Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of titanium. All kinds of titanium, very thin titanium, very thick titanium, titanium technology, lots of titanium. I'm your friend David Pierce. Neil Abel is here. Hello, sir. How's...
We just got finished watching Samsung's Unpacked event. Um, there's a lot to talk about here. We got some new phones, we got foldables, we got flippables, we got watches, we got all kinds of stuff. Um, this I I just want to preface, Neil, was maybe the most impressive product introduction I have seen in 2026. And I'm very excited to tell you why. Um, but first I want to know...
Wait, was it was it because Spider-Man was there? Favorite part of the whole thing.
There was a brief moment where I thought, "Oh, good. We're not going to get that deeply awkward moment at every Samsung. Something weird happens and no one knows what to do about it." Honestly, the reason I agreed to do this this live stream with you was because Samsung can't help itself. Like, I know Samsung can't help itself, and watching you go through it is very important to me.
I I really appreciate that. Uh, yeah. One of the great moments was that they brought on um what's his name? Jacob, somebody. No, no. Yes. Jacob Batalon, who plays Ned in the Spider-Man movies. He did what I would call like a reasonably normal product integration. He explained why his character would use a Galaxy device, which sure, fine. Uh, and and then for like eight seconds just there was Spider-Man, and then they went right back to it. Uh, we were going to play the clip, but no one needs to live through that ever again. Um, but I do I do want to talk about these phones, Neil, because I think the the reason I am so compelled by this particular event is that I think Samsung did a thing I have been waiting for it to do for years, which is explain why you would want any of these devices, why you would want a device that folds, why you would want a device that's a different size that folds, why you would want a phone that flips. It actually like attempted to make a case for these kinds of devices, and I want to talk about it. But first, I need you to do something very important for me.
I need you to rank the the folding types. We we have we have wide, we have tall, and we have flip. Those are the three phones. We're going to get into them, but I want to do them in the order in which you are excited about the size and shape. So, we have tall foldable, the TV remote, we have wide foldable, the passport, and we have flip phone. Which do you want to do first? I'm going ranking best to worst. Yes.
My personal best to worst. Everyone else can make up their minds. I gotta go wide, flip, tall. And there's probably a novelty bias here because wide is the newest and maybe it will make my heart sing in in new and exciting ways. Although, uh, Dom Preston from our team wrote it up. He saw it. He's held it in person. He's used it. Obviously, he's used some of the Chinese wide foldables that came out first. And he's like, "This thing is way better in person than in any of the photos." And I get it. And I I'm kind of excited about the squatter form factor when it's folded when you use it that way and then like the big decision to open it up, you know, and be like, I'm gonna I'm gonna watch a video sideways, whatever that thing is. Uh yeah, that's my ranking. But I'm I'm assuming there's some novelty bias here.
My ranking is the same. Um, I also think it's possible that there is some novelty bias, but that thing that Dom described in his piece for us, which is looking at the thing, it feels kind of short and kind of fat, and you think, well, this probably won't be as comfortable to hold in my hand as a longer, skinnier phone might be, and then you pick it up and it feels normal and natural. That reaction seems to have been everyone's reaction. I've been reading stories. I've been I've been watching some of the videos like this this is a phone that was made available to a lot of people in the last couple of weeks. Almost everybody seems to have had the reaction of picking it up and being like, "Oh, this is actually maybe the exact right shape for this." Because it's a little shorter. I can reach it with I can reach most of the screen with my thumb, which turns out kind of important on a phone. Um it it makes it it's 16:10 on the outside. Uh so it's a little squatter than normal and it's a it opens up to a 4x3 screen on the inside.
Both of those in a way if you're just going to say I have one screen for everything, right? That feels roughly correct to me. And this is the thing Samsung spent a long time trying to make the case for that you open it up and you can watch movies with less letterboxing. You can play giant Fortnite, which they really like held for an applause moment that did not come, which I thought was very funny. Um, but there's this sense of I think everybody has spent the last several years trying to figure out the right middle ground for foldables. You want something that is phoneish on the outside but a properly usable phone on the inside as well. And this this just seems like the right or at least the most right answer we have had so far. Even though again like looking at a picture right now it does look a little squat and a little fat. But I am trusting everyone who has used it. Neither of us have used it.
But I I am trusting everyone who has who says this thing seems to feel right in your hand very quickly. It is a remarkable consensus uh of vibes, right? Obviously, everyone's got to get the phone. We got to review them. We're going to do all that. Um but the early vibes are, oh, this was the right size and shape.
I will give credit to Samsung for retconning its way into an explanation for why it's the right size and shape. The Chinese makers have been doing this. There's lots of rumors that Apple's about to do this. Samsung's like, "Have you ever thought about making it a little little shorter and then opening up to 4x3?" And it's like you could have done this any time in the past several years. You waited until the market told you what to do and then you did in classic Samsung fashion.
Yes, very much so. So, I actually I wrote down the the sequence of events that they imagine will transpire on this phone. Samsung is is very determined to tell you how you use your phone in these events, which I always get a kick out of. Again, genuine kudos for going way out of their way to be like, "Here is the purpose of this device in this specific way." Um, and the the widefold, this, which is the the Z Fold 8, and we're going to get into the names because, as ever, Samsung's naming systems make me angry and they don't make any sense, but here we are. So, this is the Z Fold 8. And the way that they described it is basically purely as a content device. And and the beginning of the flow is you're on the outside screen and you're watching Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. That was like this is what everyone does on their phone all of the time. We're just going to start there. So you watch it and you you you watch it normally. It looks more or less like a normal phone. Um that's actually a little bit complicated because these companies are going to have to do a little bit of work to adapt to this screen in a way that makes...
They did immediately announce that Instagram has partnered with them on adapting the Instagram app which is not a thing Apple will be able to do a few months time.
I think that is correct. Um, so that that's great and that's fine. That's going to work. Um, and then the idea is you open it up to dive in further is essentially the idea. And on the one hand, you can you can see it bigger. On the other hand, you can see video on the left, comments on the right. Uh, and and she said something along the lines of because half the fun of the video is seeing if if everyone agrees with your reaction, which sure, fine. Sure. Um you can you can then expand it to fill more of the screen and then you can you can start to dive in and make stuff yourself. And then they go through the whole creation flow, right? And that's side-by-side editing. So you can you can see the changes you're making in real time as you make them. Like again, this is this is a real argument about how a person might actually use their phone. That makes some sense to me. I don't know if this is the one user flow that justifies buying a $1,900 phone, which is what this costs, but it's like I kind of get it. I get why this is appealing and why it would be useful to have more screen available to me when I open the phone.
But isn't that the same argument as the the tall foldable?
So, yes and no. Um well, and this this is what I mean by Samsung doing a good job explaining the difference. The way Samsung seems to see it is that the tall foldable is for using two apps side by side. Foundationally, that is the thing. It is a productivity device. I I think that's fine, right? And I I they they explain well why this might be useful, what you might use it for. The all of the things were like work related that they imagine the tall foldable as extremely productivity focused and then the the wide foldable is the more casual content-based one. And again, all of this is like made-up nonsense about phones. And the reality is everything is everyone is is to all the time, but at least they're starting to draw a distinction that makes a little bit of sense to me. You would not want to use two apps side by side on the Z Fold 8 because they would both be squat and there's not quite enough space. But the but the the idea of being able to sort of move in and out of this like side-by-side experience into there's a little more screen. It's a little more immersive. Like there there's something here for me. I don't know.
Yeah. I like that you're so taken with the there's a little more screen to watch video in one app bigger, right? Like there's something to that. That's a very normal use case. I was more struck by how they, you know, in the way that everybody has to do it now. They talked a lot about AI and then at the end of the event, you know, Rick Osterloh was out to talk about Google Gemini Task Automation, which is yet another horrible name. And my because it's launching for real now.
Right. On on these phones, you can just say, "Hey, Gemini, do a thing." And it'll bop around your phone and do stuff for you. However slowly or quickly it can actually do those things. Um, and it just struck me that the smaller screen, the more squat size of the Z Fold 8 is might be the AI device everyone wants. Like you have a little phone, it's a littler and you can just tell it what to do and maybe it will do that stuff. And then when you want a phone, you open it up and it's a phone. And like there's something about that that particular size and shape where I'm like, "Oh, maybe it would drive me to just ask the phone to do things." And it's not really about opening it up to see the comments on TikTok. Although I will certainly end up doing that because I think they're right that I do want to see the comments on TikTok. That's their argument for the flip. Like, and and this is where it's possible they're solving a two-device problem with three devices. Uh that actually what we need is two form factors and not three. But the the the big part of the argument for the flip is this is a phone you can put away, right? Like they spent a lot of time talking about it as a way to just ask your agents to go do stuff on your behalf and go about your life.
That's a lot of trust in the agents. Like I'm not there like I need a little more screen. You know what I mean? Yeah, I also think it was very funny. One of the notes I wrote down in the middle of this is uh Samsung has developed a very good argument for the hardware here and and why you need these different things and what they might accomplish in your life. No one knows what AI is for. And even still, it's like they ran the same two tropes that everybody runs out every time, right? It's it's for planning trips and buying tickets to things, which is a not a like particularly complicated multi-step activity to buy concert tickets. Like you just buy the concert tickets.
Well, it depends. If you're like robot, go fight with the scalpers on the in the queues. Like sure, like maybe that's the future.
Yeah. But I think but even in general, you know, Rick Osterloh gets up and he's like, we we have 40 new apps for making all of your AI stuff work. And then he I think the list was retail, reservations, travel, event tickets, which if you think about it is buying stuff, buying stuff, buying stuff, and buying stuff.
No, every Google demo ends in a transaction. They can't not do it. They have to point out all of that data center investment is going to pay off because they will take tiny slices of your transactions.
We will automate your shopping cart process is is essentially the the limit of agentic AI at this point, right? But that's what is that Ticketmaster, Uber, DoorDash, Resy, Expedia, right? Right. And it's like, all right, well, those I'm sure those apps are going to have something to say, but fine. If that's the limit of what agentic AI can do today, fine. But I don't think I I don't trust it on a flip phone. Like, every time I use a flip, I'm like, "This is so cool. If only I had the discipline to use this tiny cover screen, right, to check stuff." Because that's kind of their vibe, right, is there's the new AI-powered summary and the cards and the like...
The little widget that tells you to drink more water.
Yeah, they're doing a lot of work to get you sort of in and out of your phone more quickly.
Yeah. And but the whole app ecosystem has to participate or you have to fully participate in the Galaxy Health ecosystem, right? Which I just don't want to do. I'm sorry. I just don't want to do that. Um and all of that is it it's gesturing at a future that isn't here yet where all of the AI can read all the databases and present you with these neat and tidy summaries on a tiny little screen. And I just I don't think that's here yet. I think that might be a vision of the future that might come one day, but it's not here yet. And so this middle size where it's a phone but like an uncomfortable phone to use, right, will like usher some of that discipline in while the rest of it comes up. And then when you need a phone, you can open it and just like use a phone. And there's something about that size and shape that I wish the industry had coalesced on earlier.
Yeah. And I'm I'm quite excited to see what happens both with the the Z Fold 8, which we should point out is very expensive at $1,900, and obviously in a few months, Apple is going to attack the same form factor. And whether or not this is the form factor that lets AI become more of a primary interface, I think is a good and interesting open question because certainly this will be the form factor that most people at the high end of the Android ecosystem encounter Gemini and certainly it will be the form factor that most people at the high end of the Apple ecosystem encounter whatever Siri AI and that looks like the battle to me.
Yeah, I think that's right and I think we're also likely to see Google make its own move in this space. I think it would almost be more enticing. I would almost be more optimistic if Samsung had more aggressively picked a single form factor, right? Because the the eternal problem with Android is that everybody is supporting too many phones with too many chipsets with too many versions of Android and too many ideas about how everything is supposed to work. And so if you're a developer, you end up either having to pick and choose your spots or you just say, "Screw it. I'm going to make one app plug into, you know, the the built-in ideas about how to scale it and move on. And I think what Samsung showed here is that if you make real effort to make this stuff make sense on the specific devices and specific form factors, you can do some really interesting stuff. The problem is almost no one is incentivized to do that other than Samsung until we agree on a form factor, right? And I think the the candy bar phone has been the phone for a very long time. In part because I think it was the right middle ground for a very long time, but also in part because it was just it was just one thing. It just became easier to have one idea about phones for everyone for a very long time. And I I sort of wish Samsung had come out more aggressively and said, "We think the Z Fold 8 is the thing. This is the new shape of foldables." And and really pushed after it.
You think they should have killed the Z Fold Ultra 8?
I do. I think I think the 8 Ultra is actually sort of a fascinating device in that it is finally the thing we have been waiting for Samsung to do, which is make a foldable phone without very many compromises. Right. This thing has uh it has the camera setup you'd want. It has three cameras, including a 200-megapixel main camera, the the tele the 10-megapixel telephoto, I think.
Uh and the 50-megapixel ultrawide. Uh it has big battery life. It has a lot of the the camera features that you want. It has the new silicon-carbon battery stuff, which I think is very cool.
We actually talk about that at length, by the way.
Let's get to that in one second. But I think this is this is the first uh David Al wrote for us that this is the first actually ultra-feeling Samsung foldable, which is a big deal. It is Samsung's most expensive phone. And every time Samsung has shipped one of these, we've been like, isn't it weird that it doesn't have all of the best features that Samsung is actually able to ship of these phones. And to take that and say, okay, this thing is $2,000 and you have to make a bunch of compromises in the name of uh less durability and more screen isn't worth it. This one still vastly more expensive, but at least makes you make many fewer sacrifices. So, in that sense, I'm very excited about it. I still think it's just the wrong shape for a phone.
Yeah. And I think Samsung agrees. Like I I really do think Samsung agrees.
Well, I mean, they're hiding some price increases here, right? In the same way that everyone is going to have to hide price increases. They're calling this one Ultra because it is what $2,100. I mean, this phone is bananas. Like, yeah. And so, you can't have compromises at...
They're calling it Ultra in order to make it less obvious that it is less or it's more expensive than the last model. So that they have the less expensive model, which they're calling the successor to the last model, even though it's not it's all very shady. And again, the names don't make any sense. And even even several people on stage from Samsung could not properly say the names of these devices. And if you, an executive at the company, can't remember the name every time, you have a naming problem. But anyway, should we talk about this battery? Should we just briefly...
We should talk about the battery. It might be the most interesting thing about these phones in a in a real way. Make the case.
Well, I think we all know that lithium-ion batteries have have had pretty intense ceilings, right? We we've made them slightly better, but there hasn't been a big jump in battery chemistry that would unlock more uh more battery life, faster charging speeds. Like, we've done a lot around the edges to make lithium-ion chemistry work. We haven't really seen new chemistries at scale. These aren't silicon-carbon batteries. We have seen some of them in China. But this is the big new chemistry. Samsung spent a lot of time talking about how they are managing this chemistry and making it safe because if you will recall, Samsung has had pretty enormous problems with their phones lighting on fire.
Yeah. One of the funniest things going in our our comments of the stories we've been doing about this has been there's one set of people who is like, "I'm never ever going to trust Samsung with a battery again. Do you remember the Note 7?" And another set of people who are like, "Yeah, you know who else remembers the Note 7 is Samsung." And you know who definitely has built a hell of a lot of infrastructure to make sure that never happens again? Samsung.
We'll see. I had we we I have a friend who at the time of the Note side was like this phone rules. I'm never sending it back. You can't stop me.
I respect that actually. Uh but this is I you know the first sort of mainstream US phone with a new battery chemistry and if it is the vanguard of longer life, lower power, more efficient, smaller size, that is incredible. Yeah. Straightforwardly incredible. And we I would like to see more battery chemistry development for an enormous number of reasons. Not just phones, like EVs. Like there's a bunch of stuff where new battery chemistries are maybe the most exciting thing that will happen in tech and here we have some phones that are using new battery chemistries. I think in a very conservative way. Yep. Right. They're not going all the way in there. It is a pretty conservative application of the new technology. But it is fascinating to see that Samsung has decided to make the leap.
I agree. And I think I think they're actually doing this in in roughly the right way for exactly the reason you just described. Right. are other uh silicon-carbon batteries out there with more capacity in roughly the same size or even smaller devices. And and Samsung has been very straightforward about like we could have pushed this harder. We we could have been more aggressive in how we wanted to think about the actual stated battery capacity on this thing. But it is also true that silicon is more volatile. It expands more that it it can wear more over time. And I think Samsung is right to say this is still relatively new technology. We should we should do this more carefully. It'll be really interesting to me to see whether this comes to the next set of Galaxy S devices, which is very much the mainstream phone, right? Like these these are not phones. None of the phones today are phones most people will buy or even consider buying. I think a lot of people should buy the Flip. We can get to that. Yay, Flip phones. But like the the Z Fold 8 Ultra is a $2,100 phone. Like you said, most people are not going to buy this. So, it is a useful science project for Samsung. Its actual confidence will come when it puts it in the Galaxy S device.
How do you feel about a $2,100 phone, a $2,000 phone whose battery might wear down faster than a traditional battery?
Bad. Neil, real real bad. Uh, I don't know. If you buy like a Ferrari, you're like, if I run it real hard, it'll explode. Like I...
I mean, this is the thing, right? Like I I there is no case for someone who is price shopping a phone to price shop your way up to this, right? Like in the way that Apple is very good at sort of talking you up the chain of its phones. There is no way that chain this in the same way that that chain never gets you to I should spend the money for the app.
I don't know, man. Ned from Spider-Man vibe coded an app. Didn't you see that? They literally introduced him as the actor who plays Ned from Spider-Man, which is not poor guy.
I mean, money solves all problems, but I'm just pointing it out. Um, I mean, that that was like one of those moments where, you know, they're trying to make the argument for the form factors and I can vibe code an app or my fictional character can vibe code an app. I I think these marketing departments get themselves so twisted. To your point, like people are going to do everything all the time. Yeah. and like a neat little narrative about these phones, it just doesn't exist. Like everyone just sort of opens the phones and and does whatever they want. The only thing anyone really cares about is longer battery life. And they were able to address that kind of at length with silicon-carbon. Yep.
But I think the other dimension of battery life is will you be down to 80% capacity in two years on your $2,100 phone? And if we don't pay off this bet on silicon-carbon, will there be replacement parts that fit into this case once that happens? And like I all of that is wide open. I think it's it's like worth noting if you spend the money, you're at the bleeding edge of technology here in a very specific way.
Yeah. But it is true that this is generally believed to be a huge leap forward in consumer electronic batteries. And I think like almost everyone is betting on this idea in some way. So I'm I'm very confident that it will work. I I do think you're taking a you're taking a risk on the first version of it.
I mean the comparison it's it's different. It's definitely different and the risks were different but um uh when all the charging blocks shifted from silicon to GaN gallium nitride we actually ran a big story on this back in the day like Anker was the first. They had an exclusive on it and everything got smaller at first and then everything got a little overpowered and then a bunch of sort of like irresponsible alphabet suit Amazon vendors started making ones that would light on fire but now everything is GaN and everything is small right and that was a big shift in sort of material science and charging technology and power density all this stuff and it just took a while for it to become the standard in a real way I think we're on the same kind of journey here it's just will it light on fire on an airplane is a different question.
Yeah. Uh I mean, yeah, who knows? That's the one of our review tests will be to take it on an airplane and just see...
Just just go on several planes. Who knows?
We're going to rent a Cessna and then like panic for an hour. Um can I ask you how you feel about the the word nightography, which I I...
Felt bad about nightography for years.
Okay. It's just every time I see that word, it really it just gives me like a a visceral yuck face. Uh, I will say Samsung spent less time in this event doing weird camera things than it has in the past. Um, there was a really bizarre ad with obviously AI-generated gerbils. I think they were gerbils that I didn't super love. Um, but but they whether it was just this event or not, there was much less focus on here's all the weird creepy uncanny valley stuff you can do with your phone. Uh, but they did say the phrase, "Focus on the moment and let Galaxy take care of capturing it." And I was just like, "Oh, this is when Eli just throws his computer into the sea."
You what if what if the future of photography is you don't even take pictures. You just tell the AI capture everything around you. You think, gosh, it would be great to have a picture and it takes and it does it. That'd be so fun.
I mean, that is where the camera companies have wanted to go for some time. Yep. Right. is you just push this shutter button and it will decide what the best photo is and it will make that photo for you. And they've gotten there. I think my argument is like what's left for Samsung to do inside of their camera app, right? We're already just rendering the moon out of nothing. We're already moving people around on park benches. Like we've we've announced all of the AI stuff short of there isn't a lens on this camera that you can reasonably announce.
And so I I kind of get why they're backing it off. Also, the backlash is real. Yes, it's just real everywhere. The idea that, you know, AI pictures of food and restaurant windows are a thing that you should vandalize is just a thing that is on the local news now. This is a real story in San Francisco. Um, and I I I don't know if Samsung wants to run right into it while they're also promoting a they're widefoldable. Fair. So, I I think like it's a good camera is like all they really need to say at this point. And the the sort of like Gen Z, Gen Y camera culture is about point-and-shoot cameras with flashes right now. Mhm. So what are you what are you going to do? Like you you can't compete with that.
Yes, that's very true. There was one of them, I think it was the the regular fold, the the wide fold where they said when you when you hold it up to take a...
photo, it will feel nostalgic like you're shooting with an old digital camera. And I was just like, no, it won't. Like what on earth are you talking about? It's going to feel like a phone. It's fine.
I watched three different TikTok videos over the past week of people adjusting the settings on their Canon point-and-shoots by like rotating the dials and going through those menus because they're incomprehensible. And I was like, something is happening here that one, I love, and two, all of these companies should pay more attention to. Like, people don't want this other thing. They're chasing this other look, which is good.
Yes. And I think to some extent there was evidence in this event that Samsung gets that. And I think that's part of why they talked so much about the hardware and about the way that you use it and about playing games and consuming content. And you get the sense it's like there's an investor-mandated number of times you have to say agentic AI in a 90-minute presentation or else your stock price just starts to tank. But in general, they spent a lot more time talking about here's why this is a good phone that you will like in your life and much less on here is all the wacky LLM stuff we've enabled you to do. And I think that's the right thing to do, right? Like in this particular case, especially for Samsung to say here is our bleeding-edge set of phones. Here is the stuff that we are demonstrably better at than all of our competitors in this space. They made a big meal out of how they're winning at foldables and they are, like it's true. The question is, is this going to continue to be the sort of mainstreaming moment for these foldables and if it is, can Samsung still win? Right now it's winning a game no one else is really playing in the same way, at least in this country.
Yeah. But to say here is what we think this is for and why we think you should use it just felt good to me. Right? Like they just make a case for what you are supposed to do with your phone. Uh, and a few times made the case that actually what you should do is not look at your phone, which is not a thing we hear from phone companies very often. But you start to see these companies are starting to understand the way the winds are changing, right? That there is real energy for people to not want to use their phone so much and to want it to fit more naturally into their life and not be completely subsumed by it all the time. Is this the thing they're actually after? Of course not. They all want you to use their phones more and ruin your life, but they see the cultural change happening. And that's the thing that convinces me increasingly that that cultural change is happening is that these companies are now having to respond to it in a real way. We've spent 15 years watching everybody just power through the idea that people are mad about privacy and mad about the incursion on their lives and mad about the algorithmic stuff and like...
You're not using the screen time controls on your phone.
