Samsung Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra

Foxhound5366 said:
I don't think the Samsung implementation is smart in any way: I watched a YouTube demo where the guy was asked to identify who he was, and he said "I won't say" and the AI just kept dumbly repeating the question until he said "I'm Mr Scammer and I'm calling about a scam". That was finally enough to satisfy the Samsung AI.

Yuck. There's nothing worse than bad implementations of AI.
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Speedster said:
If it's a legit call they'll say why they're calling. If they don't want to say why they're calling, they can get stuck at the AI receptionist all day long
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Yup - I don't care if the Apple or Samsung one is better. For myself, life has improved massively as with my euro number, I was getting hammered with spam calls, now nothing. I will say this, on all my android phones before, I always used the official Google Phone, Messages, Contacts app. On the 26, I have switched to the Samsung versions to use this functionality. I also get deliveries and those guys call from their mobile numbers, but they are never detected as spam, and I can actually chat to to them to coordinate. I will say that live translation in the call is not working that well.

I use an Android, but my google account itself is hardly used. Primary service is outlook.com (mail, contacts, storage) and it's where my contacts have been stored for over a decade and it works across all the devices I use. Apple on Mac - has always been a pain in the ass to use - it's not much better on MacOS today either. But I refuse to use Google or iCloud for this matter (and I have subs for all of them)

The Samsung Contact manager has ended up being better then the Google App . In the last year, Google stopped allowing me to add new contacts directly to my outlook contacts . It only wants to support google accounts. Now at least with the Samsung App, I can still keep outlook as the primary service and it allows me to move stuff faster too, like everything from Google to Outlook. And better duplicate contact matching. All in in all, I am kicking myself for not using the Samsung apps on my previous samsung phone)

Why I am loving the AI that's surfacing everywhere
---

This week, a cool thing happened inside Whatsapp, it offered to automatically translate messages (via the google keyboard I think). So I would write in english, the response would be sent in the speaker's native language, and when they replied, I would see it in English . I literally managed to fix a plumbing issue as we could not understand each other, so we sorted out time to come and fix and then when he was here, we ended 'chatting' via whatsapp when he was next to me to get things solved. The price of a plumber for 1 hour = 220 EURO!

I need to retrain!
 
After 1 month with the phone - I have used the stylus only once. I forget I have that ability as I never had a S series phone before. What are people using the stylus for?
 
TedLasso said:
After 1 month with the phone - I have used the stylus only once. I forget I have that ability as I never had a S series phone before. What are people using the stylus for?
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Ultra only has it, not the entire S range. Comes in handy to sign docs
 
TedLasso said:
After 1 month with the phone - I have used the stylus only once. I forget I have that ability as I never had a S series phone before. What are people using the stylus for?
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you don't really need it for too much anymore - this is an instance where Samsung kicked themself in their own foot - they removed the Bluetooth functionality and the one instance that people would have used it for ie putting the phone on a tripod and adding themself into group photos and selfies controlled by hitting a button on the stylus to take a photo could have still been useful but they removed that bluetooth functionality so that was a total own goal

but yep to sign online forms etc or anything that needs writing ie taking handwritten notes etc can use the stylus but not many people use a phone for this so sadly the stylus lands up being a showoff gimmick

also anyone interested in the drawing and AI regeneration capabilities can use it but that would probably be less than 1% of the actual users so again its for things that most normal people will not do
 
My brother and I are reaching our 36 months with our S23 Ultra's. My battery is still pretty good (I stuck to the 20-80% range for 3 years) but his is cooked and does massive SOC drops soon after charging.

I see Vodacom4U is offering 2x S26 Ultra for R2099pm x36 months. We would then sell our S23 Ultra's privately later after migrating to the new devices or pass them down to family.

So considering we will be paying R1050pm per device, good contract deal? Anything better besides a trade in deal (I don't want to do a trade in due to data migration reasons etc)
 
FlashSA said:
My brother and I are reaching our 36 months with our S23 Ultra's. My battery is still pretty good (I stuck to the 20-80% range for 3 years) but his is cooked and does massive SOC drops soon after charging.

I see Vodacom4U is offering 2x S26 Ultra for R2099pm x36 months. We would then sell our S23 Ultra's privately later after migrating to the new devices or pass them down to family.

So considering we will be paying R1050pm per device, good contract deal? Anything better besides a trade in deal (I don't want to do a trade in due to data migration reasons etc)
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36 months is a long time. and R75 000 / 2 (R35 000) for each device (well it does include data / airtime I guess). On the other hand as you say these devices don't change that much in 36 months, so probably not a bad deal..
 
jasweb said:
36 months is a long time. and R75 000 / 2 (R35 000) for each device (well it does include data / airtime I guess). On the other hand as you say these devices don't change that much in 36 months, so probably not a bad deal..
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The subs will be a business expense, but I'm struggling to accept paying R35k over 3 years for a device that today can be purchased for just over R20-R22k cash on Carb
 
FlashSA said:
The subs will be a business expense, but I'm struggling to accept paying R35k over 3 years for a device that today can be purchased for just over R20-R22k cash on Carb
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That's always the case getting something on contract.
 
FlashSA said:
The subs will be a business expense, but I'm struggling to accept paying R35k over 3 years for a device that today can be purchased for just over R20-R22k cash on Carb
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okay - you buy the phone for R22k cash the for 3 years you take a contract without the phone for the same amount of calls, smses and Data and i promise you over the 3 years you will pay close to the same R13k balance for the contract only charges - remember when you taking the phone on the contract you are getting the calls, messages and Data too ...... without the contract you wold easily spend another R300 to R400 per month on that (vodacom red core with no device is R300 per month and gives you 6GB anytime Data and 250 minutes) and that will cost you R10800 over the 3 years if you can live with that amount of Data and call minutes plus the R22k for the phone is around R33k (contract seems more reasonable then for a device that is actually official and wont get disconnected because it was related to a contract that a buyer stopped paying for etc .... which is a risk when buying unofficial phones)
 
FlashSA said:
My brother and I are reaching our 36 months with our S23 Ultra's. My battery is still pretty good (I stuck to the 20-80% range for 3 years) but his is cooked and does massive SOC drops soon after charging.

I see Vodacom4U is offering 2x S26 Ultra for R2099pm x36 months. We would then sell our S23 Ultra's privately later after migrating to the new devices or pass them down to family.

So considering we will be paying R1050pm per device, good contract deal? Anything better besides a trade in deal (I don't want to do a trade in due to data migration reasons etc)
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Or get a battery replacement for R1500 and boom, you're good to go
 
naughty001 said:
not really a make or break feature for most people - i would prefer to talk to my friends instead of letting AI talk to them
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mylesillidge

Thread 'South Africans received 14.4 billion spam calls in the first five months of 2026'

Spam calls out of control in South Africa

The Information Regulator and the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition have worked to crack down on spam calls in South Africa, but the situation has only gotten worse in 2026.

According to data Truecaller shared with MyBroadband, monthly spam call volumes have been nearly 23% higher on average in the first five months of 2026 compared to the same period last year.
 
FlashSA said:
Also an option for sure
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only disadvantage here is computing speed (if you like a fast phone for your money) the s23 ultra is mildly slower than my S24FE because it gives around 2% to 3% slower benchmark figures on Antutu and Geekbench BUT the S26 Ultra gives 200% of the readings of the S24FE so effectively also around 200% of the readings of the S23 Ultra ...... which must make sense since its 3 generations later

so it all depends on your proposed usage - if i was lucky enough to be in a position to get a new phone now and could afford the payments on the S26 Ultra then the only thing that would stop me is the fact that the S27 Ultra will probably have a bit more to it and is due around 8 or 9 months from now
 
Smiggles said:
mylesillidge

Thread 'South Africans received 14.4 billion spam calls in the first five months of 2026'

Spam calls out of control in South Africa

The Information Regulator and the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition have worked to crack down on spam calls in South Africa, but the situation has only gotten worse in 2026.

According to data Truecaller shared with MyBroadband, monthly spam call volumes have been nearly 23% higher on average in the first five months of 2026 compared to the same period last year.
Click to expand...

yeah sure .... but most people will still not worry about it - i used to only get like one spam call per month but since i started blocking those numbers i haven't gotten any in the last two months
 
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