Courage: Samsung is charging the same high price for S25 Ultra’s downgraded S Pen - Related to google, we, same, but, ad

Courage: Samsung is charging the same high price for S25 Ultra’s downgraded S Pen

Despite the missing hardware and elements, the replacement S Pen costs $50, the same as the previous model, which is objectively more effective.

The Galaxy S25 series includes some of the best Android flagships, but it’s contentious how good the phones are over their predecessors. For instance, the S Pen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is an undeniable downgrade, and its tale gets more confusing every passing day.

At launch, Samsung was very clear that the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen did not support Bluetooth. The organization even confirmed that you cannot purchase an older Bluetooth-enabled S Pen to bring back Bluetooth-related S Pen attributes on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, so you’re stuck with this gimped S Pen. But then, a Samsung Insights official blog post mentioned that a Bluetooth-enabled S Pen enables these missing attributes, and it’s sold separately. Samsung subsequently clarified that this was an error and that Bluetooth was gone from the S Pen for good.

Removing Bluetooth and related capabilities is largely seen as a cost-cutting measure on the $1,300 flagship. However, an S25 Ultra teardown revealed that Samsung continues to pack in a stylus charging coil inside the phone, even though the component is no longer needed since its S Pen has no battery, essentially wasting money. It’s possible that Samsung is using this coil merely to detect the presence of the S Pen inside the phone.

So, do you finally get some cost savings? Confusingly, no. One would presume that the lowered cost of the S Pen would be absorbed into the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and if you were to purchase a replacement S Pen, it should cost less since it has fewer components and elements. That’s sadly not the case, as the S25 Ultra’s replacement S Pen still costs $50 (!), the same as a replacement S Pen for the S24 Ultra.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen saga is downright confusing at this point, and it’s not clear what Samsung is trying to achieve here. It makes sense that barely any customers were using Bluetooth attributes, and so those were removed. But retaining stylus charging components in the phone throws cost-cutting arguments out the window. Pricing the replacement S Pen at $50 is also ludicrous, given the downgrade.

What are your thoughts on the gimped S Pen costing $50? Would you pay that much for the S25 Ultra’s S Pen? Let us know in the comments below!

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Sounded Gouda, but wasn’t: Google Gemini completely fumbles AI Super Bowl ad

In the video, Gemini states that Gouda accounts for 50-60% of global cheese consumption.

Google has since updated the video to remove the wildly misleading statement.

Football fans are gearing up for the biggest weekend of the year, with Super Bowl LIX scheduled to take place this coming Sunday. And while they’ll be glued to the action on the gridiron, plenty of other viewers will be tuning in to check out all the big-budget commercials. This being 2025, you can absolutely bet on a whole lot of companies advertising all their cutting-edge AI tech. It shouldn’t be any surprise to hear that Google has cooked up some ad spots of its own, but it turns out that the organization has already been betrayed by its own AI.

Last week, Google posted a preview of its Super Bowl campaign on X, highlighting small business across the country that use Gemini AI tools in Workspace. In fact, Google produced a separate video for each and every state. And almost immediately, eagle-eyed viewers like Nate Hake spotted a pretty glaring AI error that one of these ads featured on-screen (via The Verge):

Play Google’s Wisconsin ad now, and everything’s fine: Our cheesemonger asks Gemini to come up with “a description of Smoked Gouda that would appeal to cheese lovers,” and Google’s AI model pops out a suitable blurb. Only the one you see in the ad now is not the Gemini response Google initially included:

It doesn’t take an encyclopedic knowledge of cheeses for that “over half the world’s cheese consumption is Gouda” claim to immediately sound pretty suspicious. Don’t get us wrong: Gouda is some good eating. But it’s also not a type we hear mentioned nearly as much as varieties like cheddar or mozzarella. Nevertheless, Google Vice President and General Manager of Ads Jerry Dischler jumped on X to defend Gemini, claiming that the response was “grounded in the Web” and that “multiple sites across the web include the 50-60% stat.”.

Well, The Verge managed to track down at least one of those websites, and surprise, surprise: it was full of unsourced, seemingly low quality SEO-driven content.

Somewhere along the line, Google appears to have accepted that this was a bad look for the business, and has now quietly edited the ad after consultation with the featured business owner. It’s not hard to understand why Google doesn’t seem to want to bring any extra attention to its mistake, but maybe the business needs to start taking Gemini’s “not intended to be factual” disclaimer to heart.

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This upcoming Ultra flagship could look like a Leica camera, and we dig it

The phone aspects a large camera island and prominent Leica branding.

Key camera specs include a 200MP periscope zoom camera, a 50MP 1-inch primary sensor, and more.

These days, if you want the best Android camera flagship, you need to look past the Galaxy S Ultra and the Pixel flagships. While these phones remain great even in their current iterations, other Android OEMs have continued pushing the envelope of smartphone photography with their Ultra flagships. We’re gearing up for the launch of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra at the end of this month, and leaked images showcase that Xiaomi could be paying homage to its Leica partnership with this camera flagship.

A research from Innogyan has shared a leaked hands-on image of the upcoming Xiaomi 15 Ultra, and it looks rather interesting, to say the least. The image comes from Weibo, but the original post has been hidden or deleted.

The phone looks half decent vertically, but you need to hold it horizontally to see where Xiaomi is getting its design inspiration. Leaker Smart Pikachu on Weibo is helping us with that, showing off the Xiaomi 15 Ultra in several colorways alongside a Leica M11 camera.

It’s unclear whether these alternate colors are real or mere fan renderings. Previous Xiaomi Ultra flagships have had alternate colorways released in China, so it’s possible that these colors for the 15 Ultra also come to fruition.

Still, the black Xiaomi 15 Ultra bears the closest resemblance to the Leica M11’s design. The large Leica branding on the phone is unmissable, and we presume that the colored part of the two-tone back is made of vegan leather like on previous devices. While the camera island remains as large as previous flagships, the camera arrangement within is not aesthetically pleasing — Xiaomi likely had to go with this to accommodate the large 200MP HP9 100mm ([website] periscope zoom camera, as per leaks.

Other leaked camera specifications include the 50MP 1-inch LYT-900 primary sensor, the 50MP JN5 ultrawide sensor, and the 50MP IMX858 70mm (3x) for telephoto zoom. Xiaomi has yet to confirm details about the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, so take all of this with a pinch of salt.

Are you excited about the Xiaomi 15 Ultra? Let us know in the comments below!

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