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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Show Chat. It's um 891, show 18 91, it's the 20th of April and I'm rushing through the intro on Ted and Joe's Go Live 3 because we've got a house full of people already. So um thank you so much gentlemen for dropping in. Malcolm Bryant was first. Hello Malcolm. Hello guys, how are you? Nice nice to be uh nice to chat with you all and nice to be back on the uh on the pod again. Malcolm Malcolm needs to drop out first, so we'll we'll go to him first in a second. Steve Litchville was next. Hello, Steve. Hello, party time. Party time intense . And um thirdly was Jeremy Harpham. Hello, Jeremy. The Oh Hello Ted. Hello everyone. The pub the pub meat s uh specialist in the team. So um welcome to you all. And Joe Hickey of course. Hello, Joe. Hello then. Joe it feels a bit like y um you know during Covid when you had the calls with friends. Oh yeah. Lots of pictures all over your screen. Um so yeah, so w we purposely decided this time, Joe and I, to not have any agenda of any sort, no preparation for other show. Um completely oh blind, there's someone else turned up now, look. Gareth W Gareth Williams. Hello, Gareth, isn't it ? Can he hear us? Okay, we'll come to him in a second. Um so Gareth Williams when he gets his microphone sorted out will be there as well. Um Malcolm, let's turn to you first and see what you've got to say, what phone you're using, what you're up to. We were talking today um about what I said in the tech addicts group about um side loading. Don't know if you want to go into that or not in the time you've got. But um anything you want to talk about? Um I didn't really have any any um fixed plans. Um you know people know I do a bit of uh Android development so uh I can always talk about that and bore people with that. Um but um but yeah Android side loading is um is very topical. Um people may have seen um or read you know some of the news about the changes that that Google's making. And um and you know it the the kind of developer community really are just trying to get their heads around you know what's going to change later this year . And it's you know it's it's hard to kind of summarise in thirty seconds um you all all of the changes but um you know but basically uh developers are going to be required to register with with Google um in future. So, you know, if you if you release stuff on the Play Store then obviously you already did that and and you had to give you know your credentials to to Google but but the new change that's coming in later this year is that some developers for whatever reason didn't want to give their personal information to Google but now if they want to have their apps available for side loading, they're gonna have to do that. Cool. Or they're or they or they're gonna have to you know use Yeah, or use developer tools or something. So so you know it's a it's a big change and like I said we're we're trying to get our heads around it really. Cool. Yeah, I'm I'm actually working on an app at the moment that's um for for phones and watches that analyzes all your usage stats, all your app usage stats. So when you when you start the app, it does a scan of of all of the apps on your device and how often you've been using them. Sounds a bit kind of nefarious, but it isn't. It's just using standard Google tools. And then it displays that back to the user in in kind of um order of most used to least used. So if you ever kind of wondered uh A what am I using on my phone, but B what's kind of you know what's being used behind the scenes, this will give you a snapshot over say the last twenty four hours or something like that. So it's it's kind of kind of interesting. Um and that's uh that's what I'm working on at the moment for what it's doing. Do do feel free, anyone, um, to jump in and chip in and don't don't let me just play host and interview each one of you. You know, this is You're such a fabulous host though Ted so This is very open, so do do do jump and chip in and say whatever you want to say? Um I mean I've got a question I've got a question for uh for Jeremy which is uh I just wondered how you know, first of all thanks for stepping up and um uh organizing the pub meets and and uh I just wondered uh you know what the current status is whether whether you've got critical mass or or how that's going. I would say we haven't got critical mass yet. We've basically got a dozen people that have replied and stated interest. Um and there's out this is for outside of London, right? There's there's enough interest to be able to do one in London. But outside of London I've kind of got a pool of a two or three people but only in two places and they're still quite a way apart. So it would be really good if uh other people want to ha show interest and it's not necessarily a pub meat, it could be a coffee house. It depends on uh what time of day, really. Um so if people still wish to register their interest then in the main PSC group you can you'll s you can find the post and I'm sure Ted will put it in the notes for us once again. But uh alternatively just drop me an email to jeremy.harpham at uh outlook.com and that's h-a-r-p-h -m. some quite keen for a photo walk, especially if I'm going somewhere new, that would be quite nice to do. Just mobiles though . point about doing something I know Jeremy you said outside of London which is um which is great but was there was there talk of trying to do one in the London area? 'Cause I'm in Surrey so kinda London w works better for me than than north of England. Um was that something we discussed or am I not remembering that correctly? No, we we did a we did a London meet and there's always been enough well yeah well one where I stood in 'cause Joe couldn't make it. Um I think there's enough interest to do another London one. I mean I would suggest the same venue again and pick a date 'cause that venue was relatively central and that weather spoons was really good. It had coffee, it had food, it had alcohol, so it pretty much pleased could please anyone, I think. Yeah, it'd be nice . It'd be nice to get that be nice to get that um organized if we can. Hello Ir fin. Good evening, gentlemen. Yes. Well I'm in God's own country Yorkshire, so and there's nothing better for me. But uh as I said to Jeremy, I'm willing to travel up to Manchester but if it's gonna be London then I mean I suppose I do travel for work to London now and then. Uh 'cause we have an office in Gresham Street. So Steve um Reading I had a pub meet today, funnily enough. I met someone in Bracknell from Camberly and we had a look we met at a pub for about an hour and had a great geeky chat, but it was all very spontaneous and maybe I'll chat about that later. I do have a question for Malcolm though. This application you're developing um tracking which apps you spend time in, I presume given that almost every platform already tracks that and you can see it in the battery stats, I presume your app is a much longer term view, giving you trends? Um it's uh it's a complicated subject. Um so so I I re just take a step back. Uh I don't know if people remember from the from the PSE um Mi We Group probably about three weeks ago. I actually wrote a battery stats app. So that was my first app to track the battery usage because that's primarily what people are are interested in. And uh I I wrote and published that app and it it worked, it did what it said on the tin . But then Google in their wisdom um came out and started marking it as harmful because I was using some some kind of developer tricks to access the battery stats information on the device , which is normally only available to Google system apps. Anyway, long story short, I kind of withdrew that app because even though it was completely innocuous, I didn't want the bother of exp trying to explain to people why it was being flagged by by Google. So so this this current app is a is a kind of attempt to and it d it focuses not on the battery usage but on the actual um amount of time that people are using the app and the amount of data that's being transmitted backwards and forwards. So in answer to your question, yes, you can set it to give you information over any period of time that you choose. And that's that's one of the settings in the app. You can say, just show me the last hour or the last day or the last week or or whatever. But I'm I'm still kind of working on it at the moment. So basically at the end of the year you could say to your app how many tens of thousands of hours have I spent on YouTube, for example? Uh yeah, you could. You actually keep that. Sorry. And and may maybe that would be yeah, maybe that's not helpful for some people to know . Thank you. Okay, have we got Gareth Williams yet? Uh hi everybody, I think we can sort the microphone out now if you can hear me. Well done. Hello. Hello from South Wales. Hello from South Wales.. Indeed Um how are you doing? Uh anything interesting to um ask or contribute or well tell us what you're using at the moment or whatever? Yeah, I just wanted to start and I apologize for joining late. So a big thank you to you and Joe for what you've done with PS in the the evolution and everything since the great job that Steve did originally. So thank you to all of you. Thank you. Cheers. In terms of what we're using now I've fallen back to the S24 Ultra. Um I had the Pixel ten Pro XL. Uh I just didn't like it. It was just I found it quite dull to be honest. It had nothing additional about it. So I'm back with the S twenty four Ultra now while I wait for the Honor six hundred Pro um hopeful ly. Have you still got your Sony exper ience? Uh I had the Pro I which I absolutely adored, but then I moved that on. Um I'm actually thinking of picking up another one just for novelty value. Well Okay okay.. Elephant, what are you using? So after last time competition, I sold my Honor two hundred pro after two days 'cause I've got a really good deal on the Magic Six Pro now, so I've got an honor magic six Pro and I'm really enjoying it to be honest with it it's uh it's a great phone. I mean the same process as the on the two hundred, but I just like the way this there's Magic Sixes, it's it's good, it's done everything I want us to do and you you you mean the V six? No no no no the Magic Six Pro. Magic Six Pro It's Quite old now the handsex. On a Magic Six Pro? The Magic Six Pro. Joe, tell us about the Magic Six Pro, I can't remember now. Before my time of using on us um an older device obviously we're on the eight pro now aren't we? So Yeah. Um how much did you get that for Ali? Um they paid like two fifty for it, but it was in mint condition uh it's still not once actually until December this year still got warranty. Uh it had the same process as in the Owner two hundred uh Pro to be honest with you, the uh Snapdragon. So I just picked her up. I just like the camera around the back, it's different and a lot of people ask me about it. And to be honest with you, it takes some cracking photos. I mean it just shows that you don't need to buy a brand spanking new handset to actually have a good mobile experience. And as I told you last time I'm I wasn't keen on honest, I've tried it and I'm really liking the honor ecosystem so Yeah it's it's slick it's it's nice. I just like the way the menus are and how everything you can just I don't know it just works fine. Uh I've got obviously I've got Nova on top of it now, but I'm not sure that will happen now after reading Ted's article about the uh privacy my own side. That's interesting because Malcolm posted uh an article just this afternoon about Nova launcher, no, yeah, I think it's important we mentioned that actually 'cause some people might have missed that. Um yeah, so do you want do you want to take that away, Malcolm? Yeah, so so um yeah, I just did post an update to the group. Um there was an article I think in Android Authority about Nova Launcher which you know is is probably the oldest launcher and a favorite launcher of of a lot of people, huge you know millions and millions of users worldwide. But the origin al developer sold it out to a day a data company and he he's no longer involved with the app. And the data company has gradually been monetizing it. And the gist of the article um in Androidhor Autity was that um they're adding a whole load of AI into what else into the into the app like like everybody seems to be doing but in order to do that they're um they are going to use a lot more permissions like intrusive permissions uh on the launcher which people may know is something that I'm kind of interested in. So so I think you know the the question for n for existing Nova launchers is, you know, do you do you value that additional AI capability and if you do, is it worth the kind of privacy um sacrifice that you'll be making. And you know, people will make their own judgment on that I guess. Did it describe exactly what the A AI was gonna do? I uh it it went into some details but I think it's still being developed. So I think it's uh I don't think it's completely uh settled yet. But um but yeah, just you know it's AI, just add AI into everything and it makes it better, right? Yeah, but I mean my book play I mean they're literally shoeining into everything now. Automation pipeline frameworks, Azure, everything. They just it's just all AI crazy at my workplace. I mean people don't even write emails anymore, they just get call pilot to write it for them and they just paste it into a chart. It's just crazy. Absolutely crazy. Okay. Um and hey guys, hey guys, I I apologize. Um uh full confession, uh West Ham are playing Crystal Palace. It's a key, it's a key, key match for West Ham. We've got to try and win this match to stay up and so I've my sympathy small . I I know, I know. So I've just gotta go just gotta go and watch it. But uh nice to chat to you guys um and uh catch up soon, okay? Thanks for dropping in. Okay, no worries, bye bye. That's that's the end of the football chat. Um okay. Um let's turn to Steve and Steve you've been posting quite a few little bits and pieces lately about nostalgia and stepping back in time and collecting magazines and getting your desk organized and wearing Nokia jumpers and um anything you want uh to to chat about about that? Well it's kind of spring clean spring clean season, um and it's part of uh life moving on. I I I've had to re-home my website because the the the new host wanted like four hundred pounds for two years. I thought this is ridiculous. It's just a bunch of HTML, I know articles about phones and and embedded videos and archives of cyan stuff and Nokia communicated stuff. But it's all static. It just doesn't need to be anywhere fancy. So I had to I changed my web host and as part of reva getting all the HTMLs together and all the files and folders. I thought, do you know, this is j something of a mess. I've got to standardize it. So I I had a bit of a rejig, I put in a navigation bar on all the pages. So I've been spending hours and hours on my website. I know it looks like it's written in the late 1990s, which it was but at least it's consistent now and at least it works on most places and it's now on a completely free web host so I can just let it ride and and but that's all been done. But as part of that I realised that so many of the links on my site, uh Scion staff, to to Nokia developers, smartphone developers and so forth, these sites have all gone AWOL. They're all four oh four now. They these these sites don't exist. The links are all broken. So I've thought there's there's got to be some arch iving um responsibility here that I've got to keep the Scion flag and the Nokia communicator and the S-60 flag and all of this stuff from the nineteen nineties and two thousands. I've got to keep the the stuff online 'cause people may well depend on it. And similarly Rafe Blandford, our good friend over at All About Symbian, the All About Sites, he's been doing a similar thing with All About Symbian. So even though Symbian itself hasn't been an OS in the mainstream for uh what is it, uh twelve, thirteteen, fouren years. All about SIP is still online. All the articles are there, that all still there. Nearly all the comments are still there. And he's moved that to a new host, which is essentially much cheaper. He's converted it to a more of a static site so but everything is still readable and he's committed to uh keeping that online for many more years to come. So between the two of us, Rafe and myself, we're going to keep all of that in Scion, Symbian, Nokia Communicators, S60, all of that stuff online as long as we possibly can and kind of make sure that other people's links to us don't break. So there's been a lot of background work, but but hopefully people can see it. Follow all the links on my website, etc. etc. And yes, I do have a Nokia Lumia 102 0 jumper that was knitted for me by my wife. I'll post a photo of that uh in the group shortly. But you also had an a a a small appeal for some devices um in your uh symbium muse um. Did you want to Yeah yeah every so often I I g as I people will know in the group I get all my old Nokia out and Sony Ericksons and whatever and I I charge them up because otherwise the batteries die and the the batteries swell then you kind of have to abandon the device. And I'm determined to keep them all working as long as possible. So as part of that I had them all in front of me I thought, you know what there's there's a story to be told here in terms of my favourites, why I've kept these particular uh communicators and smartphones, what was special about them, and also to do some proper photography, because back in the all about symbian days, uh everything was shot at like VGA, 640 by 480 and really quite boring photography. And photographies, still life photography and you know, RT photographs of phones have come on enormously since then. So my idea was I'll do proper still life and RT photographs of these phones , classic phones being used out and about in 2026 and put them up and then write the story of why I chose each of these phones, why it's still worth charging up, why it's still worth keeping, still worth telling pick people about. And hopefully people who had a symbian or device back in the day they can appreciate that and hopefully you can stick the link somewhere in the show notes and people can go off and well look at the pictures and and re read my stories. Cool. Um so b uh Ben Woods Mobile Phone Museum has got a challenge, has it? Well he covers every phone, going back to the year dot, right through to the current day. I'm specifically focusing on a very, very small subset. Um and you mentioned appeal, yes. If if pe if people out there have got a uh a Nokia or Sony Erickson smartphone that I haven't mentioned there, then do please get in touch. If it's just w collecting dust in a drawer, there are several classic phones, see the group for details, which uh I've kind of like to have again. I had them all back in the day and somehow they've all crept off through wormholes in the space-time continu um to other owners and and and s I know some broke, some had to go back to Nokia and Sony and so forth. But I I'm left with a core of about a dozen. I'd like to expand that to about twenty. So do get in touch if you've got an old Nokia S60 or Series 80 or UIQ phone in a drawer and uh let's see if you maybe I can expand my museum and then do a proper ride step and maybe a a video on it. So thank you in advance. Cool. Very good. Okay. That must be an interesting actually Steve 'cause I've actually gone through I'm actually collecting all phones at the moment. I've got like ten now, so I've got Nokia sixty seven hundred, Nokia thirty four ten , Nokia one one ten, I've got a thirty three ten as well. And they all work as well. They put syncards and they all work fine. Oh so you've got a collection of good collection of old dumb phones, as I c I used to call them. But I've actually just bought a Blackberry Classic the other day which I'm gonna start using. A friend of mine brought one in and just like fell back in love with it 'cause they have a curve back in the day so alongside my honour I'm gonna be running a Blackberry as well just for like I don't know, texting and stuff. If people still text them just free through messages. But yeah, I've just fallen la back in love with the BlackBerry uh form factor again. I'm sure there are Blackberry I'm sure there are BlackBerry archivists out there as well, as well as UI Q arbi archivists and Windows phone archivists and and I'm just I thought I cannot cope with collecting every classic smartphone for twenty four, five years, but I can cope with the Symbian side of things. It's somebody else's job to do all the BlackBerries and the Dumb phones and the drug deal er phones and the Windows phones. But I'm just ambient. That's your job. Yeah. If if top myself into that haven't I Yeah. That's my story anyway. Yeah. As funny as Steve, I thought I thought oh I've got an insight into what your office looks like. Then I realised it says not my actual office. My office, like most but most of our offices, is far too spoky, dingy and muddly. I couldn't bear to show on camera, so I did an AI off ice but I think it fooled a few people. Yeah. How how how does it does it look s similar to that, but just smaller or Yeah, about eight eight times smaller. I've got the box room at the back of the house basically which is which I like. But my philosophy has always been in any any house, whether I when we move into something as a as a child, I would always make a claim for the smallest room in the house, other than the bathroom of course, on the grounds that no one else would challenge me for it, 'cause no one else wanted it. So everyone said, yes, fine, go ahead. And ever since then we moved into my current house, I said, yeah, I'll take the smallest one as my office. And no no one challenged it. I thought because it's the smallest room. So I get it all to myself. But there is it's kind of stacked high and it's much more uh compact than that AI image made out but uh yeah it worked out well as a as an image for my article. Cool. This is my plan with my daughter's bedroom actually 'cause that's the smallest room so I've got my air on it. Gareth Gareth, um tell me what you thought about next paper. Um just to fill in the background on that. I um have got these two next paper poems, TCLs, and I'm kind of making them available around the groups. Uh Gareth had them for a few weeks and he sent them now on to s to Steve Nutt, who's seeing what um TCL next paper phones are like for accessibility. But you did um pen a few notes, Gareth, didn't you, about your initial thoughts and anything you want to say about that? I did, yeah, I think thank you first of all for sending them over. It was good to have a play with both of them. Um I compared them initially and my first thought was if you're gonna have something like the next paper you've got to go I think for the one with the stylus and the bigger screen it just makes more sense particularly from an e-reader perspective um I was really impressed I have to say, by the it was a 60 ulttra, I think, wasn' it that you sent over in the fifty pro? Um of the two, the sixty ultra was far superior, as you said, in every way, from the cameras to the screen size to responsiveness. And the e ink style I thought was was a real good step in the right direction. Obviously it's not actually e ink, but it's a mimic thereof. And I think it's positive progress from TCL. I'm excited to see their next phones. Well their next phone is out now and somebody in the group, I can't remember who it is, has actually ordered one, um, which is the um surprise surprise seventy pro, I think it's called. Um Is that the OLED one? It's not the OLED. The OLED one has not seen the light of day yet. The OLED was announced at um CES I think or MWC. No, CES. Um and that's in it's in the works. Um they they're claiming to be able to retain the benefits of next pap er but with a non-L C D screen. We'll see what happens with that. But this one that's rolling out now is the 70. And actually in some ways it's a bit of a downgrade from the 60. And arguably it's a downgrade from the 50 as well. But that that's a an aside. The point is that they've they've gone back to making it smaller, less powerful, smaller battery. It seems like that sixtytra Ul is the one that was the one you know, th th their their proper flagship and they they're not per haps they're saving it all up for the OLED one now. Um but yes, the seventy is out there and you can buy it from Amazon right now. But I don't fancy it . I would have done. Yeah, yeah. I well we we need to see how what they're gonna do with it because it it might be rubbish. One of the big benefits of the next paper technology is that it's just lovely to use and it it feels like paper almost and they they they've just done when your finger runs over it, as you know, it's just really, really smooth and lovely and um and uh on the eye it's just incredibly um soothing and what have you. Let me try and find the um I'll I'll try while we jump to Joe who was wanting to say something. I'll just see if I can find the text that you provided um when you were summing things up. Joe? Oh as usual I had nothing exciting. I think it was Ian Furlong who was looking at the seventy range, wasn't it? Oh was it? Yeah, for his um for his website. I'm not I might have got that wrong though, 'cause I've got a rubbish memory. Well that bring it rings a bell, Joe. Um it was the uh the the bit that disappointed me about the next paper displays is they're just not very good out in daylight, sunlight. You know, that's the one thing I wish they would fix. I still have my TCL tablet next paper tablet, uh an early one that I use for in indoors, but it's useless outside and actually I had the same issue with the the fifty pro that I had. So I'd be very curious to hear when he gets it if it um if it's any better out in out in daylight. It's funny it's funny you just say that Jeremy because I thought that it was okay. And that bloke on YouTube called m bet s what's it, the the Poshbloke. Um can't remember I n can never remember his name. The one that does all the e ink tablets and so forth. Um he was saying that it's rubbish out in the sun, but when I took it out in the sun, the the s fifty pro and the six Geltra, I thought they were great, they were fine. Um it's not as good as a Kindle, I grant you, but it's it's it it's much better than most phones . Yeah, I have no issue with it at all. Particularly in the e in the e ink like mode, I thought it was fine. Oh yes, in the e ink mode it's good, but if you wanted to try it w in con if you had the colour one on it's noticeably bad. Worse than sta a standard IPS screen that goes that goes bright, right? And obviously no match for the OLEDs that ramp up their their mitts these days into the thousands or whatever. Yeah, I think in the in the colour mode you're right there, but with the the e ink I thought that was outside it was perfectly fine. Yeah, no e ink was good, yeah. E ink was good. Which one did you have a phone? Hello? He's gone asleep. Sorry Ted. What was the question again? I was saying which um which one of these next paper ones did you have? I can't remember now. I haven't got I've got I've got on a pad eight which I picked up quite cheap a while ago just for media consumption and it's it's it's it's a brilliant tablet. I mean it's uh it's I think it's an IPS screen, but it's it's it's really bright and it's really good for watching. But you see I've any sort of media. You see I found this with my Samsung tab let as well, which is an L C D panel. And I I I didn't know it wasn't OLED. It's so good. It's so you know, uh I know it's a Samsung, which is fair enough, but um I do find that the screen technology is very very good these days . Um Gareth, so you were saying about the your experience in the sunlight? Yeah, with the e Ink um setup I thought that was no problem at all. And also the the impact on the battery, going back to what you were saying about the switch to the lower battery for the new one, I think the battery is is immense on it. When you put it in the max ink mode it just don't need to charge it, don't need to worry about it at all. I think that's excellent. We did some testing on that. Um now who was it that I was testing that with? Someone in the group we were testing that with. And we reckoned that it was a pack of lies when they told you that the um 60 ultra could last nine days because we would we tested it just on that um max inc mode and it lasted at best four days. Um and that was with no sim card in. It was just sat there doing nothing basically and it only lasted four days. Compared to the fifty pro, which lasted much longer. And we concluded that because the seventy Ultra had a sorry, the sixty Ultra had a um uh uh uh uh a more advanced chipset and a bigger screen and um so forth, that they th th the maths had just not worked well with it and they were telling a pack of lives with it. Interesting to hear that you say you found the opposite. I was very, very impressed. I am I'm I'm just terrible with my battery. If it gets about eighty percent I've got to plug it in or put it onto a chi charger or something. I just panic like that. But these were outstanding. I left them and then I just went back to them and they were still running. Right, okay. That puts a little bit of a question around our testing then. I'll tell you what, when it gets back here I'll do it again . But that's certainly what I found, yeah. Um To be fair I found it I found in in uh in the the Mac Inc mode, it did last for ages. I didn't need to charge it much, but I was it was always on Wi Fi when it was in the house while it was left on. It was never on like a mobile signal, if that made a difference. No. I I don't know. I my testing as I say was done with no SIM card in at all, just on Wi-Fi. And um effectively I just put it on the side and didn't touch it. Um but th the the the the phones that are coming out of Big Me, for example, there's a a new couple of phones, um proper e Ink um display phones, um which are interesting. Again, if you watch this guy on YouTube . What's his name? Does any anyoneone can remember his name? It's a double barreled surname and it's Bet ts somet hing or something betts. Um and he he he's prolific. He he records a video almost every day to do with e ink panels and he's just recently got into e ink phones um and he's testing them all out on there. I'm surprised that you're all drawing a blank on that. Um I'll just put it in the show notes then. I watch too much YouTube. Was it Betts Masters? That's him, yes. I've seen I've seen some of his stuff, he's good. Yeah, he he he he goes d deep diving into all these devices. A lot of them are not phones. A lot of them are, you know, books um e readers and all that. But he he he certainly specializ es in um e ink and the the Big Me phones do look quite interesting. Some of you may remember when I had a bee um um a um a I've lost the name now. A a big me phone, um I was bugged because it had so much um Ch inese all over it. Even when I turned it on I um even when I turned it on, i in order to get to actually the point where you can switch the thing on and use it, you've got to na navigate through some Chinese menus and take a guess on which ones to press and which which button to press. But once you get past that it's a little bit better to be fair. Um so yeah, if anyone gets a chance to have a look at a Big Me e Ink phone, it's definitely worth a look. But you've just got to accept that it's so slow compared to ordinary um uh um OLED panels, which is why, Gareth, it'll be interesting to see what um TCL'll do with it. Definitely. Wha why do we think the um bigger manufacturers haven't picked this up ? Well, e ink. Mm. Because it's just so slow. It's intolerably slow. Um and the don't forget that the the the next paper is not um e ink. Yeah um we we know that it's not e ink. So the experience we have with the TCL devices is not like you get with a big Me device and if you run on a Big Me device um some video for example it's laggy and it there's ghosting on it the the whole e ink technology is just not great compared to what we're now used to. That's that's the thing I think. Um I I did have a book's pocket at one point and that was the first generation of it, not the one without the fingerprint sens the one without the fingerprint sensor, 'cause that bit used to drive me nuts and that's why I got rid of it. Right. That and the fact that it was still on Android eleven when everything else was on fourteen. Yes. That's the that that's the other problem, isn't it? That these devices. They they they ship them on a on a version of Android, which is usually already out of date, and there's no commitment at all from anyone to update them. Uh and th that's just a bit of a worry I think. Um e Ink phone right now, that's all it'll ever get. Um and uh yeah, it's a bit of a worry I think. Joe Yeah, thankfully T C L's good at that. Yeah, yeah, TCL's with the next paper is a bit different. And they've th in actual fact the um the seventy Ultra has got security promises up to two thousand thirty two I think it is. So, you know, a really long support cycle if not for um OS. Joe, I was just gonna say when you had the the fifth the the my fifty pro over there, did you did did you last more than two minutes watching a YouTube video on it? Yeah I did I I enjoyed playing with that. I I didn't leave the house with it though, so I I'm not sure how it warms outside I have to bit to be honest. But yeah, I enjoyed playing with that and tinkering away. Um and and trying the different modes as well 'cause there's three different modes on there, isn't there? So yeah, I enjoyed it. I feel like you say it's the the touch the um is what I what I loved most, which kept bringing me back to it. Yeah, yeah. I found the um the the the the video was fine on that. But that but again we gotta remember that's this is not e ink we're talking about, this is something else. And so running video on a next paper screen is very, very different. And um it's acceptable. Um even I was watching videos in in black and white and it worked absolutely fine. Um the only thing is that I don't Gareth um and um uh I don't know if anyone else has had the the the the pen, but I was saying to you Gareth about the pen, um and it's just unresponsive unless you're right in the middle of the scre en. And they reckon that's to do with magnets, um, because there's magnets all in the back of the phone, because all the cases um uh are magnetized and the the pen is magnetised and there's magnets everywhere and the um the type of stylus that's been used for the device doesn't work well if it detects magnets. So there's a there's a a a a block in the middle of the screen where it works almost perfectly. But outside of that block it's a real touch and go as to whether it works or not. Um did you find that? No, not really. I didn't come across that very often at all. I purposely looked for it 'cause it was one of the things that you mentioned before And I I then got out my S24 Ultra and also an old Note 9 just to compare to see what the feel was like. And I think again from a touch and feel perspective, the uh the TCL was far superior and there wasn't as much of an issue in the corners as you said. I didn't find anyway. Okay. Um obviously it's m you got the magic touch and I've got the the I think quite a few people have had problems with the corners on it though as well, haven't they? I've seen it on the internet as well, on YouTube and things. Certainly that um double barrel bloke, um he was demonstrating quite clearly that when you go anywhere near the magnets it's it's worse. If you take the case off of it, it tends to work a bit better, but it's still not great. Um I did actually use it out of the case, so that might be why uh well I was just gonna say you mentioned the stylus. I I I have to chuckle every time I try using a device the stylus over the last twenty years, two decades, every single time you try using a phone with a stylus, again over two decades, we always think well it kinda works, kinda doesn't, don't really care, never use it. It it's just Steve Jobs famously said are we really going to use a stylus to get round touchscreen interfaces. No, we're going to use our fingers. And that's made sense for 99.9% of I I guess there must be some artists out there who will they'll buy a they'll buy a an a a high-end iPad or a high-end Android tablet and I'll get could you set up a stylus but for everyone else just forget stylists you do not need a stylus. That's just my takeaway. And I think your takeaway Ted as well, reading between the lines on your various reviews on the subject. Jeremy ? Yeah, I I um I I very c occasionally use the stylus on my S twenty five Ultra and it's usually because I'm trying to do something that requires finer control than the end of my fingertip. Um and it's only 'cause it's the I find that useful when I'm on the smaller screen. Uh if I'm doing the same thing on my fold seven when it's unfolded I I don't need the styles is usually the it it just depends which phone I've got with me. But I would I don't use it as much as I thought I probably would. Yeah. Um and I think I think didn't we have was it Gareth that was running an S twenty four Ultra. Uh big kids stylus phones. Uh quite a lot. I've had before I've had the S uh I've had the Note 9. I even bought the Pixelbook pen, so I'm a big stylus fan. Yeah, I have them on tablet I do have the pens on tablets like my uh Lenovo Legion Tab three, whatever. That's quite good. Um and I do use that. And I I do have the TCL pen with the tablet as well. I can't write on them 'cause nothing can read my handwriting including me. So Joe Gareth, what do you what do you use the stylist for then on your on your uh Samsung? Um all sorts of things, quick notes, um just highlighting things, editing things to send on WhatsApp quite a lot. Um I would say it's probably split fifty fifty stylus non stylus use for me. Wow. Well done. Okay. I stand corrected. Um Uh Ur Panale has dropped out so thanks for joining Surpin. Bye and catch you next time. Um Steve, I was talking to um Gareth um uh Miles um on Tech Addicts podcast about styluses and pens and he told me that his wife um has a device uh a phone with a pen and I said to him the same question I said d does she actually use it for anything? And he said absolutely she does as soon as she takes the phone out, she also takes the stylus out and she uses it instead of her finger pretty much all the time. So uh there are people that use it out there. Um the most I've done with it is to sign a PDF document once. I was very pleased with myself. I was I I was out on the road and I I thought, how am I going to do this? Oh yeah, of course, I've got a stylus and um I signed this PDF document and saved it back and then emailed it and it worked brilliantly well. But you're absolutely right. I've been writing this week about this Motroller the Moto Pen Ultra which I've got for the signature the, Motroder signature. And I'm after testing it and reviewing it, I'm it sat there and it it it's it's I love the utility of it. I love the fact that it's a an accessory for my phone. It's great . But y you're quite right. I I just don't use it at all. Here's Urpan back. Stand by. He must have he must have changed his mind. Hello, Urpan, you're back. Hello, sorry about it, Jenna. my My team's headset, if you take it off your head it slightly disconnects the meeting, which is what is Sorry about that. I've got a I've got a theory Ted about this stylist thing. This is given that Gareth's uh a fan and and um the other Gareth Miles' wife is a fan. I think it's a mindset thing. If you get out your phone and you immediately get the stylus out, then it's available to d help you do all the touching and tapping and swiping and for input. If you like you and I perhaps most of the t phones we we try and have gotten a review they don't have stylists so we we just never think about it. And that's the problem. It's not that the stylist stuff is not clever, it's not that you can't do a whole bunch of things, it's the fact that most of the time I never even think about using a stylist. I never even lust after one. And it's it's a mindset thing. Does that ring true? I suppose so yeah to some degree. Joe, you you currently got a um an honor device with a pen, haven't you? Yes, I I think what Steve's saying is very true. So I go through stages where uh I I thoughtfully get the pen out and I play with it and I really enjoy it, um and then I put it away and and it gets forgotten. So yeah, what Steve is saying is very true. It it is a lovely thing to have. Um but I do forget totally forget about it quite often. Till I have to sign an NDA, then then I get it back out again. Yeah. I I can I can relate to that 'cause sometimes I do forget it's there and I'll go reach for somebody else has got a pen in order to sign a document, for example, like my old pixel tablet . Well I I like to have it there. So it's good for additional functionality I think. It certainly is. Yes. I think as well on the the S twenty four you can use it to control the camera, the the button on there remotely so that's quite handy. Yeah you well the but on the S twenty five you can't and on the S twenty six you can't. Yeah um they took it away which is why this hoohar is coming up about Motorola because on their fourth coming razor fold, all of that functionality is back. I've got I've got the Moto Pen Ultra here as I say and it's got a button on the side and it surely it it is um it it does air gestures and you can use it to fire the shutter uh as a remote control. It it does all of that stuff that the old style um S pen used to do. Um and I I read an article just today on one of the tech sites saying that, you know, um as usual Motorola might be late to the party here, but they've grabbed this. Mo um Samsung appears to have kind of half given up on it. Um a bit like smart Connect and decks with Windows and Motorola are running with it and good for them. Um not that I'm a Motorola fan, you understand. Yeah we we might touch on that later Ted as well. Um don't the uh latest honor and uh Oppo foldables the N six and I forget what the honours, the magic V six isn't right. That's right, yeah, V six. Don't th don't they both support have pen input that works on the front screen and on and on the unfolded one as well? Yeah, the the V five does as well. Yeah. That's the pen I've got for the V five. Yeah, it works really well. Did that answer your question? Yeah it does. Oh I just wanted to touch on uh the article you put up about e Sims, like d what's your experience, gents, with e Sim s? I love them . You love 'em, okay. Go I'd like to hear more. So, as I've m alluded earlier, I basically me and my wife both have like she has a something up with the on her. So our main phone number are on ESIMs both basically in both phones. And all I do then is just get a cheap data sim for our data, that's it. And then if she changes phone, all I have to do is just uh scan the QR code on a new phone and the eSIM transfer to that phone. It's very simple. I've I've used them for a while, ever since Pixel side doing them, and I find them quite functional. I mean I've used O2s, I've used Vodafones, ESIM, I'm currently using Sky's ESIM so I've tried quite a few network providers and I've never had any trouble with them. I've used a few. Um yeah, I y started using them when travelling more than anything else. The ability to have, you know, a number on your phone and then choose the best one is neat. And uh I've I've recently just got um Mozillian, the EE uh MVNO SIM and I got that as an e sim . Same same reason, it's just easy. And I I've moved them between phones and not had any issues either. So in many cases you still have to jump through numerous hoops when activating and managing eSIMs. Even worse, if you have a carrier locked phone, eSIMs from other networks still don't work. With an eSIM, if my old phone is broken or stolen, it complicates things significantly to prevent virtual SIM swap fraud . Maybe it's not a huge deal if you're only changing phones every few years, but for a certain group of people, this extra friction is a good reason to avoid eSIMs. The idea is still good, but the ecosystem To be honest with you, Ted, uh uh do the do we have carry a lock phones anymore, to be honest with you. Not in the UK no. Not in the UK no exactly. But yeah, I mean I've never had like issue with switching between phones. I mean even if I get uh like a Xiaomi phone. And I'm sure that this journalist from How to Geek is in America. Um so fair fair enough. Um perhaps it's very different over there. Um but th uh I think E Sims will will come and Steve Apple will be first I reckon. The next Apple phone you buy. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you can't put a sim card in it. I thought the air I thought the air was that? ESIM only phone I believe, yeah. It is, yeah. Yeah, I think I think within a couple of years all iPhones will probably be eSIM only. But I mean I d as we've said, if it's only every two or three years uh that's the typical upgrade cycle for most people. I don't see it being a problem. It might be ten minutes of scratching your head and and scanning a QR code and fiddling around with authentications. But it's it uh it things are exacerbated because of your workflow, Ted, I think. I that's why you resonated with this chat because you you literally move your main sim from phone to phone every fifteen minutes, seven days a week. And that's why you couldn't possibly do this. But but you are I I put it to you, Mr Sam, and you are not typical. No I'm not. Uh that's fair enough. L let's uh let's talk about while we're on Apple, let's talk about Apple though, Steve, and tell us what you think about the forthcoming fold and the whole passport style fold which I've got here still on the original generation pixel fold and um what the future's gonna be for for Apple going forward. Are you going to get one? I am not going to buy one outright I am going to buy one off PSC classified. It's about six months later when it's £800 cheaper, hopefully. I I I love the idea. I look I love the original Pixel Fold, as you know, I bought it off I think it was Jim Fowl, then then we passed between the th the three of us several times. You've ended up with it. Uh but it's uh no no that's not that one. I bought mine separately from someone else. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure what that original one is. Okay, but yeah, I love the pixel fold f original pixel fold form factor. Just like the surface do it, the same idea. You you unfold it and you've got a landscape screen which is just perfect for watching content on. And most of us, let's face it, we do watch Netflix and YouTube on our phones and so forth. And it's also perfect for multitasking, you know, with one one up one side, the other up the other side. Having a a unfold a folding phone which ends up as a square is kind of wasting the point of it. So I'm all for these these these why the Huawei was it the Huawei Pure X and the and the and the up c and the pi the original pixel fold which I think they'll go back to, Samsung's rumoured to be doing a Samsung fold wide, whatever they end up calling that. I think the iPhone fold will be a really niche device because of the price. Two thousand three hundred pounds is my guess. Which is absolutely insane. You'll only you'll only be able to really buy this on contract uh and kind of make it work that way. Um do do you think that price is about right, Joe? Yeah, it's it's it's gonna be a pricey one. And I think it's gonna be good for us at networks to sell it um over time, yeah, interest free. I I think it will do well though 'cause um yeah. Well I think it will anyway, but it's gonna be the the ultra to the max for the for the Apple fans. Um so 'cause there's a lot of people who just want the best for the Apple offer and that is gonna be the best. Um 'cause I don't think a lot of people that buy the Pro Max are actually interested in the cam eras. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The thing the thing is people love iPads and they love iPhones, but this way you could literally have one device that was two devices in one. Rather than spend twelve hundred on an iPhone Pro Max and seven hundred pounds on a on a on an iPad Air, you just put the two together and it's one phone that unfolds to become the other. So if there is a justification here, it's probably out of my purse, certainly buying it new, but I'm fascinated to see what they're gonna do in terms of the software and how it transforms and how what you do inside bec becomes what you see on the outside screen and vice versa. All of the Android folding manufacturers. They all do something slightly different in terms of what you see inside and outside and how the setup um gets preserved. So I'm fascinated to see what Apple does here. But I'm very much looking forward to them launching it and seeing the reviews and seeing what they've done. As uh and and and the robustness will be the key as well, won't it? Jeremy, you um wanted to chip in Yeah, do you think they're they're gonna release it globally or do you think they'll just release it in the US to start with? I I think probably globally in small quantities, but it will be sold out for you know after the first week for about three months. There'll be a long lead time. The Pro Max is I mean I only I was lucky to get mine about two weeks after launch. Most of the uh colours and storages were were like two or three months away and certainly for some of the colours. It'll be the same with the iPhone fold. They'll sell it in about, I don't know, a dozen markets on day one, but it'll be all sold out and then you'll be back ordered for about three months af ter that. Yeah. I th I think the the software is an interesting one 'cause I don't think I don't think Apple will make the it when when you open it on the inside, I don't think it'll switch to like iPad OS 'cause they still want you to buy an iPad as well. Right? I I th I think it'll still be it'll just be iOS on the on the inside. But the interesting thing about the if all the rumors are true on the on the format is that the same screen resolution it it'll just sorry the aspect ratio for the apps basically doesn't change between when you're using it, whether it's folded or unfolded. All that changes is the size of the screen. So you couldn't it it's one of those clever th it should be one of those clever things where a a uh an existing iOS app will just scale up properly on the unfolded display on the inside. Shall we just say I've got lots of questions about The assumption is Apple have been working on this for quite some time, so I suspect it's going to be uh a ready product um yeah unlike some things at launch. And they'll also and and they'll also need to leapfrog what uh o Opo are doing now with the N six with the virtually invisible, virtually invisible f uh crease, won't they? Yeah, and that's the rumour, isn't it? Yeah. And also will they will they will they sh preview it uh dubdub for for developers so they get developers to buy in to do it to do it. And if the tr if the stuff's true about the software, you can argue they don't need to. But on the other hand, they've done they have done it before. Yeah, I think I think they will tease it at dubdub and developers will get aheads up on what they need to do to their apps to and make t tweaks and adjustments. That has to happen for it to be ready for mass launch um in the autumn stroke heading up to Christmas. So that will happen t in terms of the crease though, um yes they're going to use the latest folding screen technology. There will always be a crease in all of these phones. I don't think it's a huge problem. They've been getting shallower and the the s the the folding phone screens, however soft they may be, they are have been getting more durable over the years. Just think how much more durable a Samsung Galaxy Fold 7 screen is than the origin one on the original. You y yes, if you dig your fung thick fingernail in, if you jab it with a byro too hard or something you can damage it but they're so much more robust and they're actually and the most of them are waterproof now as well so I think the durability thing is is something that has matured and that's when Apple tends to come into the market and say, right, this is our vision and we're using the latest folding technology and it's also IP sixty five or IP sixty eight and I think it will all come together but at a huge price. Just on that Steve actually durability, the the V five for example, um that's one thing I I noticed from the V three, like my finger now is when they get long, um, they don't um imprint on it. It has got more durable already. So yeah, I think apples will be will be very good . Yeah, yeah. There we go. So I'm not going to get one Ted but I may well pick one up from one of our good members and PSC classified at some point in the future. that Android has not done very well with um on the folding devices in my opinion, the ones I've used, is that change like just what Jeremy was saying, the ch the changing of the apps to make it fluid going across. Um, you for know, example, the um Samsung does it kind of better than some but they've got different controls on the inside and controls on the outside. Um uh the pixel fold, the original one in anyway, um, you just get the same on the inside as you get on the outside. So that becomes page one and page two is just on the right and you can't have a different layout on there. The only way that I found in order to um do that independently is to to use a different launcher, in my case um octopi and and it works really well. So um that that I think I think that's the kind of thing that Apple will will just get right, Jeremy. I think I think it will just be you know th th th they cut they might come be coming in late but they'll have thought it all through properly and they will make it work and yes Steve it might require developers to get on board. they But've done that before. They they've got developers on board before and it takes time but they do get there and they know that they've got such a captive audience and market that it you know, i it it's fine. They can wait and they can bide the time and they can do it well and that's what Apple um are are good with really. Um Erfan, you were mentioning the the rolling phone just there . Yeah, I saw the video a few days ago. Uh I mean I've seen it in the past and it it looks pretty slick actually to be honest. I don't know why they never went with that to be honest with you. I mean I'm not seen any I mean like they said the video said it's it's cancelled by LG but I thought that was quite uh something that could have taken off Where it it just expands and then contracts the screen. I'm not sure what you guys think. Well they've got laptops um like that haven't they already? I think Lenovo do one. Um which makes more sense to me actually a laptop that does it . I hadn't I hadn't appreciated I haven't had a chance to watch the video, first of all. Um but what I hadn't appreciated about it is that the bit the the bit of the screen that 's when it's folded appears on the back that you can interact with. I didn't realise that they'd managed to have that behind glass to protect the screen. Yeah, y this is when m mister Mr Brownley was showing it off the other day, wasn't it? Yeah. And he it rolled round the back in the same way as that was it the Xiaomi air or something? No not air. That that original Xiaomi device where everything right round the back was wrapped round screen and first hot honor folding screen wasn't it Tab osite way round or something? Yeah. Or was it on the outside screen was on the outside? Huawei? Yeah, maybe it was while Yeah. Yeah. So Mr Brownlee was um showing that off on that defunct uh fan and not produced um um what device was it? It um was it an LG? I think it was an LG. Yeah, it was an LG. It was an LG I thought it was uh Mr Zach and Mr Jerry Rick who did the uh the fold LG folding phone demo that I saw. Maybe m me Mar Marcus did one as well. I the one I saw was um was Zach. Okay. Yeah, they're both that they're both done one. Zach did his first. And then uh yeah, it's the M K B H D's the one I've seen. I haven't watched the Jerry Rigg one. Yeah. They both have links to with D brand, don't they? I think it D brand forced them, apparently. Yeah. Yeah. But all those motors and levers and and m moving parts. I've just been the my PubMe today was with a a guy who oh was brought up on scions in the nineteen nineties and we chatted the old times and and the scion palm tops and that their number one Achilles heel was moving parts and moving ribbon cables and and just as full I mean a folding phone's got enough moving parts, then have a rollable thing that's got um mechanical cams and motors and extra there's just so much to go wrong in terms of real world durability and people dropping them and misusing them. I don't know about um the other video, but on Mr Brownie's video he showed the inside of it by uh um Jerry rig and you could see that the the cantilevers moving it out and he and he pushed he he put it um alongside a laptop, which was you know, decently heavy, and he m got the screen to come out. So he held the the phone on one side, got the screen to come out and got it to try and push the laptop across the table. And it was really interesting to if you haven't seen the other video, Steve, you should watch that one because um you know it it it shows it quite well. I've not seen the the the other one I can salivate as a geek, but I'm just saying Mr. John Smith in the high streets going to break it within uh within a week. I'm just saying that. the more complex things are, the more they don't survive rough and tumble in the real world. I've seen how I'm sure Joe's seen this, the way people treat their phones away from our wonderful geek community that cossets and and and strokes all their lovely gadgets out in the real world people drop them and smash them and sit on them and all the rest of it and I just fear for a r a rolling screen. I'd love to play with it but it I can't see that going any more mainstream than folding phones. Yeah. Oh sorry, go on. No, sorry, I was gonna say I concur with Steve that in the real world I've seen some proper battered phones and I just look at 'em and I think how can you still use that phone? This is crazy. Yeah, it's not just uh how bad they get, they just they slap it in a case and it never gets cleaned ever. They don't they just use it every day without cleaning it. It's it's disgusting. But we have hand gel on every desk at work and it's purely after touching people's phones. We wanna give 'em a good wash, you know . Gareth, any thoughts on folding or rolling or futuristic design? I'm just sat here looking at my desk setup at the moment and I've got my pixel tablet on its charger next to my phone on a charger and they're both signed in on separate accounts. So I'm struggling to see personally for me and my workflow the merits of a folding phone. Um particularly I if I tie to just one account constantly whereas I can work on the tablet and the phone simultaneously on separate accounts quite happily. Yeah. Yeah. This is something um Ian touched on last week, wasn't it, actually? Uh having different devices for different purposes. Yes. Yeah. The um what was it? The unbundling. The unbundling bundling. So going back to iPods and um and and um uh devices that work separately and having a compass in your pocket. Even a notepad he had didn't he say So that's all good fun. Wouldn't quite go that far, but it's just as easy for me to grab the the tablet and take I I carry two phones normally anyway, so I just take a tablet out as well. It's not that much of an issue. Don't you get the w don't don't you don't you get the wow factor though, wouldn't you love to play with it? Oh no, I fully appreciate the shiny shiny but from a a pr a practical perspective I don't think it's gonna work for me. No . Fair enough. Fair enough indeed. Um okay, so who's got what else? Oh the the these the um Sony Experia one Mark eight is beginning to look interesting and I'm not sure that it's interesting in in a good way. Um Gareth because Gareth was my um well and Steve as well. I mean we've all had lots of Sony through our hands. Um the the i it just th the the renders um and a new bunch of renders have come out today kind of supporting this um this this block of cameras on the back and not the nice sleek line that we've been used to. Um and uh I I don't know, it just doesn't have the Sony feel about it and the um you know any thoughts Steve or Gareth ? I'm kind of disappointed in in how slowly Sony move. Every f every generation is such a tiny iteration of improvement on the the previous generation. In fact for the one Mark Six didn't they change the aspect ratio completely. Yeah. Um and it is this new one, it was rumored to go back to twenty one by nine. It was I I don't know. It is, yeah. No , I'm sticking with my w w one mark five. I and I s which I still love to bits. I mean I know I use the iPhone as my main device but uh but the the Sony is a wonderful plaything just to have beside the s the beside the iPhone. Excuse the dog growling in the background. I'm gonna mute myself now while I sort out the dog, but yes. Gareth Gareth or someone else. Yeah. I can't. Sorry, Kerriff . So I I completely agree with what Steve said. I think the older Sony Xperies, the everything was so lovely about them, the touch, the feel, the way they operated, the tens, um I've had the five, I've had the ten and I had the uh the Pro I and they just felt really, really nice to use in every way. And I I appreciate as well the twenty one by nine aspect ratio and the speakers, everything can't speak highly enough of the older Sony's. Yeah, absolutely. I I'm I'm with you on that. Jeremy? Yeah, I was about to say my son's still rocking a Sony Xperial one Mark Five of as his daily and he showed no interest whatsoever in the in the move away from the twenty one by nine aspect ratio uh for the newer more recent ones. But you know, maybe they're going back to it to catch the upgrade cycle of all those people on the fives. Yeah, i i th the trouble is that it's tall, um and I'm I I often I often have my sim card in my five mark five. But I d I am aware that it's tall. Um and some things at the top of the stre the screen are a stretch. The 10 Mark 7 um also has uh moved away from the 219 screen um and that's got a wider aspect. I did have the 1 Mark 6 here um for a while and then sold it and that has got the s the the differently shaped screen and I th I I thought I liked it um but hearing that it's going back to twenty one nine possibly. I Um I'm don't know what to think about that. I'll leave it to you. But twenty-one by nine it is different to the mainstream and that's what makes the Sony interesting. If Sony just um convalesce everything around what the mainstream are doing. They're not they're not any different. In fact they're behind in t some software uh ways and behind in terms of numbers of updates. So certainly need to concentrate on the things they do best and that that was the different aspect ratio, the three and a half mil headphone jack, the front facing speakers, etcetera, etc. Sony should just stick to what it's doing best and improve those things. Improve the cameras, improve the s speakers, improve the internals. Yeah, go on, Gareth. I'll just say I completely agree with Steve, they were on to a good thing. Uh now they seem to have taken a different tack. Yeah. It's like especially the cameras, like Steve said, they're very small updates and now they've got further and further behind especially in terms of the telephoto I I think so it's um the the interest is less and less there every year um now it looks like uh someone has drawn it out from like some cheap Chinese brand. For me, it looks doesn't look premium like Sony usually looks um from that render. It it looks horrendo The price tag will be premium now? Yeah. That's why remember they're not making it themselves. They're putting it out to a third party to actually make it. That started with the the one Mark Seven. Um the the one mark Six was still made in-house by them, but the one Mark Seven and onwards was one of these um what are they called? These firms that OEMs generic No. They do generic des igning for the OEMs and they um I can't remember what it's called now, anyway. It's some um term that is used to denote those all Ted generic um Yeah, design houses . So yeah. Bit of a shame. I've got fond memories of the um gifts we've purchased though. I've got I've got two uh XM fives, one for my wife, one for myself, and a Sony T V um previous purchases. So that's always been good. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, free gifts are good. And um th some of them are getting quite good at that, aren't they? Um the uh s certainly the Far East firms. If you buy a um uh razor fold now you get a bundle of a whole bunch of stuff in it. We were talking on Tech Addicts about the latest honor um phone which gives you two hundred quid off and then a a load of stuff that's worth about three hundred quid in total. Um and you know bargains are out there if you kinda hunt around from them for for them . What's the what's the never never payful price basically? What what's the way go on. Go on, no, go on. Is they're giving away a projector with a six hundred pro. No. No comment It's just it's up on the screen. I'm just looking at it now and they've got a picture of the phone. It is, yeah. Um it's what it's on the register now section, but they've got the phone leaning on a projector. Mind you, projectors are kind of cheap these days, aren't they ? I remember when you got phones with projectors built in Ted, eh? Yes. And mot o mods as well. You still can, but they're um big chunky um durable ones though . Talking of talking about the past again for a second as we were there, um what's the latest on the the QRT devices? We've got the Titan Two and the the Elite and the forthcoming click phone or whatever it's called. Um Steve you cancelled your order didn't you on that but um uh any any newer thoughts? Well d I only cancelled it because uh the the guy I had earmarked it for had a uh I think uh a stroke or something and he felt he couldn't manage it and his brain wasn't working fully. So that was all a bit of a sad situation. But I've still got the the um the add-on mag safe keyboard coming so I'm quite excited about that and that should be here within a a month or two. I also noted the click communicator Very disappointing. But the the T Titan is it the Titan Elite Titan Two Elite has been doing quite well in doing the rounds. Yeah, lots of the reviewers have got it in their hand now and they are beginning to roll out one of your friends, Joe, I think, was ha uh on YouTube I noticed was had one in hand. Who was it? Um have you seen a review of the Elite ? I've not seen I've seen a short video, um from a jab and it and it's um it's still chunky. Yes. Oh yeah. That's one thing you did say. Well you did he enjoyed it, he said. He said it's nice. Mind you, the uh the O'Clex communicator itself is also quite chunky. If you look at the um the the the the video and the photos of it at the launch party it's a chunky beast compared to if you think back to the Nokia E series the E seventy one E seventy two which I've still got here they really were quite thin they're amazingly thin for the for the time. And uh I think these QWERTY phones at the twenty twenty six, they need to slim down more really to make themselves genuinely usable. Yeah I agree. That's that's that's why I thought I'd mentioned the fact that it is chunky. It's uh in twenty twenty six it does it need to be that chunky? It's yeah, it's not gonna appeal to a lot of people, I think. Um does come in an interesting orange colour though, which is the trendy colour thanks to Apple I I I I quite like the look of it. Um if I was if I was in for a QWERTY phone, which I'm really, really not, I I do not want to go back to hardware QWERT phones. But if I was, I think that the Click's communicator is really nice looking. Chunky as it may be I think it's really attractive. I love the the the size of the screen and uh it fitting in the hand. A bit like the um Huawei um pure X that's the mentioned earlier, you know, it has that kind of size um feel about it. Um that it'll fit in the hand nicely. A bit like our our flip phones um Joe, you know, we we both have decided that flip phones are probably not for us, but when you've got it in your hand or it's in your pocket, it's just great. Yeah, that yeah. It's wonderful, yeah. And that that is a little bit thicker once folded, but yeah, smaller still. Yeah, yeah. I mean it does look nice the orange actually on the um It is fake. I'm looking at it now. $199 to reserve one. And let's see if it says when they're they're shipping now. Um the keyboard does look a lot nicer than the the Titan 2. Does look a lot nicer for using like it looks slightly slanted in places and more BlackBerry-esque um I dare say so Yeah. I'm still lusting after it. If if uh despite my friend having his stroke, if the Click's communicator was available to to do to deliver next week, I think I would probably get one and give it a darn good go, as as indeed would Ted. But if it's literally going to be another seven or eight months then it's have I got the patience? 'Cause I want them to do well 'cause I do see a market for it still. Um we s I've mentioned various times on the show we sold loads of Douro phones, which is a very basic um like old flip phone. Um Doro's like a a brand from Sweden. Yeah. Uh they essentially make it for for seniors if you like. Um but there's a huge market for it . The answer is what you said really, the second half of two thousand and twenty six. Um they were planning for quarter two, but it 's now second half. So yeah. It's a long way . It's on your Christmas list then, Steve. Yeah, it may well be. I I I'm I'm not against it. Um I may just uh give in to temptation later on this year. Who knows? Hmm. I'd definitely be interested to see what what you make of that one, Steve. Me too. There will there will be a few YouTube shorts if I get one, trust me. I'm looking forward to your shorts on the the keyboard as well actually. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm I'm looking forward to that. But uh th th I haven't had a a shipping email or anything from the Clicks team for ages, so uh I'm not holding my breath. I I had an update on mine um end of last week I think Steve. Uh I I it just said they were on track and still expecting to ship the first units by end of May. Yeah, I've I came through the planet computers uh ordering stages there. If you remember those a few years ago and they were always doing yes, we've been to the factory and things are progressing and two months later, yes we've been to the factory again and there's been a few hiccups but we're gonna work round them. And it just went on and on and on delay after delay after delay. I now I I know the clicks people are more organised, but I'm I'm just I expect these delays now and I just don't sit around waiting for and waiting for the postman. Yeah, I know the uh uh the last uh the last thing I heard was there'd been a minimum update um based on feedback to enable you to turn off the wireless charging with a key press if you didn't if you wanted to just keep the battery for the keyboard and not charge the attached device. Was the last thing I heard. Yeah, it does to me given the size of the how small the battery is in the actual keyboard anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay. Well thanks ever so much everyone for joining us. I think we'll kind of draw a line under it now. Um Irv and Alley and Jeremy Harpham and Steve Rich field and Gareth Williams joining Joe and myself. This has certainly been the most successful drop-in um open door thing that we've done so far. So we'll be back with another one. I think we did say that we will probably do one, try and do one about once a month so we'll find we'll we'll track a date down for that one. Um we'll be back next week um on the um the scheduled show on Monday the twenty seventh of April but as yet we don't have a guest. So if you anyone wants to um uh uh um put themselves forward to come on the show next Monday, you can. Um otherwise it'll be a catch-up show with me and Joe and we'll go through some of the backlog of stuff that we've got hanging about still. Um phoneshowchhat.uk is our website. That's where you'll find links to all the stuff that we've been talking about, hopefully, if I can remember what it all was. Ted Salmon.com otherwise, uh Podhub UK which is still maintained by Steve. Thank you Steve, well done. Um and um that's about it really. Um thank you very much gentlemen for joining me. Any last words from anyone? Just I'm gonna say typical that this week um classified there's been some good stuff on there. Um so I just wanted to give it a mention of classified. Okay. Yeah and I I was and I was plugging PotW K to my PubMeat uh chap today. He'd he'd never joined he didn't think about Mi Wee. I said right, this is what you need to sign up, you'd go to PSC. Just put it in the when they asked you for joining questions, just put in the notes at the bottom. Met Steve at the pub. Tab will let you right in. And also for classifieds as well. And yeah, so it's Pot WK and the Mi Wee groups. I'm I'm evangelizing them right, left and centre, Ted. Well done. Well done indeed. Okay, well thanks very much gents and um we'll catch you soon and as I say if anyone wants to join Joe and I next week then put yourself forward and let me know. Um and it's uh goodbye from now. Bye-bye