Like it’s not that is not tenable to me, I would never know

Art Gelwicks 40:37
it’s going to it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be tough. I would not be surprised if the next generation of this has an even larger screen on the back. I think they’re going to get it to the point where they don’t need to open the phone unless they absolutely have to be able to do things like control music and take. I mean, you can take pictures now they showed shooting video with that, which looked a little awkward, but you could probably manage it. But

Augusto Pinaud 41:01
I thought you could manage meaning music and read things message and even respond text message on that device.

Art Gelwicks 41:08
Yeah, I just like I said, it’s an influencer device in my book.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 41:13
Yeah, my bigger concerns are actually the the, the ratio on the phone basically the length of the phone, when you flip it open, I’m curious about what the what the sizes are going to be. Because, again, if you’re an influencer, you’re worried about are you are these sizings for YouTube shorts, or for Instagram reels or YouTube, those those, you know, image specs are really important. And it’s recording for those those devices. And then if it looks weird on the on the phone screen, and so they’re also having to work with those components as well is figuring out okay, what what is what is the image going to look like in terms of its representation on the apps that that you’re going to see it

Art Gelwicks 41:51
now if they’re using the standard Samsung camera software that they’ve been using through the latest versions of their phones, there’s a lot that they can do. There’s a lot that they can do just direct creation. But they didn’t talk about editing and content creation with this device, which I thought was interesting. They talked about recording, and they talked about the experience of using it. But they didn’t really talk about content production, which yet they had talked about, with Yes, 21

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:19
Yeah, they focused on consumer activities. And then they focused on the productivity components. And they really left out that even though it seemed like a glaring reason why they created that phone. So you know, it’s weird. But

Art Gelwicks 42:33
the price point on this, if I remember correctly, is about $1,000. Phone. So you figure with with carrier discounts and things like that. It’s reasonable, it’s reasonable for that targeted audience. I look at these and again, these are things that there’s a specific audience who’s going to like these. But I don’t think either one of these are general consumption to pay.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:55
Right. Okay, so we already talked about the S Pen, they’ve made some modifications to the S Pen. And so rubberized tip, some shock absorption. And obviously, it works really well with supposedly, all of these new devices, right there is working across all of these new devices, it should Yeah,

Art Gelwicks 43:12
I mean, there’s nothing about it that would prevent it, I’m curious to see because I didn’t see anything on the site. Nor did I see anything in their messaging. That said it was sold independently, they made changes to it to support the fold. But there was nothing, because there had been talk about the S Pen pro before the event. And they didn’t talk anything about that. So I’m curious to see if that actually becomes a thing. Because when you have ones like the ds 21, it doesn’t come with a pen by the pen separate. So an S pens work across all the devices, I can use the same one on my Chromebook, my phone and my tablet, which is a wonderful thing. That means I will invest in a better S Pen, because I know the experience is going to be better, especially if I’m doing digital linking. So they’ve made some nice changes to it. They’ve made some made some nice improvements. I will be very curious to get my hands on one and see how it feels. The spring worries me just a hair. Because it sounds to me like the end might feel squishy. But we’ll find out.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 44:11
Yeah. Okay. So then we have the accessory of the accessory event. And so we get the, the the galaxy buds too. And so they decided to announce this in the lineup. And I think it was kind of just a toss in because they could and so they decided to announce the galaxy buds two. And this is a graduation from I think the live and the galaxy buds. What was it? What was it? What was the original? It was galaxy buds live. And now the buds two I can’t remember. Yeah, yeah, they’ve been

Art Gelwicks 44:46
basically basically what they’ve done is they’ve taken a lot of the functionality that was available in the pros and they brought it down to the buttons to things like the Active Noise Cancelling and that sort to make it more available at a better price point which It makes perfect sense to me. I mean, it doesn’t have all the same functionality. But it does have some. And you’re right. To me this felt like, oh nuts, we’ve got an extra 10 minutes to fill. What do we have laying around? Oh, we got these new earbuds. Okay, let’s put those in. So yeah, it didn’t feel like it completely jived with the overall messaging, they’ve got some new colors in the design. So the people like that styling, the Active Noise Cancelling, I think is probably the biggest win with this, the fact that you can actually use that and not out and the ambient sound as well, which is carried down from the pros, so that you could, you know, they these people do nothing but drink coffee. Did you notice that every one of these things started with them either going for coffee or being with a barista or going not that I’m faulting them, I’m just saying it’s a bit of a theme. But this is where talking about

Augusto Pinaud 45:51
coffee and your flipper their flow?

Art Gelwicks 45:53
No, no do not that it is not coffee proof by any stretch of the imagination. But the ambient sound, I think is a big, big win. And the reason why I say that has absolutely nothing to do with earbuds, it has to do with the fact that one of my favorite sets of headphones now are bone conducting, not the ones I have on right now. But they go over the year and they conduct through the bones in your jaw rather than in your ears. So they give you the ability to hear what’s around you. And if you’ve used good noise can’t there, you’ve got a set there. I’ve got my set right here too. If you’ve used good noise cancelling earbuds, you realize how much it blocks out the right way? Yeah, we all got them. So this type of a thing offering that within the earbuds themselves goes a long way of reconnecting you to the world. And if you’re using this, this is where it does kind of come back, full circle. If you’re using these in a health environment or a fitness environment, you’re out for a run or a bike ride or something like that. You don’t want to be shut off from the world, you still want to know what’s going on so that you don’t have something bad happened. And this functionality provided. Yeah, so so I just I’m curious to go back and check if these support my wife if the support the ambient sound without the phone. I don’t know if they do or not. So if I go and I’ve got my watch with LTE, do I still have ambient sound control or not? I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s dependent on the phone. But I could be wrong.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:20
Yeah, that was one of my biggest questions here is that I wanted to figure out what the ambient noise detection capabilities were here. So that I, if I if I am out with them, because they really have everything I want. I was actually very displeased with the galaxy buds, I’m sorry, the pixel buds to they, they’ve they’ve been failing on every mark for me over the course of ownership. And so I’ve been really disappointed with those, I really had high hopes. And so I still use them. They’re my daily drivers for for listening. But I find myself having to swap them out for something else. Just because they fail so many so many times in so many what should be normal situations where any other device that wasn’t so software dependent. And again, I’m using the the pixel buds to with a galaxy with it with a Google Pixel, you know, 5g, five, 5g, right, so the pixel five 5g and the pixel buds to really I should I should have a seamless experience, and I don’t. And so that’s been really frustrating for me. Plus, you know, there’s not really an ability to switch between devices easily. And, and so the buds to hear are giving you this auto switch feature, I’m really curious about how it’s going to work is that Samsung device only and most likely for now, and then we’ll probably move on to others as they get better with that technology, the active noise cancellation, and this ambient noise detection is is great. It’s sizing, it looks really sleek, it looks like it fits inside your ears. That’s the one thing I do like about the pixel buds too, is that they fit into your ears. And they are they are basically streamlined, you know, they go right into your ears, and there’s no worry about you know, like, you know, something touching your ears and then falling out. So, I really like them and they’re probably going to be my next headphones. If that active noise cancellation is really going to be for safety purposes. I don’t want to be on my bike or you know, running and not be able to hear sound around me. So

Art Gelwicks 49:26
yeah, that’s that’s a big deal in my book. And then like I said, that’s the reason why I got the bone conducting ones because it does provide you that accessibility. There was one thing just to backtrack a little bit about the fold. And I believe it’s the flip to I’m not sure that we didn’t talk about. There’s no charger in the box. They’re shipping them without the chargers. This is the same thing as taking away the headphone jack people. Okay, I get it. This is this is me up on a short soapbox. I get it. I understand we’re supposed to have it’s a 25 watt charger. How many people have 25 Want chargers laying around at home, that’s where I get the hang up with this. It’s not like it’s a one amp charger, this is a heavy duty one, and you have to buy it. Now, here’s the flip around. And and this is the funny part, if you preorder, they will give you a charger, they will give you cable, and they’ll give you I think it’s I think they give you your buds too, as part of the pre order package. So they’re like, oh, if you order early, we’ll give you a charger. But if you order regular time, you got to get the charger on your own. I get it, I get it. But I doesn’t mean I gotta like

Raymond Sidney-Smith 50:36
they want to make those, they want to make those pre sales, you know, they want to make they want to make their you know, the pre sales for marketing purposes usable. So they want the statistics a good so you were gonna say,

Augusto Pinaud 50:48
Sorry, I was going to say after all the noise they may after Apple removed, they’re really Samson green.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 50:56
I think this is where the industry is making.

Augusto Pinaud 51:00
It is. He said he’s fine, except that you came as a company and makes such a noise. And we will never do that to people. And well, here you are.

Art Gelwicks 51:10
Well, let’s see, here’s here’s where I think it’s a bad decision. Because immediately what I do is I go out and I buy a 63 watt charger with dual confit or dual USBC ports on it. Something that Samsung does not offer as a product. So not only are they quote saving a little money, but they’re not making the sale of the device that they want me to buy any weight because I’m gonna buy something better than that for roughly the same price as what it would come out the door. So I don’t think they’re gaining thing, anything. I don’t think they’re helping themselves in any way aside from the whole, you know, we’re keeping down the quantity. That’s like I said, how many people get 25 watt chargers laying around? So I don’t

Raymond Sidney-Smith 51:49
Yeah. And

Art Gelwicks 51:50
to me, it’s a little Burr under the saddle.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 51:52
Back to the buds to though they come in four colors. We have all of lavender, graphite and white. And so that’s that’s where we are there. And if I understood it correctly, all of them will be regularly available as of August 27. Do I have that right or wrong? Yes, they’re,

Art Gelwicks 52:12
they’re all in the order everything. Yeah, the dates and everything show August 27. If you preorder it and you pay extra for shipping, the odds are pretty good. You can get it by the 27th. Most everything is showing delivery around September 2. So it’s going to be very end of August, very beginning of September assuming that other things don’t happen. So

Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:33
yeah. Yeah, just so folks are aware it. It’s the it’s the galaxy watch for that is the one without the bezel, right.

Art Gelwicks 52:45
The watch, are there two versions of washboard there’s two versions. The watch for has no bezel the watch for classic does.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:55
Another note I was wrong. Okay.

Art Gelwicks 52:57
Yeah, no, it’s it’s basically what the active was. It has it’s it’s a, it’s a touchscreen around the outer edge to give you the same bezel type, right? In fact, right? The there are two, there’s a thicknesses of watch. There’s 40 millimeter and a 46 millimeter.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:14
So it’s 40 it’s 40 millimeters isn’t a 40 or 40 or I can’t remember, it’s, it’s 4040 millimeter and a 44 millimeter. And they come in Okay, black, green and silver on the 44 millimeter version, and then Black, pink and silver on the 40 millimeter version. And so I would get the 40 millimeter silver, just in case anybody’s looking to buy me gifts now is absolutely

Art Gelwicks 53:38
I have to say do the styling. They’ve got on the active watch or on the Galaxy watch for not the classic with the bezel but without the bezel. The styling is beautiful. They’ve done an excellent job. They’ve got a fair number of bands out now that they’re providing their bands are expensive, but then again, they’re Samsung bands. So I think we’re gonna see the aftermarket on this kick in real quick. I would love to see though those galaxy four watches with steel bands. color matched. I think they would be just gorgeous devices. I mean, you’re looking at almost something along the lines of a Movado style watch. I mean they are very nicely designed. The classic is truly that it’s a solid I got the stainless steel with a steel gray band on it and I think it’s going to look sharp and I think it’s going to be well well put together and well resolved. They’ve done a good job. They’ve done a very good job. If I were fossil if I were anybody else producing wear watches I would be very nervous right because I want exactly I have to step up my game.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 54:45
Yeah, yeah, I want I want a metal band. Yeah, I want a metal band. I want to I want a silver watch. And and so I think I think this galaxy watch for the 40 millimeter silver is just perfect looking. And again, I’m still crossing my fingers holding out that Google will announce the pixel watch. But since it is likely not going to happen, it seems like this will become my next watch. And I’m looking forward to it.

Art Gelwicks 55:12
The only thing that disappointed me truly was the lack of mystic bronze as a color option. I know it’s nitpicky.

Augusto Pinaud 55:20
But no, no, no, no, no, I for me for the dialyzer. Right.

Art Gelwicks 55:27
I mean, even even down to the it’s hard to see on here, even my tablets, the mystic bronze style. And yes, some people go on, it’s missing bronze, it’s rose gold, it’s whatever, it’s consistent. And they didn’t even have that as part of that. So their their color scheming is a little iffy. But, like I said, this looks like to be a significantly properly engineered device. That to go along with this, though. One of the common articles that I’ve been seeing over the past day or so has been the comparisons of the fold three to the pixel six, that these two are going to be head to head. Can I be honest and say that these two have nothing to do with each other? They are totally different devices. Totally different configurations, total different target audiences? I don’t understand. I don’t see it at all. Yeah, yeah. If If bloggers out there. If you’re spending your time writing this, it ain’t worth the clicks. Because it’s not you’re not on target. Trust me.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 56:26
All right. So as we come to the end of the galaxy unpacked event, any final comments before we close out?

Art Gelwicks 56:33
I think it was a really good event for Samsung. I think it was one of those that they got their message across. There was no surprises. There was no shocks, there was no UI. Why didn’t they do this after the fact I haven’t seen any, you know, tremors crossing the earth over what they did or did not release. It was a good even keel type of thing. They went out of their way to put the ball back in Apple’s court and Google’s court when it comes to flagship phones and watches. So now now, apples got to come to the team. When is the apple event coming up once their next event? I think there’s one coming up

Augusto Pinaud 57:12
sometime in September September or October. Okay, September Yeah. September should be phone is traditionally phones. And then there is a rumor that in October there is going to be another one for my

Art Gelwicks 57:24
Okay, so it’ll be interesting to see what their responses to this.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 57:28
So all right, well, thank you Art for joining us here on this special commentary episode. How can folks keep up to date with you and what you’ve got going out on the interwebs

Art Gelwicks 57:39
best thing to do come on over to the idea pump calm and just go idea pump calm slash follow me because apparently I’m all over the place. So between podcasts, videos, writing and things like that, there’s someplace you can find me if you have questions or you disagree with me. Totally.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 57:56
That’s the place to come get fantastic. So the idea pump.com forward slash Follow me. Thank you Art for joining us here as our Samsung, as always. All right. Well,

Augusto Pinaud 58:07
it’s my pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Sampson.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 58:10
Alright, thank you, gousto for putting together the show and making it happen every week.

Augusto Pinaud 58:15
It’s my pleasure. It’s my pleasure. so fantastic.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 58:18
All right, we have come to the close of this special commentary episode. Our normal show is usually on Mondays at 6pm. Eastern. And that’s when we cover the productivity and related technology news headlines of the week. And so again, thanks to Augusto Pinaud, for joining me this and every Monday for Anything But Idle. And if this is your first time watching the live stream, make sure you click the subscribe button so that you can get notified when we do go live. If you’re listening to the podcast afterward, and you’re not a subscriber to the podcast, feel free to follow in the apple podcast lingo or subscribe in the everybody else lingo to the podcast. You can do that by going to Anything But idle.com clicking on subscribe or follow and following the instructions to do so it’s free and you just get the episodes downloaded when we put them out. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, feel free to click the thumbs up icon also on YouTube just helps us make new personal productivity friends and so thank you for doing that. With that we will see you all next time on Anything But Idle. Here’s to your productive life.