Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty bill handle here it is a
Speaker 1: Taco Tuesday, May thirteenth, and every Tuesday, as always, it's
Speaker 1: time for Rich Demurou, kfi's tech guy, who is seen
Speaker 1: on Channel five KTLA every day Saturdays here on KFI
Speaker 1: eleven am to two pm Instagram at Rich on tech website,
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot TV, and.
Speaker 2: Good morning Rich, Hey, good morning you Bill.
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of things to talk about, and I'd
Speaker 1: love to talk about phones for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: First of all, that's a gadget that I almost understand,
Speaker 1: the rest of them not so much. And the ultrathin phones.
Speaker 1: And now we've been around where we have seen phones,
Speaker 1: portable phones go all the way from those that were
Speaker 1: as big as bricks with the antenna down to phones
Speaker 1: that are so thin, so small, And now Samsung has
Speaker 1: come up with an ultra thin phone, even thinner than
Speaker 1: the phones we have now.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's quite wild. I was in New York last
Speaker 3: week to check it out, and it's thin. It's noticeably
Speaker 3: like you pick this thing up and you're like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is really thin. It's light, it's easy to hold.
Speaker 3: The main drawback to this is going to be the
Speaker 3: battery life. Well, we'll see when we test it. We
Speaker 3: don't know that for sure, but the battery is smaller
Speaker 3: than your typical phone. But here's the deal on it.
Speaker 3: It's called the Galaxy S twenty five Edge. It's five
Speaker 3: point eight millimeters thick, one hundred and sixty three grams.
Speaker 3: That's the thinnest Samsung phone they've ever made. But it
Speaker 3: still has the latest feature So it's got a great camera,
Speaker 3: two hundred megapixel camera ultra wide. It's got the latest processor,
Speaker 3: it's got a good amount of RAM and storage, comes
Speaker 3: in three colors, wireless charging, it's water resistant, and it
Speaker 3: ships on May thirtieth. The price tag is eleven hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: so it's a couple hundred dollars less than the Ultra,
Speaker 3: which is their top of the line, but one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars more than the Plus, which is the one that
Speaker 3: they're sort of positioning these between. So again, one more
Speaker 3: option for folks. And we do know Bill that Apple
Speaker 3: is rumored to be coming out with their version of
Speaker 3: a thin iPhone called the iPhone Air. That's the expected name.
Speaker 3: We don't know if that's true or not, but that's
Speaker 3: going to come out later this year. So look, it's
Speaker 3: all about options for folks at this point because the
Speaker 3: cell phone market has been a little bit stagnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean when you describe weight, for example, in
Speaker 1: grams other than buying cocaine, who the hell knows what.
Speaker 2: That is exactly? Well, I know it's more cocaine.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Yeah, I mean, look, there there's a lot
Speaker 3: of drug dealers out there that are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: that's a good amount of weight on that phone. But
Speaker 3: you know, to me, it's actually very I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's a gram, a lot, or a little bit of
Speaker 3: I don't have no idea. I'm not really in that stuff,
Speaker 3: nor am I.
Speaker 1: Graham's about one hundred and twenty bucks. She used to
Speaker 1: be maybe one hundred and ten on a good day,
Speaker 1: and it hasn't really gone up. Okay, when you talk
Speaker 1: about phones that are that thin, my immediately what comes
Speaker 1: to mind. Since I sit on my phone a lot
Speaker 1: and I put it in my back pocket, don't you
Speaker 1: have a phone that is going to bend in the
Speaker 1: shape of your butt when you sit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, that's going to be the big thing
Speaker 3: to test on this phone is the durability because of
Speaker 3: all those reasons. So when we got the you know,
Speaker 3: the way that these companies typically do it, they give
Speaker 3: folks hands on so you get to see this first,
Speaker 3: but you don't really get to review it or play
Speaker 3: with it until maybe a week or two later. So
Speaker 3: we don't have the phones in hand just yet for
Speaker 3: long term testing, but that should come soon hopefully, and
Speaker 3: that's when people are going to test it. There's this
Speaker 3: guy on YouTube, Jerry Rigg. He does you know, all
Speaker 3: these crazy the torture tests on different phones, So of
Speaker 3: course he will be bending the heck out of this
Speaker 3: thing to see if it actually bends in your pocket.
Speaker 2: I hope that it doesn't because in.
Speaker 3: My you know, first hands on, it did feel very
Speaker 3: strong and it is made out of titanium. So hopefully
Speaker 3: Samsung thought about that and said, yeah, people are gonna
Speaker 3: still put this thing in their back pocket. We want
Speaker 3: to make it you know where it's gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: There are people better off instead of buying the new
Speaker 1: phone every two years because whatever program you're on, you
Speaker 1: have the ability to upgrade and it doesn't cost you anything.
Speaker 1: Or I have to do is extend the contract. Is
Speaker 1: it a far better deal simply to buy the phone
Speaker 1: that's two years old, because you're really not going to
Speaker 1: get that much more benefit on a new phone.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, you know this is this gets into
Speaker 3: consumerism and you know, the latest, the greatest, like phones
Speaker 3: nowadays are you know some.
Speaker 2: Of the the software.
Speaker 3: Updates on today's phones. For Apple is anywhere from five
Speaker 3: to six years. For Google it's seven years. So that
Speaker 3: gives you an idea of how long you can keep
Speaker 3: your phone. Most people are keeping them for about I
Speaker 3: think it's about thirty nine months at this point, so
Speaker 3: you can keep your phone.
Speaker 2: For a very long time.
Speaker 3: You do not need to upgrade every year for sures
Speaker 3: you unless you're a photographer, a content a content.
Speaker 2: Creator, or a videographer. Right.
Speaker 3: The rest of everyone else in the world can pretty
Speaker 3: much upgrade every three years. But you know, the plans
Speaker 3: that people are on give me the ability to upgrade more,
Speaker 3: and that's what the carriers want because you're spending more money.
Speaker 3: So it's really a personal preference and kind of where
Speaker 3: you want to sit and what plan you're on.
Speaker 2: But you definitely don't need to.
Speaker 1: And Rich let's get right into a story that as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we just heard about the Ticketmaster transparency.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think bug most of us.
Speaker 1: For example, going to a hotel before here's the price,
Speaker 1: until you walk in and there's your resort fee, even
Speaker 1: in motels that have no pool, and then your excise
Speaker 1: taxes and on and on, you're paying forty percent more.
Speaker 2: Same thing with Ticketmaster.
Speaker 1: When you're buying a concert ticket, you're paying a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot more than the price that is being quoted.
Speaker 1: That is ending, and why did it take so damn long.
Speaker 3: Well, the part that's ending is that you're finally going
Speaker 3: to see how much you're paying upfront. You're still paying
Speaker 3: a bunch of junkie fees that's not changing, sadly. But
Speaker 3: Ticketmaster as of now does show you the full price
Speaker 3: of your ticket up front.
Speaker 2: Now here's the deal.
Speaker 3: All this stuff with the service fees and the stuff
Speaker 3: they tack on, that's fine.
Speaker 2: Like, I get it.
Speaker 3: We've been paying this stuff for a long time. It's wild,
Speaker 3: it's crazy. We shouldn't be doing it. But it's the
Speaker 3: reality versus the face value, right. But the thing is,
Speaker 3: it was that surprise at the end. So you find
Speaker 3: a good pair of tickets for the game or the
Speaker 3: concert or whatever you want to go to, and then
Speaker 3: you finally get to the checkout and the price jumps,
Speaker 3: you know, depending on how many tickets you're buying by
Speaker 3: you know, it could be one hundred dollars, two hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: three hundred, whatever it is. And I think that surprise
Speaker 3: is what really turned people off. So now at least
Speaker 3: you see the full price that you're gonna pay up
Speaker 3: front before you get to that final screen. And then
Speaker 3: on the final screen it's sort of reversed. You can
Speaker 3: now click an arrow and get the breakdown of all
Speaker 3: the different fees that are included in that price that
Speaker 3: you've been seeing. And by the way, Ticketmaster is not
Speaker 3: the only one we're seeing more of this transparency. Airbnb
Speaker 3: is doing something similar. But like you said, hotels kind
Speaker 3: of the last holdout here, still a lot of junkie fees,
Speaker 3: especially at check.
Speaker 2: In with that resort fee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't care what they charge if you know
Speaker 1: what you're paying. I mean, they can throw on two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars room if you know that it's two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars extra room. Then you choose simply to go to
Speaker 1: someplace not as expensive, where you decide You're not going
Speaker 1: to go to that concert. It is not worth that
Speaker 1: much money. But you know what did it take to
Speaker 1: get there? Was there a lobby that stopped because I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's been law after law introduced to stop that
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the most recent one was I think
Speaker 3: it was last late last year. I think they finally
Speaker 3: passed something that made this take effect, this junk fee law,
Speaker 3: and so I think that these companies are finally I
Speaker 3: think they had a deadline. I think the deadline's coming up,
Speaker 3: but they just got ahead of it. And so that
Speaker 3: is the main ifetus Like these companies do not do
Speaker 3: this out of the kindness of their heart. Like if
Speaker 3: they had their way, what a company would do is
Speaker 3: charge you for your ticket and then two weeks after
Speaker 3: the show say hey, by the way, here's your fee
Speaker 3: that we're charging you for after the show because you
Speaker 3: enjoyed it, So here's another six dollars we just put
Speaker 3: on your credit card.
Speaker 2: Like that's what they would do if they were able
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: But yes, once you know, the government says, hey, you
Speaker 3: got to show and show all in pricing because these
Speaker 3: junk fees are getting. The thing is bill these companies
Speaker 3: don't want.
Speaker 2: To be regulated in a way, right, They do this.
Speaker 3: Stuff to like sort of evade some of these regulations
Speaker 3: that they know would come down the line if they didn't.
Speaker 2: Do this stuff.
Speaker 3: So, but the FTC did make a ban on junk
Speaker 3: fees that is in effect now and that's really I
Speaker 3: think what made this happen.
Speaker 1: And is that going to be across the board whenever
Speaker 1: there were there are hidden fees, airline fees, et cetera
Speaker 1: across just everything.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think I think airlines were. I got to
Speaker 3: look up the rule because this was a while ago,
Speaker 3: but I think the airlines were like specifically excluded from this.
Speaker 3: So industries covered right now are concerts, sporting events, theater performances, hotels, motels,
Speaker 3: all that stuff, holiday inn But the I think the
Speaker 3: airlines did sort of rally against this fee, and I
Speaker 3: think they won because they don't have to do this
Speaker 3: and airlines are like the worst. So I mean, if
Speaker 3: you ever, if you ever do a search to like Vegas,
Speaker 3: you can go on Spirit for like nine bucks, and
Speaker 3: then by the time you get all the taxes and
Speaker 3: you bring your actual bag on board, you're talking like
Speaker 3: another like eighty dollars or something insane.
Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, all right, Rich tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: We'll see you on KTLA Saturday eleven to two pm
Speaker 1: Here on KFI Instagram, at rich on tech website, richon
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. You have a good one.
Speaker 2: Take care Rich YouTube Bill