Crowning the World Cup Phone Winner

bank I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront. Ching There's this much that I'm getting in interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to four point two percent API on their cash with the Wealthfront cash account. Get started at wealthfront dot com C cllients paid one thousand dollars for their testimonial creating a conflict of interest outcesary. three point three percent base API as of january thirtieth twenty six is representative viable and earn on funds swept to program bank. point five percent new clients whoose for three months and up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Directposit one thousand dollars a month funded invest account for a point five percent increase Cash account offered by Wealthfont brokerage LLC member Fin IC not a ACAS powers the world's best podcasts Here's a show that we recommend Hello American podcast listeners.' Max Russton here from the Guardian Football Wek, which I think you should give a listen. It is good. It comes out three times a week and the podcast delivers you analysis, news, both the good and the bad from the beautiful game, and maybe even the occasional laugh He's angry about everything. He doesn't have a great poker face, does he? I would like to play cards with Runo Fernando. You can listen to the Guardian Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Hopefully see you soon ACAast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACast. com. Hello and welcome to the Gadget Show podcast. This week we're joined by Gadget Show Legend, John Bentley, who's helping us answer a big question, Have flagship smartphones become too expensive? That is a really good question. Because these days, phonees costing five or six hundred pounds with frankly, incredible cameras, stunning displays and more power. than most of us will ever need. So we're going to turn this chat into the World Cup of smartphones. You see what we've done there? We've each picked a head to head battle between an affordable challenger and a premium heavyweight. And by the end we'll be crowning our phone of the Year for twenty twenty six. So before we get started, a quick word from our friends at CX. Yeah, if you're the sort of person who can lose half an hour looking at gadgets u that you, you know, never even knew that you wanted, then CX is a dangerous place. Yeah, whether you're into smartphones, gaming, cameras, laptops, smart home tech or retro consoles, there's always something interesting on the shelves. And because CX buys and sells pre owned technology, you can often find premium tech for a lot less. buying it brand new. Everything is tested before it goes on sale, so you know that it's working as it should Every item comes with a five year warranty, which is longer than many manufacturers offer on brand new products. Of course all that tech has to come from somewhere. Exactly. If you've got an old phone, a laptop, a console, an old smartphone or a tablet gathering dust at home, CX buy it from you for cash or give you even more in in store credit. Which means your old gadgets could help pay for your next upgrade. It's a win win a little bit like what we're hoping for England at the World Cup. You clear some space, someomeone else gets a great deal and that mystery box of old charges finally gets The love and attention it deserves. So visit webuy dot com or your local CEX store and see what's waiting for you Right, before we get into this week's tech news, a little favor. if you're enjoying the podcast and you haven't already done so, can you hit follow wherever you're listening right now? Yeah, it's the easiest way to make sure you never miss an episode, no searching, no scrolling or No suddenly realizing that you've got three weeks of the Gadget Show podcast to catch up on. And if you've been listening for a while, we do thank you. We know there's lots of podcasts competing for your ears these days. Anyway, enough housekeeping. John, great to see you. Lvely to be Be before you tell us what you've been up to, I wanted to share a lovely comment that was sent via our YouTube channel It's from Illusive Bounce John Bentley is the Geek version of David Atttenborough, who watches? I totally agree. O my hundred birthday this year. there you go. What an absolute top off legend. he really is having followed you guys since the Gadget Sh first started. and you're all every bit as special all these years later. We much appreciate that Long may all continue and thanks For all these amazing years There we go. Asolutely brilliant. So what's been ging you busy John? Oh various things. A actually I'm in a bit of a sad mood this month because I think it's the end of an era the old long wave radio four transmissions from Droit, which are shutting down later this month. and I just think it's sort of the end for actually rather nice old technology long wayave radio that s go over vast distances. I remember those trips to France on holiday. How long will the car radio keep us tuned in to hear the news and all that sort of thing? It just sit here. and It it's the fact that you have one transmitter covering much the entire country and beyond. you can even pick it up in well I in North Africa and actually occasionally going to go as far as Florida or something something do the atmosphere and the way it responded to the ray anyyway. Just I think it's twenty seventh n I'd shedding a quiet tear that I can no longer Listen to the listen to the BBC on on fifteen hundred meters or fourteen fifty eight Long Wave. Yeah. I too are fond members of Longwave, actually, my radioama today is John when the Ianas Fair would come into play at around sort of You know, seven o'clock dark. Yeah. Yeah. and it would just extend that range and I used to get Russian radio and I'm guessing. I love the idea of you and the family just desperately holding on to a signal. would and it would have gone in and out, wouldn't it as you passed Yes, it wouldick the holiday about twenty eleven, I think we're in the Pyrenees and there was there was no data on the mobile, there was no Wiifi in our holiday home. and the only way we could keep in touch was actually going out of the car outside on the Pergo Rntal car. I think it had a long wave and it was loud and clear. you could hear it the news and everything, which no more I love that. That actually is a sad day, John ough you will still be able to hear the bongs of Big Ben in Parliament Square over the radio quicker then you hear them from the The actual coming over the sound wes because FM apparently is just as quick. so radio four FM from Crystal Palace will still give you those bongs. I mean you're getting you are actually becoming more and more like David Asima with the arms and everything going there. I don't know if it's David A. Sorry O, Well it's great to have you along, John. and it won't have failed to escape your notice, that one of the biggest technology stories of the week is the government's decision, of course, to ban under sixteenens from using major social media platforms in the UK. This has created an enormous amount of noise The proposed restrictions would cover some of the biggest names on the internet, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, EX, and even YouTube. which I know some kids get their homework on. Meanwhile Messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal are expected to remain exempt from the ban. The government's also proposing additional restrictions on things like live streaming and contact from strangers on gaming platforms. So on the face of it, the reasoning is very easy to understand Ministers argue that social media companies have had years to make their platform safer for children, and they simply haven't done enough. Concerns around mental health, cyberbullying, addictive algorithms, harmful content and sleep disruption have all helped to drive this decision. But while the announcement itself is straightforward The reality seems anything but that. The first question is how is this actually going to work Most social media platforms already have minimum age requirements, yet millions of younger users have found their way onto them, of course, because they're kids Australia's experience has shown that introducing a ban is one thing and enforcing it is something completely different. Many children reportedly continued using social media after restrictions were introduced often by simply finding ways around the age checks. It sort of reminds me a little bit of smoking when we were kids because you could always find yourself to go and buy a cigarette if you wanted to. That means age verification is likely to become a huge part of this conversation But then of course, you run into another challenge, who would be responsible for checking people's ages? Should Apple and Google be stopping younger users from downloading apps in the first place? O should the responsibility sit with TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and the other platforms themselves? And how much personal information should people have to hand over just to prove their age Now of course, social media isn't entirely negative Most of us have heard stories about young people being harmed online, but we've also had plenty examples of a teenager finding communities. support networks and friendships through platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. And as I managed and as I mentioned earlier, some kids get their homework online If you block access to the biggest, most regulated platforms, do young people simply move elsewhere? Do they end up on smaller, less regulated services with fewer safeguards and less oversight So while there seems to be a broad agreement that children do need greater protection online, I think that's That's without question. There's much less agreement on whether a ban is actually the answer. Now I'm really interested to hear what everybody thinks on this because it feels like one of those stories where the goal is really easy to understand, clearly something needs to be done and something needs to change. But the practical reality is much more complicated now John, you've got girls. they're grown up now, butown up now. Yeah. what are your thoughts on this Well, I mean, it seems to be a disproportionate response to the problem. I think in the sense that you're throwing away an awful lot of good. peopleeople do I mean, certainly when I was growing up, I was interested at the age of thirteen, fourteen. I was interested in lots of things that might be perceived as adults, not N in any sort of unpleasant way, but you know, just I was mending televisions and repairing them. I was building electronic things and all thatort and a community of people I could talk to, particularly as we're living in a rural area, absolutely vital. It just seems it would have made my life much better to be able to spe speak to everybody back there. We're just throwing away all the good things that people can get from interaction over the internet through in a semi regulated way. I mean, I do see also that there's lots wrong I mean, the algorithms are sort of vicious things. They seem to send you endlessly down down tunnels even as an adult you don'tly want to be sent down. So and certainly, but I think it's those sort of things that need to be attacked directly and some better of working needs to be established rather than just say, o, we've got to ban it all, it's terrible. and everybody should go back to being bored. Well do you think though that there's an argument to say that this ban brings the conversation to the forefront, which I suppose it does do and can start to create a shift in social media and for en force the tech companies to create more safeguarding. Yeah, but I don't think that's not the approach they've taken, is it Susie? And By the way, I think your summary was excellent. It was very balanced and I'm really pleased to hear that because it's easy to get behind what seems like a really wholesome message, isn't it that our children are losing their childhood. making Nobody wants that. Nobody wants one child to be bullied One child to be harmed. Yeah, we're united behind the negative aspects of what has happened to children's childhoods, right? We understand that there is I believe there is an impact It's how you respond to that, and that's I think what John is referring to. An outright ban does feel like a very sort of And again, you know, without getting too political, but Labour have attempted to usher in ID checks. They're very keen on facial recognition. These are all very problematic techolog And the reason they're problematic is that the sort of power that it gives them, they've already demonstrated that they use in terms of profiling people for their social media use, imprisoning people for tweets and all that sort of stuff. It doesn't matter where you sit on the political divide around that. It is, I think, fair to say it's problematic, that's monitoring of a population And the reality is that surely It's not an exaggeration to describe The internet you know, established in the nineties as possibly The greatest experiment in the freedom of speech ever conducted in humanity's history. I mean, it's extraordinary. And the access it gives us to knowledge and ideas which is what governments find challenging is incredibly positive And what it means essentially is that from spring twenty twenty seven, that experiment in the UK He's over and not uniquely in the UK, but almost uniquely. and they're not just describing it as an Australian version. They actually one of the ministers said, if I'm not incorrect in Parliament a couple of days ago, they're calling it Australia plus plus. So they're all in on this. So it is concerning. It seems to be almost all the political parties seem to be actually any for politicians, it's more than justust the Late party, I think I mean I'm just concerned that And anybody under sixteen doesn't seem to wouldn't have access to all the interesting things going on in the world which they need to have because they' opinions on everything. Absolutely at a much earlier age. and the capable of adult thought was everyone is being forced into there seems to be no gradation almost. I mean whether you're five or whether you're fifteen, you' you're still sort of somehow The world is censored, which I find I find unacceptable really Did you see didid you see the BBC interview where the interviewed kids in a school And they interviewed this girl who was really articulate. She was a cool kid. And at the very end, the final question was, so what are you going to do? now that you can't access social media? she went stare at a wall I couldn't believe it was so funny. I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront, Ching There's this much that I'm getting an interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to four point two percent API on their cash with the Wealthfront cash account. Get started at wealthfront dot comot cllients paid one thousand dollars for their testimonial creating a conflict of interest outcesary. three point three percent base API as of january thirtieth twenty six is repentative variable and earned fs sw to program bank. point five percent new clients who for threeths up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Direct deposit one thousand dollars a month funded investing account for a point five percent increase Cash account offered by Wealthfrontrokerage LLC member Fer ICN not a When the world's biggest matches are on, it's a great excuse to get together with friends. Enjoy every goal, every save, every celebration, and have a little fun. If you love vodka, without the hangover or loss of control, check out RK Zero proof Vodka. RK delivers the familiar burn without the alcohol. zero calories Zero suugar, zero regrets. Drink differently. Get yours at arKbeverages. com Anyway, can I tell you what caught my attention this week goes that right So something that we've been talking about guys on the Gadget Show podcast for months or maybe even years. you' pleased to hear Susie. It's augmented reality glasses. Great. The Snapchat people think theyve finally cracked it. They've just unveiled a brand new pair of augmented reality glasses called specs And on paper at least, they're seriously impressive. I've not seen them, so bear with us, right We only got the old press release. here we go. They're completely standalone, so no wires, no tether, no battery pack hanging off your belt. They've squeezed twin processors, AI, wouldn't you know it? Hand tracking. All right, spatial computing Really, like the Vision Pro. And a full color augmented real outity display into a pair of glasses that weigh little more than a chunky pair of sunlasses. Snap say the experience is like carrying around twenty four inch monitor for work or a hundred and fifteen inch cinema screen for movies all floating in front of your eyes. So the kids No longer are going to be distracted on the way to school look at their phones because they're on X or whatever they do on TikTok. They're going to walk into a car because they've got one hundred and fifteen cinema screen in front of them. Allegedly can Overlay directions onto the real world provide AI assistance based on what you're looking at and run immersive augmented reality apps built by developers. I'm still not convinced guys by this AI describe what's in front of me thing. It doesn't feel Really compelling. Even having tried it a few weeks ago in an opticianans, which Susan and I talked about anyway The big question isn't whether the technology works anymore. probably does. The question is whether normal people actually want to wear computers on their faces and I know one who's got a very fine pair of glasses on her face right now, who probably is not a candidate. As we've discussed in detail before, there is one massive question hanging over this and it's not about battery life or screen resolution. Privacy. How interesting A second story of the day or third or whatever it is. and we're onto the privacy thing again Isn't that interesting? Because everybody wants all our data. It's just a massive grab of our data. They all want to own us what we're up against, isn't it? I know you're a big fan, Suusie. I can just see it. Well, do you know when we did the the article on metag gllasses last time went could be a couple of weeks ago. it got a really big response And there's a lot of pushback from the public on privacy. I know I'm becoming the poster girl for this. And it's a hill that I'm happy to die on to be honest. but I was quite pleasantly surprised at the support. Can I film you? I on the hill What were the glasses You died on your heill.. Even when I'mying on beel, you're filming me. That get the worst of this invasion ever. I'm dying. justust let me die without filming me. and putting me on social media. What's wrong with you? But you're right though, but that is also a thing isn't it? is inappropriate moments to cture cont Yeah, yes, I agree because this generation have been weaned on such open access. now I'm sounding like a labour politician, that you know, where is the line? It's fascinating Well, anyway, Snap say they've got privacy built in from day one. Anyway, there's a recording indicator light so Evan's fine. Lots of undevelop pro them And users remain in control of what gets stored and shared. Okay, so take that as you will. But if augmented reality is the next big computing platform after smartphones and sincerely, I hope that it is because I'm I'm here for it These might be one of the clearest signs yet that the future we've been predicting for many years is P probleblematic, but starting. Now to arrive. It's kind of imminent Quickly, let's talk about every gadget lover's dream. One of our Patreon supporters is gonna get five thousand pounds worth of Tech shhopping Sree at CEX. And if you're wondering what five thousand pounds worth of tech actually looks like, here's some footage of our previous winner, Richard Wekes spending his haul. That Richard. I didn't know we were going to see this. That's absolutely brilliant. And I have to say Richard immediately earned some serious brownie points because the very first thing he bought wasn't for himself Oh, it was a brand new TV for his mum Thank you, Gadgetoow The amazing thing is just how much five thousand pounds can buy. Yeah, you could walk away with a gaming PC, a PlayStation five Pro, an Xbox Series X, a Nintendo Switch two and still have money left over for a stack of games. A OLED TV, a premium sound bar, a four K bllu ray player, and enough movies and box sets to keep you busy for months. You could pick up a DSLR camera, a couple of lenses, a drone and all the accessories you'll need to start creating content straight away. Or fill your bag with Apple gear, a MacBook Pro, an iPhone an iPad, an Apple watch and a pair of airPods. If retro gaming is not your thing, a dreamcast, a gameCube, a Nintendo sixty four, PlayStation two are the very thought of it, and a collection of classic games you've always wanted to own O a flagship smartphone, a premium laptop, a smartwatch, noise cancelling headphones and a tablet. You get it, whatever your tch obsession, five thousand pounds goes a very long way. And not only that our friends at T three are also throwing in a year' subscription to the magazine. Plus when you join us on Patreon, you'll get ad free episodes early access to new shows, bonus content and access to a brilliant community of fellow gadget lovers. And that's real. That community is real, The love is real. And if you're on our Mac ter, you'll also unlock the entire Gadget showhow archive. That's nearly twenty years of gadget reviews, tests, challenges, road trips and some truly questionable outfits. Yeah, mainly yours. Al almost exclusively mine So if you'd like to bein with a chance of landing a five thousand tech shoppingspur at CX, head over to patreon dot com slash the gadget show to sign up. You'll find all the details and full terms and conditions in the episode description. bank I was literally getting pennies using Wealthfront. Ching. There's this much that I'm getting an interest and I didn't have to do anything. Clients like Angela earn up to four point two percent API on their cash with the Wealthfront cash account. Get started at wealthfront dot comot clients pa one thousand dollars for their testimonial creating a conflict of interest outcesary. three point three percent base API as of january thirtieth of twenty six is represented viable earned funds swet to program. point five percent new clients whos for three months and up to one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Directposit one thousand dollars month and funded invest account for a point five percent increase cash account offered by Wealthfr B broerage LL meMm Fin IC in a b. When the world's biggest matches are on, it's the perfect excuse to get together with friends. Enjoy every goal, every save, every celebration And have a little fun. But this year, have fun and still remember the score. If you love vodka, without the hangover or loss of control, check out RK Zero proroof Vodka. AK is redefining what alcohol free can taste like. Since twenty eleven, RK has delivered the familiar burn without the alcohol. Zero calories, zero sugars, zero regrets. Drink differently. Get yours at arKbeverages dot com It's fair to say that buying a smartphone has become a lot more complicated than it used to be. Not that long ago, the rule was really simple. If you wanted the best phone, you bought the most expensive phone you could afford. The flagship models got the best cameras, the best screens, the best performance, and of course all the latest features. interestnting has happened over the last few years. The phones sitting in that five hundred to seven hundred pound bracket have become really good We've got flagship level processors, brilliant cameras, huge batteries, and displays that would seem impossible at this price just a few years ago whichich leaves us with a very important question, have flagship phones genuinely become better or have mid range phones simply caught up? So we've decided to settle the debate in the only way that we know possible. We're turning into the World Cup of smartphones Each of us has selected a head to head tie between a more affordable challenger and a premium heavyweight. We'll make our case, we'll compare the specs, compare the experience and then decide which ve deserves to progress to the next round. By the end, we'll have three finalists and then we'll decide which phone deserves to lift the trophy and be crowned our World Cup phone winner of twenty twenty six. So let's get the tournament underway. Jace, would you like to kick things off Okay, yeah. so basically I've got like Scot I've got like a Scotland phone versus a France phone All right I's it's the nothing phone for a pro this is the Samsung Galaxy S twenty six Ultra What do you think Yeah that's good. goodood to start things off. So I've gone for perhaps the biggest David versus Goliath battle in smartphones or should that be, I don't know, John McGin versus Mpee And Ba Ba or whatever I'll sort. In one corner, the Nhing phone for A pro, That's four hundred and ninety nine pounds. In the other Samsung's Galaxy S twenty six Ultra at's a mere one thousand two hundred seventy nine pounds. If you told me ten years ago, that I'd be you know, comparing a five hundred quid phone with Samsung's sam Samsung's absolute, you know, eighteen Id I'd have laughed at you. but just look now in twenty twenty six, what four hundred and ninety nine could buy you, right? The four A Pro, the four A so it's not their flagship phone guys, that's the Nothing phhone three. This is their mid range phone, the Nothing Phone four A Pro, which has a huge six point eight inch ammolE display rununs one hundred and forty four hertz. so really good refresh rate. goodood for gaming, John. It's got a telephoto camera alsoso John. John and a really good battery that lasts all day You get twelve gigs of RAM And frankly, way more technology than I ever envisaged you know, a phone of this price point would would support And here's the thing, unlike any other phone at that price point, my goodness, does it look great? It looks so good man, it's fantastic, right? All metal body, I'm pretty sure it's aluminium And it's got that glimpph matrix, you know, sixty three mini mini LEDs that act almost as a subsidiary screen, giving you really cool functionality I think it lights up when your car arrives, your Uber or whatever. It gives you things like the where the sun is. it will show you in this LED display. littleittle games like's you can shake it and there's a like one those one of those things, you know, the eight ball thing. There's a dice sign mean it's so cool. If you're listening or watching and you've not seen this, trust me, it's beautiful. And then the layer that nothing put over the Android operating system, again, it's really clean It's not blloat. They call it bloatware, don't they? And I have to say, I've had many Samsungs and I'm a huge fan. of the ultra top end Samsung phones, I've had many My goodness, they are guilty of having all kinds of layered different layers of apps that do the same thing. You get the Android apps, you get Samsung's version of them, you then get your Google ones and it's really complicated It's a really simple phone that really rewards the user with style and ease of use, all right It's punching, isn't it? It's definitely punching. So for Samsung, where does the extra eight hundred quid go? Well the Samsung starts answering that question pretty quickly. First of all, the display is mind blowing. It's brighter than the nothing phone, it's sharper and more colour accurate They've also introduced anti effffective privacy codating, which a lot of people are wowed by. so you can be on the train and You can be looking at your stuff and you't have to worry about someone snooping over your shoulder. There's the camera. You can't talk about those phones Ultrra series without talking about the camera. The nothing has you good cameras. The Samsung has insane cameras. So we're talkingg two hundred megap pixel main sensor, Zoom capabilities Um And all this sort of AI functionality that you know now gives I think really good upgrades to those of us unlike John that don't actually know what shut of speed is It can enable anyone to do an incredible picture and really high quality video. The improved durability and all the little refinements They don't sound exciting until you actually use the phone and you need to capture content and you need to do almost like office tasks on it with the pen in particular. It's very, very usable More like a mini laptop. The Astraalic six Ultra For messaging, social media, streaming, navigation, banking, I don't know, shopping Photography, I wouldn't say that the nothing phone feels eight hundred quid worse is not as well performing in those particular areas and experiences as the S twenty six Ultra. If the Samsung is a ten out of ten, I would say the nothing is probably An eightight and a half I they even h Isn't that incredible for Fight think wait. So there you go. So that's my very brief summary of the functionality of these phones. All right, in this Fantasy League of World Cup phones, I'm allowed to choose one team you know to go forward. The Samsung is Obviously the better phone. all right? it's extraordinary But if we're jging phones based on what you get for your money, which I think is the criteria for this World Cup of phones. Yeah The nothing phone for a pro is the bigger achievement, I think it's fair to say.? four hundred and ninety nine pounds gets you your phone you know, gets remarkably close to Samsung's one thousand three hundred pound flagship plus it has real panache, it has personality, it has charisma. It'll be a phone that stimulates conversations on a cafe table from complete strangers who you might end up, I don't know, Marrying. So think I think it's clear going through to the next round is the nothing is they were they were no one was talking about them. They said they were rubbish. Their kit was sponsored by a kebab shop. but they've got through too the next round of the World Cup of phones, the Nothing Phone four A proro. Brilliant sumarie, Thankk you very much, John. Would you like to follow that? Not sure I' can? Well I don't know I can, but now my Choice is between Apple's latest so called budget phone, the seventeen E And price at five hundred and ninety nine pounds, which is it fits into this middle category. we're talking about this miden market and the flagship current offering from Google the Pixel ten Pro XL. So it's not simply actually a battle between a cheaper phone and a more expensive phone is also a battle between almost two completely different approaches to what a smartphone should be. Nice. I mean, I have to declare an interest that Mrs Bentley has an iPhone seventeen E and so my daughter's husband has an iPhone seventeen E. They're both born they' both and they're absolutely delighted with them. So they do do what they want a phone to do, which they primarily want it to be aniPhone, but they don't want to bother with an expensive one and lots of Era cameras and so on. It's got a reasonable display. it's perfectly good, It's bright enough. I don forget how many knits it is. You get it doesn't have one hundred twenty Htz refresh rate, which I personally as got I don't game a lot. I actually never really worry about that. I know one hundred twenty hertz does feel slightly smoother, but anything that I have with a sixty hertz rate doesn't annoy me at all So so that's not that wouldn't be a big deal for me. It's got two hundred and fifty six gabytes storage. It's half the price of a everver ever version of an iPhone. It's got all day battery life. You've got that forty eight megapixon camera, which is It doesn't have the super vibe, but actually it would be an annoyance for me. I've found used that quite a lot and doesn't it has a source of telephoto instead it zooms in on the pixels on the forty eight megapixel sensors they call that a two times optical quality zoom. All this is very good. So you do get all those apppple things for a reasonable price, but the problem is that in this particular comparison, it's standing next to the Pixel ten Pro XL. And I often ask myself, you know, is the premium phone worth the extra money? And for most people, most of the time it's probably not, but for me most of the time it usually is, actually because I take lots of pictures with it that I do find the extra camera lenses and the obstacle zooms and the so on really do make a difference. And obviously as soon as you turn the the pixel on, you notice it's got a better screen that dynamically adjusts its refresh rate up to one hundred and twenty hertz depending on what you're doing Um, And some people really do notice that immediately. I think on day to day basis, unless you're doing photography, unless doing gaming, Iident you really would tell the difference between the Um, between the seventeen E and the pixel in terms of speed because it becausees actually the A nineteen process is very good. I mean, Google's AI powered features have an advantage deffinitely have advantage in the camera front with the forty eight megabixile telephoto, the forty eight megabix ultramide on top of that mains camera. I mean, it's a tricky one. I mean for me personally, I would probably choose a P an Apple Pro Max phone over the seventeen E mainly for the camera, although it does annoy me slightly that you end that you're paying all this extra money for a camera that only lasts for as long as your phone. It always seems a bit wasteful in a way because whereas if you buy a Additionally if you bought a camera you know you werere still using it a decade on and it still feels Ls great where you w phone is at the bottom of a drawer sold on. For me in this battle, if if I was bu if spent was buying new phone I was recommended you stay with the seventeen E not go with the pixel, for me I'd probably go with the pixel for the extra photography really. You slightly blurred the lines there John with your argument, but I know I hear you.'ve got to pick up I've got to pick the winner You did the penalty shootout against yourself basically. It's a shootout. I've be shooting myself for the life. likeon It be like tonight. I tell you what Because at the time of filming, England are about to play God knows Croatia. This is how it's gonna go, right? We' like, go And then and then like after an hour, they're just passing the ball around And then an hour and a half, they're still passing the ball around. That's what your review is. like it just gets to the point where it's not like some dazzling footwork and like headers and cool stuff and overhead kicks and that from Google. It's just kind of a win And you kind of just wanted to get back to your life after It came down to me. I'vet just decide on the winner for meise which one of these I had to choose. And the win I think in spite of the fact we're in a sort a bit of an iPhone family, I would, for the photography alone, I would go for the pixel ten out of these two A the extra time and penalties. o. God. Excellent. Right. Just for the record, Jason, I think we will win tonight And I don't think we'll be doing passing at the back too much. I think we'll be just winning. Should I put my phones into the mix? So I'm going for the One plus fifteen R versus John's Apple iPhone seventeen Pro Max that he's already mentioned, even though it's absolutely not his phone. I think my comparison is going to highlight one of the biggest dilemmas facing smartphone buyers this year. For years, we've been told that if you want the best phone, you need to spend flagship money When you look at what phones like the One pllus fifteen R are offering, the argument is so much harder to make, I think. So the One pllus fifteen R costs around six hundred forty nine pounds. So we're all much of a muchess there with our mid range phones. The iPhone seventeen Pro Max costs almost exactly double that. So on paper I know it sounds like a mismatch, doesn't it? Surely the one that's most expensive would win this, would walk this comfortably. but the reality just like a football It's more complicated. Yeah. Okay. So we'll start with the one plus. Now what immediately stands out with this is how little compromise there appears to be. So the display is huge at just under seven inches. it's amOLed and it runs an astonishing one hundred sixty five hertz refresh rate. Now that's actually higher than the iPhoneess refresh rate So under the bonnet, there's a Snap Dragon eight G five processor and twelve gigs of RAM, giving it more than enough performance for gaming Jase, multitasking, video editing, and pretty much anything else you'd realistically want to be able to do on a smartphone thenen there's the battery And at seven thousand four hundred million ps, it's absolutely massive. Most flagship phones struggle to get anywhere near that figure. Combined with eighty watt fast charging, it's the kind of phone that almost removes battery anxiety from your life completely. You stop thinking about charging because it simply lasts so long. And what's remarkable is that all of this is available for hundreds of pounds less than a flagship However, this is where Apple reminds us why the iPhone Pro Max range continues to dominate the premium market. The iPhone isn't necessarily about winning individual specs. In fact, there are several areas where the One plus has stronger numbers on paper. Instead, Apple's strength is and has always been in the overall experience. The hardware, software and services all working together in a way that's incredibly polished, the ecosystem. The display is superb. The A nineteen Pro processor is one of the most powerful mobile chips ever produced. The camera system remains, I think you'll agree with this, John, among one of the best available on any smartphone, particularly when it comes to video recording. So whether you're filming family moments, creating content for social media or shooting professional quality footage for movies, Jason, the iPhone remains the benchmark The ecosystem, as I mentioned, is another major factor. If you own AirPods, Apple Watch, an iPad MacBook, the experience of moving between the devices, as you'll know, is almost effortless. The One plus wins on value, there's no question about that It offers flagship level performance, you know, exceptional battery that we talked about and a stunning display at nearly half the price of the iPhone Every time I asked myself why somebody would spend the extra money on the iPhone, The answer becomes really clear. The cameras are better, the video capabilities are better, the ecosystem is better. The overall fit and finish is better. Most importantly, the entire experience feels incredibly refined. The one plus is the phone that makes me question whether the flagship prices have become too high, and I personally think they have The iPhone is the phone that reminds me why some people are still willing to pay them if that makes sense So while the OnePlus fifteen R is one of the best value smartphones that I've seen all year and for many people, it will deliver absolutely everything they need, and then some. if we're looking for the strongest overall package rather than simply the best bargain then my winner has to be the iPhone seventeen Pro Max. It's more expensive. It's one of the few premium sparkphones that genuinely feels like a complete experience For me, it's also a very important point to make is at the level at which I access football, right But my favorite team is based on Kit And the iPhone seventeen P's orange. It's like an eight years oldge. bed orange I don't think people talk enough about kitss on the World Cup talk about fkit people, but that's something else. far too busy trying to avoid football at school so I could go into the gym and practice breakdancing Okay, we could have done a brereak Donsson World Championship, but anyway, let's to summarize then. Jason, your phone of choice is the nothing phone for April Yeah. John, you've gone for the Pixel ten Pro XL And I have gone for Apple's iPhone seventeen Pro Max. Soarchups, we need to pick a winner. Let's put it to a vote. and you can't you can't choose your own That's not right? Is it I'm the manager They have no power these days, managers. I'm afraid to tell you. No, not really. Okay. You vote? Yeah. Because it's orange and I'd want one but can't afford one, I'm going to go for the iPhone. seventeen P max Shall I go next because you've gone for my phone. so I'll go next and I'm actually gonna pick your